Finding hope in ‘extreme conservation’ (Insider)
VIRUNGA NATIONAL PARK, Democratic Republic of Congo — Seven meters. It’s one of the first instructions you get from the guides at Virunga National Park, nestled against the eastern border…
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.
Malaria surges in deforested parts of the Amazon, study finds
Tropical deforestation may spur the transmission of malaria at levels much higher than once thought, according to a recent study. Disease ecologist Andrew MacDonald and his Stanford University colleague Erin…
Study finds massive reorganization of life across Earth’s ecosystems
Life is reshuffling itself at an unsettling clip across Earth’s surface and in its oceans, a new study has found. The research, published Oct. 18 in the journal Science, drills…
$65 million deal to protect Congo’s forests raises concerns
On Sept. 3, the Republic of Congo secured a stream of funding aimed at protecting forests and peatlands. The signatures of French President Emmanuel Macron and Congolese President Denis Sassou…
Study tracks first incursion of poachers into ‘pristine’ African forest
Elephant poachers are using logging roads to infiltrate some of the last remaining pristine forests in Central Africa, according to a study published in July. The study’s authors also revealed…
New app tracks down forest fires in Bolivia
A new app aimed at tracking forest fires in Bolivia could shake up the way authorities and firefighters battle fires, allowing them to pinpoint their locations more accurately and safely.…
In other news: Environmental stories from around the web, September 27, 2019
Tropical forests California has approved a scheme for companies to offset emissions by buying carbon credits aimed at stopping tropical deforestation (The San Francisco Chronicle). Leaders of many of the…
Wilderness cuts the risk of extinction for species in half
Plant and animal species living in wilderness areas are less likely to go extinct, a recent study has found. Defined as intact habitats that haven’t been affected by human use…
Notes from the road: 5 revelations from traveling the Pan Borneo Highway
KOTA KINABALU, Malaysia — In July, I traveled most of the length of the proposed Pan Borneo Highway route with the goal of trying to understand the aims, possibilities and…
Call for scientists to engage in environmental movements strikes chord
Cataloging the growing number of declining species or tracking the relentless rise of temperatures around the world today can make for some dark days for scientists in these areas of…
Pan Borneo Highway development endangers the Heart of Borneo
A planned highway network in the Malaysian state of Sabah on the island of Borneo threatens the forests protected as part of the Heart of Borneo agreement made with Indonesia…
REDD+ more competitive than critics believe, study finds
A global strategy aimed at stemming climate change-inducing carbon emissions from tropical forest loss would better accomplish its goals if implemented in the manner intended, according to recent research. The…
The end of the road: The future of the Pan Borneo Highway
This is the sixth article in our six-part series “Traveling the Pan Borneo Highway.” Read Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four and Part Five. KOTA BELUD, Malaysia — Road building is…
The Pan Borneo Highway on a collision course with elephants
This is the fifth article in our six-part series “Traveling the Pan Borneo Highway.” Read Part One, Part Two, Part Three and Part Four. KOTA KINABALU, Malaysia — In March 2019, the…
The Pan Borneo Highway could divide threatened wildlife populations
This is the fourth article in our six-part series “Traveling the Pan Borneo Highway.” Read Part One, Part Two and Part Three. BATU PUTEH, Malaysia — They call it the…
Aimed at linking communities, Malaysian highway may damage forests
This is the third article in our six-part series “Traveling the Pan Borneo Highway.” Read Part One and Part Two. KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — When Baru Bian was a boy,…
The Pan Borneo Highway brings wildlife threats to nat’l park doorstep
This is the second article in our six-part series “Traveling the Pan Borneo Highway.” Read Part One. TELOK SERABANG, Malaysia — At the westernmost tip of Borneo sits a dense…
Connecting an island: Traveling the Pan Borneo Highway
This is the first article in our six-part series “Traveling the Pan Borneo Highway.” MIRI, Malaysia — Tucked under the sweep of green that blankets parts of Malaysian Borneo is…
Forests and forest communities critical to climate change solutions
How we use the planet’s land, including forests, will make a huge difference in determining the path of climate change in the future, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate…
New roads in Papua New Guinea may cause ‘quantum leap’ in forest loss
Papua New Guinea hopes to nearly double the length of its road network by 2022, posing grave threats to more than 50 parks and biodiversity-rich areas, according to a new…
Congo government opens Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park to oil exploration
The government of the Republic of Congo has, according to its own maps, opened up new areas for oil exploration in sections of the world’s largest peatlands and Nouabalé-Ndoki National…
Altered fish communities persist long after reefs bleach, study finds
The bleaching of coral reefs could permanently change the composition of the fish communities that inhabit them, a new study has found. The research, published online June 18 in the…
New film details wrenching impact of illegal rhino horn trade on families
Communities around the world often pay a hidden toll in the global wildlife trade. Across its 17 minutes, Sides of a Horn, a new film released June 25, aims to…
Logging road construction has surged in the Congo Basin since 2003
The length of roads in Congo Basin logging concessions has doubled since 2003, according to new research, raising concerns about the impacts of these incursions into the world’s second-largest bank…
’Livestock revolution’ triggered decline in global pasture: Report
Globally, the land we use for pasture is contracting, according to a new report from the Breakthrough Institute, an environmental think tank based in Oakland, California. The technical know-how also…
Leopards get a $20m boost from Panthera pact with Saudi prince
Wild cat conservation group Panthera has signed an agreement with a member of the Saudi royal family to help protect leopards worldwide, especially perhaps the rarest subspecies in the world,…
Dam in Ethiopia has wiped out indigenous livelihoods, report finds
Scientists call it flood-retreat agriculture. As a swollen river blankets a dry plain and then recedes, it replenishes the thin soil with enough nutrients to sprout grass for cattle and…
Chinese banks risk supporting soy-related deforestation, report finds
The homegrown banks that back the flood of soy into China have with little knowledge of the deforestation their funding is potentially supporting, according to the nonprofit CDP, an international…
Interest in protecting environment up since Pope’s 2015 encyclical
Just before Pope Francis released Laudato Si’, an encyclical, or formal letter from the pope, on the environment, on May 24, 2015, global concern for the environment seemed to be…
Social media enables the illegal wildlife pet trade in Malaysia
It might seem harmless enough at first. The big eyes and the rambunctious, bounding play of the tiny cats and monkeys on your social media feed draw you in, and…
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
