The best news of 2020? Humanity may never hit the 10 billion mark
While watching 2020 unfold has been like watching someone set themself on fire with a bucket of bacon grease and a firecracker, one morning I stumbled on something that made…
Articles by Jeremy Hance
Jeremy Hance is a senior correspondent for Mongabay as well as being a blogger for the Guardian and a freelance journalist. He started his journalism career with Mongabay in 2009 and served as an editor on the site for six years. He's the author of "Baggage: Confessions of a Globe-Trotting Hypochondriac," and in 2010, Mongabay published a book of his articles entitled "Life is Good: Conservation in an Age of Mass Extinction." He lives in St. Paul, Minnesota with his wife, his daughter, his miniature schnauzer and lots and lots of books.
How do we save charisma-challenged species? Start with a story
This is part 2 of a series written by Mongabay columnist Jeremy Hance. Part 1 is here. Let’s be honest: you’ve probably never heard of the Colombian dwarf gecko…
Why are some endangered species ignored?
This is part 1 of a series written by Mongabay columnist Jeremy Hance. Part 2 is here. Meet the Tanzanian gremlin. Shhhhhh … though. She’s shy. But check out…
‘Every tool in the box’ to save Sumatran rhinos: Q&A with Nina Fascione of IRF
Nina Fascione has taken on a big job. As the new head of the International Rhino Foundation (IRF), she’s become a powerful player overnight in the protection of the world’s…
Bold project hopes to DNA barcode every species in Costa Rica
Let’s be honest: many conservationists may start their careers with big ambitions. But as they, and their careers, age, those ambitions — especially in light of the Anthropocene — understandably…
Overworked, underpaid and lonely: Conservationists find a new community online
Last year, Jessie Panazzolo, like many young conservationists (and some middle-aged ones too), didn’t so much feel her career had stalled as that it had been cut out by the…
Killing gods: The last hope for the world’s rarest reptile
Eighty-eight-year-old Le Huy Hoanh stands up from his bench and carefully poured tea in rural Vietnam, and mimes for us how he used to kill gods. With his long spear…
Time is running out for Southeast Asia
On Nov. 23, the last Sumatran rhino (Dicerorhinus sumatrensis) in Malaysia died. Named Iman, she’d lived in captivity in the Malaysian state of Sabah in Borneo for just over five…
Scientists rediscover mammalian oddity in remote Vietnam
VIETNAM, July 2019 – I’m chasing a ghost, I think not for the first time, as night falls and I gather up my gear in a hotel in a village in…
How Laos lost its tigers
The last tiger in Lao PDR likely died in terrible anguish. Its foot caught in a snare, the animal probably died of dehydration. Or maybe, in a desperate bid to…
Why is Europe rewilding with water buffalo?
This post is part of Saving Life on Earth: Words on the Wild, a monthly column by Jeremy Hance, one of Mongabay’s original staff writers. At the end of…
The wolf of Bangladesh: A true story
For Muntasir Akash, it all started with a photo in a news report in early June. The photo showed a canine-like animal, beaten and dead, legs splayed, hanging from makeshift…
When it comes to captive breeding, not all Sumatran rhinos are equal
In November 2018, a small female Sumatran rhino plunged into a pit trap in Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of the island of Borneo. Pahu, as she came to be called,…
The ambitious plan to recover and rewild the feisty, dwarf cow
Don’t let appearances fool you. The animal pictured above — the dwarf cattle known as tamaraw (Bubalus mindorensis) from the island of Mindoro in the Philippines — may look cute;…
National parks: Serving humanity’s well-being as much as nature’s
This post is part of Saving Life on Earth: Words on the Wild, a monthly column by Jeremy Hance, one of Mongabay’s original staff writers. Imagine, for a moment,…
Mongabay investigative series helps confirm global insect decline
Near consensus found among 24 entomologists and scientists working on 6 continents: Insects are likely in serious global decline, but much more data needed.
The Great Insect Dying: How to save insects and ourselves
In the fourth and final story of this exclusive Mongabay series, entomologists around the world offer far ranging solutions to curb and reverse the great insect die-off.
The Great Insect Dying: The tropics in trouble and some hope
Tropical insects are wildly diverse, but most species are unstudied or unknown, even as they’re heavily impacted by deforestation, climate change and pesticides.
The Great Insect Dying: Vanishing act in Europe and North America
The insects of the EU and US are the best studied in the world, and it is here that a strengthening case can be made for an alarming insect abundance decline.
The Great Insect Dying: A global look at a deepening crisis
Recent surveys hint at an insect apocalypse. But are insects at risk globally? Mongabay talks with 24 scientists on 6 continents to find out in an exclusive new series.
Rare rhino’s death should light a fire under Indonesia (commentary)
On May 27, Monday morning, I woke to the news that Tam, the last male Sumatran rhino in Malaysia and the last known male Bornean rhino, had perished. As clichéd…
Less rainforest, less rain: A cautionary tale from Borneo
If you flew over the island of Borneo in 1950, you would see nearly unbroken, untouched forest from one end to the other. Of course, there would be villages and…
It’s Generation Climate (commentary)
On Friday March 15 — the Ides — tens-of-thousands of school-age kids around the world will go on strike from their education. It’s expected to be the biggest Friday Climate…
The view from the bottleneck: Is nature poised for a big comeback?
As an environmental journalist I’m bombarded every day with headlines like “The Insect Apocalypse is Here” or “Half of Global Wildlife Lost.” The end of nature, at least as previous…
Bringing the tapir back to Borneo
Forty thousand years ago — 28,000 years before the Neolithic Revolution saw hunter-gatherers settle down and farm, 36,000 before the first pyramids took shape, and 39,000 before the Norman conquest…
Jaw-dropping footage: conservationists catch Javan rhino in mud wallow
Twelve minutes. That’s all the time Robin Moore, photographer and communications director with Global Wildlife Conservation (GWC), and David Hermanjaya, a videographer with WWF, got to spend with one of…
Face-to-face with what may be the last of the world’s smallest rhino, the Bornean rhinoceros (insider)
Nothing can really prepare a person for coming face-to-face with what may be the last of a species. I had known for a week that I would be fortunate enough…
Wildlife’s greatest spectacle is critically endangered (insider)
If you could turn back the clock about 200 years, you could watch as millions of whales swam along their migration routes. Around 150 years ago, you could witness bison…
Why top predators matter (insider)
Few species have faced such vitriolic hatred from humans as the world's top predators. Considered by many as pests, often as dangerous, they have been gunned down, poisoned, speared, finned,…
Zoos: Why a revolution is necessary to justify them (insider)
Watching a Siberian tiger kill a gray squirrel for a half-hour proved to be one of my most enlightening experiences at a zoo. It was a weekday; I was alone,…
Special series
Forest trackers
- Solomon Islands environmental defender faces life sentence for arson charge
- Threatened species caught in crossfire of ongoing land conflict in Myanmar
- Under cover of COVID-19, loggers plunder Cambodian wildlife sanctuary
- Brazilian Amazon protected areas ‘in flames’ as land-grabbers invade
Oceans
- ‘Tamper with nature, and everyone suffers’: Q&A with ecologist Enric Sala
- New paper highlights spread of organized crime from global fisheries
- Study: Chinese ‘dark fleets’ illegally defying sanctions by fishing in North Korean waters
- Game changer? Antarctic ice melt related to tropical weather shifts: Study
Amazon conservation
- Fire burns Pantanal’s upland heart and threatens nature’s fragile balance
- Forest degradation outpaces deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon: Study
- Could disruptions in meat supply relieve pressure on the Amazon? (commentary)
- Brazil moves toward transfer of deforestation and fire monitoring to military
Endangered environmentalists
- Indonesian fishers opposed to dredging project hit by ‘criminalization’ bid
- Life as an Amazon activist: ‘I don’t want to be the next Dorothy Stang’
- In Philippines’ Palawan, top cop linked to assault on environmental officer
- Deaths, arrests and protests as Philippines re-emerges from lockdown
Indonesias forest 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
- Indigenous Iban community defends rainforests, but awaits lands rights recognition
Conservation effectiveness
- World’s protected areas lack connections, recent study finds
- Failure in conservation projects: Everyone experiences it, few record it
- On a wing and a prayer? Evidence for ways to conserve bats (commentary)
- Audio: The sounds of a rare New Zealand bird reintroduced to its native habitat
Southeast asian infrastructure
- Deforestation threatens to wipe out a primate melting pot in Indonesia
- Sumatran bridge project in elephant habitat may exacerbate degradation
- Paper giant APP’s Sumatran road project cuts through elephant habitat
- Study revealing New Guinea’s plant life ‘first step’ toward protection
