Nitrogen: The environmental crisis you haven’t heard of yet
Industrial agriculture feeds billions of people and created the modern world. But the nitrogen and phosphorus it’s fertilized with is putting the biosphere, and humanity, at risk.
Articles by Ashoka Mukpo
Ashoka Mukpo is a staff writer for Mongabay and freelance journalist with expertise in international development policy, human rights, and environmental issues. His work has been featured in Al-Jazeera, Vice News, and The Guardian, among others. Follow him on Twitter via @unkyoka.
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Special series
Forest Trackers
- The Pantanal is burning again. Will it be another devastating year?
- Deforestation sweeps national park in Brazil as land speculators advance
- Drug trafficking threatens Indigenous Shipibo communities in Peru
- Fires rage in Bolivia’s Chiquitania region
Oceans
- Nitrogen: The environmental crisis you haven’t heard of yet
- Sea turtles: Can these great marine migrators navigate rising human threats?
- Researchers express alarm as Arctic multiyear sea ice hits record low
- With coral cover halved, curbing climate change is only way to slow the loss
Amazon Conservation
- Amazon, meet Amazon: Tech giant rolls out rainforest carbon offset project
- Rich countries may be buying illegal gold that’s driving Amazon destruction
- New study offers latest proof that Brazilian Amazon is now a net CO2 source
- With their land on the line, Indigenous Brazilians gather for landmark ruling
Land rights and extractives
- ‘On the map’: App shines light on 5,000 ‘invisible’ families in Brazil’s Cerrado and beyond
- As illegal logging route in Peru nears Brazil, Indigenous groups warn of calamity
- Vale told Brazil communities they were in danger. They say Vale wants their land
- With their land on the line, Indigenous Brazilians gather for landmark ruling
Endangered Environmentalists
- The Kichwa woman fighting drug traffickers and loggers in the Peruvian Amazon
- Rights groups demand end to Cambodia’s persecution of green activists
- With Indigenous rights at stake in Brasília, a territory is attacked in Paraty
- Brazil’s Bolsonaro vowed to work with Indigenous people. Now he’s investigating them
Indonesia's Forest Guardians
- From Flores to Papua: Meet 10 of Indonesia’s mangrove guardians
- Why I stand for my tribe’s forest: It gives us food, culture, and life (commentary)
- Reforesting a village in Indonesia, one batch of gourmet beans at a time
- Restoring Sumatra’s Leuser Ecosystem, one small farm at a time
Conservation Effectiveness
- Is planting trees as good for the Earth as everyone says?
- ‘Bad science’: Planting frenzy misses the grasslands for the trees
- A Malagasy community wins global recognition for saving its lake
- Scientists in Costa Rica are growing new corals to save reefs
Southeast Asian infrastructure
- Plantations and roads strip away Papua’s forests. They’re just getting started
- Indonesian farmers refuse to budge for train line through karst landscape
- UNESCO calls for closure of road running through World Heritage park in Papua
- Indonesia’s Gorontalo road runs into forest, swerves environmental checks
