Flip-flops, fishing gear pile up at Aldabra, a UNESCO World Heritage Site
The Aldabra coral atoll is a place of mythical beauty, uninhabited and so lost to the world that chartered flights and boats are the only way to get there. But…
Articles by Malavika Vyawahare
Madagascar staff reporter, international news. Formerly science and environment reporter at Hindustan Times, India. Columbia Journalism School Alum. Words in The New York Times, The Guardian, Al Jazeera and Scientific American.
Tweets at @MalavikaVy
Global wildlife being decimated by human actions, WWF report warns
Wildlife populations around the world have shrunk by 68% on average in the past nearly 50 years, according to a new report from WWF and the Zoological Society of London. In that…
Mauritians take to the street over oil spill and dolphin and whale deaths
Thousands of people demonstrated in Mauritius on Aug. 29 over the government's handling of a recent ship grounding that spilled 1,000 tons oil in the seas around the island nation.…
Mauritius’s plan to dump part of wrecked ship sparks controversy
On the morning of Aug.15, a wrecked ship, longer than the Titanic, broke in two in Mauritian waters. The Japanese-owned bulk carrier, M.V. Wakashio, had rammed into the island nation's…
‘We are losing’: Q&A with The Orangutan Project’s Leif Cocks on saving the great ape
To some humans, the idea of treating an orangutan as a person is absurd. For Leif Cocks, spending billions of dollars to find life on Mars while living beings are…
Mauritius grapples with worst environmental crisis in a generation
Mauritius, envied the world over for its azure waters, alluring beaches and marine riches, is facing one of its worst environmental disasters after a ship ran aground on a coral…
Say hello to Madagascar’s newest mouse lemur, a pint-sized primate
When searching for mouse lemurs in Madagascar's forests, scientists seek out their gleaming eyes in the dark. Their eyes are large for an animal about the size of a fist…
World Bank-backed attempt to commercialize Madagascar’s beef industry falters
When Hans Peter Lankes, a top official at the International Finance Corporation, visited Madagascar in February, he made it a point to tour the IFC-backed BoViMa facility near the southern…
A fire and a firing: Double whammy for Madagascar environmental regulator
A fire tore through the office of Madagascar's top environmental agency on the night of July 15, eviscerating documents that lie at the heart of its work as a regulator.…
An export boom threatens to put Madagascar’s mud crabs in hot water
For crab fishers on the western coast of Madagascar, where incomes are less than a thirtieth of those in the U.S., the Lunar New Year brings some cheer. Demand spikes…
A third of Madagascar’s lemur species on the brink of extinction, IUCN warns
Human actions have pushed 13 more lemur species, the iconic primates native to Madagascar, to the brink of extinction, according to an update to the list of the world’s threatened…
In Madagascar’s dry forests, COVID-19 sparks an intense, early fire season
The barbed terrain forged by the tsingy topography in western Madagascar has, for millions of years, sheltered the dry forests that grow between the limestone spires. This year, even before the fire…
One-two punch of drought, pandemic hits Madagascar’s poor and its wildlife
With just over 1,200 cases and ten deaths, it may appear that Madagascar has been spared the ravages of the COVID-19 pandemic. But in the deep south of the country,…
Evidence that fish flourish in a community-managed marine area offers hope
Marine protected areas have expanded rapidly in the past decade. Even so, less than 8% of the world’s oceans are safeguarded by MPAs and only around one-third of that area…
As COVID-19 pandemic deepens, global wildlife treaty faces an identity crisis
The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, popularly known as CITES, is a rare animal: an international environmental treaty with teeth. It regulates the global trade in some of…
As visitors vanish, Madagascar’s protected areas suffer a ‘devastating’ blow
The COVID-19 crisis has wiped out half a billion dollars in expected tourism revenues for Madagascar since January, according to official estimates. For the megadiverse island nation, which struggles with…
COVID-19 will hurt Madagascar’s conservation funding: Q&A with Minister Vahinala Raharinirina
While the internet abounds with feel-good stories about how animals play while humans are locked away, there is growing concern that the COVID-19 crisis may be enfeebling conservation efforts across…
Madagascar’s president promotes unproven herbal cure for COVID-19
The president of Madagascar, Andry Rajoelina, on April 20 appeared to promote an unproven treatment for COVID-19. The remedy, named COVID-ORGANICS, is effective against the virus, Rajoelina said, speaking in…
How to prevent the next COVID-19? Conservationists weigh in
As the death toll and economic cost of the COVID-19 crisis mounts, calls are mounting to ban the trade in wild animals for human consumption, believed to have sparked the…
What one of the world’s most active volcanoes tells us about missing trees
LA RÉUNION —Giant tortoises and flying foxes once roamed La Réunion, a volcanic island off the eastern coast of Africa. Then humans arrived and decided to stay. Within 150 years…
Chinese ban on eating wild animals likely to become law: Q&A with WCS’s Aili Kang
Over four months after the first cases of COVID-19 surfaced in China, the world remains in the grip of the COVID-19 pandemic, with nearly 1.5 million confirmed cases and almost…
Seychelles extends protection to marine area twice the size of Great Britain
Seychelles, an archipelago in the Indian Ocean famous for its turquoise waters, giant tortoises and wondrous birds, has extended protection to 400,000 square kilometers (154,000 square miles) of its seas,…
National parks in Africa shutter over COVID-19 threat to great apes
Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo shut its doors to tourists this week in an attempt to protect its great apes from possibly being infected by the…
Three new species of chameleons emerge from centuries-old entanglement
For more than 180 years, several soft-nosed chameleons from Madagascar sat together in a single species complex (Calumma nasutum) until scientists decided to take a closer look. They disentangled the…
Madagascar off pace to meet Aichi targets, which is bad news for the world
The megadiverse island nation of Madagascar isn’t doing enough to meet the Aichi targets, which means the unique biodiversity of the world’s oldest island remains as imperiled as ever. The…
Marginalized voices from resource conflicts enter the mainstream via video
IABOAKOHO, Madagascar — The only light for many miles came from the glow of the makeshift screen as a cool July evening descended on the Iaboakoho commune. A generator whirred…
Raze here, save there: Do biodiversity offsets work for people or ecosystems?
ANTSOTSO, Madagascar — Moussa Evariste, 53, treads lightly on sinewy legs across fields of grass that were once forest. The terrain is sandy and prickly, punctuated by the relief of…
China beefs up wildlife trade ban as COVID-19 outbreak intensifies
China has banned the trade and consumption of wild animals in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak that has claimed more than 2,700 lives and infected more than 81,000 people,…
Illegal pangolin trade may have played a part in coronavirus outbreak
The death toll from the novel coronavirus outbreak, the disease now called COVID-19, crossed the 1,000 mark this week as confirmed cases surpassed 60,000, but it remains unclear how the…
Beaked whales’ stealth behavior gives clues to mystery of mass stranding
In March 2000, U.S. Navy destroyers were conducting routine training exercises in the Bahamas; they swept an underwater canyon with sonar at 265 decibels to uncover the locations of two…
Special series
Forest trackers
- Solomon Islands environmental defender faces life sentence for arson charge
- Threatened species caught in crossfire of ongoing land conflict in Myanmar
- Under cover of COVID-19, loggers plunder Cambodian wildlife sanctuary
- Brazilian Amazon protected areas ‘in flames’ as land-grabbers invade
Oceans
- ‘Tamper with nature, and everyone suffers’: Q&A with ecologist Enric Sala
- New paper highlights spread of organized crime from global fisheries
- Study: Chinese ‘dark fleets’ illegally defying sanctions by fishing in North Korean waters
- Game changer? Antarctic ice melt related to tropical weather shifts: Study
Amazon conservation
- Could disruptions in meat supply relieve pressure on the Amazon? (commentary)
- Brazil moves toward transfer of deforestation and fire monitoring to military
- As the Amazon burns, what happens to its biodiversity?
- Game changer: NASA data tool could revolutionize Amazon fire analysis
Endangered environmentalists
- Indonesian fishers opposed to dredging project hit by ‘criminalization’ bid
- Life as an Amazon activist: ‘I don’t want to be the next Dorothy Stang’
- In Philippines’ Palawan, top cop linked to assault on environmental officer
- Deaths, arrests and protests as Philippines re-emerges from lockdown
Indonesias forest 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
- Indigenous Iban community defends rainforests, but awaits lands rights recognition
Conservation effectiveness
- Failure in conservation projects: Everyone experiences it, few record it
- On a wing and a prayer? Evidence for ways to conserve bats (commentary)
- Audio: The sounds of a rare New Zealand bird reintroduced to its native habitat
- Eavesdrop on forest sounds to effectively monitor biodiversity, researchers say
Southeast asian infrastructure
- Paper giant APP’s Sumatran road project cuts through elephant habitat
- Study revealing New Guinea’s plant life ‘first step’ toward protection
- Indonesian case highlights potential for long-term harms of corruption
- Indonesia approves coal road project through forest that hosts tigers, elephants
