Shreya Dasgupta

About

Shreya Dasgupta is a Newswire editor at Mongabay. She's a writer, editor and podcast producer, focusing on science and the environment.

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1406 stories

Trump’s budget would end 7 decades of climate data collection

Bobby Bascomb 23 Jul 2025
A pair of red-crowned cranes. Image by Francesco Veronesi via Flickr (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0)

Study highlights dangers of declaring conservation success too soon

Mongabay.com 23 Jul 2025
Banner image of a cattle ranch in the Paraguayan Chaco by Peer V via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0).

Pasture and agricultural expansion in Gran Chaco drive biodiversity loss: Study

Kristine Sabillo 23 Jul 2025
Afro-descendant community.

Study links Afro-descendant communities to less deforestation, more biodiversity

Bobby Bascomb 22 Jul 2025
A mangrove forest in the Raja Ampat archipelago in Indonesia.

How much does it cost to restore a mangrove forest?

Rhett Ayers Butler 22 Jul 2025
Banner image of a heavy downpour after Tropical Storm Wipha caused intensified monsoon rains in Quezon City, Philippines, on July 21. Image by AP Photo/Aaron Favila.

Tropical Storm Wipha rampages through several Asian countries

Kristine Sabillo 22 Jul 2025

Africa’s freshwater fish face a crisis — but solutions are within reach

David Akana 21 Jul 2025
Banner image of the black dwarfgoby courtesy of M.V. Erdmann.

Darkest-ever dwarfgoby fish gets named after Darth Vader

Kristine Sabillo 21 Jul 2025
Rain over a tropical island in the South Pacific in April 2025. Image by Rhett A. Butler/Mongabay.

Conservation’s silent strain: Nature’s protectors face a mental health crisis

Rhett Ayers Butler 21 Jul 2025
Heavy rainfall in Colombia and Venezuela caused deadly landslides and widespread flooding in June. A new analysis now points to rapid urbanization, deforestation, mining and overgrazing as having reduced the region’s climate resilience. 
 “The rapid growth of population and informal settlements in areas prone to landslides, particularly in Colombia, puts people and infrastructure at risk,” the World Weather Attribution (WWA), a network of scientists evaluating extreme weather events, said in its latest rapid analysis. It said the informal communities are growing as people seek livelihoods in cities or are displaced due to conflict. Roop Singh, report co-author from the Netherlands-based Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre, said at a media briefing that pasture- and agriculture-driven deforestation rose over the past two decades, increasing “the risk of landslides because tree roots are no longer binding and anchoring the soils.”
 The heavy rains during the last week of June triggered widespread flooding and damage in Colombia; a landslide in Antioquia department killed 27 people. In Venezuela, rivers overflowed, and smaller landslides cut off rural communities. WWA said in its report that rains in these regions had persisted since April, and that the June rain fell on already saturated ground where the deadly landslide occurred, and in rivers with already high levels of water. The scientists examined the total rainfall from April-June this year over the Magdalena River catchment in Colombia and the Falcón and Maracaibo basins in Venezuela. They also studied data on the accumulated rainfall from June 20-24 in the affected states in the Venezuelan Llanos, a grassland plain. “Neither events were particularly extreme,” Mariam Zachariah, co-author and research associate at Imperial College London, said at the briefing. The WWA analysis showed the heavy rain that fell in June is common, expected every 10 years in Colombia and every three years in Venezuela. The scientists also used climate models to understand the influence of human-induced climate change on the rains, but the findings were inconclusive. Instead, the models projected a drying trend for Colombia and mixed results for Venezuela. Friederike Otto, co-author and climate science professor at Imperial College London, said not being able to show clear linkages to climate change doesn’t mean there’s no influence. The researchers attributed some of the uncertainty to a lack of long-term observational weather data and weather stations in the region. “Unfortunately, extreme weather is not well understood in northern South America,” Paola A. Arias, a professor at the University of Antioquia, said in a statement. “We urgently need more investment in climate science to understand shifting risks and prepare for what’s ahead. More science will save lives." Zachariah said Colombia and Venezuela must prepare for both rainfall and drought, and build resilience to extreme weather. Banner image: People look at their destroyed home after a deadly landslide was triggered by heavy rain in Colombia’s Antioquia department on June 25, 2025. Image by AP Photo/Fredy Amariles.

Deadly landslide and flooding in Colombia and Venezuela linked to rapid urbanization

Kristine Sabillo 18 Jul 2025
Ly Chandaravuth, Mother Nature Cambodia activist. Image © Andy Ball.

The price of protecting what’s left in Cambodia

Rhett Ayers Butler 18 Jul 2025
Banner image: (L-R) the eastern kultarr (image by Pat Woolley), the gibber kultarr and the long-eared kultarr (images by Ken Johnson).

Small Australian carnivorous marsupial reclassified as 3 species: Study

Kristine Sabillo 17 Jul 2025
Cnemaspis nilgala is a gecko that is found only in the rocky outcrop of Nilgala and is named after this unique habitat. Image courtesy of Suranjan Karunarathne.

Sri Lanka grants protection to a rare ecosystem

Rhett Ayers Butler 17 Jul 2025
A snow leopard by Ismail Shariff/Snow Leopard Trust via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 3.0).

Study finds two-thirds of India’s snow leopards are in Ladakh region

Mongabay.com 17 Jul 2025
Yunhua Lin, left, at the court in Malawi in 2021. Image courtesy of EIA.

‘Shock and alarm’ as Malawi pardons wildlife trafficker Lin Yunhua

Madalitso Wills Kateta 16 Jul 2025
Marlyse hiking in the heart of the Lobéké National Park, south-east Cameroon. Image by Yannick Kenné for Mongabay.

How one woman rose from porter to conservation leader

Rhett Ayers Butler 16 Jul 2025
A Eurasian otter captured by a camera trap in Tangkulap Forest Reserve in Sabah. Image courtesy of Sabah Forestry Department/Sabah Wildlife Department/Panthera.

‘Hopeful sign’ as Eurasian otter reappears in Malaysia after a decade

Spoorthy Raman 15 Jul 2025

Scientists turn plastic waste into pain medicine

Bobby Bascomb 14 Jul 2025
Harapan rainforest canopy in Jambi, Sumatra, Indonesia, by Rhett A. Butler/Mongabay.

What’s holding back natural climate solutions?

Rhett Ayers Butler 14 Jul 2025
Banner image of a honeybee farm by Nelynnnnn via Wikimedia Commons (CCO 1.0).

As exotic pet demands rise, invertebrates need trade protections too: Study

Kristine Sabillo 11 Jul 2025
Purple and gray Wellington’s solitary corals. Image courtesy of Inti Keith/Charles Darwin Foundation.

Coral once feared extinct rediscovered in the Galápagos after 25 years

Shanna Hanbury 11 Jul 2025
Brazil is focused on creating a navigable channel along the 43 km Pedral do Lourenção — rock formations in the Tocantins River. Image courtesy of Antonio Cavalcante/Ascom Setran-PA.

Brazil court halts plan to blast 35-km river rock formation hosting endangered species

Shanna Hanbury 10 Jul 2025
The Geoffroy's Tamarin can be found in the Darién rainforest. Image by Concep Arroyo via Pexels.

Inside Panama’s gamble to save the Darién

Rhett Ayers Butler 10 Jul 2025

Scientists describe three new frog species from Peruvian Andes

Kristine Sabillo 10 Jul 2025
Mamirauá and Amanã sustainable development reserves. Image by Daniel Marques via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0).

Community patrolling reduces crime numbers in the Amazon, study shows

Fernanda Biasoli 10 Jul 2025
Bulborox orchid

Bangladesh to save critically endangered orchids and trees

Mongabay.com 8 Jul 2025
Patchwork of cassava fields, regenerating secondary forest, and natural forest in the Amazon. Image by Rhett A. Butler/Mongabay.

Young secondary forests may be the planet’s most overlooked carbon sink

Rhett Ayers Butler 8 Jul 2025
Banner image of a flare stack by Yerevan Malarerva via Pexels.

UN rapporteur calls for ban on fossil fuel ads and criminalizing of disinformation

Kristine Sabillo 7 Jul 2025
A community member catching fish in the Fluvial Star of Inírida, where the Guaviare, Atabapo and Inírida rivers meet. Image courtesy of Camilo Díaz for WWF Colombia.

The guardians of the Amazon who work without pay — or fear

Rhett Ayers Butler 7 Jul 2025
A young oil palm plantation in Sierra Leone next to community land. Image courtesy of Maja Hitij.

Two-year investigation confirms majority of community grievances in Socfin plantations

Victoria Schneider 7 Jul 2025
A hunter in Nagaland with a gun and barking deer. Image courtesy of Satem Longchar.

Traditional hunting shifts with access to cheap guns in India’s Nagaland: Study

Shradha Triveni 4 Jul 2025
Red-crowned roofed turtles released into the river have been tagged with transmitters to monitor their safety and migration. Image courtesy of Turtle Survival Alliance Foundation India.

Tracking the return of critically endangered turtles in India’s Ganga River

Mongabay.com 3 Jul 2025

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Phillip “Bibido” McCarthy. Image courtesy of ABC Kimberley/Dunja Karagic.
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Sunrise over the Amazon rainforest. Photo by Rhett A. Butler.
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