Boom and bust on Lake Victoria: Q&A with author Mark Weston
It might be surprising to learn that, in a lake as large as Victoria, a single fish could shape so much of East Africa’s history, culture and, now, an uncertain…
Articles by John Cannon
John is a staff features writer with Mongabay. He became a correspondent for Mongabay in 2014 and joined the site's team full time in October 2016. John's journalistic work has also appeared in New Scientist, Slate.com, Yale Environment 360, Pacific Standard, Science (online), Business Insider and Bicycle Times. John has been a guest on NPR's All Things Considered and Living on Earth, and he has also had several short stories published in literary magazines. He studied biology as an undergraduate at the Ohio State University and has a graduate degree in science writing from UC Santa Cruz. Always eager to find local perspectives on globally relevant stories, John has reported from Brunei, Cameroon, Central Africa Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, Peru and Rwanda. He currently lives in Afghanistan with his wife and their two cats. Follow him on Twitter: @johnccannon.
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Special series
Forest Trackers
- Pasture replaces large tract of intact primary forest in Brazilian protected area
- Deforestation on the rise as poverty soars in Nigeria
- Refuge of endangered ‘African unicorn’ threatened by mining, poaching, deforestation
- Endangered chimps ‘on the brink’ as Nigerian reserve is razed for agriculture, timber
Oceans
- Indonesia cancels fisheries infrastructure projects in Maluku region amid lack of funds
- Murky provenance of a Chinese fleet clouds Madagascar shrimp fishery
- What’s popping? Humpbacks off South Africa, new acoustic study finds
- Fisher groups are the marine militia in Indonesia’s war on illegal fishing
Amazon Conservation
- Pasture replaces large tract of intact primary forest in Brazilian protected area
- Ecuador’s Pastaza province, Indigenous groups collaborate on forest conservation
- ‘Giving up’: Amazon is losing its resilience under human pressure, study shows
- Pharmaceutical water pollution detected deep in the Brazilian Amazon
Land rights and extractives
- Thai gold mine blamed for sickening local villagers is set to reopen
- “Indigenous people are fighting to protect a natural equilibrium”: Q&A with Patricia Gualinga
- Analysis: Myanmar’s gemstone riches bring poverty and environmental destruction
- Forest loss shows stopgap decrees failing to protect Brazil’s isolated Indigenous
Endangered Environmentalists
- Citizen participation: a key achievement at the first COP to the Escazú Agreement
- “We are on the front line”: Q&A with Indigenous land defender Adiela Jineth Mera Paz
- Death threats and friction with military force Guatemalan rangers to flee
- Amazon mining threatens dozens of uncontacted Indigenous groups, study shows
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
- In prioritizing conservation, animal culture should be a factor, study says
- Young forests can help heal tropical aquatic ecosystems: Study
- How sharing and learning from failures can transform conservation (commentary)
- Is planting trees as good for the Earth as everyone says?
Southeast Asian infrastructure
- In Laos, a ‘very dangerous dam’ threatens an ancient world heritage site
- Bali’s new highway project sparks concerns about agriculture and conservation areas
- Deforestation notches up along logging roads on PNG’s New Britain Island
- Plantations and roads strip away Papua’s forests. They’re just getting started
