Layers of carbon: The Congo Basin peatlands and oil
This is the second article in our four-part series “The Congo Basin peatlands.” Read Part One, Part Three and Part Four. The announcement came in mid-2019: A pool of oil lay deep…
Articles by John Cannon
John is a staff features writer with Mongabay. Follow him on Twitter: @johnccannon.
John 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 the BBC as well as 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.
The ‘idea’: Uncovering the peatlands of the Congo Basin
This is the first article in our four-part series “The Congo Basin peatlands.” Read Part Two, Part Three and Part Four. The notion seemed straightforward: A massive swamp in the Congo Basin…
Allegations of displacement, violence beleaguer Kenyan conservancy NGO
A well-known conservation nonprofit in Kenya is embroiled in accusations that it uses a privatized and neocolonial conservancy model to deprive pastoral communities of their rights to use their lands,…
Details emerge around closed-door carbon deal in Malaysian Borneo
Update Feb. 10, 2022: Sabah's attorney general says the consent of Indigenous communities is required for this agreement to move forward. Read the update here. Leaders in the Malaysian state of…
Bornean communities locked into 2-million-hectare carbon deal they don’t know about
Update Feb. 10, 2022: Sabah's attorney general says the consent of Indigenous communities is required for this agreement to move forward. Read the update here. Leaders in Sabah, a Malaysian state…
Deforestation notches up along logging roads on PNG’s New Britain Island
The loss of forest in an island province in Papua New Guinea (PNG) surged in August, according to satellite data. The target of these forays is likely timber, at least…
Deforestation threatens tree kangaroo habitat in Papua New Guinea
The forests of northwestern Papua New Guinea are home to a group of wide-eyed and reclusive marsupials known as tree kangaroos. As their name suggests, they spend a lot of…
Inland mangroves reveal a tumultuous climatic past — and hint at our future
Exequiel Ezcurra was dubious when he first heard about the possibility of mangroves on the San Pedro Mártir River in southern Mexico from Carlos Burelo-Ramos, a botanist at Mexico’s University…
Will ‘ropeless’ fishing gear be seaworthy in time to save endangered whales?
The report came in from naturalists aboard a whale-watching boat: A 4-year-old whale calf was entangled in fishing rope. He appeared thin, and lesions mottled his body. A few days…
Humans’ role in climate warming ‘unequivocal,’ IPCC report shows
The greenhouse gases humans have released into the atmosphere over the past 100 to 150 years, mostly in the form of carbon dioxide, have led to a 1.1° Celsius (2°…
Road construction imperils tree kangaroo recovery in PNG
As recently as 1980, hunters in the forests of the Torricelli Mountains of northwestern Papua New Guinea could count on bagging at least a couple of tree kangaroos in a…
Scientists call for solving climate and biodiversity crises together
The push to halt climate change too often neglects the interconnected issue of biodiversity loss, according to a recent report from a panel of scientists with the United Nations. “What…
Science refutes United Cacao’s claim it didn’t deforest Peruvian Amazon
The satellite’s eye view from high above northern Peru in mid-2013 laid out a stark reality: Ecologist Matt Finer and his colleagues were watching “blow by blow” in a series of…
Protected areas now cover nearly 17% of Earth’s surface: U.N. report
The area of protected land on Earth has increased to seven times the size of India since 2010, according to a report released May 19 by the United Nations Environmental…
Saving our ‘Beloved Beasts’: Q&A with environmental journalist Michelle Nijhuis
For more than 50 years, Earth Day has been a celebration of protecting the planet and the array of life, including us, that it supports. Though that common goal seems…
‘Opening the lid’ on toilet innovation: Q&A with author Chelsea Wald
Toilets: They’re not any easy subject to discuss. Even though eliminating waste from our bodies is an essential function we all must do, talking about how we deal with that…
Nearly half the Amazon’s intact forest on Indigenous-held lands: Report
A new report reveals that investing in securing the land rights of Indigenous and tribal communities across Latin America and the Caribbean could cut carbon dioxide emissions at low costs…
Pension and endowment funds linked to conflict-plagued oil palm in DRC
Well-known investment funds in the U.S., Europe and South Africa are financing a set of oil palm plantations that have been at the center of more than a century of…
Pig nest-building promotes tree diversity in tropical forest: Study
Wild pigs have reputation as a destructive lot. Farmers and scientists alike know that, when they’re too numerous, their constant rooting and wallowing can run roughshod over crops and regenerating…
Forest patches amid agriculture are key to orangutan survival: Study
Over the past two decades, orangutan researcher Marc Ancrenaz watched as a tidal wave of oil palm has engulfed his once-forested research sites in northern Borneo. When he would find…
U.N. report lays out blueprint to end ‘suicidal war on nature’
The world’s leaders, private companies and individuals must take a coordinated approach to address three environmental calamities facing the Earth at this moment, according to a report released Feb. 18…
Indigenous community wins recognition of its land rights in Panama
The Naso Tjër Di people of Panama now have a protected territory of their own. The creation of the 1,600-square-kilometer (620-square-mile) comarca, as it’s called in Panama, came as a…
Southeast Asian wild pigs confront deadly African swine fever epidemic
Since the 2018 emergence of African swine fever in China, the viral disease has torn through Asia, leaving behind a trail of economic devastation. It’s witheringly fatal to pigs but…
Seven financial firms key to rooting out deforestation, report finds
Exchange-traded funds, or ETFs, have swept through the financial world, building to a collective worth of $6.7 trillion by the second half of 2020. An ETF is a sort of…
Timber organization’s backing ‘one step’ toward ‘peace park’ in Borneo
An intergovernmental organization representing countries that produce the bulk of the world’s timber has thrown its support behind a decade-long effort to protect the last remaining primary forest in the…
Protesters hold back military takeover of Balkans’ largest mountain pasture
Mileva "Gara" Jovanović's family has been taking cattle up to graze in Montenegro’s Sinjajevina Highlands for more than 140 summers. The mountain pastures of the Sinjajevina-Durmitor Massif are the largest…
11 notable books on conservation and the environment published in 2020
Books have provided a welcome refuge in 2020. The global pandemic has, in many cases, turned even routine travel into a risk not worth taking, and it has left many…
Soy moratorium averted New Jersey-size loss of Amazon rainforest: Study
The advent of the Amazon soy moratorium in 2006 seemed to usher in a new era of hope for ending deforestation for food production in the world’s largest rainforest. From…
Hope and peace: Bison return to the Rosebud reservation
The bison circled four times around the holding pen, before the lead animals took them into the 3,400-hectare (8,500-acre) pasture, their new home on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in the…
The promise of ‘bird-friendly’ cities: Q&A with author Timothy Beatley
Tim Beatley will humbly tell you that he’s not a birder. But in his new book, there are enough appearances by obscure members of the class Aves to suggest that…
Special series
Forest Trackers
- Mennonite colonies linked to deforestation of Indigenous territories and protected areas in Paraguay
- Deforestation on the rise in Quintana Roo, Mexico, as Mennonite communities move in
- Logged and loaded: Cambodian prison official suspected in massive legalized logging operation
- Bolivian national park hit hard by forest fires in 2022, satellite data show
Oceans
- As oceans warm, temperate reef species edge closer to extinction, study shows
- Can we control marine invaders by eating them?
- Sea level rise looms, even for the best-prepared country on Earth
- Fishy business of squid vessels needs stronger regulation, study says
Amazon Conservation
- Tropical forest regeneration offsets 26% of carbon emissions from deforestation
- Plan to mine ‘clean energy’ metals in Colombian Amazon splits communities
- Peru congress debates stripping isolated Indigenous people of land and protections
- Make it local: Deforestation link to less Amazon rainfall tips activism shift
Land rights and extractives
- Plan to mine ‘clean energy’ metals in Colombian Amazon splits communities
- Peru congress debates stripping isolated Indigenous people of land and protections
- Brazil tackles illegal miners, but finds their mercury legacy harder to erase
- Lula government scrambles to overcome Yanomami crisis, but hurdles remain
Endangered Environmentalists
- ‘You don’t kill people to protect forests’: New Thai parks chief raises alarm
- Vietnam’s environmental NGOs face uncertain status, shrinking civic space
- ‘We lost the biggest ally’: Nelly Marubo on her friend Bruno Pereira’s legacy
- Murders of 2 Pataxó leaders prompt Ministry of Indigenous Peoples to launch crisis office
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
- For key Bangladesh wetland, bid for Ramsar status is no guarantee of protection
- Biodiversity, human rights safeguards crucial to nature-based solutions: Critics
- Protecting canids from planet-wide threats offers ecological opportunities
- Mangrove forest loss is slowing toward a halt, new report shows
Southeast Asian infrastructure
- As Indonesia’s new capital takes shape, risks to wider Borneo come into focus
- Tunnel collapse at dam project in orangutan habitat claims yet another life
- Sulawesi nickel plant coats nearby homes in toxic dust
- Indonesia’s grand EV plans hinge on a ‘green’ industrial park that likely isn’t
