Earth Day founding organizer calls for end to plastic pollution
Denis Hayes was the principal national organizer of the first Earth Day in 1970, and he took the event to the international stage in 1990. He is board chair of the…
Articles by Erik Hoffner
As an editor for Mongabay, I work to keep readers informed about the latest developments in conservation news and science. I'm also a freelancer for publications like The Guardian and Washington Post, and my work has also appeared in National Geographic News Watch, OnEarth, Yale Environment 360, The Sun, Grist, World Ark, and Earth Island Journal (see a list of recent articles at http://www.erikhoffner.com/writing).
Cooperative agroforestry empowers indigenous women in Honduras
GUALCINCE, Honduras — The Lenca call it a sacrificial stone, where their indigenous ancestors went to make offerings to deities. A triangle of rock with different circles inscribed on its surface,…
New sloth book features amazing photographs and busts myths [PHOTOS]
Photographer Suzi Eszterhas was working on a story in Costa Rica when she met sloth researcher Dr. Rebecca Cliffe for the first time. The pair spent weeks in the field…
Agroforestry bolsters biodiversity and villages in Sri Lanka
PITEKELE, Sri Lanka — Visitors to the Sinharaja Man and Biosphere Reserve, Sri Lanka’s largest remaining primary rainforest, could easily miss the fact that adjoining the forest’s entrance is the old…
AI can ‘help us move mountains’ for people and planet, Watson developer says
Neil Sahota is an IBM Master Inventor and World Wide Business Development Leader in the company's Watson Group. He works to create solutions powered by Watson, the supercomputer that he…
Save the Sumatran rhino ‘because we can’ (commentary)
Senior correspondent Jeremy Hance argues in an opinion piece for the Sydney Morning Herald that we should save the Sumatran rhino, the world's oldest, smallest, and cutest rhino from extinction…
Chocolate and agroforestry accelerate in El Salvador
ZACATECOLUCA, El Salvador — The waist-high trees in Jose Francisco Merino Umaña’s field have sprouted branches and lush green leaves, but their modest size doesn’t convey the full value they…
Illegal cattle ranching deforests Mexico’s massive Lacandon Jungle
The last thing on the minds of those who conduct their business on Mexico’s border with Guatemala is that cattle may be driving the destruction of the Lacandon Jungle, which…
Only 12 vaquita porpoises remain, watchdog group reports
The International Committee for the Recovery of the Vaquita reported in 2017 that there were just 30 vaquita left in the Upper Gulf of California, the species’ only known habitat. The…
Volunteering on the front lines of rhino conservation (commentary)
In mid-2017, Ed Warner visited Zimbabwe, which has the world’s largest black rhino population after South Africa, Namibia and Kenya, to volunteer for the International Rhino Foundation (IRF)’s Zimbabwe Lowveld…
DJ and ornithologists create wildlife music game
Wildlife DJ Ben Mirin has teamed up with the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the Cornell Hip Hop Collection on a new online game that is sure to entrance nature…
Films celebrate big cats on World Wildlife Day
Big cats around the world face many challenges, from diminishing prey populations and habitat degradation, to poaching for their meat and body parts. A current spike in the killing of…
10 million acres added to Chile’s national park system
Yesterday, as a herd of guanacos grazed in the distance, Chilean President Michelle Bachelet declared, “With these beautiful lands, their forests, their rich ecosystems, [we] expand the network of parks…
Trees are much more than the lungs of the world (commentary)
There are two important answers to the question “why do we need more trees in farmland?” One is global and one is local. Globally, trees are often recognized as the…
Agroforestry boosts rice and biodiversity in India
WEST BENGAL, India — For the tough, weather-beaten farmers in the rural heartland of West Bengal, agroforestry is an age-old tradition that even finds mention in their folklore. In the…
Kenyan farmers reap economic, environmental gains from ABCDs of agroforestry
KERICHO, Kenya – Less than a decade ago, the hills of Tuiyobei village in Kenya’s Rift Valley were nearly bare, with few trees or shrubs beyond the coffee plantations that…
Jane Goodall interview: ‘The most important thing is sharing good news’
This week’s podcast featured a discussion between Mongabay’s founder and CEO Rhett A. Butler and Jane Goodall, the world’s most recognizable conservationist and one of this media outlet’s esteemed advisory…
Can agroforestry propel climate commitments? Interview with Peter Minang
The Paris Agreement, reached at COP21 in December 2015, aims to keep global temperature rise this century to well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs)…
WildSpeak conservation photography event set for Washington, D.C.
Next week, a two-day symposium of the International League of Conservation Photographers (ILCP) called WildSpeak will gather some of the world’s leading conservation photographers, filmmakers, and scientists in Washington, D.C. to…
Betting on agroforestry in Brazil’s Atlantic Forest
GUAPIRUVU, Brazil – To reach Guapiruvu one has to drive 20 kilometers (12 miles) on a gravel road. The first houses are big, solid, holiday homes for the wealthy people…
Special series
Endangered environmentalists
- Fighting to save an endangered ape, Indonesian activists fear for their lives
- Iran sentences eight conservationists convicted of spying
- Watchdog denounces arrests of four anti-mining activists in Indonesia
Indonesias forest guardians
- Reforesting a village in Indonesia, one batch of gourmet beans at a time
- Restoring Sumatra’s Leuser Ecosystem, one small farm at a time
- Indigenous Iban community defends rainforests, but awaits lands rights recognition
Amazon infrastructure
- Vale has filed hundreds of requests to exploit indigenous lands in Amazon
- After a mine killed their river, a Brazil tribe fights for a new home
- Catastrophic Amazon tipping point less than 30 years away: study
Asian rhinos
- Indonesian officials wield sharia law in defense of Sumatran rhinos
- Love triangle complicates efforts to breed Sumatran rhinos
- Indonesia to capture 3 wild Sumatran rhinos to add to breeding population
