
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

Study finds massive reorganization of life across Earth’s ecosystems

$65 million deal to protect Congo’s forests raises concerns

Study tracks first incursion of poachers into ‘pristine’ African forest

New app tracks down forest fires in Bolivia

In other news: Environmental stories from around the web, September 27, 2019

Wilderness cuts the risk of extinction for species in half

Notes from the road: 5 revelations from traveling the Pan Borneo Highway

Call for scientists to engage in environmental movements strikes chord

Pan Borneo Highway development endangers the Heart of Borneo

REDD+ more competitive than critics believe, study finds

The end of the road: The future of the Pan Borneo Highway

The Pan Borneo Highway on a collision course with elephants

The Pan Borneo Highway could divide threatened wildlife populations

Aimed at linking communities, Malaysian highway may damage forests

The Pan Borneo Highway brings wildlife threats to nat’l park doorstep

Connecting an island: Traveling the Pan Borneo Highway

Forests and forest communities critical to climate change solutions

New roads in Papua New Guinea may cause ‘quantum leap’ in forest loss

Congo government opens Nouabalé-Ndoki National Park to oil exploration

Altered fish communities persist long after reefs bleach, study finds

New film details wrenching impact of illegal rhino horn trade on families

Logging road construction has surged in the Congo Basin since 2003

’Livestock revolution’ triggered decline in global pasture: Report

Leopards get a $20m boost from Panthera pact with Saudi prince

Dam in Ethiopia has wiped out indigenous livelihoods, report finds

Chinese banks risk supporting soy-related deforestation, report finds

Interest in protecting environment up since Pope’s 2015 encyclical

Social media enables the illegal wildlife pet trade in Malaysia
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
