Cities can become dangerously hot during extreme heat events, making it increasingly important for urban planners to find ways to reduce temperatures and protect people from heat exposure. Woodlands, grasslands, lakes and rivers can create significantly cooler microclimates, offering one potential way to reduce urban heat, a new study finds.

The study focused on Guildford, a town in southeast England with a variety of green-blue infrastructure (GBI) types. GBI are land and water-based features integrated with each other and the built environment to provide mutually beneficial services, including wildlife corridors, flood mitigation and cooling.

In Guildford, researchers collected data from six sites — a woodland, grassland, lakeside, vegetated green wall, small pocket park and riverside — and compared how effective they are in cooling the areas around them. They compared each site with a built-up location.

The team established sensors at each site and recorded temperatures at one-minute intervals, from June 2023 till the end of August 2025. These sensors recorded temperatures through both normal climatic conditions and several extreme heat events. The researchers also used satellite data over the same timeline to get a more robust picture of the conditions in each location.

The team found that all six GBI sites were cooler by 1.81-2.49° Celsius (3.26-4.48° Fahrenheit) than their built-up comparison site. The cooling was more pronounced during extreme heat events. The woodland site was upward of 6°C (almost 11°F) cooler than the built environment on the hottest days. The riverside and pocket park were cooler by 3.5°C (6.3°F) on the hottest days. Overall, the green wall had the least cooling effect while the woodland had the most.

“Those nuances are important because they reinforce something we increasingly see in urban heat research: there isn’t a single number we can attach to a tree, park, lake, or green wall and say, ‘this is how much cooling it provides,’” Vivek Shandas, professor of geography with Portland State University, U.S., who was not part of the study, told Mongabay by email. “Cooling depends on the design of the place, its scale, the surrounding buildings and pavement, weather conditions, and time of day.”

The researchers acknowledge that their observations are from just one site for every GBI type, and local conditions could play a significant role in their findings.

Still, Shandas said the study moves the research beyond the simple notion that “green is good” and “toward a much more actionable question: How do we design cities so that cooling is available where and when people actually need it?”

The United Nations recently announced that global temperatures will soon surpass the climate change target established by the 2015 Paris Agreement, underscoring the urgent need for cities to adapt to extreme heat.

Banner image: An aerial view of Guildford, England. Image by Russss via Wikimedia. (CC BY-SA 4.0).

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Brazil’s Senate has approved a bill to regulate the exploration of critical minerals, including rare earths, marking a step toward exploiting its vast reserves. The bill approved Thursday now awaits President Lula’s signature. It establishes a legal framework and offers tax incentives for domestic processing. Brazil holds the world’s second-largest reserves of rare earth elements, used in products like smartphones and electric vehicles. While China dominates the global supply chain, Brazil aims to position itself as an alternative. The bill also creates a fund to support mining projects and encourages mineral processing within the country.

By Eleonore Hughes, Associated Press

Banner image: A mine operated by Serra Verde Mining digs for rare earth elements including neodymium, praseodymium, terbium and dysprosium, which are essential for the production of permanent magnets, in Minacu, Goias state, Brazil, July 28, 2025. Image courtesy of Eraldo Peres, Associated Press 

Haze from wildfires in Indonesia has spread even farther this week, reaching beyond Malaysia and Brunei to Singapore and the Philippines.

On Sept. 4, Singaporean residents woke to a smoggy sky as air quality reached unhealthy levels. By late afternoon, the city had the third-worst air quality globally, according to IQAir.

Earlier this week, Philippine authorities declared air quality in parts of Luzon island, including Manila’s metropolitan areas, Visayas island group and Mindanao island as “acutely unhealthy”, blaming it on the transboundary haze from Indonesia.

In the Malaysian state of Sarawak, which has been hit by transboundary haze for weeks, the capital Kuching has topped the rankings as the world’s most polluted city since early this week. Authorities declared a state of emergency in Serawak’s Serian district on Sept. 4.

Malaysia’s health ministry warned in late August that cases of asthma rose by 259% and those of upper respiratory tract infections increased by 124% in a week.

Oil-rich Brunei has also been experiencing hazy conditions since mid-August.

Wildfires across Indonesia show no signs of abating amid a “super” El Niño, which brings extremely dry conditions. As of Sept. 3, Firewatch, a satellite monitoring platform, had detected more than 444,200 fire hotspots, which indicate potential fire sites, across the archipelago. This is 4.5 times the number detected on July 27.

Indonesian officials said the fires were deliberately caused, either by individuals or corporations. A Kompas newspaper report found that wildfires are detected on the same sites year after year, with 50% occurring in oil palm concessions.

Environmental NGO WALHI made a similar observation, saying that around half of hotspots in West and Central Kalimantan provinces this year occurred in oil palm and timber concessions. The NGO also pointed to 33 “high-confidence” fire hotspots detected in August in a concession belonging to the pulp company PT Bumi Mekar Hijau in Sumatra. Ten years ago, the firm was found liable by an appellate court for a fire that destroyed 20,000 hectares (49,421 acres) of land.

“Thousands of hotspots continue to be detected in peatland areas, plantations, and timber concessions, indicating that the government maintains a land-use model that increases ecological vulnerability and heightens the risk of wildfires,” said WALHI spokesperson Dana Prima Tarigan.

Residents and wildlife who live near the wildfires bear the brunt. Indonesia’s health ministry said it recorded 50,891 acute respiratory infection cases caused by haze in July and August.

Two volunteers who helped fight wildfires in Central Kalimantan died this week after complaining of breathing difficulties.

Firefighters have found snake and pangolin carcasses in burned areas. Farmers in West Kalimantan rescued a Borneo orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus) on Sunday after he was found at an oil palm plantation. Days later, forestry authorities said the ape had died due to suspected smoke inhalation. 

Banner image: The riverside in Kuching city center, Sarawak state, Malaysia, is shrouded in thick haze, Friday, Sept. 4, 2026. Image by AP Photo/Xpin Voon.

Scientists have sequenced the first-ever draft genome of the Philippines’ highly threatened Visayan spotted deer. The genome could guide efforts to save it from extinction, reports contributor Pippo Carmona for Mongabay.

The Visayan spotted deer (Rusa alfredi) was once found across six islands in the central Philippines. But deforestation and hunting decimated its population, prompting the IUCN, the global wildlife conservation authority, to list it as endangered in 1988. By 2019, Philippine authorities had classified the species as nationally critically endangered. The last count from 2016 recorded only about 700 mature individuals, now only found on the islands of Negros and Panay.

To understand the genetic health of the species, researchers from Silliman University and the Philippine Genome Center Visayas collaborated to map its DNA.

They used a tissue sample from Abraham, a captive Visayan spotted deer that was raised and died at Silliman University’s Center for Tropical Conservation Studies (CENTROP). The sequenced genome contains 2.5 billion DNA letters and 24,531 genes. It’s the first genome that’s been sequenced for any of the Philippines’ endangered mammals.

The researchers found Abraham’s heterozygosity score, a measure of genetic differences, was just 0.17, far below the 0.3 score typical of healthy, genetically diverse wild populations. The low score indicates his parents were genetically closely related.

“Since Abraham is from a captive population, we expected to get a low heterozygosity result,” said Albert Noblezada, who runs the bioinformatics pipeline at the Philippine Genome Center Visayas. Noblezada added that decades of isolation have allowed inbreeding to quietly take hold in the captive colony.

Despite this, biologist Persie Mark Sienes at Silliman University said he wanted to see just how much genetic diversity remained in the population and whether there are individuals that carry genetic variations that could improve breeding outcomes. So he scanned the genome and identified a genetic marker that could help restore the colony’s genetic health. “We have identified a rare allele found only in one individual here, and luckily this individual is still sexually active,” he said.

Silliman University biologist Robert Guino-o said this finding was the proof they needed to revamp CENTROP’s captive breeding. “We are pursuing a genome-based breeding protocol,” Guino-o said, adding this will replace the old method based entirely on pedigree tracing.

The researchers agree that to boost overall genetic diversity, deer exchanges between CENTROP and two other captive facilities — Mari-it Wildlife and Conservation Park and Negros Forest Park — should resume. The last exchange, between CENTROP and Negros Forest Park, was in 2007.

The researchers said they hope to test mixing of individuals from captive and wild populations to close the genetic gap between the two. They plan on testing this at the 300-hectare (741-acre) Bayawan Nature Reserve on Negros, which hosts 70 deer.

Read the full story by Pippo Carmona here.

Banner image: A Visayan spotted deer at Silliman University’s Center for Tropical Conservation Studies. Image by Pippo Carmona for Mongabay.

The recent Ebola outbreak caused by the Bundibugyo strain of the virus has reportedly claimed more than 3,000 lives, and more than twice as many reported cases, in the Democratic Republic of Congo, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. At the same time, analysts warn that roughly 26 million people across the region are experiencing a food insecurity crisis, a compounding factor that increases both the spread and lethality of the virus.

“Hunger and disease are old companions,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health Organization, said in a statement referring to the outbreak. “People weakened by hunger are far more vulnerable to infections.”

Ebola weakens the immune system, making it more difficult for the body to fight the disease and recover once infected. Healthy food can both support an immune system response and improve conditions for medications to work properly, thus accelerating recovery, Grace Kwakezime Mongame, emergency nutritionist at the World Food Programme in DRC, told Mongabay in a call.

A lack of reliable food can force people out of their homes where they potentially spread or contract the disease from others in the community.

“Since the disease is transmitted through contact, moving around risks creating new layers of infection; the aim is to keep people within a single environment, Kwakezime said.

WFP also provides food to patients’ families, especially dependent children, so the sick can rest and recover instead of leaving isolation to care for their dependents.

The need for food can also drive people to hunt in forests like the DRC’s Virunga National Park, which can increase the risk of spreading the virus to humans and wildlife alike, including endangered gorillas. Between 2002 and 2003, roughly 5,000 western lowland gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) died from Ebola in the Republic of Congo, Mongabay has reported.

Ebola is a zoonotic disease that originally spread from wildlife to humans who came in contact with infected bodily fluids, like blood from butchering, or ate infected meat.

However, wild meat or “bushmeat” is a vital source of protein for many and not easily replaced. “Forest use is often essential for livelihoods, food security, medicine, trade, and survival,” researchers note in a recent study. “Narratives focusing narrowly on the risk of bushmeat hunting become stigmatizing when detached from the poverty, insecurity, displacement, and limited alternatives that shape daily decisions.”

The government needs to create economic opportunities, work and agricultural practices outside national parks to reduce the dependence of local communities on forest resources, Dr. Eddy Kambale, head veterinarian of Gorilla Doctors in DRC, told Mongabay.

The lives and health of humans and wildlife are interdependent, and losing balance threatens life on the planet, Kambale said.

Banner image: Carl Skau, acting executive director of the World Food Programme, left, checks food prepared by a WFP volunteer at the Rwampara Ebola treatment center in Ituri, eastern DRC, on July 29. Image by AP Photo/Dieudonne Dirole.

KATHMANDU, Nepal (AP) — Some survivors sheltering in relief camps after deadly floods in Nepal struggled Thursday to obtain essential medicines and cash, even as authorities provided food and other basic supplies to thousands of displaced people.

The shortages are adding to the hardships of those living in temporary shelters after having lost homes and belongings.

Suresh Kumar Karanjit, who has been staying at a relief center in Devighat, a town in one of the worst-affected areas in Nuwakot district, lost his younger brother in the floods last week. He said the camp did not have the exact medicine prescribed for his heart condition.

Karanjit only managed to get the cash he needed to buy his regular medicine after selling a carton of noodles he received as relief for 400 rupees ($2.60). “We have been living here for a week. The relief materials are being provided, which is good. But there is a lack of medicine,” he said.

Nepal’s disaster chief, Dharam Raj Uprety, said health centers staffed by doctors and stocked with medicine have been set up at each shelter. Uprety said authorities were also focusing on hygiene and sanitation to reduce the risk of disease.

The Aug. 26 floods that were likely caused by a glacier collapse devastated towns and valleys in Nepal, destroying homes, roads, bridges and other critical infrastructure. At least 1,252 people were killed and more than 4,200 remain missing, according to the country’s disaster management agency. China as of late Wednesday said 21 people were killed and 541 were missing on the Tibet side of the border.

Nearly 4,000 people displaced in Nepal are staying in 34 relief centers.

In some of the worst-affected areas, residents were finding other ways to navigate after floodwaters left communities cut off from regular routes.

In Bidur town, along the Trishuli River, residents used a temporary zip line to cross between the riverbanks. Army personnel helped people onto the makeshift crossing and assisted them as they reached the opposite bank, while others waited along the riverbank for their turn.

Meanwhile, rescue efforts have increasingly focused on tunnels at several hydroelectric projects where workers are believed to be trapped. About 900 workers remain missing, while specialized rescue teams from India, China and the United States are involved in efforts to reach those trapped in the tunnels.

It was unclear whether workers feared to be trapped in the tunnels were alive.

At the Trishuli-3A tunnel, workers began manually opening the upper section of the passage, according to lawmaker Ram Neupane. An access road was built over the past week to reach the excavation site, but more rock blasting and debris clearing will be needed before heavy machinery can reach the area, he said.

By Shristi Kafle, Associated Press

Banner image: Residents pull a newly installed zipline to help people commute across the Trishuli river in the aftermath of flash floods at Bidur in Nepal’s Nuwakot district, Nepal, Wednesday, Sept. 2, 2026. Image courtesy of Rajesh Kumar Singh, Associated Press