NEW DELHI (AP) — India rolled out its first domestically built, hydrogen-powered train on Friday, a move aimed at expanding the use of clean energy in its vast rail network.

The train made up of two hydrogen-powered driving cars and eight passenger coaches will operate in the northern state of Haryana. It can run at speeds of up to 75 kph (47 mph) and carry a maximum of about 2,600 passengers, railway officials said.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi inaugurated the “NaMo Green Rail” at Haryana’s Jind railway station on Friday. “NaMo” is a common abbreviation of Modi’s first and last names.

“This is a very significant day in the direction of self-reliant India and sustainable development,” Modi said in a post on X.

The pilot project includes hydrogen storage and refueling infrastructure to test the use of the technology in India’s rail network, according to officials.

Hydrogen fuel cells generate electricity by combining hydrogen and oxygen, producing water vapor as the only direct emission. Several other countries have introduced hydrogen-powered trains as an alternative to diesel on routes that are not fully electrified.

The launch is part of India’s broader efforts to develop green hydrogen and reduce carbon emissions. India has set a target of reaching net-zero emissions by 2070, with Indian Railways exploring hydrogen as an alternative to diesel on some routes.

By Associated Press

Banner image: India Prime Minister Narendra Modi flags off India’s first indigenously built hydrogen-powered train named the “NaMo Green Rail,” at Jind, in the Indian state of Haryana, Friday, July 17, 2026. Image courtesy of Indian Prime Minister’s Office via Associated Press. 

Nepal’s expanding birdwatching community offers a vital lifeline for both biodiversity monitoring and ecotourism, reports contributor Bibek Bhandari for Mongabay.

According to a recent study, a growing interest in birdwatching, particularly among younger generations, is helping bridge gaps in ecological data while promoting Nepal as a birdwatching destination.

Nepal is home to more than 900 bird species, including the endemic spiny babbler (Turdoides nipalensis). Of these, 172 species are nationally threatened owing to urbanization, infrastructure development and climate change.

The study surveyed 135 birdwatchers and found that only 37% shared their observations on citizen science platforms, such as eBird, or with bird conservation organizations, while 46% kept their records private. This lack of participation limits the overall impact of citizen science on regional conservation efforts, the study said.

Hem Bahadur Katuwal, study co-author and an assistant professor at China’s Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, said  birdwatchers should record their observations of the species they spot, the number of individuals seen and where they saw the birds. These data are helpful in conservation, he said.

“This helps in fulfilling the data gaps related to bird population and habitat,” Katuwal said. He added that the records also help researchers like him in assessing species’ risk levels for Nepal’s national Red Data List.

Beyond science, birdwatching presents an untapped economic opportunity for the country. While some birdwatchers spend up to 40,000 rupees ($260) per trip, according to the study, the travel sector remains dominated by trekking and religious tourism, said Ishana Thapa, CEO of Bird Conservation Nepal.

Thapa argued that proactive government promotion of Nepal as a birdwatching destination is essential. “This is a low investment that can bring great benefits to our tourism sector,” Thapa said.

A former hunter turned birdwatching guide and tourism leader, Shankar Tiwari now holds a top ranking for unique bird sightings in Nepal on eBird. Tiwari, who said he recently documented three species for the first time in Nepal, said he views his work for bird conservation as a form of restitution for his past.

“It also feels like I am paying my debt in some ways,” he said. “As kids, we didn’t know, so we killed birds. I’m very remorseful. So now I’m involved in bird conservation, raising awareness and getting more people to see and know about birds.”

Read the full story by Bibek Bhandari here.

Banner image: Bird enthusiasts look for birds in Suryabinayak, Kathmandu. Image courtesy of Prasan Shrestha.

Gray whales are experiencing a potentially catastrophic population decline, a sharp reversal from what had been considered a conservation success.

As of July 6, 2026, there were 145 gray whale (Eschrichtius robustus) stranding deaths in the Pacific, according to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) data.

The environmental non-profit Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) estimates that for every one stranded gray whale observed, another nine or more may have died at sea, meaning another 1,305 gray whales may have died this year without anyone knowing. Scientists consider such a rate of gray whale deaths a “catastrophic mortality event.”

In 2019, there were roughly 20,500 gray whales; by 2023, the population had declined to 14,526 individuals, nearly 30% of the entire population gone in four years.

The whale’s population was already greatly reduced by a century of whaling, but protection under the Endangered Species Act had helped the species recover.

Gray whales live in the eastern North Pacific and migrate between 16,000 and 22,500 kilometers (10,000 and 14,000 miles) from their winter calving lagoons off Baja California, Mexico, to their Arctic feeding grounds. But climate change is disrupting the Arctic food web on which the gray whales depend.

The whales are coastal bottom feeders and use baleen plates inside their mouths to filter tiny invertebrates from the seafloor or benthic layer. Warming temperatures and earlier-than-usual ice melt mean that phytoplankton bloom earlier and are eaten before they can fall to the seafloor to feed benthic invertebrates and, ultimately, gray whales. The collapse of benthic invertebrate populations is leading to starving whales.

Gray whales are also vulnerable to ship strikes since their migration route crosses busy shipping lanes. PEER is petitioning NOAA to make whale safety zones a federal rule in U.S. waters. Such zones require ships to slow down in important whale habitats that overlap with major shipping routes. Rick Steiner, a marine ecologist from Alaska and PEER board chair, told Mongabay in an email that these zones could reduce the risk of ship strikes on whales by half or more.

Steiner said the long-term solution to gray whale population recovery is to dramatically reduce global CO2 emissions, “which in turn will begin bringing down the temperature of air and sea, and reforming sea ice cover. That is a multi-decadal challenge,” he added.

Gray whales were removed from the Endangered Species Act list in 1994. PEER is petitioning NOAA to relist the whales in U.S. waters which would afford them additional protections.

NOAA spokesperson Michael Milstein told Alaska Public Media KTOO that the agency would only consider it an unusual mortality event if the reason for the whales’ deaths is new. “At this point, elevated strandings have continued, but all indications are that the causes remain the same,” Milstein said.

Banner image: Gray whale in Alaska. Image courtesy of NOAA [public domain]

Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon has fallen to its lowest level in the past 10 years, according to satellite data published by Brazil’s National Space Agency (INPE).

Between January and June 2025, a total of 2,090 square kilometers (807 square miles) of deforestation was recorded in the Brazilian Amazon. In the same months of 2026, the total deforested area was 1,295 sq km (500 sq mi), marking a 38% decrease.

“This shows that the political will to fight deforestation has prevailed,” Ane Alencar, science director at the Amazon Environmental Research Institute, said in a statement. “From a scientific standpoint, this is evidence that deforestation is not an inevitable process and its reduction is responsive to decisions made by society and the government.”

Alencar said that a drop in deforestation does not mean that the Amazon is protected. Threats, including illegal gold mining and forest fires, are still concerns.

In 2024, fire accounted for an estimated 60% of primary forest loss in the Brazilian Amazon. Still more forest was cleared in the first half of 2025, according to INPE, with an increase in forest loss of 27% compared with the same period in 2024.

In the first half of 2026, however, the area of the Amazon that burned was nearly 40% smaller than the 2013-25 historic average, João Paulo Sotero, director of deforestation and fire policy with Brazil’s Environment Ministry, told Mongabay in a video interview.

Forecasts of a “super” El Niño through the second half of 2026 have put Brazil’s government and conservationists on high alert, as the climate phenomenon, intensified by climate change, is expected to cause drought in parts of the Amazon rainforest.

The combination of more heat, less rainfall and criminal fires in the rainforest is a recipe for environmental disaster, as a dry understory, the layer of plants growing between the forest canopy and floor, can cause small fires to spread more quickly and aggressively.

In response to this threat, Brazil’s government has increased equipment and on-the-ground personnel available to fight fires in the region, and added 20% to this year’s national firefighting budget. The effects of the El Niño are expected to last until the start of 2027.

Banner image: Amazon rainforest burned in Acre, Brazil, to make way for cattle pastures. Image courtesy of Victor Moriyama/Climate Visuals.

BANDA, India (AP) — The northern Indian town of Banda has endured weeks of extreme heat, with daytime temperatures repeatedly reaching 115 Fahrenheit and nighttime lows staying above 93 F. Banda has repeatedly ranked among India’s hottest cities, with temperatures peaking at 118 F. Climatologist and weather historian Maximiliano Herrera also said Banda was the hottest spot on Earth seven times this year, most of them in April. Brief spells of rain have brought only temporary relief. Residents, long accustomed to scorching summers, are now changing their daily routines to cope, beginning work at the vegetable market by 4 a.m. or shifting hours to avoid the afternoon heat.

By Rajesh Kumar Singh, Sibi Arasu, and Deepak Sharma, Associated Press  

Banner image: A woman cools herself off with an ice pack during a heat wave in Banda, northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, Sunday, June 21, 2026. Image by Rajesh Kumar Singh via Associated Press. 

The world’s largest meatpacking company, JBS, has scrapped two of its key environmental goals in its latest annual sustainability report.

JBS’s “Net Zero by 2040,” which aimed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions throughout its supply chain, and zero deforestation targets were substantially rolled back compared to previous years, according to its 2025 Sustainability report, published July 8.

Instead, the company redesigned its targets with a focus solely on its most direct emissions, called Scope 1 and Scope 2. Those include direct emissions from JBS factories, vehicles, and electricity provided to its facilities. Indirect emissions, called Scope 3, make up the vast majority of the company’s emissions and were dropped. Those include methane from cows, and transportation and deforestation emissions from supplier farms.

“Backtracking on measurable targets doesn’t diminish the scrutiny JBS will face for its climate and nature-wrecking record of pollution, deforestation, land grabbing, human rights abuses and corruption,” Gemma Hoskins, global climate lead at U.S.-based environmental nonprofit Mighty Earth, wrote in a statement.

Until 2025, JBS touted a commitment to “zero illegal deforestation in all Brazilian biomes by the end of 2025 for direct and indirect cattle suppliers,” Mongabay previously reported.

JBS justified the change by saying it’s difficult to control indirect emissions.

“Bold ambition is fine, but you now need to actually have really good, measurable, accountable goals. And that’s what we’re doing — we’re now setting goals that we believe where we have operational control,” Jason Weller, JBS’s chief sustainability officer, told the Financial Times.

JBS operates more than 250 meat production facilities, mostly in Brazil and the U.S. It supplies beef, poultry and pork to major food companies and global supermarket chains, including McDonald’s, Walmart and Tesco.

In 2025, Mongabay reported that JBS was linked to illegal clearing of about 5 million hectares (12 million acres) of wild jaguar habitat in Brazil’s Amazonian states of Pará and Mato Grosso from 2014-2023. A single JBS supplier cleared more than 1,200 hectares (3,000 acres) of forest in a protected jaguar habitat.

The company has also been involved in corruption scandals in the U.S.  and Brazil. The firm’s U.S. subsidiary was the largest donor to President Donald Trump’s second inauguration, giving $5 million to the event’s fund. Six months later, it got the greenlight to debut on the New York Stock Exchange after years of challenges based on the company’s history of corruption and Amazon deforestation. 

Soon after, it announced plans to inject $6 billion into new projects, including new factories, over the next five years.

In Brazil, where the company began, founders Joesley and Wesley Batista admitted in 2017 to bribing nearly 1,900 politicians, resulting in a 10.3 billion reais ($2.2 billion) fine at the time. The fine was later negotiated down to around 1 billion reais ($196 million) and is still disputed by Brazilian prosecutors.

Banner image: A cattle confinement area in the Brazilian Amazon. Image courtesy of Fernando Martinho/Goldman Environmental Prize.