Environmental headlines

The use of coal as an energy source is steadily declining in the U.S. and Europe, but coal mining and the construction of coal-fired power plants continues across South and…

This story is a collaboration between La Nación and Mongabay Latam. It is the fourth installment of a five-part series on illegal deforestation for marijuana production in eastern Paraguay. Read…

COLOMBO, Sri Lanka — Kaavan, a 35-year-old male elephant (Elephas maximus maximus), is finally set to end his captivity inside a poorly maintained zoo in Pakistan after a historic court…

In March 2020, as Bogota’s coronavirus quarantine began, a white smog hung over the city, coming from fires burning in Nukak National Nature Reserve, nearly 400 kilometers, or 250 miles,…

Amazonia, with its towering trees, bright birds, pink dolphins and mysterious big cats, has been painted as the quintessential wilderness, an exuberant and endless landscape that evolved beyond the touch…

ANTANANARIVO, Madagascar — The possibility of lemurs contracting COVID-19 is worrying Madagascar's scientific and conservation community. Members sounded the alarm in the days following the country’s state of health emergency…

In some Indigenous languages, two words are just not enough to convey everything encompassed by the phrase “climate change.” Alejo López, who speaks one of the varieties of Chinantec that…

COLOMBO — Surveys carried out in the early 1980s in the many reservoirs in Sri Lanka’s dry zone showed abundant populations of the red-fin labeo (Labeo lankae), an endemic species…

MANILA — As a rare species of endemic hornbills disappeared from island after island in the Philippines, ornithologists pinned their hopes on Negros: a little-surveyed island in the center of…

Fifteen years ago, Ekwoge Abwe was trekking through Ebo Forest in Cameroon when he heard something cracking in the distance. He scanned the forest, searching for the source of the…

You may have recently come across an article titled “Coconut oil production threatens five times more species than palm oil—new findings” (or maybe you have come across a similar article…

My love and passion for the wild elephants of Sri Lanka run deep within my veins, as deep as my love for photography. Big males known as “tuskers” are a…

Brazilian NGO flyovers show that indigenous reserves — including Munduruku lands in the Tapajós basin — are being illegally invaded and deforested by miners likely funded and directed by elite land speculators.

HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam — On July 23, after several months of anticipation within Vietnam’s conservation community, the government released a new directive on managing the wildlife trade in…

MINEIROS/GANDÚ, Brazil — Behind the wheel of his black suburban van, Paulo Borges has to squint to focus on the SUV motorcade in front of him, vanishing in a red…

Migratory freshwater fish are in big trouble. According to a new report, monitored populations of migratory freshwater fish have dropped on average by 76% since 1970, which is a higher…

Hellbenders are North America’s largest salamanders, living in rivers and growing to an incredible length of over two feet. Eastern newts are tiny and terrestrial, but both are susceptible to…

In early July, the Ashaninka indigenous people from Brazil launched a fundraising campaign to encourage food production in communities living near their territory. The “Ashaninka for the Peoples of the Forest” campaign plans to raise $200,000 to distribute food, farming tools and fishing gear to 1,800 local families, both Indigenous and non-Indigenous.

A UN carbon accounting loophole that replaces coal with the burning of forests to make “carbon neutral” electricity is subsidy-driven and will destroy forests vitally needed now for carbon sequestration: Critics.

HORTON PLAINS, Sri Lanka — Is an hourglass frog still an hourglass frog if it doesn’t have the distinctive marking on its back that gives it its name? That’s one…

An adult male jaguar nicknamed “Short-Tail” (due to his partially missing tail) was caught on camera in both Belize and Guatemala, making him the first individual confirmed to cross the…

JAKARTA — An Indonesian government scheme to certify sustainable palm oil doesn’t do enough to protect human rights or the environment, and needs to accommodate input from Indigenous and forest…

2019 was the deadliest year on record for environmental activists, according to a new report by the advocacy watchdog Global Witness. In total, the group says that at least 212…

MANILA — Forty-three land and environmental defenders were killed in the Philippines in 2019, according to a new report from the watchdog group Global Witness. The tally marks out the…

The goal set 10 years ago to double the number of wild tigers by 2022 remains one of the most ambitious conservation goals ever for a single species. Currently home…

Well organized global crime networks are pulling millions of tropical birds, fish, turtles and mammals out of the Amazon — a lucrative trade that is destroying ecosystems and putting public health at risk.

JAKARTA — Authorities in Indonesia have arrested and charged six executives from local recruitment agencies linked to the forced labor endured by 22 Indonesians on board two Chinese fishing boats.…

If COVID-19 has taught us one thing, it is that we need a green life support plan that enables the private and public sectors to finance conservation of the natural…

It’s a warm May morning in 2015, and beneath a chorus of birds and insects, a small gray-brown dog plops down in front of a camera perched in the Amazon…

Camera traps bring you closer to the secretive natural world and are an important conservation tool to study wildlife. This week we’re meeting the smallest tiger subspecies on Earth: the…