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Mongabay.com news articles on Travel in blog format. Updated regularly.

Best Nature Photos of 2008

(12/24/2008) Running mongabay requires the commitment of several full-time jobs but it also offers opportunities to meet remarkable people and visit some interesting and beautiful places. In addition to writing, I try to take pictures during my travels (when possible). Below are 50 or so of my favorite photos from 2008, although there are many I wasn't able to include.


Visiting New Mexico's Crane festival

(12/21/2008) It’s six in the morning; the Southwest sky is rich in hues of yellow and red, yet despite the warm colors the air is cold and brisk enough that my toes have begun to go numb. We have been waiting nearly a half-hour for the light and warmth of morning to wake-up thousands of cranes and tens of thousands of snow geese. But so far, despite the glimmer growing across the sky, there isn’t a bird in sight. Every winter cranes and snow geese migrate from Montana, Idaho, Canada, and Alaska to Bosque del Apache, a National Wildlife Refuge in Central New Mexico. For the past twenty-one years the refuge has celebrated the bird migration with a Festival of the Cranes. People travel from around the state (and country) to see the Southwest skies fill with birds. The festival lasts a week and includes educational stands, social gatherings, tours, hikes, and speakers on natural history and the environment. For this one week the small town of Socorro becomes overrun with birders, scientists, and tourists.


New Costa Rica guide offers insight on responsible tourism

(08/04/2008) Costa Rica is the world's most popular destination for rainforest tourism thanks to its spectacular biodiversity, relative ease-of-access and safety, and many natural attractions. In 2007 nearly 2 million tourists visited the country, generating almost 2 billion in revenue -- more than the combined income from bananas and coffee.


Implementing a butterfly farm: Iwokrama reserve's latest sustainable initiative

(07/20/2008) Iwokrama, which lies in the heart of Guyana's rainforest, is known worldwide for its innovative approach to preserving tropical rainforests and creating livelihoods for local communities. Their focus has been to create programs that utilize the forest sustainably, allowing for a mutual benefit between the people and the forest itself. Currently, Iwokrama has a number of initiatives under its umbrella, including eco-tourism, sustainable forestry, on-going research projects, and training programs. Amid these bustling projects, a new one has emerged: butterfly farming.


Volunteering with Leatherback Sea Turtles in Galibi, Suriname

(07/08/2008) The northern coast of Suriname is one of the best places in the world to view the largest turtle, the marine Leatherback. Watching the turtle rise out of the tides onto the beach gives one the sense of meeting something ancient, rare, and more sea-monster than marine turtle. Yet, if I call it a sea-monster, I do not mean that it is frightening or ugly: far from it. But it is mysterious, terrible, and wondrous.


Advice for your first visit to the rainforest

(03/03/2008) Harry S. Pariser has been writing travel guides and articles for many years now. His most recent guide is Explore Costa Rica which has extensive information about the nation and its rainforests.


Climbing Africa's second highest mountain

(11/05/2007) Mount Kenya, Africa's second highest mountain, is said to be one of the continent's most beautiful hikes. Located less than three hours' drive from Nairobi, Mount Kenya is accessible and makes for a great add-on for fit travelers looking to do more than the standard safari in Kenya.


Ecuadorian brothers show conservation-based microentrepreneurship possible

(03/07/2007) Tropical rainforests are declining across most of the world. Since the close of the 1990s deforestation rates have only accelerated as growing levels of consumption and consistent population growth paint an increasingly bleak future for the world's forests and their resident biodiversity. These trends make it easy to lose hope. As such, stories that show local people earning a livelihood from biodiversity conservation are an inspiration.


World's only blue lizard heads toward extinction

(03/07/2007) High above the forest floor on the remote Colombian island of Gorgona lives a lizard with brilliant blue skin, rivaling the color of the sky. Anolis gorgonae, or the blue anole, is a species so elusive and rare, that scientists have been unable to give even an estimate of its population. Due to the lizard&spod;s isolated habitat and reclusive habits, researchers know little about the blue anole, but are captivated by its stunning coloration.


Hiking through Myanmar, the country better known as Burma

(02/18/2007) The recent history of Myanmar is rather grim. After gaining independence from the British in 1948, the country suffered a series of military takeovers, and has basically been under the dictatorship of a military junta for the past 50 years. At several points during this time, the people have taken to the streets to peacefully protest the military regime. The last major fight for democracy occurred in 1988, and climaxed with the first democratically held election since independence. The National League for Democracy (NLD), spearheaded by the charismatic Aung San Suu Kyi, won by an overwhelming 84% of the vote. Sadly, regardless of their promises, the military junta had no intention of relinquishing their power, and imprisoned the major leaders of the NLD.


Global warming is a threat to fly fishing in the United States

(02/01/2007) An estimated thirty-five million Americans fly fish. George Black is one of them. Black, based in New York City, has written two books on the subject: Casting a Spell: The Bamboo Fly Rod and the American Pursuit of Perfection and The Trout Pool Paradox: The American Lives of Three Rivers. He has also written for the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and a number of other publications as well as authoring three books on foreign affairs.


Eco vacationers engage in cutting-edge environmental research

(10/24/2006) There is a species of vacationer who, like me, cannot do what vacationers are meant to do: relax. I am incapable of lying on a beach and sipping an umbrella drink while listening drowsily to reggae hits. I need to be doing something. And given the deteriorating state of our planet, I would prefer it be something useful. This is not about moral strength. It's simply a case of obstinate curiosity, and a certain kind of incurable restlessness. For people like me, there exists the "volunteer vacation." Habitat for Humanity is among the best-known organizations to arrange such trips, but there are others whose missions focus on environmental rather than social causes. Global Vision and the Earthwatch Institute, for example, offer motivated travelers the opportunity to transport their curiosity and energy to exotic locales.


Traditional customs pit young versus old in Indonesia's Torajaland

(10/19/2006) Cultural Bankruptcy: Maintaining History at a Tremendous Cost in Sulawesi's Torajaland. The Torajanese people of Central Sulawesi, Indonesia, have long been renown for their extravagant celebrations of the dead in their funerals, graves and effigies. Just outside of Rantepao, the regional capital of Torajaland, ostentatious, costly and increasingly generationally divisive funerals take place on a regular basis. Like other indigenous cultures around the world, a growing rift between the young and old generations is calling the foundations of tradition into question.


In search of rare, high elevation monkeys in China

(10/19/2006) High in the cloud-shrouded Yunling mountains of northwestern Yunnan and southeastern Tibet (southwestern China) lives one of the world's most elusive monkeys, the Yunnan golden or snub-nosed monkey (Rhinopithecus bieti). Despite dwelling the most extreme environment of any monkey species -- high-altitude evergreen forests at elevations from 3000 - 4500 m (9800 - 14,800 feet) where temperatures may fall below freezing for several months in a row -- today there are less than 2000 of Yunnan snub-nosed monkeys remaining. Hunting and habitat loss has brought the species, which is limited to a single mountain range and fragmented into 15 small sub-populations at risk to genetic bottlenecks and inbreeding depression, to the brink of extinction.


Photos from Xinjiang, a Muslim region in western China

(10/09/2006) Xinjiang, China's largest and western-most province, is one of the planet's most remote and desolate regions. Covering more than one-sixth the country's territory, Xinjiang borders Tibet, Mongolia, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, and is dominated by ethnic minorities, notably the Muslim Uyghurs who make up nearly half the 18 million who live in the province. Xinjiang's ethnic mix reflects its historical importance as a central part of the Silk Road, a trading route used since ancient times to transport good between East and West.


Pictures of Gabon: gorillas, rainforest and white sand beaches

(06/26/2006) Mongabay.com, a leading rainforest and environmental web site, today announced the availability of new photos from the Central African country of Gabon. Site founder Rhett A. Butler visited Loango National Park in Gabon in late May and early June.


Dominican Delights - Dominica, the real Caribbean

(05/04/2006) Prepare yourself. Here, there are no white sand beaches, no golf courses. Here, you'll find a boiling lake, winding cliff-side roads, bubbling surf and waterfalls that will make your head spin. This is Dominica, and this is the real Caribbean. Our Easter holiday to this (officially) English-speaking leeward island sandwiched between French neighbors Guadeloupe to the north and Martinique to the south gave us six days to explore enchanting coves, impressive mountains and dozens of rivers. In six short days, we were overwhelmed by Dominica's charms -- her incredible natural beauty and local creole style. Travelers looking to explore and discover, to be educated and reinvented, should consider this an ideal place for a serious Caribbean adventure.


Borneo photos

(03/28/2006) Mongabay.com, a leading rainforest information web site, has launched a new section featuring photographs from the island of Borneo. More than 500 photos from Kalimantan have been added to the site.


Jungle trekking in Malaysia's Taman Negara

(03/21/2006) Taman Negara is Malaysia's largest and best-known national park. Spanning 4343 square kilometers, the protected forest area is home to some of southeast Asia'apos;apos;s rarest creatures including tigers, the Malaysian tapir, forest elephants, and the Sumatran rhino. Scientists believe that these rainforests may be the oldest on Earth. Untouched by glaciers during recent ice ages, Taman Negara'apos;apos;s forests have remained largely the same for some 130 million years. This stability produces some of the highest levels of biodiversity on Earth: more than 350 species of birds, 14000 species of plants, and 210 species of mammals can be found in Taman Negara.


Adventures in following Lonely Planet through Israel

(01/18/2006) Travel writer Sydney Palmer recounts her adventures in following the Lonely Planet guide through Israel .


Down a river of blood into a remote canyon in Madagascar: Exploring the Manambolo River

(04/24/2005) Madagascar has been called the great red island and from space, astronauts have remarked the island looks like it is bleeding to death. Severe environmental degradation means Madagascar loses more topsoil per hectare than any country in the world. Being one of the poorest nations on Earth, the people of Madagascar can ill afford this loss. In 2004 I set off to see one of these rivers that is carrying away the lifeblood of the Malagasy; the Manambolo of Western Madagascar.


Seeking the world's strangest primate on a tropical island paradise

(04/17/2005) Seeking the world's strangest primate on a tropical island paradise

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