Bolivia recently began overhauling one of its principal mining laws, with the goal of modernizing the industry and improving oversight. Civil society and Indigenous groups have raised concerns about the process, but officials say the new mining code will promote economic development and include environmental protections.

“We want a mining code that responds to the current needs of the sector, generates legal certainty, and establishes clear rules to support the development of Bolivian mining,” Marco Antonio Calderón de la Barca Quintanilla, the minister of mining and metallurgy, said in a statement.

The ministry says it’s held weekly meetings with key mining stakeholders about their concerns and proposals for the new mining code. This month, their ideas were given to a technical committee to consider while drafting a preliminary bill, which will be delivered to the national legislature for approval. The government hasn’t announced when the bill will be completed.

The current code was passed in 2014 and establishes the mechanisms for mining development, environmental oversight, and the participation of local and Indigenous communities, among other things. Updates will focus on strengthening mining rights, promoting investment, formalizing mining activity, and improving transparency, a ministry statement said. Updates will also involve “consolidating responsible environmental management.”

The details of potential changes haven’t been finalized or released. But local reports said some ideas have included new tax and royalty structures, removing the 30-year limit on mining contracts to extend them indefinitely, and restructuring the ministry and other mining institutions.

Other ideas include protections for people reporting illegal mining, and removing prior consultation of local and Indigenous communities as a restriction for accessing mining contracts.

For years, local and Indigenous communities have spoken out against foreign-backed mining projects that use too much freshwater and don’t provide adequate royalites to local communities. Others have denounced the illegal mining, mercury pollution, and deforestation that can result.

In the early stages of reviewing the mining code, civil society groups and Indigenous communities accused the government of excluding them from the process. They said their absence could ultimately weaken environmental reforms that the law needs.

They also expressed concern that the government’s priority is to increase the profitably of the mining sector, not to impose proper regulations.

“The environmental focus is just talk, because they are seeking to discuss a new mining code only with mining actors and not with actors who can contribute from the perspective of the serious environmental and public health impacts for which gold mining is responsible,” Ruth Alipaz, a representative for the National Coordinator for the Defense of Indigenous and Peasant Territories and Protected Areas, said in a July statement.

The Unified Confederation of Peasant Workers of Bolivia has been included on the technical committee, the government announced. Other representatives on the committee are from the government, mining cooperatives, and private companies.

Banner image: Bolivian miners during a march against illegal mining. Image by AP Photo/Juan Karita.

BRUSSELS (AP) — A scorching summer that dried up rivers and killed tens of thousands across the European Union from Portugal to Hungary has shown that the bloc needs to develop new tools to meet a worsening climate, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said Wednesday.

She said that this instability led her to propose a new European Heatwave Plan as well as a future European firefighting fleet of airplanes. Currently, the EU operates a small fleet itself but coordinates a network of aircraft, water trucks and volunteers that move across the 27-nation bloc as fires ignite.

“This summer was the summer of truth. Almost no part of our continent was spared,” said the EU executive during her annual State of the European Union address in Strasbourg.

“Key rivers like the Danube, the Rhine or La Garonne are disappearing before our eyes. More than 35,000 additional deaths during the heat waves. Care homes and hospitals dangerously overheated.”

The extreme heat, which hit Europe exceptionally hard and early this year appears to have led to a much higher spike in deaths than expected. Where Von der Leyen’s figure of 35,000 comes from is unclear, but it is triple the estimates of “excessive deaths” by monitoring groups in July.

Fires in France and Spain drove hundreds of thousands of people to flee their homes, shut down nuclear reactors in Hungary and France, ignited century-old munitions on Belgium’s border with Germany and revealed previously lost ships sunk on riverbeds like a tugboat in Serbia.

The heat and humidity that broke many records during the summer would not have been possible without climate change, according to a study by the World Weather Attribution group.

“All of this is a mere preview. These were the hottest summer months ever, but probably the coolest of the years to come,” von der Leyen said. “Science is clear: Europe is warming at double the global rate.”

While commending those who battled blazes this summer, von der Leyen said that she’s asked emergency responders and senior firefighters to “think bigger and learn faster” to design “new capabilities” for the EU to tackle climate instability.

When she praised a Danish helicopter pilot named Rune Kyndal, who died in August while fighting fires in Greece, the assembly erupted in applause.

“Rune gave his life to save others and today, all of Europe owes him,” von der Leyen said.

By Sam McNeil, Associated Press

Banner image: Firefighters battle a forest fire near Blagon during wildfires in southwestern France, July 29, 2026. Image courtesy of Emma Da Silva, Associated Press. 

Once upon a time, flocks of passenger pigeons were so dense they blocked the sun like great gray thunderclouds flying overhead. Composer Stephanie Ann Boyd imagines this with music.

“You will feel this movement before you hear it: a deep rumble in the low voices of the orchestra suddenly crescendo and explode into a grand, flying murmuration of sound and flurry,” Boyd writes.

The passenger pigeon movement is part of Carnival of the Nearly Extinct Animals, a work honoring species facing extinction and a few that have already crossed the threshold. This staged production pairing music with puppetry, dance, and spoken word opens at the historic Hawaii Theatre in Honolulu on Sept. 18 and 19, produced by Ocean Music Action in partnership with the Hawaii Theatre Center.

Carnival of the Nearly Extinct Animals has 14 movements covering 13 species: tigers, bees and butterflies, polar bears, hawksbill turtles, elephants, black rhinos, coral, blue whales, ivory-billed woodpeckers, passenger pigeons, gray wolves, American buffalo and kāhuli, snails native to Hawai‘i, with a finale.

Boyd designed the orchestral piece as a sister work to an older, famous piece of music called Carnival of the Animals, written by French composer Camille Saint-Saëns in the 1880s. The two pieces share the same number of movements and are roughly the same length.

Musicians from the Hawai‘i Symphony Orchestra play the score in Honolulu, with dancers from Ballet Hawaii and guest artists from New York. Obie Award-winning puppeteer Greg Corbino built dozens of the animals by hand. Hawaiian actor Moses Goods narrates, reading poems written by local students.

First up is the tiger, a movement that begins with a roar of cellos, basses and trombones, and ends with a chuff, the sound tigers make instead of purring, played on the harp. The bees and butterflies are floating violins. The hawksbill turtle movement is led by bassoons to convey a turtle enjoying a swim.

“Separately-muted trumpets sing the song of one of the last Ivory-Billed Woodpeckers to ever be recorded on tape, while cellos and basses tap out their wood-pecking rhythms on the bodies of their instruments,” Boyd writes.

Gray wolves and American buffalo both came back from near-total destruction, turning their howling and booming songs into a celebration.

Just one of the animals, the kāhuli snail, is native to Hawai‘i. “Their ornate shells once covering the trees of Hawai‘i … so abundantly that you could hear an eerie, magical song arising from the forests — possibly made by wind swirling through their shells or the shells bumping against each other,” Boyd writes.

Hawai‘i once held roughly 750 species of land snails, but state biologists estimate up to 90% of that diversity is gone. Every surviving kāhuli in the genus Achatinella is federally listed as endangered.

Cellos carry the snails’ song now, over a bed of harp and string harmonics.

Banner Image: Elephant puppet created by Greg Corbino created for Carnival of the Nearly Extinct Animals by Stephanie Ann Boyd. Photo courtesy of Ocean Music Action.

For the first time in the modern history of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), a Congolese nongovernmental organization will co-manage a protected area in the country.

“It is an honor,” Dominique Bikaba, founder of the NGO Strong Roots, told Mongabay by phone.

Strong Roots has been entrusted with the management of Itombwe Nature Reserve (RNI), located in South Kivu province in the northeast DRC. Under a public-private partnership Strong Roots will manage the reserve for the next 10 years. The Congolese Wildlife Authority (ICCN), the national authority responsible for natural parks, will retain oversight of the park.

“I think the government chose us, because they have observed the work we have done in the biodiversity corridor and the way we have put local communities at the center of conservation,” Bikaba said.

Strong Roots has spent about a decade securing land for communities and wildlife to create a 1-million-hectare (2.5-million-acre) corridor through community forestry concessions. This corridor spans the area between Kahuzi-Biega National Park and Itombwe Nature Reserve.

To date, Strong Roots has secured 23 community forest concessions in the area, covering nearly 600,000 hectares (1.5 million acres) of land.

“Itombwe is made up of seven chiefdoms, and we are already working with four of them in the corridor,” Bikaba said. “So we have a very good knowledge of the reserve; we know its problems and its needs.”

Bikaba is a member of an Indigenous community in the area that was evicted to make way for another protected area. So, putting local populations at the center of conservation is particularly close to his heart, he said.

Most protected areas in the DRC were created by evicting Indigenous populations, resulting in conflicts between park personnel and the local communities. In addition to conflicts with park managers, the area is also the site of clashes involving the M23, Wazalendo and Mai-Mai armed groups. Bikaba said Strong Roots will bring together aspects of traditional and modern conservation to help reduce the decline of species as well as the conflicts that exist.

For example, Strong Roots plans to recruit people from the communities to be patrol members. “By working hand in hand, we aim to make the population less likely to turn to armed groups for their survival,” Bikaba said.

He added his organization also hopes to strengthen enforcement of laws against poaching and mining, but also demilitarize conservation and move away from armed, military-like law enforcement.

The Itombwe Nature Reserve was created in 2006 and covers around 760,000 hectares (1.9 million acres). It is home to nearly 600 bird species and is a sanctuary for the critically endangered eastern lowland or Grauer’s gorillas (Gorilla beringei graueri).

Banner image: Critically endangered Grauer’s gorillas live in Itombwe Nature Reserve. Image courtesy of Strong Roots Congo.

Roughly a decade ago, a marine heatwave in the northeastern Pacific Ocean caused a dramatic decline in populations of forage fish and krill, the base of the marine food chain. A recent study found that the Hawaiian humpback whale population, which feeds on krill and small fish, also declined sharply during the 2013-16 heatwave and has not yet recovered.

Humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) in the North Pacific feed in cold Alaskan and Canadian waters during the summer months before traveling roughly 4,800 kilometers (3,000 miles) to Hawaii to breed and give birth over the winter.

To understand the impact of the 2013-2016 marine heatwave, researchers analyzed more than 27,000 photos of whale sightings between 2002 and 2023 across the main Hawaiian islands. The photos came from Happywhale, a citizen science platform where anyone can upload images of whale flukes (tail fins) that scientists use to identify individuals. “Their flukes are a bit like a fingerprint for each individual humpback whale,” study co-author Shannon Barber-Meyer, formerly with Pacific Whale Foundation, told Mongabay in a video call.

The researchers found the Hawaiian humpback whale population declined by 37% between the 2014-2015 breeding season and the 2021-2022 season.

Adult survival rates also fell sharply. Before the heatwave, roughly 99% of adult whales survived year over year, but during the heatwave, adult survival was estimated at just 68%. “It’s a very precipitous drop, and that’s not something you normally see in adult survival of long-lived mammals,” Barber-Meyer said.

During the heatwave, researchers documented an unusual mortality event in Alaska and British Columbia including “humpback whales that were starving and dying,” Barber-Meyer said. The final population estimate suggests there were roughly 5,000 fewer humpbacks after the marine heatwave. While it’s possible some migrated to other regions, researchers believe many likely died.

John Calambokidis, a research biologist with the U.S.-based non-profit Cascadia Research Collective, who was not involved with the study, told Mongabay in an email that it offered “valuable insights into the potential impacts of future changes” for whales. He added he’s seeing a similar decline in gray whales (Eschrichtius robustus), “driven by changes in conditions in the Arctic including ice loss,” a trend Mongabay has covered.

The North Pacific is again facing a marine heatwave that’s bringing abnormally high sea surface temperatures to the region. Meanwhile, a strong El Niño in the tropical Pacific means much of the Pacific Ocean is currently well above the average temperature.

The Hawaiian humpback population still hasn’t recovered from the 2013-2016 heatwave, making the marine mammals more vulnerable to other anthropogenic dangers including entanglements, ship strikes and pollution.

Humpbacks live in every ocean, migrating between the poles for food and the equator to breed. Study co-author Daniel Palacios, with the Center for Coastal Studies, told Mongabay by email that disruptions to the climate system could also affect humpback whale populations globally.

Banner image: A humpback whale in Hawaii. Image courtesy of Pacific Whale Foundation/NOAA via Associated Press.

Populations of sardinella, an important protein-rich fish, are in rapid decline in the waters off Guinea-Bissau in West Africa. The decline appears to be related to industrial fishing for two species of sardinella used to make fishmeal, according to a report by investigative news organization OCCRP.

In Guinea-Bissau, fish like the Madeiran sardinella (Sardinella maderensis) and round sardinella (Sardinella aurita) are among the primary ingredients in fishmeal, a processed fish product added to livestock feed for added protein and nutrients.

But sardinella is also a crucial food for people in Guinea-Bissau and other West African nations. A fisheries assessment for the Guinea-Bissau government showed sardinella stocks have been decimated, according to the OCCRP report.

This decline coincided with the arrival two Chinese fishmeal factories and a fleet of Turkish fishing boats off the coast of Guinea-Bissau.

In an email to Mongabay, OCCRP report co-author Josef Skrdlik said the migration patterns of sardinella still aren’t fully understood, so there could be other explanations for the decline. “That said, the assessment, combined with the export data we’ve compiled, points to the Chinese-owned factory ships as the main culprits,” Skrdlik said.

“The export data indicates that the production on the ships — supplied by a Turkish fleet for which sardinella was a key target — took place at a scale consistent with the decline in the sardinella stocks observed between 2013 and 2025,” he added. “In particular, fishmeal exports by a company linked to the floating factories corresponded to at least 350,000 tons of raw fish turned into fishmeal, according to our calculations. For comparison, in 2013, the combined aurita and maderensis stocks were estimated at 270,109 tons.”

In response to the assessment of the sardinella decline, the Guinea-Bissau government banned fishmeal production. Amadú Djaló, director of industrial fishing at the Ministry of Fisheries and Maritime Economy, told OCCRP the fishmeal sector was to blame for the sardinella decline. He said the ban was put in place to protect “fish intended for human consumption, especially for the disadvantaged population.”

In the OCCRP report, local fisherman Tejan Joof said he used to spend a day or two at sea and return with a full catch. “Now we need to spend four or five days at sea,” he said. “Sometimes, even with all these days, you don’t even catch what you want before our supplies run out.”

“Fishmeal production on vessels represents a new type of threat, as production at sea is much harder to oversee and regulate and, until recently, was very poorly mapped and understood,” Skrdlik said. “I hope that our report sheds some light on how damaging these activities can be and on the corporate structures underpinning the production, thus providing information that could help inform potential regulatory responses.”

Banner image:  A sardinella catch. Image courtesy of Anne Delaporte via Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)