A village on Nepal’s border with India has found a way to reduce conflicts with wild Asian elephants in recent years: By switching their crops from rice and maize, which elephants love to eat, to tea and lemon, the farmers of Bahundangi are now seeing fewer elephants devouring their harvest, Mongabay contributor Deepak Adhikari reported in January.

This change in crops, combined with a shift in community attitudes toward elephants, and government policies like better access to compensation, has meant the villagers now live more peacefully with wild Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) than a decade ago. The last human fatality recorded there was in 2015.

In the past, elephants would roam the entire 900-kilometer (560-mile) east-west corridor of Nepal’s southern plains, eating food from the rich flood plains of the Koshi, Gandaki and Karnali rivers. However, with people migrating to the area and roads and infrastructure being constructed, the corridor became increasingly fragmented.

Bahundangi, which lies in the corridor, used to frequently see houses and fields trampled by the elephants, with the conflict resulting in the deaths of 20 elephants between 2012 and 2022.

Adhikari reported that villagers would attempt to chase away elephants, but this only served to further agitate the animals and led to them attacking people.

Shankar Luitel, a local conservationist, told Adhikari that an electric fence built by the government in 2015 with support from the World Bank had helped reduce crop damage, but the elephants still found ways to circumvent it.

In 2009, Nepal’s government launched a policy through which villagers were able to get compensation from losses and damage to property caused by wildlife. Local official Arjun Karki said the move helped ease resentment against elephants. However, many farmers had difficulty with the process, prompting Luitel to step in and help fill out forms, especially for illiterate residents.

But the game changer was the introduction of elephant-resistant farming to the village, Adhikari reported. Karki led efforts to encourage farmers to shift away from rice and maize and instead plant crops that elephants don’t eat: tea, bay leaf and lemons.

“It was hard at first,” farmer Diwakar Neupane told Mongabay. “But now I have a stable income, and I no longer worry about elephants eating my crops.” The shift not only helped the farmers diversify their income sources but also addressed farming challenges such as water shortages and labor scarcity.

Karki said the farmers have also started beekeeping, since bees are a natural repellent for elephants. “We are encouraging farmers to cultivate mustard, which attracts bees and supports beekeeping initiatives,” Karki said, adding that the mustard also provides additional income.

Additionally, community volunteers now patrol the area to guide elephants away from the village, so that residents stay safe.

This is a summary of “How a Nepali border village learned to live with migratory wild elephants” by Deepak Adhikari.

Banner image of elephant statues in Bahundangi, Nepal. Image by Deepak Adhikari.

Microplastics are a growing ecological and human health crisis: Scientist have found the tiny plastic particles everywhere they’ve looked for them, including human placentas and brains. In a new documentary, Plastic People, filmmakers Rick Smith and Peter Raymont delve into the plastic pollution that contaminates people from before birth and can bring about early death. Mongabay’s Liz Kimbrough spoke with Smith and Raymont about making the film and solutions to the growing crisis.

The film follows journalist Ziya Tong as she learns the latest science on microplastics and examines the microplastic pollution in her own body.

“The question isn’t, ‘do we have microplastics in us?’” Smith told Kimbrough. “The question is, ‘how much?’ And the question isn’t where in the human body microplastics exist. The question is, ‘where doesn’t it exist?’ We haven’t actually found a human organ without measurable microplastic levels yet.”

Microplastic exposure has been linked to myriad health problems, including organ dysfunction, obesity, cognitive impairment, fertility issues, endocrine disruption, and serious diseases including cancer.

The world currently produces roughly 400 million metric tons of plastic annually, expected to triple in the next 15 years under the current trajectory.

The international community has already met five times to tackle the growing plastic problem, and will meet again in August 2025 to develop a legally binding instrument to tackle the crisis. With the recent U.S. shift toward fossil fuels, a meaningful movement on plastic seems more challenging than ever, but Smith said it doesn’t have to be.

“The solution here is not rocket science,” Smith told Mongabay. “We know what we need to do. We need to eliminate the unnecessary use of plastic, and we need to ban the most toxic formulations of plastic.”

Smith said the average coffee cup lid can be made of rigid polypropylene or polystyrene. Research suggests polystyrene is more carcinogenic and “to your average consumer, they’re indistinguishable,” he said. “So why on Earth wouldn’t we move immediately to ban the most carcinogenic types of plastic?”

Many countries are already addressing the issue. “Rwanda and the Philippines have made incredible progress in cleaning up plastic pollution and protecting their populations. Little, tiny, rural municipalities, major cities all over the world [are] making big progress,” Smith said.

The filmmakers told Kimbrough that one of their goals with the movie is to shift the conversation on plastic from just talking about it as an environmental problem to recognizing that plastic is also a serious threat to human health.

“I bet you that we’re going to see an increasing number of Americans and people around the world paying attention to this, because, all of a sudden, it’s affecting their lives in the here and now — their chances of succumbing to cancer, dementia, hurting their kids,” Smith said.

Read the full interview by Liz Kimbrough here.

Banner image from the documentary Plastic People: The Hidden Crisis of Microplastics, courtesy of White Pine Pictures.

Intense flooding submerged usually dry areas of Queensland state in eastern Australia during the last week of March, forcing many people to evacuate and leave their livestock behind.

David Crisafulli, the Queensland premier, called the floods “unprecedented” as several places in western Queensland recorded the worst floods in the last 50 years, CNN reported. Some of the affected areas are normally very dry, including the Munga-Thirri-Simpson Desert, a vast arid region known for its sand dunes.

The rains started on March 23 as an inland low pressure area pulled monsoon rain from the tropical north of Australia into the arid landscape of southern Queensland, The Guardian reported. Cyclone Dianne, which reached Queensland from the west a few days later, further intensified the rains.

With rainfall reaching 600 millimeters (24 inches) over the last week of March, almost double the yearly average of some towns, record-breaking flood levels were reported in central Queensland’s Stonehenge, Jundah and Windorah areas. ABC news called it “the biggest flood in living memory for many people across outback Queensland,” exceeding the infamous 1974 flooding in the region.

In many towns, people were rescued using helicopters.

“We flew over a lot of water. We were just amazed how much water is around our place where we have never seen water before,” resident Ann-Maree Lloyd, evacuated by air from their home in the town of Yaraka, told ABC.

The agriculture industry is also facing significant losses. Crisafulli said more than 140,000 livestock, including cattle, sheep, goats and horses, were reported missing or dead, The Guardian reported on April 2. “This number will continue to rise,” he added. Images online show animals stuck in floods or mud.

Crisafulli said recovery may take years. For the agricultural industry, it means rebuilding some 4,700 kilometers (2,900 miles) of private roads and 3,500 km (2,200 mi) of fencing.

“Not only economically, but psychosocially — we’re already getting reports of landholders that are struggling mentally with the prospect of what they know is to come,” Tony Rayner, mayor of the affected Longreach region, told The Guardian.

Environmental geography professor Steve Turton wrote in The Conversation that some meteorologists have dubbed the recent rains a pseudo-monsoon, “because the normal Australian monsoon doesn’t reach this far south — the torrential rains of the monsoonal wet season tend to fall closer to the northern coasts.”

He added most of the rainwater dumped in the dry areas will now flow slowly through channels on the ground until it fills up Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre, usually a massive, salty, dry depression in the northern region of South Australia state, covering an area of more than 9,000 km2 (3,500 mi2).

“When Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre fills, it creates an extraordinary spectacle,” Turton wrote. Millions of brine shrimp hatch from eggs in the waters, which draw fish carried in the floodwaters, which in turn attract many waterbirds, he added.

Banner image floodwaters moving through Queensland by Bureau of Meteorology via Facebook.

Traffic noise isn’t just unpleasant; in the Galápagos Islands, it can also make songbirds aggressive, a recent study has found.

Once famed for their undisturbed natural ecosystems, the Galápagos Islands have seen a rise in road infrastructure and traffic in recent decades. Researchers wanted to understand how birds react to the increased noise. So they picked the Galápagos yellow warbler (Setophaga petechia aureola), a territorial bird that uses loud songs, and sometimes physical fights, to ward off intruding individuals.

The warbler is also a common songbird in the archipelago that can be found anywhere from pristine forests to urban settlements, said Çağlar Akçay, study co-author and a behavioral ecologist at Anglia Ruskin University, U.K.

For the study, the researchers focused on 38 male Galápagos yellow warblers on two islands: Santa Cruz, home to more than 15,000 people and 1,000 vehicles, and Floreana, with about 100 people and 10 vehicles. Twenty of the birds lived near roads, and the rest lived farther away.

For every warbler, the authors used a speaker to play two different kinds of audio recordings: one with the song of a male Galápagos yellow warbler along with traffic noises, and a second one with only a male warbler’s song call, but no traffic noise. They then observed how the birds responded.

“We measured aggressive behaviour as various physical approach measures to the speaker that played the warbler songs, such as flights around the speaker, crosses over the speaker, and closest approach to the speaker. These approach measures are good predictors of attacking in songbirds,” Akçay told Mongabay by email.

On both islands, male warblers with territories near roads displayed more physical aggression when the speaker played another warbler’s song and traffic noise compared to when it only played the song. “It shows us that when noise prevents efficient communication, experienced birds may engage in physical aggression to resolve conflict,” Akçay said.

However, warblers with territories far from roads on both islands were less aggressive when the speaker played traffic noises alongside another male’s calls. Akçay attributed this to the birds’ relative lack of experience with traffic sounds, which might make them hesitant to approach the vicinity of the noise.

These findings suggest that “prior experience with noise by living near the road affects how birds respond to noise,” Akçay said. “Even little but chronic experience, e.g. roadside territories on Floreana island, which has much less traffic than Santa Cruz, seems to be enough for this experience to matter.”

The study also found that birds on Santa Cruz Island, but not Floreana, sang for longer durations when the speaker played traffic noise. This suggests the bird may be increasing its chances of being heard over pulses of high traffic noise, Akçay said. “The study shows that how wildlife responds to noise is not necessarily simple and previous experience of the individuals also matters.”

Banner image of Galápagos yellow warbler courtesy of Alper Yelimlies.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) recently updated its Red List of Threatened Species to include an additional 482 fungi, bringing the total to roughly 1,300 species of mushrooms, puffballs and other fungi. More than 400 of the species assessed are at risk of extinction, primarily threatened by agricultural expansion, deforestation and climate change, according to the IUCN’s latest update.

Some 279 fungi species face extinction due to land use change for farming and urbanization, while another 91 species are at risk from agricultural chemicals and pollution.

Meanwhile, deforestation and degradation are driving nearly 200 species toward extinction. Many fungi rely on decaying trees for habitat and “have evolved during millions and millions of years to [use] those specific tree species and those forest habitats,” Anders Dahlberg, a mycology professor with the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences and a coordinator on the IUCN assessment, told Mongabay. So, when forests are cleared for timber, logging or agriculture, many species of fungi go along with them, he said.

For example, the replacement of native forest with eucalyptus or palm oil plantations can cause a dramatic drop in fungi diversity. Old-growth forests provide continuity for fungi, especially those in symbiotic relationships with plant roots, or mycorrhizal species, which “have their highest fitness in the old-growth forest conditions,” Dahlberg said. For that reason, he said he recommends that at least some stands of old-growth forest should be left intact when forests are logged or developed.

Climate change is a third significant threat to fungi: Rising temperatures and drier conditions have increased the risk for fire, which devastates fungi. “Over 50 fungi species are at risk of extinction due to changes in fire patterns in the USA, which have drastically changed forests,” the report notes.

Despite living largely out of sight, fungi perform a critical role in sustaining life as we know it. “Fungi are the unsung heroes of life on Earth, forming the very foundation of healthy ecosystems,” Grethel Aguilar, IUCN director-general, said in a press release.

Roughly 80% of all plants on Earth have some kind of mycorrhizal symbiosis that allows them to take up nutrients and water, Dahlberb told Mongabay. Without fungi, many plants would struggle to survive.

They are also vital for breaking down dead matter and nutrient cycling in healthy ecosystems. Additionally, many fungi are valuable to humans in their own right; they are used in food, drinks and medicines.

Beyond the many pragmatic reasons to care for the fungi, Dahlberg said there’s also a moral, ethical argument to maintaining fungi diversity. “Small things have the right to live as well as large and strong things,” he said.

Banner image: A collage of mushroom photos. Original images by Steve Axford, Venkatesh Ramamurthi, P.L. Bechly, Harikrishan S., Karode 13 and  J.J. Harrison via Wikimedia Commons  (CC BY-SA 4.0)

The International Seabed Authority has expressed concern following reports that the U.S. subsidiary of The Metals Company is seeking deep-sea mining permits from the U.S. instead of waiting for the global regulator’s finalization of a mining code.

Mongabay recently reported that The Metals Company (TMC), based in Canada, has started a process to apply for both exploration and exploitation licenses with the U.S. regulators. TMC aims to mine polymetallic nodules, or rocks rich in commercially valuable metals like copper, nickel, manganese and cobalt, in a part of international waters in the Pacific Ocean known as the Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ).

In a statement, ISA’s secretary-general Leticia Carvalho said the authority holds exclusive control over all activities in the international seabed area beyond national jurisdictions. The international area is recognized as the common heritage of humankind under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), a global treaty setting rules for how countries use the oceans, and its 1994 Agreement, she added. The U.S. has not ratified UNCLOS.

Carvalho, who is an oceanographer, said that any unilateral actions would violate international law and undermine multilateral governance.

In response to the pushback, the company’s CEO Gerard Barron said in a statement that “commercial industry is not welcome at the ISA.”

Barron said the authority is being influenced by nations allied with environmental NGOs. These states are continuously delaying the adoption of deep-sea mining regulations, he added, “with the explicit intent of killing commercial industry.”

He also said the ISA “does not have an exclusive mandate to regulate seabed mining activities” as the U.S. has approved exploration contracts, and UNCLOS membership is not universal.

The ISA, meanwhile, said several delegates supported Carvalho’s statement and the need for a “robust regulatory framework” before mining activities start.

The authority added that during its 30th session in Jamaica held March 17-28, progress was made on the mining code, but some issues need further discussions.

The Earth Negotiations Bulletin of the International Institute for Sustainable Development said that the ISA needs to resolve competing approaches toward deep-sea mining; while 32 member states have called for a moratorium or precautionary pause on deep-sea mining, other members want commercial exploitation of deep-sea mineral resources to begin soon.

The ISA plans to continue its discussions in July 2025.

A recent study found that a deep-sea mining test site from 1979 in the CCZ still shows signs of lower biodiversity than nearby undisturbed areas, 44 years after the experiment.

Louisa Casson, Greenpeace International campaigner, who attended the ISA meeting, said, “this latest evidence makes it even more clear why governments must act now to stop deep sea mining before it ever starts.”

Banner image of deep-sea corals on the ocean floor via NOAA (Public domain).

Correction: the article previously said the delegates had completed a second reading of the draft regulation at the March session. This is incorrect, and has been removed.