Articles by John Cannon
John Cannon became a correspondent for Mongabay in 2014 and joined the site's team full time as a features writer in 2016. John's reporting has also appeared in New Scientist, Slate.com, Yale Environment 360, Pacific Standard, Science, 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 African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, Peru and Rwanda. He lives in California with his wife and their two cats, adopted when they lived in Gaza. Follow him on Bluesky.
10 noteworthy books on conservation and the environment from 2019
Deforestation for potential rubber plantation raises concerns in Papua New Guinea
Mountain gorilla census reveals further increase in numbers
Vanishing sea ice in the Arctic could shake up seabird migrations
Deforestation preceded fires in ‘massive’ area of Amazon in 2019
Healthy ecosystems, healthy humans: ‘One Health’ broadens its scope
Research points to low forensic capacity to tackle timber fraud in U.S.
Finding hope in ‘extreme conservation’ (Insider)
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
Special series
Forest Trackers
- Bolivia’s El Curichi Las Garzas protected area taken over by land-grabbers
- Authorities struggle to protect Bolivian national park from drug-fueled deforestation
- Poverty and plantations: Nigerian reserve struggles against the odds
- Logging, road construction continue to fuel forest loss in Papua New Guinea
Oceans
- Warming seas push India’s fishers into distant, and more dangerous, waters
- No protection from bottom trawling for seamount chain in northern Pacific
- Annual ocean conference raises $11.3b in pledges for marine conservation
- Caribbean startups are turning excess seaweed into an agroecology solution
Amazon Conservation
- Amid record-high fires across the Amazon, Brazil loses primary forests
- A web of front people conceals environmental offenders in the Amazon
- Brazil boosts protection of Amazon mangroves with new reserves in Pará state
- Cross-border Indigenous efforts in Peru & Brazil aim to protect isolated groups
Land rights and extractives
- Hyundai ends aluminum deal with Adaro Minerals following K-pop protest
- Brazil’s illegal gold trade takes a hammering, but persists underground
- Maluku bone collector unearths troubling consequence of coastal abrasion
- New FPIC guide designed to help protect Indigenous rights as mineral mining booms
Endangered Environmentalists
- Indonesian activists face jail over FB posts flagging damage to marine park
- Vietnamese environmentalist sentenced to 3 years in prison for tax evasion
- Son of slain Quilombola leader will still strive for community’s rights
- Video: Five Tembé Indigenous activists shot in Amazonian ‘palm oil war’
Indonesia's Forest Guardians
- Fenced in by Sulawesi national park, Indigenous women make forestry breakout
- In Borneo, the ‘Power of Mama’ fight Indonesia’s wildfires with all-woman crew
- 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
Conservation Effectiveness
- The conservation sector must communicate better (commentary)
- Thailand tries nature-based water management to adapt to climate change
- Forest restoration to boost biomass doesn’t have to sacrifice tree diversity
- How scientists and a community are bringing a Bornean river corridor back to life
Southeast Asian infrastructure
- Study: Indonesia’s new capital city threatens stable proboscis monkey population
- Indonesia’s new capital ‘won’t sacrifice the environment’: Q&A with Nusantara’s Myrna Asnawati Safitri
- Small farmers in limbo as Cambodia wavers on Tonle Sap conservation rules
- To build its ‘green’ capital city, Indonesia runs a road through a biodiverse forest