PALAWAN, Philippines — On a sweltering morning in April, park manager Jose Mazo mans a motorized patrol boat that glides through the turquoise waters of Siete Pecados, a 52-hectare (128-acre)…
Dr. Kinari Webb believes this because she has witnessed it — up close: Amid this global pandemic, the health of the planet is intricately connected to public health around the…
As she peered into the collection chamber of her harp trap, Iroro Tanshi instinctively knew she had caught something peculiar. It was small, with large ears, and a button-like patch…
The land rights of quilombos — communities of runaway slave descendants —are assured by Brazil’s Constitution; but those rights are now largely disregarded by agribusiness and Bolsonaro.
The government of South Korea is subsidizing the development of biomass power so heavily that it’s hindering the adoption of renewable energy technologies like solar and wind, new research finds.…
One of the Amazon’s most deforested regions, Lábrea, in Brazil, is remote, poorly policed and suffering from a land tenure crisis. As a result, land grabbing, illegal logging and murder are routine.
Last year, while parts of Thailand, Cambodia, Laos and southern Vietnam experienced a devastating drought, China held abundant water on the Upper Mekong River back from downstream communities, wiping out…
A 66-million-year-old fossil has allowed scientists to describe a bizarre new species of mammal that lived in Madagascar during the time of the dinosaurs. They’ve christened it Adalatherium hui, which in Malagasy…
JAKARTA — The COVID-19 pandemic has become the latest threat to the Tapanuli orangutan in Indonesia, the rarest great ape species of all and one already under severe pressure from…
The abrupt collapse of tourism due to the coronavirus pandemic has again highlighted the inadequacy of resources for conservation in Africa. Carbon credits have been advanced as one possible source…
I have been sick with COVID-19. When I started writing this, holed up in my New York apartment, I could feel the shakiness, sharp headache, muscle and joint pain that…
Climate change is doing something unusual to the fish in our oceans: As water temperatures rise, this causes fish to morph in size. Some shrink, but others grow. In a…
Some 400 indigenous people displaced from an informal settlement in Manaus have struggled to make a living amid scarce jobs and limited income sources during the COVID-19 crisis. The capital of Amazonas state, Manaus accounts for Brazil’s fourth-highest number of deaths due to COVID-19; authorities warn that the state’s health system is close to its limit.
For the past 40 years, researchers have studied Amazonian bird communities in the world's longest-running experiment on tropical forest fragments. This research, summarized in a newly published paper in The…
A new green pit viper species discovered in a Himalayan biodiversity hotspot has been named Trimeresurus Salazar, or the Salazar’s pit viper, after Salazar Slytherin, a character from J.K. Rowling's…
The first time Bugingo Gaspard illegally entered Akagera National Park in Rwanda, he was 10 years old. With no fence separating the now 112,200-hectare (277,300-acre) protected area from the agricultural…
LOS ASIENTOS, Panama — It was auction day in the town of Santiago, and ranchers from the region gathered to buy and sell cattle. A metallic clatter rang out from…
The Land Portal Foundation, a nonprofit organization based in the Netherlands, recently released what it’s calling “the largest global database of land and property rights projects.” In around a decade…
JAKARTA — Environmental and social activists have welcomed a decision by the Indonesian government to require that smallholder palm oil farmers be certified sustainable. Major plantation companies are already required…
Juncos, blackbirds, meadowlarks and other common species comprise two-thirds of the 3 billion birds lost in the last half century, a decline scientists have likened to that of the now-extinct…
On today’s episode of the Mongabay Newscast we discuss how to take photographs of wild animals without harassing, exploiting, or harming them — in other words, today we’re taking a…
Beef served to UK military personnel in the Middle East was sourced from a Brazilian company whose suppliers have illegally deforested more than 8,000 hectares of land, including in the…
From spiderweb-inspired shampoo to a hotel whose architecture is based on the thermal properties of toucan beaks, scientists and companies in Brazil are betting on nature’s intelligence to create innovative solutions that reduce impacts on the planet.
Flamingos form lasting friendships, but they also have foes. A new study, published in the journal Behavioural Processes, found that close social bonds existed not only between flamingo couples but…
COLOMBO — A researcher and passionate advocate of school sanitation and catchment conservation, Kusum Athukorala is a community water practitioner who works closely with water-stressed communities, promoting conservation of the…
Earlier this month, Myanmar’s Information Ministry announced that the country’s Forest Department had seized nearly 850 tons of illegal timber between March 30 and April 5. Teak and other hardwoods…
JAKARTA — Indigenous rights activists in Indonesia have condemned local authorities over the death in custody of a farmer accused of stealing palm fruit from a plantation company in Borneo.…
Camera traps bring you closer to the secretive natural world and are an important conservation tool to study wildlife. This week we’re meeting one of the most elusive mammals of…
Last Thursday, U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo called on China to shut down wet markets where illegal wildlife are sold. Pompeo’s call was echoed by the Australian government, which…
Icelandic whaling company IP-Utgerd announced April 24 that it is stopping whaling completely, while the country’s largest whaling firm, Hvalur hf., says it won’t be hunting any whales for the…