Gran Chaco: South America’s second-largest forest at risk of collapsing
The straight, strong trunk of a quebracho tree twisted mid-air as it fell to the ground, its crash the last sound in a cacophony of axe blows that increasingly wounded…
Environmental headlines
Mongabay is a non-profit provider of conservation and environmental science news.
‘We’ve been negligent,’ Indonesia’s president says as fire crisis deepens
JAKARTA — Indonesia’s president has admitted negligence on the part of the government, as top officials engage in a blame game amid the worst spate of forest fires since 2015…
Indigenous communities, wildlife under threat as farms invade Nicaraguan reserve
Torrential rain creates a deafening roar as it strikes the metal roof of community leader Ubence Zelaya’s two-bedroom home on the southern border of the Mayagna indigenous territory. Zelaya lives…
This land is ours: New law could end age-old injustice faced by Liberian women (commentary)
Lofa County, Liberia - Ten women are gathered in the open-air concrete slab building that serves as a community center for Gbonyea, a village a few kilometers from Liberia’s border…
Audio: Humpback whales across the Pacific Ocean are singing the same song
Today we speak with Jim Darling, a marine biologist who is here to play us some recordings of remarkably similar humpback whale songs from around the world. Listen here: …
Newly described Chinese giant salamander may be world’s largest amphibian
The Chinese giant salamander, which reaches lengths of more than 5 feet (1.6 meters), enjoys the title of being the world’s largest living species of amphibian. However, the critically endangered…
Interfaith leaders step up to protect the world’s ‘sacred’ rainforests
During Climate Week, starting September 22 at the UN in New York City, interfaith leaders will unveil the Faiths for Forests Declaration, with a call to political action by global congregations.
Mexican officials battle a tide of fire eating away at a protected reserve
CAMPECHE, Mexico —When a fire broke out in June in the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve in southern Mexico, more than 200 volunteer firefighters and specialists were deployed to help keep it…
Why I support the California Tropical Forest Standard (commentary)
The Amazon is a rich, beautiful, and magical place. I’ve visited this vast region on several occasions to learn about the indigenous communities who live there and protect it, and…
Popular pesticide linked to weight loss and delayed migration in songbird
A popular group of pesticides linked to huge declines in bees around the globe could be adversely affecting migratory birds making pit stops on farmlands, according to new research. In the…
Going the extra mile (Insider)
One fine day in late November in 1998, while standing on a knife-edged, precipitous ridge some 3,500 meters (11,500 feet) above sea level in Bolivia’s Cordillera Apolobamba, I came across…
A Papuan village finds its forest caught in a web of corporate secrecy
This article was co-published with The Gecko Project. When a string of palm oil companies arrived in the village of Anggai, in a heavily forested corner of Indonesia’s easternmost Papua…
UN and policymakers, wake up! Burning trees for energy is not carbon neutral (commentary)
Subsidizing burning wood for energy as having zero emissions puts us at risk of overshooting the Paris Agreement’s 1.5°C target.
Video: Pango-Cam offers amazing and unique view of pangolin behavior
Widely sought for its scales and flesh, which are channeled into the illegal trade to buyers in Asia, pangolins are said to be the world’s most trafficked animal. They face…
‘A green desert’: Mammals take a hit in Colombia’s oil palm plantations
As oil palm plantations expand across the world, razing swaths of tropical rainforests in their path, fears about their impact on the environment have also grown. In the plantations of…
Facing a possible Climate Apocalypse: How should we live? (commentary)
As a torrent of demoralizing disasters and doomsday climate studies pour forth, how do we resist despair, where can we find hope – and most important of all – how should we live?
Shocking news: There are actually three species of electric eel in the Amazon, not one
There are now three recognized species of electric eel after two new species were described to science in a paper published in Nature Communications this week. One of the new…
New gecko species named in honor of Sri Lankan herpetologist Anslem de Silva
COLOMBO — For nearly five decades he’s helped introduce stunning new species of reptiles and amphibians found only in Sri Lanka to the rest of the world. He’s also inspired…
In other news: Environmental stories from around the web, September 13, 2019
Tropical forests Indigenous hunting could help the sustainability of forests (The Revelator). Experts say that climate change has played a part in the exodus of people from Central America (Undark).…
Expand or Intensify? Balancing biodiversity and rising food needs: study
New research finds that, for a given rise in global food production, the negative impact on biodiversity of cropland expansion is many times greater than of cropland intensification.
Special series
Endangered environmentalists
- ‘Pray & continue’: Death of Philippine ranger is latest in legacy of violence
- In Cambodia, a rare acquittal in a climate of danger for green activists
- On Peru’s border, the Tikuna tribe takes on illegal coca growers
Indonesias forest guardians
- Indigenous Iban community defends rainforests, but awaits lands rights recognition
- On the island of Java, a social forestry scheme creates jobs at home
- In Indonesia, bigger catches for a fishing village protecting its mangroves
Amazon infrastructure
- Yanomami Amazon reserve invaded by 20,000 miners; Bolsonaro fails to act
- Amazon infrastructure puts 68% of indigenous lands / protected areas at risk: report
- Amazon fish kill at Sinop spotlights risk from 80+ Tapajós basin dams
Asian rhinos
- Nepal to conduct, self-fund, rhino census in March 2020
- Calls for natural solution over man-made one in flood-ravaged rhino refuge
- Death on the Brahmaputra: The rhino, the rangers, and the usual suspects
