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	<channel>
		<title>Conservation news</title>
		<atom:link href="https://news.mongabay.com/feed/?byline=caleb-obrien&#038;post_type=post" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" />
		<link>https://news.mongabay.com/by/caleb-obrien/</link>
		<description>Environmental science and conservation news</description>
		<lastBuildDate>Wed, 20 May 2026 06:03:44 +0000</lastBuildDate>
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	<url>https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2020/05/16160320/cropped-mongabay_icon-32x32.png</url>
	<title>Caleb O&#039;Brien Archives</title>
	<link>https://news.mongabay.com/by/caleb-obrien/</link>
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				<item>
					<title>In Malaysia, a bridge helps endangered langurs and humans coexist</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/custom-story/2026/05/in-malaysia-a-bridge-helps-endangered-langurs-and-humans-coexist/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/custom-story/2026/05/in-malaysia-a-bridge-helps-endangered-langurs-and-humans-coexist/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>20 May 2026 03:46:48 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Isabelle LeongPhilip Jacobson]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Isabel Esterman]]>
					</author>
															<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/05/19093450/A7KH3XT-langur-crosses-bridge-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?post_type=custom-story&#038;p=319692</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Malaysia, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Community-based Conservation, Conservation, Conservation Solutions, Deforestation, Development, Endangered Species, Environment, Featured, Forestry, Forests, Happy-upbeat Environmental, Human-wildlife Conflict, Innovation In Conservation, Mammals, Monkeys, Primates, Rainforests, urban ecology, Urban Planning, Urbanization, Wildlife, and Wildlife Corridors]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[In Malaysia’s Penang state, conservationists and residents are collaborating to reduce conflict between humans and endangered dusky langurs displaced by urban development and habitat loss. The Langur Project Penang built a canopy bridge to help langurs safely cross a busy road and access more habitat, reducing time spent in residential areas and lowering complaints from [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[In Malaysia’s Penang state, conservationists and residents are collaborating to reduce conflict between humans and endangered dusky langurs displaced by urban development and habitat loss. The Langur Project Penang built a canopy bridge to help langurs safely cross a busy road and access more habitat, reducing time spent in residential areas and lowering complaints from residents. Malaysia’s wildlife agency receives thousands of wildlife complaints annually, and often responds with trapping, relocation or culling; but conservationists argue education and coexistence measures can be more sustainable responses to increasing human-wildlife encounters. The project’s success has depended heavily on local support and citizen scientists, with some residents gradually shifting from frustration toward compassion and acceptance of living alongside wildlife. TANJUNG BUNGAH, Malaysia — The 50-year-old mango tree growing through Tan Soo Siah’s second-story terrace is a favorite stopping place for the family of endangered monkeys that has taken up residence in a small park near his home in Malaysia’s Penang state. “Since everybody chases them away, I try to let them have a rest here,” says Tan, 64, who likes to watch the dusky langurs (Trachypithecus obscurus) from his bedroom window, peeking up at them playing in the foliage. Not everyone in Taman Concord, a residential community home mostly to retirees like Tan, is as taken with the langurs&nbsp;as he is. Around three years ago, the monkeys were inciting complaints from seniors who were fed up with langurs leaping across their houses, damaging their rooftops and denuding their gardens. Tan Soo Siah, a&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/custom-story/2026/05/in-malaysia-a-bridge-helps-endangered-langurs-and-humans-coexist/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
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										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/custom-story/2026/05/in-malaysia-a-bridge-helps-endangered-langurs-and-humans-coexist/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
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					<title>Smallholders are not the weak link in forest protection (commentary)</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/smallholders-are-not-the-weak-link-in-forest-protection-commentary/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/smallholders-are-not-the-weak-link-in-forest-protection-commentary/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>20 May 2026 02:24:04 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Aida Greenbury]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rhett Butler]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/05/20021450/kalbar_drone_190243-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=319771</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Borneo, Indonesia, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Commentary, Deforestation, Editorials, Environment, Forests, Green, Tropical Forests, and Zero Deforestation Commitments]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[In general, plantation companies view local communities and smallholders as obstacles to expanding operations and to securing social licenses. In deforestation-free supply chains, smallholders are also often treated as a risk. In my experience, this is one reason forest protection efforts fail: we don’t want to understand why smallholders are perceived as a risk. Yet [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[In general, plantation companies view local communities and smallholders as obstacles to expanding operations and to securing social licenses. In deforestation-free supply chains, smallholders are also often treated as a risk. In my experience, this is one reason forest protection efforts fail: we don’t want to understand why smallholders are perceived as a risk. Yet many of the people closest to the forest are also the ones with the strongest reason to keep it standing. That was not how I saw things at the start of my career. Years inside corporate sustainability changed my view, as did many difficult conversations with communities. Customary forest behind smallholders oil palm plantation in Sanggau, West Kalimantan. Photo by Aida Greenbury. People often asked me, “How did someone like you, a corporate slave, end up working for smallholders?” It’s a long story. I worked for corporations for many years. Some people might remember me as Managing Director of Sustainability at one of the largest integrated forestry, pulp and paper companies headquartered in Indonesia. A forest-based company of that size in Indonesia is frequently criticized for deforestation. More than a decade ago, before I left the company, that work led me to help develop the High Carbon Stock Approach (HCSA), a multistakeholder initiative to develop a deforestation-free methodology for extractive companies operating in humid tropical regions. With many existing deforestation standards unclear and rife with loopholes, adopting a clear, science-based deforestation-free methodology, supported by companies, NGOs, and other global stakeholders, was what I needed to&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/smallholders-are-not-the-weak-link-in-forest-protection-commentary/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
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					<title>An Australian icon, the platypus is struggling — and scientists still lack answers</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/an-australian-icon-the-platypus-is-struggling-and-scientists-still-lack-answers/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/an-australian-icon-the-platypus-is-struggling-and-scientists-still-lack-answers/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>20 May 2026 02:16:41 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Paul Harvey]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Sharon Guynup]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/05/17224328/Image-6-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=319612</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Australia and Queensland]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Citizen Science, Climate, Climate Change, Climate Change And Conservation, Conservation, Drought, Environment, Habitat, Mammals, Research, wildfires, Wildlife, Wildlife Conservation, and Zoos]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The platypus is an evolutionary anomaly. This duck-billed, semiaquatic mammal is both unique and rare. It’s just one of five egg-laying mammals on the planet. It nurses its young. And it also has reptilian traits: It has a cloaca, maintains a low body temperature (32° Celsius, or 90° Fahrenheit) and males have venomous spurs. It [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The platypus is an evolutionary anomaly. This duck-billed, semiaquatic mammal is both unique and rare. It’s just one of five egg-laying mammals on the planet. It nurses its young. And it also has reptilian traits: It has a cloaca, maintains a low body temperature (32° Celsius, or 90° Fahrenheit) and males have venomous spurs. It prefers the lush rivers along Australia’s east coast, using electroreception, sensing electrical stimuli to detect favored food, which includes larvae, shrimp and small crayfish on the riverbed. The platypus (Ornithorhynchus anatinus) usually feeds during twilight at dusk and dawn, and is elusive,  spending much of its life submerged. Its true population remains unknown. The IUCN Red List estimates 50,000 and classifies the species as near threatened. But that listing was based on an assessment done in 2014, which even then noted it was a “best estimate” and the population was decreasing. Gilad Bino, who leads the University of New South Wales Platypus Conservation Initiative, said he doubts those numbers. Platypuses are hard to find and count. They face a host of challenges, including destruction of their riparian habitat and encroaching human development. New research shows that environmental “threat scenarios” are raising the platypus’s risk of extinction. More frequent and extreme weather events endanger platypuses when drought dries the waters they inhabit, wildfires blaze through or floods inundate burrows before the animals can escape. The research, published in the journal Australian Mammalogy, calls for a proactive response, based on habitat and risk. But effective conservation, the&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/an-australian-icon-the-platypus-is-struggling-and-scientists-still-lack-answers/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
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					<title>Texas man convicted of buying eagle parts from a wildlife trafficking ring</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2026/05/texas-man-convicted-of-buying-eagle-parts-from-a-wildlife-trafficking-ring/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2026/05/texas-man-convicted-of-buying-eagle-parts-from-a-wildlife-trafficking-ring/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>19 May 2026 23:34:13 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[David Brown]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Bobbybascomb]]>
					</author>
															<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/05/19232925/Bald_eagle_in_Alaska_2016-3-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?post_type=short-article&#038;p=319769</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[United States]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Birds, Birds Of Prey, Illegal Trade, Wildilfe, Wildlife Trade, and Wildlife Trafficking]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[A man from Humble, Texas, U.S., pled guilty to purchasing tails and sets of feathers from illegally killed bald and golden eagles, according to the U.S. Attorney&#8217;s Office for the District of Montana.   John Patrick Butler, 71, was sentenced May 5 to five years of probation and ordered to pay $77,500 in restitution.  The bald [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
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							<![CDATA[A man from Humble, Texas, U.S., pled guilty to purchasing tails and sets of feathers from illegally killed bald and golden eagles, according to the U.S. Attorney&#8217;s Office for the District of Montana.   John Patrick Butler, 71, was sentenced May 5 to five years of probation and ordered to pay $77,500 in restitution.  The bald eagles (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) and golden eagles (Aquila chrysaetos) were killed on and around Montana’s Flathead Indian Reservation, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said  Another man, Travis John Branson, was convicted of killing the eagles and sending their body parts to Butler. In October 2024, Branson was sentenced to nearly four years in prison followed by three years of probation, and ordered to pay $777,250 in restitution, according to a news release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Montana.  A co-defendant accused of killing the birds, Simon Paul, is still at large, according to the release  Branson sent the eagle parts to Butler in Texas through the mail. Postal records, along with text messages organizing the sales, lead to Butler’s conviction on conspiracy, unlawful trafficking of bald and golden eagles and purchasing illegally killed eagle parts in violation of the Lacey Act.  Branson openly discussed illegally killing eagles in text messages, &#8220;out [here] committing felonies,&#8221; he said as he hunted the eagles, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office He reportedly killed at least 118 eagles and 107 hawks and made as much as $360,000 doing it.  “We are going to feel the impacts of&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2026/05/texas-man-convicted-of-buying-eagle-parts-from-a-wildlife-trafficking-ring/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
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					<title>Measures must be taken now to prevent pandemics at the source, says epidemiologist</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/podcast/2026/05/measures-must-be-taken-now-to-prevent-pandemics-at-the-source-says-epidemiologist/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/podcast/2026/05/measures-must-be-taken-now-to-prevent-pandemics-at-the-source-says-epidemiologist/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>19 May 2026 21:33:45 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Mike DiGirolamo]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Mikedigirolamo]]>
					</author>
															<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2021/09/15113655/2-Minks-in-a-Swedish-fur-farm-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?post_type=podcasts&#038;p=319689</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Global]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Diseases, Environment, Featured, Health, Interviews, Nature And Health, Pandemics, Planetary Health, Podcast, Public Health, and Zoonotic Diseases]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[“[The]cruel irony here [is] that the world cannot get its act together to address these threats … people are dying, animals are suffering, we&#8217;re losing rainforest … these are all interconnected threats,” Neil Vora tells me on this week’s episode of the Mongabay Newscast, just a day after the World Health Organization (WHO) reported more [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
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							<![CDATA[“[The]cruel irony here [is] that the world cannot get its act together to address these threats … people are dying, animals are suffering, we&#8217;re losing rainforest … these are all interconnected threats,” Neil Vora tells me on this week’s episode of the Mongabay Newscast, just a day after the World Health Organization (WHO) reported more than 80 suspected deaths in the Democratic Republic of Congo from an outbreak of the Ebola virus. Vora is a former U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) epidemic intelligence service officer who deployed to the DRC to combat Ebola. He says the current strain, the Bundibugyo virus, is particularly dangerous because there is no current approved treatment or vaccine for it. While neither this virus nor the Andes virus, a type of hantavirus that originated in Chile and Argentina and killed three people on a cruise ship, is likely to cause a pandemic, says Vora, he stresses member states of the WHO are unprepared to address a pandemic should one occur. According to Vora, the WHO could have achieved a pandemic agreement to better address the threats pandemics pose. But that fell short when nations failed to adopt a system to equitably share tools such as vaccines. “ And now those discussions on the pandemic agreement have stalled, and days later, we have these two outbreaks of zoonotic viruses.” Vora stresses that measures can be taken now to help stop the risk of pandemics, such as by banning fur farms in the European Union;&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/podcast/2026/05/measures-must-be-taken-now-to-prevent-pandemics-at-the-source-says-epidemiologist/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
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					<title>Senate confirms Trump’s pick to lead federal land agency as drilling and mining expand</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2026/05/senate-confirms-trumps-pick-to-lead-federal-land-agency-as-drilling-and-mining-expand/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2026/05/senate-confirms-trumps-pick-to-lead-federal-land-agency-as-drilling-and-mining-expand/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>19 May 2026 20:24:45 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Associated Press]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Mongabay Editor]]>
					</author>
															<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/05/19201800/AP21203593338612-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?post_type=short-article&#038;p=319767</guid>

					
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Government, National Parks, Oil Drilling, Parks, and public lands]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The U.S. Senate confirmed President Donald Trump’s pick to oversee the management of a quarter-billion acres of public lands on Monday, as the administration pushes ahead with more mining and drilling while reversing conservation plans. Former congressman Steve Pearce will lead the Interior Department&#8217;s Bureau of Land Management following Monday&#8217;s 46-43 confirmation vote. Pearce’s background as a Republican Party [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
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							<![CDATA[The U.S. Senate confirmed President Donald Trump’s pick to oversee the management of a quarter-billion acres of public lands on Monday, as the administration pushes ahead with more mining and drilling while reversing conservation plans. Former congressman Steve Pearce will lead the Interior Department&#8217;s Bureau of Land Management following Monday&#8217;s 46-43 confirmation vote. Pearce’s background as a Republican Party leader in New Mexico known for supporting public land leasing and industry made him a contentious pick. Democrats and environmental groups were strongly opposed. He attempted to assuage any fears during his February confirmation hearing by noting that he grew up on a family farm where conserving the land and water was a necessity. “The security and economic health of the country, especially the western states, rests squarely with the BLM,” he testified. “We can and must balance the different uses of public land. Local economies and future generations depend on us doing our job right.” The land bureau has about 10,000 employees who manage roughly 10% of land in the U.S. It’s also responsible for 700 million acres (283 million hectares) of underground minerals, including major reserves of oil, natural gas and coal. Trump and Republicans in Congress have been unraveling regulations from former President Joe Biden&#8217;s administration that are viewed as burdensome to industry. They have opened millions of acres of public lands for mining and drilling and canceled land plans and conservation strategies formulated under Biden. The Democratic Party of New Mexico has called Pearce “an outright enemy of public lands,” suggesting he’s beholden to the&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2026/05/senate-confirms-trumps-pick-to-lead-federal-land-agency-as-drilling-and-mining-expand/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
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					<title>‘We’ve got bats’: The community bringing New Zealand’s pekapeka into the spotlight</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/weve-got-bats-the-community-bringing-new-zealands-pekapeka-into-the-spotlight/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/weve-got-bats-the-community-bringing-new-zealands-pekapeka-into-the-spotlight/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>19 May 2026 18:50:05 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Isabel Gil]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Morgan Erickson-Davis]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/05/19162609/new-zealand-bat-1-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=319727</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[New Zealand and Oceania]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Bats, Biodiversity, Conservation, Critically Endangered Species, Endangered Species, Environment, Indigenous Communities, Mammals, Research, Surveying, surveys, Wildlife, and Wildlife Conservation]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Billy Mclean knew nothing about bats. As a lifelong Kiwi, there was no reason for him to. Unlike in neighboring Australia and other parts of Oceania whose renowned flying foxes grow meter-long wingspans, Aotearoa New Zealand is famous for its birds, not bats. Mclean worked as an arborist in the Franklin area, an agricultural county [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
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							<![CDATA[Billy Mclean knew nothing about bats. As a lifelong Kiwi, there was no reason for him to. Unlike in neighboring Australia and other parts of Oceania whose renowned flying foxes grow meter-long wingspans, Aotearoa New Zealand is famous for its birds, not bats. Mclean worked as an arborist in the Franklin area, an agricultural county south of Auckland on the North Island. He said he felt he knew everything about the local forest, until one night 23 years ago. As he headed home from a nighttime walk on his property, a shadow swooped from the arched tree canopy. He ducked — all his years spent in the trees, and he had never seen anything move like it. Mclean said it took a minute to register what he had seen. “As the picture develops, you get that classic crescent-shaped wing,” he told Mongabay by phone. “That’s when I knew. We’ve got bats.” That night sparked a passion for bats that Mclean has been pursuing ever since. After years of being “straight-up ridiculed” for trying to convince his community that these creatures lived in their backyards, many are starting to believe him. Today, he’s an active member with Finding Franklin Bats (FFB), a locally run research project teaching community members how to find, monitor and protect the overlooked bats that live in their backyards. (Left) Billy Mclean assists in weighing a long-tailed bat. (Right) Billy Mclean&#8217;s daughter practices using a handheld bat monitor to detect bat calls. Image courtesy of Finding Franklin&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/weve-got-bats-the-community-bringing-new-zealands-pekapeka-into-the-spotlight/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
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						<item>
					<title>On Southeast Asia’s largest lake, locals wield tech to defend the flooded forest</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/on-southeast-asias-largest-lake-locals-wield-tech-to-defend-the-flooded-forest/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/on-southeast-asias-largest-lake-locals-wield-tech-to-defend-the-flooded-forest/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>19 May 2026 18:04:59 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Claire Turrell]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Isabel Esterman]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/05/19170820/20231116_Local-guide-was-training-CFi-committees-on-camera-trap-set-up_Photo_Dong-Tangkor-2-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=319745</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Cambodia, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Communities and conservation, Community Forestry, Community Forests, Community-based Conservation, Conservation, Conservation Technology, Environment, fire, Fire Management, Fires, Forest Fires, Lakes, Landscape Restoration, Nature-based climate solutions, Restoration, Solutions, Technology, Technology And Conservation, Wetlands, and wildfires]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[“When the forest [is] healthy, fish can breed and grow. But if the forest burns, the fish disappear — and that affects the livelihoods of our whole community,” says Luon Chanleng, a fisher from Tonle Sap. “I can’t imagine our life without the forest.” Tonle Sap in Cambodia is the largest freshwater lake in Southeast [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[“When the forest [is] healthy, fish can breed and grow. But if the forest burns, the fish disappear — and that affects the livelihoods of our whole community,” says Luon Chanleng, a fisher from Tonle Sap. “I can’t imagine our life without the forest.” Tonle Sap in Cambodia is the largest freshwater lake in Southeast Asia. Each year, when the dry season sets in from around January to June, the waters of the flooded forest recede, the mangrove roots poke out through the mud, and the flooded forest turns into a tinder box. More than a million people live around the lake and depend on it for their livelihoods, homes and nutrition. Yet, the freshwater mangroves or “flooded forest” that surround the lake are shrinking. A study by the Wonders of the Mekong project, led by the University of Nevada in the U.S., found that nearly a third of forests in flood plains like the Tonle Sap area were lost between 1993 and 2017. “It primarily seems to be driven by two activities: One is conversion of flooded forest for agriculture, and then the second is forest fires,” says Zeb Hogan, director of the Wonders of the Mekong project. Now, the Tonle Sap community is fighting back. Seventy-eight people, including Luon, have trained as community firefighters, and are now using satellite wildfire alerts to help them curb the devastation. According to records kept by U.S.-based NGO Conservation International, which receives the satellite alerts and forwards them to the patrol team,&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/on-southeast-asias-largest-lake-locals-wield-tech-to-defend-the-flooded-forest/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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						<item>
					<title>He survived a deadly attack, now he is calling for better working conditions for rangers in DRC</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/he-survived-a-deadly-attack-now-he-is-calling-for-better-working-conditions-for-rangers-in-drc/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/he-survived-a-deadly-attack-now-he-is-calling-for-better-working-conditions-for-rangers-in-drc/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>19 May 2026 16:43:39 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[David Akana]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Malavikavyawahare]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/05/19160902/IMG_4438-768x512.jpeg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=319725</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Central Africa, and Democratic Republic Of Congo]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Environment, Environmental Heroes, Governance, Government, National Parks, Parks, Wildilfe, and Wildlife Conservation]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[In eastern Democratic Republic of Congo in central Africa, protecting nature can cost you your life. For years, rangers operating in parks such as Virunga and Kahuzi-Biega have worked amid armed groups, illegal natural resource trafficking, community tensions, and chronic violence that has already claimed the lives of hundreds of their colleagues. Yet despite their [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[In eastern Democratic Republic of Congo in central Africa, protecting nature can cost you your life. For years, rangers operating in parks such as Virunga and Kahuzi-Biega have worked amid armed groups, illegal natural resource trafficking, community tensions, and chronic violence that has already claimed the lives of hundreds of their colleagues. Yet despite their central role in protecting biodiversity and some of the world’s most important forests, many continue to work with little support, low salaries, and highly precarious conditions. For Emmanuel Bahati Lukoo, this reality is deeply personal. A former Virunga ranger who is now an official at Kahuzi-Biega National Park, he survived a deadly ambush in 2018 by a community-based militia group known locally as Mai-Mai. Several of his colleagues were killed in the ambush. Shot, psychologically traumatized, and later prosecuted in a military court in a case linked to park protection, he could have walked away. Instead, Bahati chose to tell his story in a book titled Conservation at the Cost of My Youth: The Survival of a Ranger, a raw account of the sacrifices, fears, political pressures, and often invisible realities faced by forest rangers in eastern DRC. In this interview with Mongabay, Emmanuel Bahati Lukoo reflects on his journey, the ambush that nearly killed him, the trauma experienced by rangers, the conflicts between conservation and local community survival, and the political interference complicating the protection of protected areas. Beyond the personal story, however, his testimony is also a call to action: to finally recognize&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/he-survived-a-deadly-attack-now-he-is-calling-for-better-working-conditions-for-rangers-in-drc/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/he-survived-a-deadly-attack-now-he-is-calling-for-better-working-conditions-for-rangers-in-drc/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
														</item>
						<item>
					<title>Study gathers over 4,000 photos to find Bolivia’s rarest Amazonian dog</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/study-gathers-over-4000-photos-to-find-bolivias-rarest-amazonian-dog/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/study-gathers-over-4000-photos-to-find-bolivias-rarest-amazonian-dog/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>19 May 2026 15:04:42 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Iván Paredes Tamayo]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Alexandre de Santi]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/05/18165630/perro-fantasma-banner-768x512.png" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=319657</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Bolivia, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Amazon Biodiversity, Animals, Biodiversity, Camera Trapping, Canids, Conservation, Environment, Happy-upbeat Environmental, Mammals, Research, Wildlife, and Wildlife Conservation]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Images obtained over a two-decade study suggest that a mysterious dog native to the Bolivian Amazon could be more abundant than previously believed.]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[It has a fox-like snout, webbed toes and a thick tail. It’s called the short-eared dog (Atelocynus microtis), but also the ghost dog (perro fantasma in Spanish) in Bolivia, and the Amazonian dog. It’s one of the world’s least-known canids and one of the least frequently sighted carnivores in Latin America. Now, though, a study conducted over the course of more than two decades — from 2001 to 2024 — in Bolivia has revealed more than 4,600 camera-trap images that show how it lives, the places it inhabits, and why this species is so dependent on South America’s forests remaining intact to survive. The research underscores that the ghost dog is very much an Amazonian species, and in particular a forest one. In Bolivia, it can be spotted in the country’s continuous Amazonian forests, in the northern portion of the department of La Paz, but also in the department of Pando, in northern and northeastern Beni, and in the far north and northeast of Santa Cruz. It’s also found in the pre-Amazonian forests of the Andes mountain range, also called piedmont forests, at elevations up to 750 meters (2,460 feet). Robert Wallace, a British biologist from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) in Bolivia and a co-author of the new study, said the team conducted a systematic review of published and unpublished distribution records of the species in Bolivia. Throughout the 23 years, they also carried out 34 intensive camera-trap surveys in the lowland areas of the Greater Madidi-Tambopata Landscape (in&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/study-gathers-over-4000-photos-to-find-bolivias-rarest-amazonian-dog/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
														</item>
						<item>
					<title>Tiremakers ready to roll with EUDR, but repeated delays frustrate industry</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/tiremakers-ready-to-roll-with-eudr-but-repeated-delays-frustrate-industry/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/tiremakers-ready-to-roll-with-eudr-but-repeated-delays-frustrate-industry/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>19 May 2026 10:00:09 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Ruth Kamnitzer]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Alexandrapopescu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Biodiversity]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Conservation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Deforestation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Environmental Politics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[EUDR]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Forest Destruction]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Governance]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Monitoring]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[plantation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Rubber]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[rubber plantation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Tropical Deforestation]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/05/19095229/36640893672_e7bb4d2eb0_k-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=319648</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[European Union, South Asia, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Biodiversity, Commodity agriculture, Conservation, Deforestation, Drivers Of Deforestation, Environmental Law, Environmental Politics, Plantations, Rubber, Trade, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The tire manufacturing industry, a major consumer of natural rubber, says it’s ready for the European Union Deforestation Regulation, or EUDR, but remains concerned over the latest delay in the rule’s implementation. The EUDR aims to prevent products linked to deforestation from being sold in the EU market. Rubber is one of the seven commodities [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The tire manufacturing industry, a major consumer of natural rubber, says it’s ready for the European Union Deforestation Regulation, or EUDR, but remains concerned over the latest delay in the rule’s implementation. The EUDR aims to prevent products linked to deforestation from being sold in the EU market. Rubber is one of the seven commodities targeted under the rule that’s set to take effect at the end of this year. Natural rubber is collected by scoring the bark of the rubber tree (Hevea brasiliensis) and collecting the milky white latex. At the base of the natural rubber supply chain are 6 million smallholders, mostly in Southeast Asia and, increasingly, West Africa, who produce about 85% of the world’s natural rubber. These farmers may have just a hectare or two of land under rubber, in multiple plots, and are independent, selling to multiple agents. The latex they harvest may then pass through numerous intermediary agents before in-country processing or export, making traceability within supply chains exceedingly complex. Under the EUDR, companies placing goods containing natural rubber on the EU market will have to show that the rubber didn’t come from recently deforested land, and that it was produced in compliance with local laws. That will mean they must have traceability throughout their supply chains. Originally slated to come into force in 2024, the EUDR’s implementation has been delayed twice. Large and medium-sized companies will now have until Dec. 30, 2026, to be EUDR-compliant, while small and micro-operators will be given a&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/tiremakers-ready-to-roll-with-eudr-but-repeated-delays-frustrate-industry/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/tiremakers-ready-to-roll-with-eudr-but-repeated-delays-frustrate-industry/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
														</item>
						<item>
					<title>Rising waters and mounting pressures collide on Kenya’s Lake Turkana</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/rising-waters-and-mounting-pressures-collide-on-kenyas-lake-turkana/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/rising-waters-and-mounting-pressures-collide-on-kenyas-lake-turkana/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>19 May 2026 08:04:12 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Christopher Clark]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Terna Gyuse]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[africa]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/05/18181814/061A2832-scaled-1-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=319666</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, East Africa, and Kenya]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Adaptation, Climate Change And Food, Conservation, Drought, Environment, Fish, Fisheries, Fishing, Flooding, Food, Food Crisis, food security, Freshwater Ecosystems, Freshwater Fish, Hunger, Lakes, Overfishing, Poverty, and Regulations]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[KALOKOL, Kenya — Rake-thin with teeth stained a deep brown from decades of drinking untreated lake water high in fluoride, 62-year-old John Esirite sits in the shade outside the small office of Kalokol’s Beach Management Unit, or BMU, the community-run body that oversees local fisheries. “The old office used to be down there,” the fisherman [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[KALOKOL, Kenya — Rake-thin with teeth stained a deep brown from decades of drinking untreated lake water high in fluoride, 62-year-old John Esirite sits in the shade outside the small office of Kalokol’s Beach Management Unit, or BMU, the community-run body that oversees local fisheries. “The old office used to be down there,” the fisherman says, pointing toward the western shoreline of Lake Turkana, the world’s largest permanent desert lake, just visible a couple of kilometers away. “But now it’s underwater.” Over the last 15 years, Lake Turkana has risen by about 8-10 meters (26-33 feet). That’s increased its surface area by around 10%. In and around the fishing hub of Kalokol, hundreds of people have been displaced by this steady advance. In Esirite’s case, the village where he grew up, Natole, has long since been abandoned. The fisherman has had to relocate three times since 2014, pushed ever farther from his ancestral land and the nearshore breeding grounds he has fished for most of his life. “We are suffering, but no one is helping us,” he says. “We can only pray to God for assistance.” But even the church where Esirite used to pray is underwater. What is happening in Kalokol is part of a wider trend. Since the early 2010s, many lakes across Kenya’s Rift Valley have flooded, their expansion accelerating after particularly heavy rains in 2020, forcing tens of thousands from their homes. But here, in this long-neglected northern corner of the country, the human and environmental&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/rising-waters-and-mounting-pressures-collide-on-kenyas-lake-turkana/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
														</item>
						<item>
					<title>‘Turkana has always adapted to change’: Interview with environmentalist Ikal Angelei</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/turkana-has-always-adapted-to-change-interview-with-environmentalist-ikal-angelei/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/turkana-has-always-adapted-to-change-interview-with-environmentalist-ikal-angelei/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>19 May 2026 08:02:42 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Christopher Clark]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Terna Gyuse]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[africa]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/05/18184413/061A3230-scaled-1-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=319676</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, East Africa, and Kenya]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Adaptation, Climate Change And Food, Conservation, Drought, Environment, Fish, Fisheries, Fishing, Flooding, Food, Food Crisis, food security, Freshwater Ecosystems, Freshwater Fish, Hunger, Lakes, Overfishing, Poverty, and Regulations]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Lake Turkana in northern Kenya is often portrayed as a region in perpetual crisis due to climate change. But for the Indigenous groups who have lived here for centuries, environmental change is not new. Local livelihoods have long shifted between pastoralism, fishing, farming and trade as people adapt to a landscape defined by fluctuation. What [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Lake Turkana in northern Kenya is often portrayed as a region in perpetual crisis due to climate change. But for the Indigenous groups who have lived here for centuries, environmental change is not new. Local livelihoods have long shifted between pastoralism, fishing, farming and trade as people adapt to a landscape defined by fluctuation. What has changed is the scale and intensity of pressures now converging on and around the lake — from increasingly erratic climate patterns and mounting strain on fisheries, to oil development, resource conflict, and the political decisions now shaping the lake’s future. In 2008, Ikal Angelei was working as a program coordinator at the Turkana Basin Institute, a pioneering research center focused on human origins and the environment, when she first heard from visiting scientists about a huge hydroelectric dam being built across the border in Ethiopia. Concerned about the Gibe III Dam’s potentially devastating impact downstream, on Lake Turkana and the communities that depend on it, Angelei founded a grassroots organization called Friends of Lake Turkana to amplify the voices of people who had been excluded from the consultation process and fight the project. In 2012, Angelei was awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize for her advocacy. Her organization continues to work with and on behalf of communities within the greater Turkana Basin to demand collective social, economic, cultural, environmental and territorial justice. Mongabay spoke with Angelei about resilience, reductive narratives, and what Turkana’s history might reveal about its future. This interview has been lightly edited&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/turkana-has-always-adapted-to-change-interview-with-environmentalist-ikal-angelei/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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														</item>
						<item>
					<title>Indonesia’s nickel boom linked to rising illness and worker harm, reports find</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/indonesias-nickel-boom-linked-to-rising-illness-and-worker-harm-reports-find/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/indonesias-nickel-boom-linked-to-rising-illness-and-worker-harm-reports-find/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>19 May 2026 07:47:10 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Rabul SawalYulia Adiningsih]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Mongabay Editor]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/05/18163514/PT-IWIP-worker-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=319647</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Indonesia, North Maluku, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Air Pollution, Business, Environment, Governance, Health, Human Rights, Industry, Mining, Pollution, and Public Health]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[HALMAHERA, Indonesia — New research examining Indonesia’s vast nickel-processing regions has documented rising rates of ill health and workplace harm linked to a key industry supplying the global energy transition. A report published in April by Indonesia’s human rights commission, known as Komnas HAM, cited Central Sulawesi provincial health data showing respiratory infections reached 305,191 [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[HALMAHERA, Indonesia — New research examining Indonesia’s vast nickel-processing regions has documented rising rates of ill health and workplace harm linked to a key industry supplying the global energy transition. A report published in April by Indonesia’s human rights commission, known as Komnas HAM, cited Central Sulawesi provincial health data showing respiratory infections reached 305,191 diagnoses in 2024, a 26% increase over the 262,160 cases recorded in 2023. In the Central Sulawesi district of Morowali, home to Southeast Asia’s largest nickel processing estate, the PT Indonesia Morowali Industrial Park (IMIP), the number of respiratory infections diagnosed in 2024 was 57,190. The IWIP industrial area, which has been tied to mercury and arsenic exposure. Image by Garry Latulung. A civil society coalition protests in front of the PT IWIP office in Jakarta. Image by Christ Belseran/Mongabay Indonesia. “Communities living near mining and smelter areas are at higher risk due to exposure to dust and emissions from production processes,” said Uli Parulian Sihombing, a coordinator at Komnas HAM. The rights commission called for greater state intervention to uphold rights in and around Central Sulawesi’s nickel processing estates. “Based on these findings, this study concludes that the state has failed to guarantee protection of human rights in the nickel mining and processing sector,” the Komnas HAM report concluded. The report also noted the increase in deforestation recorded on Central Sulawesi tied to the booming mining sector. “This situation is exacerbated by massive ecological damage that has led to a health crisis for communities&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/indonesias-nickel-boom-linked-to-rising-illness-and-worker-harm-reports-find/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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														</item>
						<item>
					<title>Timor green pigeon could go extinct without immediate action, study finds</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2026/05/timor-green-pigeon-could-go-extinct-without-immediate-action-study-finds/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2026/05/timor-green-pigeon-could-go-extinct-without-immediate-action-study-finds/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>19 May 2026 05:15:27 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Naina Rao]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Shreya Dasgupta]]>
					</author>
															<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/05/19051318/timor-green-pigon.png" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?post_type=short-article&#038;p=319685</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, East Timor, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Birds, Community-based Conservation, Conservation, Forests, Hunting, Indigenous Communities, Indigenous Culture, Iucn, Wildlife, and Wildlife Conservation]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The extremely rare Timor green pigeon has fewer than 500 individuals left in the wild, according to a recent study. Researchers say its extinction risk must be revised from endangered to critically endangered.  The fruit-eating Timor green pigeon (Treron psittaceus), known for its distinctive mango-green plumage, is “endemic to Timor, Rote and adjacent satellite islands” [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The extremely rare Timor green pigeon has fewer than 500 individuals left in the wild, according to a recent study. Researchers say its extinction risk must be revised from endangered to critically endangered.  The fruit-eating Timor green pigeon (Treron psittaceus), known for its distinctive mango-green plumage, is “endemic to Timor, Rote and adjacent satellite islands” in eastern Indonesia and Timor-Leste. Once numbering in the tens of thousands, the bird’s population has suffered  over recent decades. The species is currently classified as endangered on the IUCN Red List, with an estimated global population of 660-2,000 mature individuals. However, by compiling published observations and data from field surveys conducted from 2002-2025, researchers now conservatively estimate that only 100 to 500 individuals remain globally. The species is now considered nearly extinct in Indonesia, with no records in West Timor since 2005  and none in Rote since 2009. “While there has been loss of forest habitat on Timor and Rote islands over the past 100 years or so, hunting over recent decades is responsible for the catastrophic collapse of Timor green pigeon populations,” lead author Colin Trainor of Charles Darwin University, Australia, told Mongabay. The bird is particularly vulnerable due to its lack of a flight response. Hunters in Lautem district in eastern Timor-Leste call the bird tule (meaning deaf) because the flock often continues to feed even after rifles are fired, allowing several birds to be shot in a single session , the authors wrote. Jafet Potenzo Lopes, study co-author from Conservation International, told&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2026/05/timor-green-pigeon-could-go-extinct-without-immediate-action-study-finds/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2026/05/timor-green-pigeon-could-go-extinct-without-immediate-action-study-finds/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
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					<title>Philippine fishing and Indigenous communities wary of clean energy boom in Marcos stronghold</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/philippine-fishing-and-indigenous-communities-wary-of-clean-energy-boom-in-marcos-stronghold/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/philippine-fishing-and-indigenous-communities-wary-of-clean-energy-boom-in-marcos-stronghold/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>18 May 2026 23:28:31 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Michael Beltran]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Isabel Esterman]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/05/13110218/Ed-Singson-shows-off-the-seaweed-in-his-bucket-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=319296</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Philippines, Southeast Asia, and The Philippines]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Alternative Energy, Business, Clean Energy, Conservation, Energy, Featured, Fishing, Green Energy, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Rights, Islands, Just Transition, Marine, Marine Conservation, Renewable Energy, Solar Power, and Wind Power]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[PASUQUIN, Philippines — Crouched on the beach under the hot noon sun, a fisherman flattens a black sheet of seaweed on a bamboo mat rolled out on the sand. Wearing a straw hat wide enough to shade his entire body, he tucks his legs in to avoid getting burned. Gamet, a rare and coveted variety [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[PASUQUIN, Philippines — Crouched on the beach under the hot noon sun, a fisherman flattens a black sheet of seaweed on a bamboo mat rolled out on the sand. Wearing a straw hat wide enough to shade his entire body, he tucks his legs in to avoid getting burned. Gamet, a rare and coveted variety of seaweed local to the coasts of the Philippines’ Ilocos Norte province, is both a staple to fishing communities and a popular souvenir for travelers. But harvesting the highly sought-after seaweed can be a dangerous task. Like the better-known nori, it belongs to the Bangiaceae family of red algae and grows exclusively on the sharp, pointed rocks along the cooler waters of the northern Philippine coast. At the other end of the beach, Ed Singson, leader of the local fishing association, has just come ashore with a bucket of fresh gamet. Taking a handful of seaweed from his bucket, he says, “We will protest on the seas for this if we have to.” Singson, 55, and his fellow fisherfolk have learned from local authorities about plans by a foreign company to build a vast stretch of offshore wind turbines on traditional fishing grounds. They say they fear the construction, vibrations and, eventually, the completed structures could disrupt their fishing routes and local marine life. A fisher in Burgos, Ilocos Norte, flattens a sheet of Gamet to dry on the beach. Image by Michael Beltran for Mongabay. ‘Renewable energy capital’ Ilocos Norte, the northwestern tip of&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/philippine-fishing-and-indigenous-communities-wary-of-clean-energy-boom-in-marcos-stronghold/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<title>Organized crime adds to environmental destruction in the Amazon, report finds</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2026/05/organized-crime-adds-to-environmental-destruction-in-the-amazon-report-finds/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2026/05/organized-crime-adds-to-environmental-destruction-in-the-amazon-report-finds/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>18 May 2026 18:30:42 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Aimee Gabay]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Bobbybascomb]]>
					</author>
															<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/02/07185558/Sobrevuelo-248-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?post_type=short-article&#038;p=319675</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Crime, Deforestation, Environmental Crime, Governance, Illegal Logging, Illegal Mining, Indigenous Communities, Indigenous Rights, Land Conflict, Land Reform, Organized Crime, Rainforest Deforestation, and Tropical Deforestation]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[A new report by the International Crisis Group finds that organized crime has become a “major obstacle” to protecting the Amazon. Criminal groups often operate across borders and are expanding control over huge swathes of land, which undermines state efforts to combat environmental crimes such as drug trafficking, deforestation and illegal mining. “In Colombia, park [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[A new report by the International Crisis Group finds that organized crime has become a “major obstacle” to protecting the Amazon. Criminal groups often operate across borders and are expanding control over huge swathes of land, which undermines state efforts to combat environmental crimes such as drug trafficking, deforestation and illegal mining. “In Colombia, park rangers have been blocked from entering their own protected areas by non-state armed groups, leaving vast stretches of forest unmonitored and effectively undefended,” report author Bram Ebus, an International Crisis Group consultant and founder of Amazon Underworld, an investigative journalism project, told Mongabay via WhatsApp messages. “NGOs [non-governmental organizations], U.N. agencies and bodies belonging to the environment ministry have similarly been denied access to Amazon territories with troubling regularity, meaning that local development programs, reforestation initiatives and conservation efforts simply cannot be carried out.”  Ebus said this is not incidental and that armed groups deliberately keep communities at a distance from the state to maintain a governance vacuum that serves their economic and territorial interests.  The spread of organized crime has fueled rising violence and environmental damage across the Amazon including in Colombia’s Putumayo, Caquetá and Amazonas departments. The Comandos de la Frontera, a FARC dissident group that controls coca plantations and illegal mines, exerts control in those areas. Other criminal organizations operating across the Amazon, including in Brazil, Ecuador and Peru are also driving instability and environmental harm.     While criminals continue to expand their reach and coordinate with one another, the report says national&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2026/05/organized-crime-adds-to-environmental-destruction-in-the-amazon-report-finds/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2026/05/organized-crime-adds-to-environmental-destruction-in-the-amazon-report-finds/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
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						<item>
					<title>Who controls Indian Ocean tuna?</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/specials/2026/05/who-controls-indian-ocean-tuna/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/specials/2026/05/who-controls-indian-ocean-tuna/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>18 May 2026 18:20:15 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Mongabay.com]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Alejandroprescottcornejo]]>
					</author>
															<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2021/04/23193150/bluefin-tuna_768px.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?post_type=specials&#038;p=319668</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, European Union, India, and Indian Ocean]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Communities and conservation, Fish, Fisheries, Food, Governance, Ocean, Overfishing, R, and Tuna]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The Indian Ocean hosts one of the world’s largest tuna fisheries, supplying global seafood markets and sustaining livelihoods across dozens of coastal nations. But scientists warn some stocks are under mounting pressure as foreign-owned industrial fleets continue to overfish tuna and coastal countries expand their fisheries — intensifying disputes over how the resource is managed. [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The Indian Ocean hosts one of the world’s largest tuna fisheries, supplying global seafood markets and sustaining livelihoods across dozens of coastal nations. But scientists warn some stocks are under mounting pressure as foreign-owned industrial fleets continue to overfish tuna and coastal countries expand their fisheries — intensifying disputes over how the resource is managed. This Special Issue reported by editor Malavika Vyawahare examines the politics, science and competing interests shaping the region’s tuna fishery.This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/specials/2026/05/who-controls-indian-ocean-tuna/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/specials/2026/05/who-controls-indian-ocean-tuna/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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						<item>
					<title>19,000 Great Pyramids a year: Report flags unsustainable rate of sand mining</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/19000-great-pyramids-a-year-report-flags-unsustainable-rate-of-sand-mining/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/19000-great-pyramids-a-year-report-flags-unsustainable-rate-of-sand-mining/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>18 May 2026 17:33:57 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Carolyn Cowan]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Isabel Esterman]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/05/18095047/WWF-Viet-Nam_Sand-Extraction-Mekong-768x512.jpeg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=319631</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Indonesia, Philippines, Southeast Asia, and Vietnam]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Business, Coastal Ecosystems, Dredging, Environment, Erosion, Fish, Fishing, Freshwater Ecosystems, Governance, Infrastructure, Mining, Rivers, Supply Chain, and Tropical Rivers]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Sand is the most widely extracted solid material on Earth. The global sand mining industry removes roughly 50 billion metric tons of it a year, a pace that far outstrips the planet’s natural replenishment rates, according to a new report from the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP). Excessive sand extraction from landscapes, rivers and coastal zones [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Sand is the most widely extracted solid material on Earth. The global sand mining industry removes roughly 50 billion metric tons of it a year, a pace that far outstrips the planet’s natural replenishment rates, according to a new report from the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP). Excessive sand extraction from landscapes, rivers and coastal zones threatens ecosystems, livelihoods and many processes on which life depends, the report says. Yet the current pace of removal — enough to build more than 19,000 Great Pyramids of Giza — is only set to grow, with demand for buildings alone expected to rise 45% by 2060. Without coordinated governance, stronger monitoring and long-term planning to mitigate the risks of surging global demand, the industry will continue operating at an unsustainable level, the authors say. The report, published by UNEP’s Global Resource Information Database Geneva (GRID-Geneva) team, calls on industry stakeholders to improve extraction practices to use sand more wisely by balancing meeting demand with environmental protection. Sand is used to make concrete to build everything from homes and offices to roads and seawalls. It’s also used to manufacture glass and silicon-based components like electronic chips and solar panels. “Sand is sometimes referred as the unrecognized hero of development,” Pascal Peduzzi, director of UNEP’s GRID-Geneva program, said in a press release. However, its role in sustaining biodiversity and coastal communities already vulnerable to the impacts of environmental change is too often overlooked, he added. “Sand is our first line of defence against sea level rise,&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/19000-great-pyramids-a-year-report-flags-unsustainable-rate-of-sand-mining/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<title>Trump called trophy hunting a “horror show,” but permitted 300-plus elephant trophy imports in 2025</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/trump-called-trophy-hunting-a-horror-show-but-permitted-300-plus-elephant-trophy-imports-in-2025/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/trump-called-trophy-hunting-a-horror-show-but-permitted-300-plus-elephant-trophy-imports-in-2025/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>18 May 2026 15:33:55 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Spoorthy Raman]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Sharon Guynup]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/05/15171641/ele-mom-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=319539</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, North America, and United States]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Conservation, Elephants, Endangered Species, Environment, Environmental Law, Governance, Hunting, International Trade, Mammals, Trophy Hunting, Wildlife, Wildlife Conservation, Wildlife Crime, and Wildlife Trade]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The U.S. issued more than 300 elephant trophy import permits during the first year of President Donald Trump’s second term, according to records obtained by U.S.-based NGO the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD). It’s the most ever issued on Trump’s watch in a year, and indicates that as many as 300 elephants were killed. Trophies [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The U.S. issued more than 300 elephant trophy import permits during the first year of President Donald Trump’s second term, according to records obtained by U.S.-based NGO the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD). It’s the most ever issued on Trump’s watch in a year, and indicates that as many as 300 elephants were killed. Trophies are usually the taxidermied heads or feet, which hunters display in their homes as décor. Tanya Sanerib, the center’s international legal director who analyzed the data, called the permit numbers “alarming.” It’s a 154% increase in the total number of elephant trophy import permits issued during all of Trump&#8217;s first term. Because elephants are listed as threatened under the U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA), importers need a permit from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) to bring elephant trophies into the country. In 2018, the agency issued 114 permits. That dropped to just four in 2019 and none in 2020 and 2021. Receiving a permit does not necessarily mean an elephant was killed that year. Some hunters apply for permits before going on a hunting trip; others apply after an animal is killed. Each permit is valid for a year. African savanna elephants (Loxodonta africana) are an endangered species. In the 1800s, about 26 million roamed the continent. But poaching for the international trade in ivory crashed their numbers: Since 1965, 60% of them were slaughtered for their tusks. Only about 415,000 remain today. While the ivory trade has declined, this wide-ranging pachyderm’s habitat&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/trump-called-trophy-hunting-a-horror-show-but-permitted-300-plus-elephant-trophy-imports-in-2025/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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					<title>Nepal’s plan to release blackbucks into tiger country raises red flags</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/nepals-plan-to-release-blackbucks-into-tiger-country-raises-red-flags/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/nepals-plan-to-release-blackbucks-into-tiger-country-raises-red-flags/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>18 May 2026 12:58:40 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Bibek Bhandari]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Nandithachandraprakash]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/05/18120817/Blackbuck_in_Tal_Chhapar_Sanctuary_November_2025_by_Tisha_Mukherjee_07-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=319637</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Nepal, and South Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Antelope, Biodiversity, Conservation, Endangered Species, Environment, Predators, Protected Areas, Wildlife, and Wildlife Conservation]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[KATHMANDU — Nepal is preparing to relocate blackbucks from protected areas in the country’s west to the south-central lowlands, in an effort to expand the species’ population beyond its current range. But conservationists have raised questions about the suitability of the new site, including the increased risk of predation. Under the plan, the Department of [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[KATHMANDU — Nepal is preparing to relocate blackbucks from protected areas in the country’s west to the south-central lowlands, in an effort to expand the species’ population beyond its current range. But conservationists have raised questions about the suitability of the new site, including the increased risk of predation. Under the plan, the Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation (DNPWC) will release 18 blackbucks (Antilope cervicapra) in Tikauli, a corridor forest area near Chitwan National Park. The animals, six males and 12 females, will be translocated from Shuklaphanta National Park and Blackbuck Conservation Area, located in Nepal’s far-western and southwestern regions, respectively. “We will be translocating them as soon as possible,” said Haribhadra Acharya, senior ecologist at DNPWC who has planned the translocation for nearly five years now. “It will be a mix of young and subadult individuals. The main objective of this translocation is to revive the blackbuck population in a different geographic location and habitat area, so if they’re impacted by disease or disaster in one area, there will be an alternate secure population.” Blackbucks are an antelope species native to the Indian subcontinent, and were once widely distributed across the region. Today, India has the largest population of blackbucks, while the species occurs in small, fragmented pockets in Nepal, considered the northernmost extent of its range. Although the species as a whole isn’t considered in danger of extinction on the IUCN Red List, within Nepal it’s classified as critically endangered, and in Bangladesh and Pakistan has&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/nepals-plan-to-release-blackbucks-into-tiger-country-raises-red-flags/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<title>Jane Goodall’s grandson on hope after loss</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2026/05/jane-goodalls-grandson-on-hope-after-loss/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2026/05/jane-goodalls-grandson-on-hope-after-loss/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>18 May 2026 12:12:37 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Rhett Ayers Butler]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Shreya Dasgupta]]>
					</author>
															<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/11/13011833/11.12.25-Jane-Goodall-Funeral-37-merlin-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?post_type=short-article&#038;p=319640</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Founder's briefs]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Global]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Activism, Biodiversity, Community-based Conservation, Conservation, Endangered Species, Environment, Forests, Green, and Interviews]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Founder&#8217;s Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries. Five months after Jane Goodall’s death, her grandson Merlin Van Lawick appeared at the ChangeNOW environmental forum in Paris carrying something both public and personal. He was there not as a substitute for his grandmother, but as someone [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Founder&#8217;s Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries. Five months after Jane Goodall’s death, her grandson Merlin Van Lawick appeared at the ChangeNOW environmental forum in Paris carrying something both public and personal. He was there not as a substitute for his grandmother, but as someone shaped by her work and now helping to carry it forward, reports Mongabay’s Juliette Chapalain. The easiest way to misunderstand Goodall’s message is to treat hope as a feeling. For Goodall, as Van Lawick describes it, hope was closer to discipline. She used the image of a dark tunnel with a light at the end. The light did not come to you. You had to crawl toward it, over obstacles and under them. “Hope is rooted in action,” he said. That phrase can sound almost too easy until one considers the work behind it. Goodall’s career began with field research at Gombe in Tanzania, where she helped change how science understood chimpanzees. It became something larger: a life spent asking people to see animals as individuals, ecosystems as living communities, and young people as participants rather than spectators. In Van Lawick’s telling, Goodall’s influence came through example. She did not push people into service. She made them aware of the consequences of their choices, then left the decision to them. Even with her grandchildren, the pressure was light. Van Lawick once wanted to be a footballer. She told him she thought he would become a&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2026/05/jane-goodalls-grandson-on-hope-after-loss/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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					<title>Fire at WCS Makira Natural Park office allegedly linked to patrol efforts</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/fire-at-wcs-makira-natural-park-office-allegedly-linked-to-patrol-efforts/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/fire-at-wcs-makira-natural-park-office-allegedly-linked-to-patrol-efforts/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>18 May 2026 11:40:09 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Rivonala Razafison]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Malavikavyawahare]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/05/18113838/madagascar_1742-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=319090</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa and Madagascar]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Deforestation, Environment, Environmental Law, Governance, Government, National Parks, Parks, Tropical Deforestation, Wildlife, and Wildlife Conservation]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[ANTANANARIVO, Madagascar — On May 4, angry residents allegedly set fire to Wildlife Conservation Society’s office overseeing Makira Natural Park in northeast Madagascar. WCS, a New York-based NGO present in Madagascar since 1993, manages the reserve. Photos shared by Malagasy activist Clovis Razafimalala on Facebook show that the fire destroyed the office located in the [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[ANTANANARIVO, Madagascar — On May 4, angry residents allegedly set fire to Wildlife Conservation Society’s office overseeing Makira Natural Park in northeast Madagascar. WCS, a New York-based NGO present in Madagascar since 1993, manages the reserve. Photos shared by Malagasy activist Clovis Razafimalala on Facebook show that the fire destroyed the office located in the rural municipality of Ambinanitelo. The WCS staff present at the site are believed to be safe. Local authorities are investigating the alleged attack, and initial interviews suggest a run-in between illegal loggers and forest guards might be at the heart of the incident. According to Jean Roger, a representative of the Ministry of Environment and Sustainable Development in Maroantsetra district, forest guards alerted him and the local police about the existence of illegal logging activity in the core area of Makira Park, which is spread across 372,470 hectares (920,000 acres, roughly three times the size of Los Angeles). A team consisting of environment ministry representatives, WCS-backed eco-guards and gendarmes were deployed in response to the alert, Roger told Mongabay via a phone call. In the field, they faced four men who appeared ready to transport cut logs and two other men carrying chainsaws. One of the chainsaw-wielding men escaped while the rest of them were captured, according to Roger. The gendarme is a kind of militarized police force that sometimes gets involved in tackling illicit activities at protected sites. The five men were taken to the WCS office in Ambinanitelo. “The mayor [of Mariarano, a&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/fire-at-wcs-makira-natural-park-office-allegedly-linked-to-patrol-efforts/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/fire-at-wcs-makira-natural-park-office-allegedly-linked-to-patrol-efforts/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
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					<title>Elephants return to Mount Elgon side of Uganda after four decades</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/elephants-return-to-mount-elgon-side-of-uganda-after-four-decades/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/elephants-return-to-mount-elgon-side-of-uganda-after-four-decades/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>18 May 2026 10:03:42 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Benjamin Jumbe]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Terna Gyuse]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/05/18062559/Mount-Elgon-Uganda-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=319622</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, East Africa, Kenya, and Uganda]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[animal tracking, Animals, Biodiversity, Conservation, Corridors, Elephants, Endangered Species, Environment, Fences, Habitat, Habitat Degradation, Habitat Loss, human-elephant conflict, Human-wildlife Conflict, Infrastructure, Mammals, Migration, Protected Areas, Tracking, Wildlife, Wildlife Conservation, and Wildlife Corridors]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[According to monitoring with tracking collars by the Mount Elgon Foundation (MEF), last year at least 60 elephants crossed from Kenya into the Ugandan side of Mount Elgon, a vast volcanic mountain that straddles the border, returning to a part of their natural range where they’ve not been seen for over 40 years. MEF funds [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[According to monitoring with tracking collars by the Mount Elgon Foundation (MEF), last year at least 60 elephants crossed from Kenya into the Ugandan side of Mount Elgon, a vast volcanic mountain that straddles the border, returning to a part of their natural range where they’ve not been seen for over 40 years. MEF funds community projects aimed at reducing forest degradation and raising awareness of environmental issues, as well as a team of 18 community scouts on the Kenyan side of the mountain, part of the East African Wild Life Society’s Mount Elgon Elephant Project. MEF’s chair, Chris Powles, told Mongabay that back in 2022, scouts tracked four elephants crossing the Suam river, which marks the border between the two countries. Drone footage of elephants on the Ugandan side of Mount Elgon. Image courtesy of UWA. In an email interview, Powles said a number of factors could explain the elephants’ return, though it’s impossible to say for certain what’s prompted them to reestablish themselves. “[These] include the growth of the elephant population on the Kenya side, the increasing human pressure on the Kenya side, the relative safety for them on the Uganda side as it is all national park (unlike in Kenya),” he wrote. “And, maybe, the elephants alive from the time when others of them were killed in Uganda have now died naturally and so their memory of what happened in Uganda may have passed.” In the late 1970s and 80s, elephants in Uganda and other parts of&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/elephants-return-to-mount-elgon-side-of-uganda-after-four-decades/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/elephants-return-to-mount-elgon-side-of-uganda-after-four-decades/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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					<title>War on Iran may threaten conservation of the world&#8217;s rarest big cat</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2026/05/war-on-iran-may-threaten-conservation-of-the-worlds-rarest-big-cat/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2026/05/war-on-iran-may-threaten-conservation-of-the-worlds-rarest-big-cat/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>18 May 2026 08:54:03 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Mongabay.com]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Naina Rao]]>
					</author>
															<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/05/18085249/Picture1-e1779094418521.png" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?post_type=short-article&#038;p=319628</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Iran, and Middle East]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Big Cats, Cats, Critically Endangered Species, Endangered Environmentalists, Endangered Species, Human-wildlife Conflict, Protected Areas, War, Wildlife, and Wildlife Conservation]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The Asiatic cheetah, the world’s most endangered big cat, faces an increasingly precarious future as ongoing conflict in Iran disrupts critical conservation efforts, reports Mongabay contributor Kayleigh Long. Once ranging from the Arabian Peninsula to India, the cheetah subspecies (Acinonyx jubatus venaticus) is now confined to just 16% of its former territory, with fewer than [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The Asiatic cheetah, the world’s most endangered big cat, faces an increasingly precarious future as ongoing conflict in Iran disrupts critical conservation efforts, reports Mongabay contributor Kayleigh Long. Once ranging from the Arabian Peninsula to India, the cheetah subspecies (Acinonyx jubatus venaticus) is now confined to just 16% of its former territory, with fewer than 30 individuals estimated to remain in the wild in Iran. Before the war began in February 2026, conservationists observed a rare sign of hope: a female cheetah named Helia was filmed in North Khorasan province with five cubs, the largest litter ever recorded for the subspecies. Bagher Nezami, national director of the Conservation of the Asiatic Cheetah Project, told Iranian media that these were &#8220;ID-carded&#8221; individuals being monitored by researchers. However,  access to protected areas for nongovernmental groups has now &#8220;slowed down considerably,&#8221; interrupting long-term monitoring and camera trapping, a local conservationist told Mongabay, speaking on condition of anonymity. There are also fears that conservation vehicles could be misidentified as military targets in the remote desert landscapes where the cheetahs live. Sarah Durant, a research scientist at the Zoological Society of London, emphasized the protection of field scientists, park rangers, and Indigenous peoples during armed conflict is “a matter of urgent international concern.” Beyond the direct impact of combat, Western sanctions on Iran have also taken a toll. “Critical activities such as monitoring, law enforcement and the development of wildlife-friendly infrastructure have declined,” the authors of a 2025 study wrote. “These limitations have contributed to&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2026/05/war-on-iran-may-threaten-conservation-of-the-worlds-rarest-big-cat/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<title>More than a million live birds imported to Asia in 15 years, report finds</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2026/05/more-than-a-million-live-birds-imported-to-asia-in-15-years-report-finds/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2026/05/more-than-a-million-live-birds-imported-to-asia-in-15-years-report-finds/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>18 May 2026 05:16:10 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Mongabay.com]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Naina Rao]]>
					</author>
															<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/05/18051500/Canary-e1779081343300-768x512.jpeg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?post_type=short-article&#038;p=319620</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Asia, Hong Kong, and Singapore]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Birds, Conservation, Crime, Environment, Health, Infectious Wildlife Disease, Invasive Species, Nature And Health, Parrots, Pet Trade, Public Health, Regulations, Wildlife, Wildlife Crime, Wildlife Trade, Wildlife Trafficking, and Zoonotic Diseases]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Hong Kong and Singapore imported more than 1 million live wild birds between 2006 and 2020, according to a new analysis of customs data published in Conservation Biology. Nearly two-thirds of the birds were from Africa. The study highlights a massive, often under-regulated trade that threatens wild populations and poses significant risks for the spread [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Hong Kong and Singapore imported more than 1 million live wild birds between 2006 and 2020, according to a new analysis of customs data published in Conservation Biology. Nearly two-thirds of the birds were from Africa. The study highlights a massive, often under-regulated trade that threatens wild populations and poses significant risks for the spread of invasive species and deadly diseases, Mongabay’s Spoorthy Raman reports. Rowan Martin, director of bird trade at the World Parrot Trust, and his colleagues used U.N. Comtrade data to track the trade of wild birds. They found that Singapore accounted for nearly three-quarters of the imports, and Hong Kong was a second hub. Canaries (Crithagra spp.) topped the list of birds entering Hong Kong, with the yellow-fronted canary (C. mozambica) and white-rumped seedeater (C. leucopygia) making up 84% of African imports between 2015 and 2020. Martin’s team found that about 65% of the birds came from Africa. Mali, Guinea, Tanzania, and Mozambique were the primary exporters. “African birds are prominent because there’s been very little regulation of the exports,” Martin told Mongabay. “There are relatively few large-scale exporters operating in West Africa, and often these family businesses have big holding facilities where they aggregate birds prior to export.” Martin and his colleagues found bird imports to Hong Kong and Singapore increased after 2006. He credits this to rising middle-class wealth in Asia, more flight connectivity, and social media, which facilitates connections between exporters and buyers. Simon Bruslund, a bird trade researcher from the Copenhagen Zoo&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2026/05/more-than-a-million-live-birds-imported-to-asia-in-15-years-report-finds/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2026/05/more-than-a-million-live-birds-imported-to-asia-in-15-years-report-finds/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
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					<title>FIFA&#8217;s World Cup heat measures may not go far enough, expert warns</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2026/05/fifas-world-cup-heat-measures-may-not-go-far-enough-expert-warns/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2026/05/fifas-world-cup-heat-measures-may-not-go-far-enough-expert-warns/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>18 May 2026 04:55:48 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Naina Rao]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Shreya Dasgupta]]>
					</author>
															<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/05/18044710/WWA-WC-Heat-Risk-2-scaled-e1779080117385-768x512.png" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?post_type=short-article&#038;p=319616</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[North America and United States]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Adaptation To Climate Change, Climate, Climate Change, Climate Change And Extreme Weather, Extreme Weather, Health, Heatwave, Public Health, Temperatures, and Weather]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Measures proposed by organizers of the upcoming FIFA World Cup won’t be sufficient to protect players and fans from the significantly higher risk of extreme heat and humidity expected at this year’s tournament, a medical expert warns. In December 2025, FIFA announced there would be three-minute hydration breaks for players in each half of every [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Measures proposed by organizers of the upcoming FIFA World Cup won’t be sufficient to protect players and fans from the significantly higher risk of extreme heat and humidity expected at this year’s tournament, a medical expert warns. In December 2025, FIFA announced there would be three-minute hydration breaks for players in each half of every game “to ensure the best possible conditions for players”. However, a recent analysis says conditions at the 2026 World Cup, co-hosted by the U.S., Mexico and Canada, will be much warmer than during the USA ’94 tournament. Scientists from World Weather Attribution (WWA), an international initiative studying the role of climate change in extreme events, warn that human-induced climate change has nearly doubled the likelihood of dangerously hot match conditions since then. That makes it much more difficult for the body to dissipate heat, said Chris Mullington, a consultant anesthetist and clinical senior lecturer at Imperial College London. “That matters because footballers generate large amounts of metabolic heat during repeated sprints, accelerations, and high-intensity play,” he said at a press briefing. “As WGBT rises, the body’s usual cooling mechanisms become less effective.” WGBT is the Wet Bulb Globe Temperature (WGBT) index, a combined measure of humidity, wind, air temperature and direct sunlight, which gives the “real feel” of heat on the human body. Mullington said high WBGT can compel players to “reduce high intensity running, sprint less often, pace themselves more conservatively, and experience impaired decision making as thermal strain accumulates.” The WWA analysis identified&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2026/05/fifas-world-cup-heat-measures-may-not-go-far-enough-expert-warns/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<title>Monica Montefalcone, leading seagrass scientist, dies in Maldives diving accident, aged 51</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/monica-montefalcone-leading-seagrass-scientist-dies-in-a-maldives-diving-accident-aged-51/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/monica-montefalcone-leading-seagrass-scientist-dies-in-a-maldives-diving-accident-aged-51/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>16 May 2026 09:34:39 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Rhett Ayers Butler]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rhett Butler]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/05/16093229/Monica-Montefalcone-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=319589</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Europe, Italy, and Mediterranean Sea]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Ecosystem Restoration, Marine Conservation, Obituary, Ocean, and Seagrass]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[To Monica Montefalcone, the sea was a place to study: its plants, reefs, hidden habitats and seasonal changes. A meadow of Posidonia oceanica was not just a patch of green beneath the water. It provided a nursery, offered shelter, stored carbon, and afforded coastal protection. To most swimmers it might have looked like seagrass. To [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[To Monica Montefalcone, the sea was a place to study: its plants, reefs, hidden habitats and seasonal changes. A meadow of Posidonia oceanica was not just a patch of green beneath the water. It provided a nursery, offered shelter, stored carbon, and afforded coastal protection. To most swimmers it might have looked like seagrass. To Montefalcone it was a living system, and one that recovered slowly once damaged. That slowness mattered. Posidonia grows at a pace that does not fit human timetables. In the Mediterranean, more than half of its meadows have been lost over the past century; in Liguria, the losses were especially severe. Laws and European directives could help protect what remained, she argued, but protection alone was not enough. Where hundreds of hectares had disappeared, waiting for nature to repair itself would mean leaving the work to future generations. Active restoration, including the manual replanting of seagrass, was therefore a practical response to a practical problem. Monica Montefalcone. From Sky TG24 Montefalcone, who died on May 14th in a diving accident in the Maldives, was 51. Her daughter, Giorgia Sommacal, 23, died with her, along with Muriel Oddenino, a research fellow who had worked with her, Federico Gualtieri, a recent marine-biology graduate, and Gianluca Benedetti, a diving instructor and boat operations manager. Four of the victims were connected to the University of Genoa, where Montefalcone was an associate professor of ecology. The group had been diving in caves in Vaavu Atoll. The final details of the accident&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/monica-montefalcone-leading-seagrass-scientist-dies-in-a-maldives-diving-accident-aged-51/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<title>Tensions rise in DRC mining region as community leaders arrested over protest</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2026/05/tensions-rise-in-drc-mining-region-as-community-leaders-arrested-over-protest/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2026/05/tensions-rise-in-drc-mining-region-as-community-leaders-arrested-over-protest/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>15 May 2026 21:41:46 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Elodie Toto]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Shreya Dasgupta]]>
					</author>
															<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/05/09191918/2-Adelard-768x512.jpeg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?post_type=short-article&#038;p=319585</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Central Africa, and Democratic Republic Of Congo]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[cobalt, Copper, Environment, Indigenous Rights, Land Conflict, Land Rights, Mining, Resource Conflict, Rivers, and Social Conflict]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Civil society groups have denounced the “arbitrary” arrests of 11 community leaders in the Democratic Republic of Congo following a peaceful protest over the impacts of mining operations on local communities. Authorities made the arrests on May 1 in the country’s southeastern Lualaba province, prompting calls by local and international NGOs for the “immediate and [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Civil society groups have denounced the “arbitrary” arrests of 11 community leaders in the Democratic Republic of Congo following a peaceful protest over the impacts of mining operations on local communities. Authorities made the arrests on May 1 in the country’s southeastern Lualaba province, prompting calls by local and international NGOs for the “immediate and unconditional release of all detainees.” The case centers around Tenke Fungurume Mining (TFM), one of the world’s largest copper and cobalt miners and a subsidiary of CMOC (China Molybdenum) Group, which in 2020 built a lime processing plant near the village of Kabombwa in Lualaba. Two years later, following an investigation, the NGO African Natural Resources Watch (AFREWATCH) alleged that TFM’s plant was releasing acidic water into a nearby river, causing 11 deaths between 2020 and 2022. The company denied AFREWATCH’s findings, yet in 2023 relocated several Kabombwa residents through a provincial government commission, and paid out compensation ranging from $3,000 to $5,000. Three years after the relocation, many residents remain deeply dissatisfied. “They realized the amount they received was far from sufficient and does not allow them to live decently,” Leonard Zama, activist and director of the Initiative for the Protection of Human Rights and Social Reintegration (IPDHOR ASBL), told Mongabay by phone. During the relocation, TFM also promised support for housing and health care for three years, but the agreement was only verbal “and nothing was done,” Zama added. Frustrated by what they describe as inadequate responses to their demands by the end&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2026/05/tensions-rise-in-drc-mining-region-as-community-leaders-arrested-over-protest/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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						<item>
					<title>New energy deals for Africa sealed at Nairobi summit</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2026/05/new-energy-deals-for-africa-sealed-at-nairobi-summit/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2026/05/new-energy-deals-for-africa-sealed-at-nairobi-summit/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>15 May 2026 20:01:22 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[David Akana]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Bobbybascomb]]>
					</author>
															<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/05/15191501/47318373611_2f36a5c5bb_o-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?post_type=short-article&#038;p=319567</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Alternative Energy, Clean Energy, Climate Change, Energy, Energy Efficiency, Energy Politics, Green Energy, Oil, and Renewable Energy]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[European and African business leaders and heads of state have announced a raft of clean energy and infrastructure investments at the recent Africa Forward Summit in Nairobi. Forty companies announced plans to invest roughly 27 billion euros ($31.5 billion) across about 30 projects in Africa. They aim to generate a combined 100 billion euros ($116.5 [&#8230;]]]>
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							<![CDATA[European and African business leaders and heads of state have announced a raft of clean energy and infrastructure investments at the recent Africa Forward Summit in Nairobi. Forty companies announced plans to invest roughly 27 billion euros ($31.5 billion) across about 30 projects in Africa. They aim to generate a combined 100 billion euros ($116.5 billion) in revenue while employing more than 600,000 people across the continent. The wider goal is to deepen industrial ties and accelerate Africa’s transition to low-carbon power. Energy attracted the largest share of investments, roughly 14 billion euros ($16.3 billion). Agriculture, human capital, finance, AI, industrialization and the blue economy were also a focus. Kenya and France jointly hosted the May 11-12 gathering, which organizers said was designed to build a “partnership of equals.” Africa and Europe, particularly France, have historically had a contentious relationship rooted in colonialism. Commitments on renewable energy French utility EDF confirmed plans for 2 gigawatts of hydropower projects across several African countries. French oil and gas major TotalEnergies outlined more than $10 billion in new investments by 2030, including $2 billion for renewable power in Rwanda and $400 million for clean cooking initiatives in Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. TotalEnergies will also work with Ellipse Projects on the construction and renovation of hospital infrastructure worth $700 million. Infrastructure investor Meridiam announced $200 million to double the capacity of Kenya’s Kipeto wind project, while Global Telecom Holding pledged $350 million for a 250-megawatt solar farm in Zambia. AXIAN Group and partners committed&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2026/05/new-energy-deals-for-africa-sealed-at-nairobi-summit/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
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					<title>In Thailand, burned sugarcane plantations become traps for leopard cat cubs</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/in-thailand-burned-sugarcane-plantations-become-traps-for-leopard-cat-cubs/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/in-thailand-burned-sugarcane-plantations-become-traps-for-leopard-cat-cubs/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>15 May 2026 19:43:43 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Ana Norman Bermúdez]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Isabel Esterman]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/05/15134718/rescued-leopard-cat-6-1-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=319496</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Southeast Asia, and Thailand]]>
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											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Cats, Conservation, Environment, Environmental Law, Farming, Fires, Human-wildlife Conflict, Mammals, Plantations, Regulations, Small Cats, Wildlife, Wildlife Conservation, and Wildlife Rehabilitation]]>
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							<![CDATA[Nuntita Ruksachat, head veterinarian at the Khon Kaen wildlife rescue center in northeastern Thailand, holds up a feline cub no larger than her hand. Part of a litter rescued just days ago, the cub’s fur is patchy, revealing blistered skin underneath. Its whiskers, clearly singed, are short and stubby. “They were rescued from a burned [&#8230;]]]>
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							<![CDATA[Nuntita Ruksachat, head veterinarian at the Khon Kaen wildlife rescue center in northeastern Thailand, holds up a feline cub no larger than her hand. Part of a litter rescued just days ago, the cub’s fur is patchy, revealing blistered skin underneath. Its whiskers, clearly singed, are short and stubby. “They were rescued from a burned sugarcane plantation,” she says. Behind her, cats pace inside rows of cages. More than 50 leopard cat (Prionailurus bengalensis) cubs are currently housed at the rescue center, which is run by Thailand’s Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation’s (DNP). The youngest are kept in cages, while older ones have been moved to larger enclosures. Leopard cats are small wild felines found across much of Asia, from Afghanistan to South Korea. Roughly the size of domestic cats, their bodies are slightly leaner, and their fur is marked with black spots and stripes. The leopard cat is a highly adaptable species, and as forests have shrunk across its range, it has learnt to live in human-dominated landscapes. In Thailand&#8217;s northeast, sugarcane plantations provide leopard cat mothers and their litters with shelter and prey. But every crop burning season — the period between December and April, when farmers in Thailand typically burn their fields — those same plantations can turn lethal. The rescue center receives a steady influx of leopard cat cubs from across the northeast. Most are found alone and weak on plantations or in nearby forests, some with scorched fur and whiskers. Rows of&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/in-thailand-burned-sugarcane-plantations-become-traps-for-leopard-cat-cubs/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
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					<title>Light pollution reshapes predator-prey dynamics at California&#8217;s urban edge, study finds</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/light-pollution-reshapes-predator-prey-dynamics-at-californias-urban-edge-study-finds/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/light-pollution-reshapes-predator-prey-dynamics-at-californias-urban-edge-study-finds/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>15 May 2026 19:28:09 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Liz Kimbrough]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Sharon Guynup]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Big Cats]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Biodiversity]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Cats]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Conservation]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[green]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Mammals]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[wildlife]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/05/15191816/puma-dark-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=319568</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[California, North America, and United States]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Big Cats, Biodiversity, Cats, Environment, Green, Mammals, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[A new study from two California counties finds that artificial light at night is a stronger driver of wildlife behavior at the edge of urban environments than noise. This has ripple effects for predators and prey. Researchers analyzed more than 35,000 camera-trap days from 61 stations in San Mateo county, on California&#8217;s central coast, and [&#8230;]]]>
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							<![CDATA[A new study from two California counties finds that artificial light at night is a stronger driver of wildlife behavior at the edge of urban environments than noise. This has ripple effects for predators and prey. Researchers analyzed more than 35,000 camera-trap days from 61 stations in San Mateo county, on California&#8217;s central coast, and Orange county, in Southern California, between 2022 and 2024. They tracked an apex predator, the puma (Puma concolor); the bobcat (Lynx rufus); and an ungulate prey species, the mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus). The paper was published in Urban Ecosystems. “While scientists have known for a while that wildlife change their behavior around cities, often becoming more nocturnal to avoid humans, our study isolated one part of the urban environment that is driving this,”co-author Zara McDonald, biologist and president of the Felidae Conservation Fund, told Mongabay by email. “Our key finding is that artificial light pollution is actually altering the predator-prey dynamic.” Predators like pumas and bobcats avoided bright lights at night, such as areas lit by streetlights and other electric lighting. Mule deer, however, were more active in those same areas, though they avoided bright moonlight and noisy areas. The authors say the deer use human-modified spaces that predators avoid. A puma on the urban edge in California. Camera trap image courtesy of Felidae Conservation Fund “Essentially, artificial light is acting as a spatial barrier for carnivores and a &#8216;protective shield&#8217; for prey,” McDonald said. The contrast was visually striking in the images and footage&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/light-pollution-reshapes-predator-prey-dynamics-at-californias-urban-edge-study-finds/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
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