Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon has fallen to the lowest level on record.

Data released today by Brazil’s national space research institute, INPE, shows that forest clearing in Earth’s largest rainforest over the 12 months ended July 31, 2026, amounted to 3,335 square kilometers (1,288 square miles), an area smaller than the Spanish island of Mallorca. That is 42% below the previous year’s figure.

Deforestation in the Cerrado, the wooded savanna next to the Amazon rainforest, fell 24% to 5,516 sq km, also the lowest tally on record. The Cerrado has been the fastest-deforested biome in Brazil in recent decades, as vast areas have been converted to ranchland and industrial agriculture.

 The reduction has accelerated since President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva took office in 2023. Lula restored environmental law enforcement, expanded conservation programs, and resumed efforts to establish protected areas and recognize Indigenous territories. He faces a tough re-election bid later this month, raising concerns about whether recent progress in reducing Amazon forest loss will continue. Seven of the nine governors of Amazon states are allied with Flávio Bolsonaro, the frontrunner, who has campaigned on reducing protections for the Amazon.

Beyond the political dynamics, the near-term outlook for the Amazon is challenged by the super El Niño brewing in the Pacific. El Niño events are associated with drought in the southern Amazon, and fires typically increase in the year after a strong event.

Deforestation in the Amazon now amounts to about 15% of the biome, according to research by Amazon Conservation, a nonprofit. Scientists estimate that if it reaches 20-25%, the evapotranspiration system that drives rainfall across the region could fail, leading to drier conditions. That would make the forest more vulnerable to fire and could cause tropical species to die off. Models suggest that such a disruption could reduce rainfall in southern South America, the continent’s agricultural heartland.

Brazil accounts for just over 60% of the Amazon rainforest.

Promises by nations to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to finance nature and increase protections for oceans around the globe are falling short ahead of a key U.N. biodiversity conference. The warnings from the head of the conference and environmental groups comes as the countries gather Monday in Yerevan, Armenia for the United Nations Biodiversity Conference, or COP17. The conference running from Oct. 19 to Oct. 30 is a chance for countries to take stock of their progress after agreeing to a historic deal in 2022. Countries agreed to protect 30% of land and water considered important for biodiversity by 2030 and raise at least $200 billion by 2030.

By Michael Casey, Associated Press

Banner image: Flamingos feed at Duden Lake near the town of Kulu, in Konya province, Turkey, Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2026. Image courtesy of Emrah Gurel

Conservationists are launching a project to protect dwindling vulture populations in Chad amid a Central Africa-wide decline.

Run by the nonprofit Sahara Conservation, the project is part of a larger EU-funded LIFE EV Safe Return program that focuses on protecting the endangered Egyptian vulture (Neophron percnopterus).

Egyptian vultures migrate from their breeding sites in the mountains of Southern Europe, North Africa, and Asia, to winter feeding sites in sub-Saharan Africa, including in Chad.

Sahara Conservation’s efforts will focus on Chad’s Ouadi Rimé–Ouadi Achim Faunal Reserve and Lake Fitri, which Egyptian vultures visit. Meanwhile, critically endangered Rüppell’s vultures (Gyps rueppelli) and endangered lappet-faced vultures (Torgos tracheliotos) use both areas as their breeding grounds.

“This project really aims to tackle the main threats to vultures in Chad, with a focus on Egyptian vultures,” Cloé Pourchier, program officer at Sahara Conservation, told Mongabay in an interview. “Any action for vulture conservation will benefit all species as well.”

Indications are that vulture populations in Chad are declining. Like those in West Africa, they’re threatened primarily by demand for belief-based use, where people kill vultures believing the birds’ body parts can bring luck or misfortune.

Last year alone, poisoning claimed the lives of more than 100 Rüppell’s vultures in Chad in three incidents. Several birds were decapitated, indicating they were killed for belief-based use. Investigations and interviews with locals by the Sahara Conservation team revealed the birds’ parts were destined for markets in Nigeria and Niger.

“They were saying that there were people coming from Nigeria, killing the birds, taking the heads, and going back to Nigeria,” Pourchier said.

“Such illegal killing is only one of many formidable threats to Egyptian Vultures in Chad, but Sahara Conservation’s stepping up to take a leadership role in their protection could be a game-changer,” Nico Arcilla, president of the International Bird Conservation Partnership, which isn’t involved in the new project, told Mongabay by email.

Chad’s vultures also die from incidental poisoning. Livestock owners sometimes poison carcasses with the intention of killing jackals or leopards, but end up killing scavenging birds.

Pourchier said the Sahara Conservation team plans to conduct training with wildlife and environmental authorities in Chad to strengthen responses and enforcement to poisoning incidents. She added they also hope to conduct investigations into poisoning cases and market surveys to shed light on the belief-based use supply chains operating in the country.

Community engagement will also be key, Pourchier said, focused on addressing misconceptions about vultures and sharing their importance in the landscape. They also plan to support livestock owners with low-cost interventions, such as fencing and visual deterrents, to reduce wildlife conflict and deter them from using poison.

“We see more and more countries in West Africa where there are no vultures anymore,” Pourchier said. “If we’re not acting, at some point, it’s just going to go from one country to another.”

Banner image: An Egyptian vulture in Chad. Image courtesy of Sahara Conservation.

ISTANBUL (AP) — A heavy downpour has shut down Istanbul, flooded homes and roads and killed at least three people, officials said Thursday, as rescuers evacuated hundreds of stranded people.

The downpour Wednesday night flooded homes and businesses and inundated roads and underpasses, stranding vehicles and causing traffic chaos in Turkey’s largest city. In some neighborhoods, the floods swept away cars, sending them crashing into one another.

It was the heaviest rainfall in the city in 83 years, said Murat Kurum, the minister for the environment, urbanization and climate change.

The Istanbul governor’s office on Thursday reported three deaths in the city and said five other people were reported missing. A 14-year-old was electrocuted after stepping in a puddle at a park in the Fatih district, and a 34-year-old slipped on a sidewalk in the Sariyer district and hit their head, local media reports said. The governor’s office said the body of a third victim was discovered near another park in the Kagithane district.

More than 3,000 people who were stranded by the floods were safely evacuated throughout the city, Kurum said.

The minister, who will chair the U.N. climate change conference, COP31, in the Mediterranean coastal city of Antalya next month, linked the floods to the climate crisis.

“Climate change is no longer an issue of the future; it is the most important issue of today,” he told reporters. “Unfortunately, climate change is affecting rainfall patterns. We are now facing more intense rainfall events.”

In Sakarya province, around 150 kilometers (93 miles) east of Istanbul, a two-story house that was built on a riverbed collapsed in the floods, HaberTurk television reported. One person was reported missing in neighboring Kocaeli province.

The country’s weather agency has predicted more showers for Istanbul and the surrounding area in the coming days.

The Istanbul governor’s office extended a school closure order to include Friday, and some state employees were placed on leave Thursday.

Kurum asked residents not to leave their homes. Motorcycles were barred from traffic until further notice.

By Associated Press

Banner image: A car lies toppled in the aftermath of floods caused by heavy rains in Istanbul, Turkey, Thursday, Oct. 15, 2026. Image courtesy of Emrah Gurel, Associated Press. 

Authorities in Thailand say they have seized about 400 pieces of African elephant ivory in a shipment of timber from Zambia, and are now testing the contraband to identify the origin of the animals.

The tusks were found concealed inside logs in two containers declared as holding processed timber at Laem Chabang Port, Chonburi province, according to an Oct. 7 announcement by the Thai Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation (DNP).

Thailand’s environment minister, Suchart Chomklin, said in the statement that a team of DNP academics and forensic experts have been asked “to officially inspect and count the confiscated items and conduct DNA testing.”

The DNP added the testing will help determine the origin of the elephants from which the ivory was taken. This “will be used to coordinate with [Interpol] to identify the main perpetrators and the destination countries.”

“The fact that DNA analysis is being initiated at an early stage demonstrates considerable leadership in the fight against the illegal trafficking of ivory and should assist in determining the source country as it is unlikely that all the ivory in the consignment is from Zambia elephants,” Mary Rice, executive director of the Environmental Investigation Agency U.K., told Mongabay by email.

Rice added that another large seizure made earlier this year in Zambia hasn’t yet undergone DNA analysis. Under the regulations of CITES, the global wildlife trade treaty, ivory seizures of more than 500 kilograms (1,100 pounds) should trigger collection of DNA samples for forensic analysis within 90 days.

The DNP’s announcement doesn’t specify the weight of the recent Thai seizure. Mongabay contacted the DNP for comment, but didn’t receive a response by the time this story was published.

According to the Times of Zambia, Evans Muhanga, permanent secretary for Zambia’s Ministry of Tourism, said in a statement that the reported Zambian origin had not been established. Muhanga added that government agencies are working to review the details associated with the shipment.

Rice said her organization is seeing a significant number of large ivory seizures linked to Southern Africa. “Based on all available evidence, Zambia is clearly a transit (and possibly a source) for the illegal ivory being trafficked into and out of the country by organised criminal networks,” she said. “To date there has been little information on the progress of ongoing investigations and prosecution relating to individuals linked to these networks.”

Rice added the recurring ivory seizures, and the availability of ivory products in countries like Laos, contradict the current belief that poaching and trade in elephant tusks has declined.

The ivory is either being sourced from poached elephants or existing stockpiles, Rice said: “The DNA analysis may assist in determining this.”

Either way, she added, “sustaining an ongoing illegal trade stimulates the market and increases demand … resulting in sights being set on live animals again.”

Banner image: African elephants (Loxodonta africana) in Luangwa Valley, Zambia. Image by GRID-Arendal via Flickr (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0).

A mushroom is analogous to a flower on a plant — it’s the reproductive organ of a fungus, which protects and distributes fungal spores.

Mushrooms are critical part of our ecosystems. For humans and other animals, mushrooms are also food. And they may be part of the solution for food security and solving the plastic crisis.

On Oct. 15, World Mushroom Day, we highlight three such stories that Mongabay has covered.

Mushrooms can help inspire eco-friendly solutions to problems

Mushrooms are helping us create low-cost, sustainable housing materials and additional income for farmers, according to Gabriela D’Elia, director of the Fungal Diversity Survey.

In a Mongabay video titled “Fungi are our climate allies” published last year, D’Elia cited examples of projects that are using mushrooms to address food security and waste management. For example, a company called Evocative uses a mushroom called artist’s conk (Ganoderma applanatum) to create materials that can possibly replace leather, plastic, and other packaging materials, D’Elia said.

“Fungi are showing us new ways to live in allyship with the planet,” D’Elia added.

Golden oyster mushrooms are crowding out native fungi in North America

Golden oyster mushrooms, known for their bright yellow caps and earthy flavors, are prized edible mushrooms. They’re native to Asia, but have gained popularity throughout North America, where they’re spreading across forests and displacing native fungal species, a 2025 study found.

Aishwarya Veerabahu, lead author and a doctoral student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, U.S., told Mongabay’s Shreya Dasgupta that the study was prompted by a growing number of wild golden oyster observations in North America across citizen-science biodiversity databases.

“The take home message for people who grow and cultivate mushrooms is that non-native mushrooms are often cultivated in North America but can become invasive, causing devastating effects on native fungal biodiversity,” Veerabahu said.

Mushrooms can be cultivated on waste products and may help establish mushroom farming in Africa

Researchers in Nigeria have cultivated a wild mushroom species using sawdust, an agricultural waste product. This could help develop farming of local mushrooms in Nigeria and other parts of Africa, they reported in a 2026 study.

Lentinus squarrosulus is a wild mushroom that typically grows on decaying logs in wild habitats across tropical forests, including in eastern Nigeria. This mushroom is both edible and has medicinal value, and is at risk of becoming scarce in the wild because of habitat destruction. If domesticated, however, this mushroom could be an inexpensive and reliable source of protein, mushroom researcher Chiemeziem Agbonma Onyeka told Mongabay’s David Brown.

Bioluminescent mushrooms

Mushrooms can glow in the dark!  For younger readers, Mongabay Kids explored how bioluminescent mushrooms light up the forest night in India.

Banner image: Bioluminescent mushrooms (Mycena chlorophos) at Hachijo Botanical Park, Japan. Image by self via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0).