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

“Development bank-backed transition minerals projects are frequently associated with significant environmental, social, and human rights risks.” This is the conclusion of the latest report by the International Accountability Project (IAP), an international advocacy organization.

IAP analyzed 77 projects globally, approved between 2023 and 2025. The analysis resulted in the Transition Minerals Finance Tracker, an interactive online database documenting transition minerals projects. It reveals that more than half of the projects analyzed, and nearly three-quarters of African projects, show evidence of actual, probable or potential harm to local communities.

“There are many companies that are multinational mining corporations who have a very bad track record in terms of human rights, yet they do get loans from the development banks,” Vaishnavi Varadarajan, program coordinator at IAP, told Mongabay in a phone interview. “It is raising the question of the due diligence that is being done by the banks beforehand.”

Since the Paris Agreement in 2015, a growing number of countries are investing in renewable energy sources such as solar and wind power as well as electric vehicles to limit their greenhouse gas emissions. Such technologies require components made from minerals and rare earth elements that are often found in the Global South and shipped to the Global North for value-added processing, Varadarajan said. “[I]t is kind of reinforcing a colonial way of extraction.”

The report denounces an unfair transition, in which countries financing extraction reap most of the economic benefits, while countries where raw materials are located face water depletion and contamination, forced displacements, deforestation, criminalization of land and environmental defenders, and human rights violations.

Elias Jika, program coordinator for Africa at the IAP, told Mongabay that many projects “started out with like ‘Oh, let’s end poverty!‘ But at the end of the day, the motivations of most development banks are profit-related.”

“We are fighting for them to put safeguards in place, to require government social impact studies to be done, to require mitigation measures,” Jika added.

Among the projects financed in Sub-Saharan Africa, three-quarters are for extracting cobalt copper and nickel, which are all used for renewable energy. Roughly 44% are with support from the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC), the American development bank.

“The DFC has over time increased its presence and interest in the African region. As you know China owns the majority of transition mineral projects, they dominate the market. The U.S. government is trying to compete with China. So, banks like the DFC and the IFC [International Finance Corporation — part of the World Bank Group] are increasingly financing transition mineral projects,” Jika said.

Mongabay contacted the DFC to learn more but did not receive a response by the time of publication.

Banner image: of destroyed crops along the Chambishi Stream in Zambia after a mining spill. Image courtesy of Southern Africa Litigation Center.

Authorities in Vietnam have intercepted more than a ton of elephant ivory along with big-cat bones in a shipment from the Republic of Congo.

Gia Lai provincial authorities announced that the haul of 1,193 kilograms (2,630 pounds) of ivory and 79.3 kg (175 lb) of bones was uncovered at Quy Nhon Port in early August. It’s the first seizure of this scale at the regional port, according to local media.

The shipment contained 165 wooden crates declared as African sawn timber, which arrived in July under the name of the Thanh Cong Trading Services and Translation Joint Stock Company, according to Gia Lai provincial police.

Investigators used specialized scanning equipment to discover hidden compartments inside 12 timber crates that were hollowed out, local media reported. Traffickers had packed the ivory and bones in wax in those compartments and sealed them with wood to make the packages appear ordinary and bypass inspections.

The Vietnam Academy of Science and Technology subsequently tested the ivory and bones and confirmed they came respectively from elephants and big cats.

Chris Shepherd, who campaigns against wildlife trafficking with the U.S.-based Center for Biological Diversity, told Mongabay by email that the massive seizure is a reminder of the persistent demand driving the illegal wildlife trade market.

“For me, the red flag is that this is still continuing in Southeast Asia, as it has for decades, regardless of raised levels of awareness among governments and enforcement agencies, significant investment to build capacity to tackle the illegal trade, and most of all, the continuing decline in species in Southeast Asia and around the world,” Shepherd said.

He noted that a shipment from Africa that includes big cat parts reflects a changing landscape as local species disappear. “As Southeast Asian cats, such as tigers and leopards, dwindle, cat parts are sought elsewhere,” he said.

Shepherd added that lion bones are heavily traded from African countries to Southeast Asia to meet the demand for traditional Asian medicine.

While Shepherd applauded the Vietnamese government’s enforcement action, he said issues like corruption still undermine conservation efforts. “Corruption is a major facilitator and enabler of wildlife trade,” he said.

Governments need to invest heavily to take down the organized crime networks that carry out these activities, Shepherd added. “Sadly, this is not often happening. However, Vietnam’s actions against syndicates trafficking ivory is a very positive step in the right direction.”

Gia Lai provincial police said investigators have launched criminal proceedings and temporarily detained several suspects connected with the shipment.

Mongabay reported earlier this year that since the mid-2000s, China and Vietnam have emerged as global hotspots for the illegal wildlife trade, with Africa being the prominent source of the contraband.

Banner image: An elephant in South Africa’s Kruger National Park. Image by Rhett A. Butler/Mongabay.