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Smoke rises from a coal-burning power plant. Refuse-derived fuel (RDF), which includes large amounts of plastics, is replacing fossil fuels in some energy and industrial furnaces. But critics say this practice is merely replacing one dirty fuel for another.

Boom in burning waste for fuel could put human health and environment at risk

Sean Mowbray 10 Dec 2025
A soy plantation borders native Cerrado vegetation, highlighting pressures on Brazil’s ecosystems and the need for community-led bioeconomy alternatives.

New financial tools boost traditional bioeconomy projects in the Amazon

Sarah Brown 8 Dec 2025
Cleared forest in the foreground, rainforest in the background in East Kalimantan on the island of Borneo in Indonesia. Photo by Rhett Ayers Butler.

Saving forests won’t be enough if fossil fuels beneath them are still extracted, experts warn

Hans Nicholas Jong 26 Nov 2025
Technicians in Zimbabwe inspect solar panels. Image © UNDP Zimbabwe.

What does the just energy transition mean for Africa?

John Cannon 10 Nov 2025
Coal truck

Rise in Chinese off-grid coal plants in Indonesia belies pledge to end fossil fuel support

Jeff Hutton 10 Nov 2025

Jailed Vietnamese civil society leader wins award, boosting calls for his release

Jenny Denton 1 Aug 2025
A forest gardener waters vegetables in his forest garden in Kaffrine, Senegal.

A forest garden project attempts to expand into the Sahel

Victoria Schneider 28 Jul 2025
A waste site near Mombasa, Kenya. Separating plastic waste from growing mountains of domestic trash is a huge hurdle facing the world’s communities.

Open burning of plastic is an escalating public health threat, say experts

Sean Mowbray 17 Jul 2025
Drought in Bangladesh.

Droughts are a ‘slow-moving global catastrophe,’ report finds

Liz Kimbrough 7 Jul 2025
Riding through a locust swarm in Lekiji, Samburu County, Kenya.

Agencies race to prevent new food crisis as locusts return to northern Africa

Stephanie Achieng’ 3 Jul 2025
Emmanuel Gona, a fisherman and community scout from Muyu wa Kae village in Marereni, believes that conserving and restoring mangrove ecosystems is key to boosting fish populations.

A Kenya marine biodiversity credit program restores mangroves — and livelihoods

Juliet Akoth Ojwang 1 Jul 2025
A member of the Indigenous Tikuna nation paddling a dugout canoe on a tributary of the Amazon in Colombia. Photo by Rhett A. Butler/Mongabay.

The cost of conservation without consent: Astrid Puentes on rights-based environmentalism

Rhett Ayers Butler 30 Jun 2025
Tyler Kartzinel’s research highlighted the gaps in DNA reference databases in tropical biodiversity hotspots.

DNA sequencing to meet global biodiversity goals: Interview with Tyler Kartzinel

Abhishyant Kidangoor 25 Jun 2025
Striped barracuda in Papua New Guinea.

PNG PM Marape rejects deep-sea mining even as provincial authorities try to revive project

Elizabeth Claire Alberts, John Cannon 16 Jun 2025

UN accuses Indonesia’s No. 2 palm oil firm of rights & environmental abuses

Hans Nicholas Jong 3 Mar 2025
Congolese troops in the eastern DRC during fighting with M23 in 2013. Image © MONUSCO/Clara Padovan via Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0).

The key factors fueling conflict in eastern DRC

John Cannon 14 Feb 2025
River in the Kosnipata valley, Peru. Photo by Rhett A. Butler

Why is a landscape approach needed for funding the global environmental agenda? (commentary)

Aida Greenbury, Robert Nasi 26 Nov 2024
A Borneo elephant (Elephas maximus borneensis) in the Kinabatangan River

UN probes controversial forest carbon agreement in Malaysian Borneo

John Cannon 18 Mar 2024
Attendees from Brazil pose during the UN Climate Change Conference COP28 at Expo City Dubai on December 5, 2023, in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. Image by COP28 / Mahmoud Khaled via Flickr (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0 Deed).

Little achieved for Indigenous groups at U.N. climate summit, delegates say

Dimitri Selibas 19 Dec 2023

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