In the past, wetlands — marshes, fens, peatlands, flooded forests, mangroves — were widely considered unproductive wastelands full of disease and danger. In a world where the human instinct was…
There are plenty of ways to hide in the open ocean if you want to fish unnoticed. Many fishing boats do just that. They turn off their public tracking systems…
For Ecuador, 2019 was a critical year for court decisions regarding environmental and social issues. At the end of 2018, the courts set precedent by ruling in favor of the…
Tropical forests A recent study suggests that 32 species of orchids that once existed in Bangladesh can no longer be found there (The Revelator). The forests of the Central African…
Philip Jacobson, an American editor for the non-profit environmental news platform Mongabay, was deported from Indonesia today, January 31, more than six weeks after authorities in the city of Palangkaraya…
MANILA — Sightings of dolphins and whales in a Philippine strait long considered an important waterway for the marine mammals have plummeted over the past two decades, with human activity…
Video footage of a pack of rarely-seen bush dogs has been captured by a camera trap at a ranch in eastern Bolivia. The footage, provided exclusively to Mongabay, was captured…
For more than 50 years, the Xavante indigenous group has been fighting to regain sovereignty of the Marãiwatsédé Indigenous Reserve in Mato Grosso state. The most recent obstacle is the federal government's plan to pave BR-158, the interstate highway that cuts through the middle of the reserve.
JAKARTA — Proponents of a hydropower plant to be built in the only known habitat of a critically endangered orangutan species say it’s important for meeting the future energy needs…
KUTA, Indonesia — In the weeks before last Christmas, marine authorities in eastern Indonesia reported separate arrests of locals using explosives to catch fish. The arrests highlighted what observers say…
JAKARTA — Indigenous activists in Indonesian Borneo have scored a big win in a lawsuit against a coal mining firm that sought to operate on their land. After a two-year…
SANTA CRUZ DE LA SIERRA, Bolivia — “The day after tomorrow, a cargo of 8,000 board feet of timber must be shipped. As there is little water, they are waiting…
In an exclusive interview with Mongabay, Marcelino Guedes, a researcher at Brazil’s Amapá Federal University, talks about how important the management of traditional knowledge is for strengthening the forest economy in Brazil to overcome the paradigm that sees standing forest as an enemy of development.
The devastating wildfires in Australia that have claimed the lives of more than a billion animals, by some estimates, are just one of the effects of global climate change the…
Did you ever think about the information we can gain from a simple sample of feces? Wildlife researchers have, and the information they obtain from poop samples can tell them…
Study finds that worsening Amazon fires are melting Andean glaciers; soot builds up on snow, absorbing more solar radiation. Melting source isn’t accounted for in current climate models.
MASAKA, Uganda — “The harvest season was good when the forests were not yet cut down, but now they don’t have any food,” says John Mulindwa, 58, sitting behind a…
DESULO, Italy — In a late 1990s photo, a little girl with a ponytail and white apron poses at the corner of a cheese-making machine. Two decades later, with the…
Three European countries have put up $366 million in foreign aid to fight deforestation in Colombia’s Amazon. The region’s rate of forest loss remains stubbornly high, up 97% since the…
JAKARTA — The Indonesian office of international conservation NGO WWF has expressed shock at the termination of its forest conservation partnership with the country’s environment ministry, three years before it…
In Colombia, a year of crucial environmental decisions ended with a national strike that began on Nov. 21, 2019. Various social sectors say they are dissatisfied with President Iván Duque…
CAPE TOWN — In and around Cape Town, expanding urban communities press right up against the protected area of Table Mountain National Park. This gives residents and tourists alike easy…
Mongabay editor Philip Jacobson has now been detained for 42 days in Palangkaraya, Central Kalimantan over an alleged violation of his business visa. "Phil is still under 'city arrest' in…
Scientists know from a bevy of studies that the inclusion of indigenous peoples and local communities is critical to holding deforestation at bay across the tropics, even as a tide…
We’re not exactly treading lightly on planet Earth. A new study finds more than 20,000 land animal species are experiencing intense pressure from the global human footprint. Of those, 85…
25 environmental and indigenous groups in Brazil have filed a formal inquiry request into Environment Minister Ricardo Salles’ possibly illegal deal with convicted land grabbers.
Nighttime falls on the fishing port of Chimbote, a city on Peru’s Pacific coast in Huarmey province. Almensor Gómez, an artisanal fisherman, prepares to leave home with five fellow fishers.…
A wildlife corridor in northern Belize has been officially declared by government order and, together with a system of three nature reserves in what’s known as the country’s “sugar cane…
New research offers early evidence that the Arctic and tropics are no longer a world apart; melting sea ice may be intensifying equatorial trade winds and emergence of El Niño.
Models and real-world events indicate that, unless action is taken now, up to 70% of the Amazon rainforest could become savanna in under 50 years, with huge carbon releases, destabilizing global climate.