Even without human-driven deforestation, climate change threatens some forests
When it comes to climate solutions, trees are in vogue right now. From the Trillion Tree Campaign to the stream of vigorous — if somewhat vague — promises made at…
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.
As Europe eyes Africa’s gas reserves, environmentalists sound the alarm
It was a victory for African climate campaigners and their allies in Europe and the United States: a group of powerful countries and institutions including the U.S., Canada and the…
Did Wall Street play a role in this year’s wheat price crisis?
War, supply chain breakdowns, and climate change-driven weather disasters are pushing wheat prices up and increasing the threat of global hunger. Some analysts say financial speculation is making things worse.
Inside Sierra Leone’s Tacugama Chimpanzee Sanctuary (video)
In the 1970s, there were around 20,000 critically endangered western chimpanzees in Sierra Leone. But by 2008, when the most recent census was carried out, there were only around 5,500…
Report clears Kenyan conservancy of community abuse, but advocates cry foul
A report accusing Kenya-based conservation group the Northern Rangelands Trust (NRT) of involvement in extrajudicial killings of pastoralists was rejected on June 9 in an independent review commissioned by the…
In the DRC’s forests, a tug-of-war between oil and aid
It was a banner moment at COP26, one of the climate summit’s headline achievements. On stage, U.K. Prime Minister Boris Johnson sat with President Félix Tshisekedi of the Democratic Republic…
In Sierra Leone, local fishers and foreign trawlers battle for their catch
FREETOWN, Sierra Leone — As dawn breaks, the fishing wharf at Tamba Kula in Freetown buzzes with the movement of early-morning commerce. Fishers just back from days spent far out…
More than half of activists killed in 2021 were land, environment defenders
At least 358 human rights defenders were killed in 2021, according to an analysis by Front Line Defenders (FLD) and the international consortium Human Rights Defenders Memorial. Of the total,…
In Benin, the line between conservation and counterinsurgency blurs
In early February, wildlife rangers in the remote northern forests of West Africa’s Republic of Benin became some of the most recent victims of the Sahel’s long-running Islamist insurgency when…
New law would tie U.S. conservation funding to human rights protection
Lawmakers from the U.S. House of Representatives have introduced a bill that, if passed, would require human rights safeguards to be embedded in Department of Interior grants given to conservation…
In West and Central Africa, palm oil investors buckle under community pressure
When commodity prices spiked in the late 2000s, multinational agribusiness giants smelled profits. Eager to branch out of crowded Southeast Asian rainforests, some palm oil companies set their sights on…
Gates Foundation among investors backing troubled DRC palm plantation
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation along with a number of prominent U.S. university endowments are among the top investors in a troubled set of oil palm plantations in the…
Links between terrorism and the ivory trade overblown, study says
“The white gold of jihad.” “Case proven: ivory trafficking funds terrorism.” “How killing elephants finances terror in Africa.” Just a few years ago, headlines like this were commonplace, as conservation…
At a plantation in Central Africa, Big Oil tries to go net-zero
After a disappointing track record over the past two decades, carbon credit markets are back in style. Also known as “offsets,” carbon credits are having a renewed moment, as corporations…
Mongabay’s coverage of palm oil in 2021
If 2021 was the year when global supply chains began to creak and groan under the weight of the COVID-19 pandemic, palm oil proved to be no exception. Partially due…
European supermarkets say Brazilian beef is off the menu
A group of supermarket chains that includes Sainsbury’s in the U.K. and Lidl in the Netherlands said this week that they will either reduce or outright halt sales of Brazilian…
Off West Africa’s coast, a sea of oil spills goes unreported
When BP’s Deepwater Horizon offshore oil rig flooded the Gulf of Mexico with 4 million barrels of oil in 2010, the catastrophe was headline news across the world for months.…
At a ‘certified’ palm oil plantation in Nigeria, soldiers and conflict over land
When the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) was created by a coalition of industry giants, retailers, banks, and NGOs in 2004, it was supposed to be the catalyst for…
Behind grand declarations at COP26, a long track record of failure
World leaders with furrowed brows gathering under the glare of TV lights. Dire warnings that time is running out to solve the climate and biodiversity crises. Proclamations that bold action…
What makes a ‘refugee’? It could be a life-or-death question in the climate crisis
In late 2020, a succession of violent storms slammed into Central America during the worst Atlantic hurricane season on record. The effects were devastating. Flooding and mudslides caused billions of…
Plantation giant Socfin accused of dodging taxes in Africa
By the OECD’s estimates, every year countries in Africa are cheated out of more than $50 billion in taxes, mainly by multinational corporations that run mines, oil wells, and plantations…
In Guinea, an illegal $6b gold ‘bonanza’ threatens endangered chimpanzees
On July 19, Australian mining firm Predictive Discovery posted a breathless press release on its website. “Bonanza”-grade gold had been discovered at its Bankan exploration site in a remote part…
Advocates call for a new human rights-based approach to conservation
This week delegates to the long-delayed global biodiversity summit began the opening round of negotiations over a new international framework meant to address the world’s biodiversity crisis. Originally intended to…
Children born in 2020 will see spike in climate disasters, study says
In a world wracked by wildfires, deadly storms, and the now too-familiar drumbeat of dire climate warnings, statistical descriptions of the future humanity faces can seem at once too sterile…
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.
An environmental ‘catastrophe’ in Southern Africa lingers with few answers
What happens when an environmental catastrophe takes place in an isolated area at the periphery of the world’s attention? The last six weeks in the Democratic Republic of Congo and…
Lockdowns didn’t stop 2020 being deadliest year yet for earth defenders
Despite COVID-19 restrictions and lockdowns, 2020 set a new record for the deadliest year for land and environmental defenders, Global Witness said Sept. 13. It’s the second year in a…
As tourists flood a Tanzanian park, the Maasai say they’re being pushed out
Every year, hundreds of thousands of tourists flock to the Ngorongoro Conservation Area (NCA) in northern Tanzania. Widely considered to be one of the most spectacular landscapes on the planet,…
‘Global Indigenous Agenda’ for land rights, conservation launched at IUCN congress
MARSEILLE, France — Indigenous delegates to this year’s global conservation congress have launched a “Global Indigenous Agenda” for conservation, calling for approaches to the biodiversity crisis that center land rights…
As COP15 approaches, ’30 by 30’ becomes a conservation battleground
The statistics paint a grim picture: Accelerating species losses, 10 million hectares (25 million acres) of forest destroyed every year, apocalyptic declines in the abundance of some wildlife. The planet…
Special series
Forest Trackers
- New oil refinery ‘a huge disaster’ for Nigerian forest reserve
- The Western Indian Ocean lost 4% of its mangroves in 24 years, report finds
- Poverty-fueled deforestation threatens Kenya’s largest water catchment
- Niger Delta mangroves in ‘grave danger’ from oil spills, poverty, invasive species
Oceans
- Indonesia’s sustainable fisheries push sails into storm in Java Sea
- Java fishers struggle with seine net ban amid rising costs, falling profits
- Agulhas Current enigma: An oceanic gap in our climate understanding
- U.S. charts course for adopting ropeless fishing to reduce whale deaths
Amazon Conservation
- In the Amazon, Bolsonaro’s far right may retain power even if Lula wins
- How close is the Amazon tipping point? Forest loss in the east changes the equation
- More droughts are coming, and the Amazon can’t keep up: Study
- European bill passes to ban imports of deforestation-linked commodities
Land rights and extractives
- Activists welcome decision to revoke permit for controversial Philippine gold mine
- Can Two New Bills Reshape Indigenous Rights and Illegal Gold Mining in Suriname?
- Venezuelan Amazon deforestation expands due to lawlessness, mining, fires: Reports
- Brazil miner sees Indigenous land as ripe for exploration if protections expire
Endangered Environmentalists
- Worries and whispers in Vietnam’s NGO community after activist’s sentencing
- Scientists call for end to violence against Amazon communities, environmental defenders
- Indigenous advocates sense a legal landmark as a guardian’s killing heads to trial
- In Brazil, an Indigenous land defender’s unsolved killing is the deadly norm
Indonesia's Forest Guardians
- Pioneer agroforester Ermi, 73, rolls back the years in Indonesia’s Gorontalo
- After 20 years and thousands of trees planted, Kalimantan’s veteran forester persists
- Aziil Anwar, Indonesian coral-based mangrove grower, dies at 64
- A utopia of clean air and wet peat amid Sumatra’s forest fire ‘hell’
Conservation Effectiveness
- ‘South Asia needs its own tiger plan’: Q&A with Nepal’s Maheshwar Dhakal
- Nepal was supposed to double its tiger population since 2010. It tripled it
- In prioritizing conservation, animal culture should be a factor, study says
- Young forests can help heal tropical aquatic ecosystems: Study
Southeast Asian infrastructure
- Java communities rally as clock ticks on cleanup of ‘world’s dirtiest river’
- ‘Cursed’ dam project in orangutan habitat claims 16th life in less than 2 years
- In Laos, a ‘very dangerous dam’ threatens an ancient world heritage site
- Bali’s new highway project sparks concerns about agriculture and conservation areas
