During the 2016 fishing season, 71 whales were entangled off the coast of Washington, Oregon, and California, the highest number ever recorded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).…
Drifting down the moonlit Irrawaddy (Ayeyarwady) River in Myanmar, gangs of fishermen drop car batteries into the water. Electrocution, or “shock,” fishing is punishable by hefty fines and years in…
It’s crowded in the tropics. Take the plant world: 1,000 tree species can coexist in a small equatorial area of only a quarter kilometer squared, according to one forest ecologist,…
Coral reefs may be underwater, but they are also under fire: overfishing is dramatically altering these underwater treasures. While most people never get to see these ecosystems up close, they…
It started out as an interest in lacertids – a family of small lizards native to Asia, Europe, and Africa – an itch to “understand what was going on with…
The largest member of the grouse family, the capercaillie, is losing ground in the Carpathian Mountains. A recent study published in the journal of Landscape Ecology found that suitable habitat…
(This is a collaborative article by Mongabay Latam and Plaza Pública, a Guatemalan investigative news outlet) The spokesperson for the Public Prosecutor’s Office, Julia Barrera, told Plaza Pública and Mongabay…
While some leaders in Washington are barely getting their toes wet to address global climate change, researchers at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) have dived in head-first.…
(Immediately after this collaborative report by Mongabay Latam and Guatemalan investigative news outlet Plaza Pública was published, government troops were deployed to destroy the runway) On the 26th of April, two…
Picture the blue whale, the largest known animal ever to have lived. This endangered mammal can grow up to 30 metres (about 98 feet) and weigh 173 tonnes; it has…
Somewhere in the swampy forests of the southeastern United States, a cypress tree is felled. Its lifelong work of absorbing and storing carbon is over. It will no longer hold…
It has no smell, but it’s a product of decay. You can’t see it with the naked eye, but it’s in increasingly high-demand. It’s methane: a gas that arises from…
In the village of Tramataia, Brazil crab-pickers, or caranguejeiros, walk to the shoreline at night with an offering of tobacco to Father Mangrove. They ask for a bountiful hunt and…
Could someone explain why torching an unused forest lookout post is a more serious crime than dynamiting a sandstone arch, millions of years old, inside of a National Park? Burning…
Farmers in the Terai region of Nepal face jumbo threats on a day-to-day basis, resulting in damage to crop yields, destruction of their homes, and, in some cases, even a…
Beef has never been a favored meat in most of Asia. Cows are harder to raise than chickens and pigs, which take up less space and can be fed scraps.…
Life beneath the waters of the Amazon is probably not the first thing that comes to mind when you think of the world’s largest rainforest. All of the bright, primary…
It’s difficult to formulate a description of someone like Kristine Tompkins. A pioneer in the outdoor industry during her time as CEO of Patagonia and one of the preeminent conservationists…
When environmental activist Erlan Sleur heard that four sand mining barges had been spotted at Braamspunt beach, he dropped everything. Construction work on his house could wait. “I wanted to…
One of the most iconic primate species on the planet is quickly disappearing. Once widely distributed across Madagascar, only 2,000-2,400 ring-tailed lemurs (Lemur catta) now remain in the wild, according…
