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		<title>Conservation news</title>
		<atom:link href="https://news.mongabay.com/feed/?feedtype=bulletpoints&#038;post_type=post&#038;topic=interviews" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" />
		<link>https://news.mongabay.com/list/interviews/</link>
		<description>Environmental science and conservation news</description>
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	<title>News on Interviews</title>
	<link>https://news.mongabay.com/list/interviews/</link>
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				<item>
					<title>The Bougainville community in Panguna wants justice for mining’s ‘toxic legacy’</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/podcast/2026/06/the-bougainville-community-in-panguna-wants-justice-for-minings-toxic-legacy/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/podcast/2026/06/the-bougainville-community-in-panguna-wants-justice-for-minings-toxic-legacy/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>16 Jun 2026 21:35:04 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Mike DiGirolamo]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Mikedigirolamo]]>
					</author>
															<enclosure url="https://news.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/06/Media-Room-Theonila_Credit-Goldman-Environmental-Prize_152.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?post_type=podcasts&#038;p=321261</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Melanesia and Papua New Guinea]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Corporate Environmental Transgressors, Environment, Health, Interviews with conservation players, Mining, Pollution, Prizes, and Social Justice]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
												<description>
								<![CDATA[Theonila Roka Matbob grew up next to what was — at the time — the world’s largest open-pit mine in Bougainville, an autonomous region in Papua New Guinea, operated by a subsidiary of Rio Tinto. This mine wrought environmental and social devastation on the community of Panguna for decades. And many of these impacts carry [&#8230;]]]>
							</description>
																						<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Theonila Roka Matbob grew up next to what was — at the time — the world’s largest open-pit mine in Bougainville, an autonomous region in Papua New Guinea, operated by a subsidiary of Rio Tinto. This mine wrought environmental and social devastation on the community of Panguna for decades. And many of these impacts carry on today, says Roka Matbob, who is an Indigenous Nasioi woman and politician. With the help of Jubilee Australia and the Human Rights Law Centre, Roka Matbob was able to file a legal complaint with Australia’s National Contact Point for Responsible Business Conduct. As a result, Rio Tinto signed a memorandum of understanding with the Bougainville government to remediate the impacts of this mine. For this legal achievement, Roka Matbob was awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize. However, she is skeptical that remediation for these impacts will occur. She joins the podcast this week to tell the Bougainville story and what she wants people to understand about mining&#8217;s impacts on the autonomous region and her community. “ The Bougainville story is a result of Australia&#8217;s political decision through Papua New Guinea government now implemented on Bougainville and leaving behind a toxic legacy that is already been kind of fenced out, not to have a forum to talk about,” she says. “So my intention is for us to start telling this story.” Late last year, the Bougainville government signed another memorandum of understanding with an Indian metals company, Loyd’s Metals, to redevelop the Panguna mine. Roka Matbob says&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/podcast/2026/06/the-bougainville-community-in-panguna-wants-justice-for-minings-toxic-legacy/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
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										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/podcast/2026/06/the-bougainville-community-in-panguna-wants-justice-for-minings-toxic-legacy/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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					<title>Destructive ‘wrong stories’ drive environmental exploitation, Indigenous scholar says</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2026/06/destructive-wrong-stories-drive-environmental-exploitation-indigenous-scholar-says/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2026/06/destructive-wrong-stories-drive-environmental-exploitation-indigenous-scholar-says/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>15 Jun 2026 04:42:12 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Mongabay.com]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Naina Rao]]>
					</author>
															<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/06/15044131/Eight_Indigenous_Ways_of_Learning.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?post_type=short-article&#038;p=321171</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Australia and Oceania]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Books, Culture, Economics, Environment, Indigenous Peoples, Interviews, Media, and Politics]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
												<description>
								<![CDATA[A new book from Indigenous scholar Tyson Yunkaporta of Australia explores how human narratives dictate how modern society governs itself and, crucially, how it exploits or protects the natural world. “It’s a terrible thing to … misrepresent things, make false claims, bear false witness in a way that is bending story, the story that everybody [&#8230;]]]>
							</description>
																						<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[A new book from Indigenous scholar Tyson Yunkaporta of Australia explores how human narratives dictate how modern society governs itself and, crucially, how it exploits or protects the natural world. “It’s a terrible thing to … misrepresent things, make false claims, bear false witness in a way that is bending story, the story that everybody follows,” Yunkaporta told Mongabay’s newscast host Mike DiGirolamo. Yunkaporta is a Deakin University senior research fellow and member of the Apalech clan (Wik) whose traditional lands are located in far north Queensland, Australia. &nbsp; His book, Right Story, Wrong Story: Adventures in Indigenous Thinking, argues that identifying and correcting &#8220;wrong stories&#8221; is key to stopping environmental exploitation. A wrong story, according to Yunkaporta, is one that acts as a deceptive “curse” by presenting an illusion as if it were real to justify the exploitation of nature and community well-being through narratives that have no connection to the land. To illustrate the &#8220;wrong story&#8221; of modern resource exploitation, Yunkaporta told Mongabay the Aboriginal folk tale of Tidalik, a giant frog who hoarded all the world’s water for himself. Yunkaporta compares Tidalik to Wall Street firms and billionaires who gamble on water futures and &#8220;park their cash&#8221; in housing, exacerbating the affordability crisis while stopping the natural flow of resources. In the legend, the animal kingdom does not &#8220;eat&#8221; Tidalik; instead, an eel makes him laugh by tying himself in knots, forcing the frog to &#8220;vomit all the water back into the land.” &#8220;A lot of people&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2026/06/destructive-wrong-stories-drive-environmental-exploitation-indigenous-scholar-says/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
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										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2026/06/destructive-wrong-stories-drive-environmental-exploitation-indigenous-scholar-says/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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						<item>
					<title>How an activist network built pressure without political power</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/how-an-activist-network-built-pressure-without-political-power/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/how-an-activist-network-built-pressure-without-political-power/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>11 Jun 2026 14:44:18 +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/20/2026/06/10221437/1987_BurgerKing-2560px-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=320946</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[United States]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Activism, Books, Climate Change, Environment, Forests, Interviews, Protests, Rainforests, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
												<description>
								<![CDATA[- David Benac’s Rainforest Radicals traces how Rainforest Action Network grew from a small San Francisco-based activist group into an influential force in rainforest protection, Indigenous rights and corporate accountability.<br />- The book follows RAN’s early campaigns against Burger King, True Geothermal, the World Bank and Mitsubishi to show how the group linked distant forest destruction to everyday choices, public pressure and corporate reputation.<br />- Benac shows how RAN combined decentralized organizing, nonviolent direct action, media spectacle, boycotts and long-term support for local and Indigenous-led campaigns.<br />- The interview explores what RAN’s history can teach today’s environmental movements about leverage, persistence, outside solidarity and the challenges that come when a radical network begins to win.<br />]]>
							</description>
																						<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[When Rainforest Action Network began in 1985, it had little of what usually makes an organization powerful. It had no large budget, no legal department, no reliable access to politicians, and no formal way to force global corporations or development banks to change. It had Randy Hayes, a wide activist network, a way to connect distant forest destruction to everyday choices, and a willingness to use tactics that many mainstream environmental groups avoided. David Benac’s new book, Rainforest Radicals: A History of Rainforest Action Network and Transnational Organizing, tells the story of how that combination became effective. RAN’s early campaigns targeted Burger King over rainforest beef, True Geothermal in Hawai‘i, the World Bank over development projects, and Mitsubishi over tropical timber. These were different fights, involving different places, institutions, and coalitions. Together, they show how a small San Francisco-based group helped bring tropical deforestation, Indigenous rights, and corporate accountability into late twentieth-century environmental politics. Rainforest Radicals: A History of Rainforest Action Network and Transnational Organizing Benac, an environmental and public historian of the postwar United States, came to the subject indirectly. He was researching timber-industry history in the Pacific Northwest when he encountered the MacMillan Bloedel papers and a grassroots campaign against clear-cutting in British Columbia’s coastal rainforests. RAN appeared in the archival trail. That led him to Hayes, RAN’s co-founder, then to a larger oral-history project with activists, allies, and contemporaries. The result is a history built around interviews, archives, and a close look at how people organize when&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/how-an-activist-network-built-pressure-without-political-power/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/how-an-activist-network-built-pressure-without-political-power/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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					<title>How silk caterpillars became a tool for conservation in Madagascar</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/how-silk-caterpillars-became-a-tool-for-conservation-in-madagascar/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/how-silk-caterpillars-became-a-tool-for-conservation-in-madagascar/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>10 Jun 2026 18:23:02 +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/20/2026/06/09190624/CPALI_Kramer_Antherina_suraka_moth-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=320878</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa and Madagascar]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Books, Community-based Conservation, Conservation, Conservation Solutions, Environment, Forests, Happy-upbeat Environmental, Interviews, and Solutions]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
												<description>
								<![CDATA[- Catherine Craig’s conservation work began with field biology, from chimpanzees at Gombe to decades of research on spiders, silk and insect behavior.<br />- In Madagascar, she developed a conservation enterprise built around native silk-producing caterpillars, border forests and new sources of income for farmers and artisans. The project’s endurance depended on Malagasy leadership, patient work with communities and a willingness to adapt when markets, weather and local needs changed.<br />- After more than two decades, Craig stepped back from daily leadership, leaving the program financially secure and increasingly governed by the people who built it locally.<br />- Craig spoke with Mongabay founder and CEO Rhett Ayers Butler in June 2026.<br />]]>
							</description>
																						<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[When Catherine Craig first went to Gombe in 1972, she was not thinking about silk. She was an undergraduate in a four-seat plane with Jane Goodall, flying over the Tanzanian forest where Goodall’s work on chimpanzees was changing how scientists understood animals. Craig spent six months there, learning to recognize individual chimpanzees and helping track mothers and infants through the steep woodland above Lake Tanganyika. The forest stayed with her. So did the sight of people living nearby with few choices, and the later realization that even forests thought to be protected could disappear. Her path back to conservation was indirect. Craig became a biologist of spiders and silk, earning a Ph.D. in ecology and evolution from Cornell and later joining the biology faculty at Yale. For two decades, she studied webs, foraging behavior, insect flight, and the properties of silk. It was work at the level of fibers, mechanics, and evolution. Yet the question that had formed at Gombe remained: how could habitat be protected where people had few ways to earn money? The answer she pursued was both plain and difficult. If farmers could earn income from native silk-producing caterpillars and the plants that fed them, then habitat might become something worth tending. The idea drew on her scientific expertise, but it also required skills that science had not taught her: product design, marketing, patience, and the ability to listen across languages, cultures, and expectations shaped by past disappointments. Borocera cajani Vinson, 1863 family Lasiocampidae. Adult moth, caterpillar&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/how-silk-caterpillars-became-a-tool-for-conservation-in-madagascar/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/how-silk-caterpillars-became-a-tool-for-conservation-in-madagascar/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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						<item>
					<title>‘Climate Wayfinding’ can help you unpack the overwhelm of our ecological problems</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/podcast/2026/06/climate-wayfinding-can-help-you-unpack-the-overwhelm-of-our-ecological-problems/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/podcast/2026/06/climate-wayfinding-can-help-you-unpack-the-overwhelm-of-our-ecological-problems/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>09 Jun 2026 21:03:57 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Mike DiGirolamo]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Mikedigirolamo]]>
					</author>
															<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/06/05053034/KKWilkinson-%E2%80%93-Climate-Wayfinding-with-Collage-credit_-Design-by-Ampersand-768x512.jpeg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?post_type=podcasts&#038;p=320690</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Global]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Activism, Books, Climate Change, Climate Justice, Environment, Happy-upbeat Environmental, Interviews, Psychology, and Social Justice]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
												<description>
								<![CDATA[Katharine Wilkinson has a Ph.D. in geography and the environment, is well known for being a co-author of the book Drawdown and co-founder of The All We Can Save Project. She joins the Newscast this week to discuss her latest book Climate Wayfinding: Healing Ourselves and the Planet We Call Home. As a journalist, it’s [&#8230;]]]>
							</description>
																						<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Katharine Wilkinson has a Ph.D. in geography and the environment, is well known for being a co-author of the book Drawdown and co-founder of The All We Can Save Project. She joins the Newscast this week to discuss her latest book Climate Wayfinding: Healing Ourselves and the Planet We Call Home. As a journalist, it’s unhelpful for me to divorce myself from the topic of this interview, as I have experienced, time and again, the sense of “murky overwhelm” this book is specifically designed to address. But Wilkinson didn’t just write this book for journalists like myself who cover ecological crises for a living. She wrote it for readers and listeners like you. “I think we&#8217;re all in our own ways grappling with this increasingly mapless time, right? And that is quite literally true,” Wilkinson says. “‘Is there hope?’ and ‘What can I do?’ I think these are fundamentally navigational questions as much as they are questions of action.” What Climate Wayfinding does that I think is unique is it directly addresses the reader and takes them through a process of self-examination. Of sitting with the uncomfortable emotions one feels about our ecological crises, without judgment. And from that self-compassion, asking the reader to imagine the world they want to see instead and encouraging them to map out how they see themselves working to achieve it. It sounds relatively simple, but the work is real and, from my own experience, not unlike therapy. In my opinion, it’s a brave piece&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/podcast/2026/06/climate-wayfinding-can-help-you-unpack-the-overwhelm-of-our-ecological-problems/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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					<title>Legal protections for Brazil’s isolated Indigenous peoples: Interview with prosecutor Daniel Luís Dalberto</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/legal-protections-for-brazils-isolated-indigenous-peoples-interview-with-prosecutor-daniel-luis-dalberto/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/legal-protections-for-brazils-isolated-indigenous-peoples-interview-with-prosecutor-daniel-luis-dalberto/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>03 Jun 2026 13:21:46 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Aimee Gabay]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Latoya Abulu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/06/03125631/1-Tawaya-Village-of-the-Matis-people-in-Javari-Valley-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=320530</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Brazil, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Conservation, Environment, Environmental Law, Governance, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Reserves, Indigenous Rights, Interviews, Interviews with conservation players, Land Rights, Law, Rainforests, and Saving Rainforests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
												<description>
								<![CDATA[- Across Brazil, orders known as land-use restrictions serve as temporary protective measures for the territories of recently contacted Indigenous peoples and those living in voluntary isolation.<br />- But while the measures are meant to allow time for the formal demarcation process to be carried out, they’ve now become an end to themselves, renewed repeatedly and failing to prevent the invasion and exploitation of these lands, says Brazilian federal public prosecutor Daniel Luís Dalberto.<br />- Dalberto told Mongabay in an interview that the measure is meant to be precautionary and accompanied by other protective measures by government agencies, such as monitoring work and operations to combat crime.<br />- He also raised concerns about the frequency with which issues affecting Indigenous territories are being raised to the country’s highest court, rather than being resolved at local courts and tribunals, which closes off an important front in the fight for fundamental rights.<br />]]>
							</description>
																						<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The year 2011 marked the first time a land-use restriction order was enforced for the Ituna/Itatá Indigenous Territory, a swath of Brazilian Amazon roughly twice the size of Singapore and home to people living in voluntary isolation. The order was meant to protect the latter by prohibiting unauthorized individuals from entering — but rates of forest loss and invasions grew. In 2019, Ituna/Itatá was one of the Indigenous territories with the highest forest loss, primarily due to illegal land grabbers. In Brazil, land-use restriction orders exist to protect isolated Indigenous peoples and are a temporary tool in cases where the demarcation process to formalize the protected status and boundaries of Indigenous territories are not yet complete. But as recent Mongabay reporting has shown, they’re often renewed many times over for years while the formal land titling stalls, and aren’t always effective at protecting isolated peoples’ lands from invaders. Following one of the latest land-use restriction orders in 2022 for the Ituna/Itatá territory, the area lost 2,211 hectares (5,464 acres) of tree cover, or about 1.5% of its total area, according to satellite analysis by Mongabay. The most recent renewal was in 2025. Brazilian federal public prosecutor Daniel Luís Dalberto, head of the office for recently contacted Indigenous peoples and those living in voluntary isolation, told Mongabay in a recent interview that while the legal measure is important, it should have “a short time frame, until the Indigenous territory is demarcated as quickly as possible,” and should be accompanied by other&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/legal-protections-for-brazils-isolated-indigenous-peoples-interview-with-prosecutor-daniel-luis-dalberto/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/legal-protections-for-brazils-isolated-indigenous-peoples-interview-with-prosecutor-daniel-luis-dalberto/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
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					<title>From pledges to road maps, nations organize around fossil fuel phaseout</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/podcast/2026/06/from-pledges-to-road-maps-nations-organize-around-fossil-fuel-phaseout/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/podcast/2026/06/from-pledges-to-road-maps-nations-organize-around-fossil-fuel-phaseout/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>02 Jun 2026 20:27:02 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Mike DiGirolamo]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Mikedigirolamo]]>
					</author>
															<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/06/02075811/amazon_201578-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?post_type=podcasts&#038;p=320472</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Global]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Climate Change, Energy, Energy Transition, Fossil Fuels, Interviews, Planetary Boundaries, and Politics]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
												<description>
								<![CDATA[A group of 57 nations mostly from the Global South, describing themselves as “coalition of the willing” intent on making the Transition Away From Fossil Fuels, or TAFF, convened in the Colombian city of Santa Marta, from April 24-29, 2026, for the inaugural TAFF summit. Also referred to as the “Santa Marta Coalition,” this group of [&#8230;]]]>
							</description>
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							<![CDATA[A group of 57 nations mostly from the Global South, describing themselves as “coalition of the willing” intent on making the Transition Away From Fossil Fuels, or TAFF, convened in the Colombian city of Santa Marta, from April 24-29, 2026, for the inaugural TAFF summit. Also referred to as the “Santa Marta Coalition,” this group of countries met to discuss and develop frameworks and pathways for nations to phase out fossil fuel dependency. Joining the Mongabay Newscast this week is Mamphela Ramphele, a medical doctor, activist and member of the Planetary Guardians, a network of experts advocating for the planetary boundaries as a measurement framework. Ramphele explains the highlights of the conference, which included the unveiling of a dedicated scientific panel to advise nations on developing road maps to transition off fossil fuels. The science panel includes experts such as Carlos Nobre from Brazil and Johan Rockström from Sweden, who pioneered the planetary boundaries concept. The conference also saw the establishment of “workstreams” to help nations connect their phaseout road maps to their emissions reduction targets as part of their U.N. climate commitments; leverage support to change their financial systems for the transition; and reform trade systems. Two nations in attendance, Colombia and France, announced their own phaseout road maps at the conference. Ramphele, from South Africa, suggests that as countries in the Santa Marta Coalition develop and implement their own road maps, other nations not yet on board will eventually be pressured to follow. Until a legally binding agreement, such&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/podcast/2026/06/from-pledges-to-road-maps-nations-organize-around-fossil-fuel-phaseout/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
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					<title>Nature’s feedback loops can drive collapse. Thomas Crowther thinks they can also drive recovery</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/natures-feedback-loops-can-drive-collapse-thomas-crowther-thinks-they-can-also-drive-recovery/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/natures-feedback-loops-can-drive-collapse-thomas-crowther-thinks-they-can-also-drive-recovery/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>01 Jun 2026 00:55:10 +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/20/2026/05/12020804/thomas-crowther-13-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=319071</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Nature conservation Influencers]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Global]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Bioacoustics, Biodiversity, Conservation, Conservation Technology, Environment, Forests, Interviews, Interviews with conservation players, Rainforests, Remote Sensing, Technology, Tropical Forests, and Wildtech]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
												<description>
								<![CDATA[- Thomas Crowther’s Nature’s Echo argues that feedback loops shape everything from ecosystems and climate systems to human psychology and social change.<br />- Drawing on ecology, cosmology, and restoration science, the book reframes conservation as the cultivation of self-reinforcing systems rather than isolated interventions.<br />- Crowther suggests that optimism, behavior, and narrative are not peripheral to environmental outcomes, but part of the forces that influence them.<br />- In an interview with Mongabay&#8217;s founder and CEO, Crowther discusses how these ideas inform his thinking on restoration, regenerative movements, ecological resilience, and the role individuals play in larger systems of change.<br />]]>
							</description>
																						<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Thomas Crowther’s career has been shaped by large claims about small things. A seed, a patch of soil, a soundscape, a moment of fear, a local restoration project: each, in his telling, can become part of a larger system of cause and effect. His new book, Nature’s Echo, is built around that idea. Feedback loops, he argues, are not just a feature of ecology. They are among the forces that formed stars, spread life across Earth, drive climate change, and may yet help repair damaged ecosystems. Crowther, a British ecologist, became one of the best-known figures in global ecology while at ETH Zurich, where he founded the Crowther Lab and built a large interdisciplinary research group. His work helped popularize the idea that ecosystem restoration could play a major role in addressing climate change, especially after a 2019 Science paper on the potential for additional tree cover drew worldwide attention, as well as criticism from scientists who warned against simplistic tree-planting narratives. His work also helped give rise to the World Economic Forum’s Trillion Trees initiative, and he has served as co-chair of the advisory board to the U.N. Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. He is also the founder of Restor, an open-data platform that connects conservation and restoration initiatives around the world. Screenshot of the Restor interface. That public profile has made Crowther both influential and contested. In 2024 he was also at the center of a dispute over his departure from ETH Zurich. The university said its decision followed&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/natures-feedback-loops-can-drive-collapse-thomas-crowther-thinks-they-can-also-drive-recovery/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
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					<title>Building bridges for human-wildlife coexistence: Interview with Yap Jo Leen</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/building-bridges-for-human-wildlife-coexistence-interview-with-yap-jo-leen/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/building-bridges-for-human-wildlife-coexistence-interview-with-yap-jo-leen/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>27 May 2026 00:54:06 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Isabelle LeongPhilip Jacobson]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Isabel Esterman]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/05/26092551/Yap-conducts-canopy-bridge-education-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=320118</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Malaysia, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Cities, Community-based Conservation, Conservation, Conservation Solutions, Deforestation, Development, Endangered Species, Environment, Forestry, Forests, Human-wildlife Conflict, Innovation, Interviews, Interviews with conservation players, Mammals, Monkeys, Primates, Rainforests, Solutions, urban ecology, Wildlife, and Wildlife Corridors]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
												<description>
								<![CDATA[- Conservationist Yap Jo Leen launched the Langur Project Penang after witnessing dusky langurs, an endangered monkey she was studying for her Ph.D. research, getting struck by vehicles on Malaysia’s Penang Island.<br />- Since 2019, her group has built three canopy bridges made from repurposed fire hoses to help langurs and other tree-dwelling wildlife safely cross busy roads, with no recorded langur roadkill deaths at the first bridge site since its installation.<br />- The project combines wildlife conservation with citizen science and environmental education, training volunteers to track langur movements, collect ecological and social data, and work with local communities to reduce human-wildlife conflict.<br />- Yap says the long-term goal is not simply to build more wildlife bridges, but to foster a broader culture of coexistence and community stewardship for urban wildlife across Malaysia.<br />]]>
							</description>
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							<![CDATA[TANJUNG BUNGAH, Malaysia — When Yap Jo Leen was tracking dusky langurs in the forests of Penang for her master’s degree in 2016, she watched a langur they called Towkay Soh — Hokkien for “lady boss” — get hit by a car while trying to cross a busy coastal road. Dazed, the langur managed to get back on its feet and retreat into a tree while Yap and her colleagues blocked traffic. As Towkay Soh recuperated over the next few days, the langur group’s empathy for each other was on full display, Yap says. “Female individuals, they would approach her and groom her and even try to make her feel better,” Yap says. “I always believe that the primates, humans and monkeys, we all share a similarity, which is connection.” Two dusky langurs called &#8220;Kim&#8221; (left) and &#8220;Sunny&#8221; (right) named by the Langur Project Penang at a playground near a residential area in the Tanjung Bungah area of George Town on Malaysia&#8217;s Penang Island. For Malaysia&#8217;s endangered dusky langurs, recognizable by the characteristic white &#8220;eye masks&#8221; that stand out against their black fur, survival increasingly depends on manmade crossings across urban landscapes and the work of &#8220;citizen scientists&#8221;. Image by Mohd Rasfan / AFP. Other langurs weren’t so lucky. From 2016 to 2018, Yap recorded eight langur roadkill deaths in the same area. So, in 2019, Yap and her collaborators built an artificial canopy bridge over the road, made from old fire hoses. Since then, they’ve recorded zero langur roadkill&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/building-bridges-for-human-wildlife-coexistence-interview-with-yap-jo-leen/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
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					<title>Australia is failing to meet its environment targets, argues ecologist</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/podcast/2026/05/australia-is-failing-to-meet-its-environment-targets-argues-ecologist/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/podcast/2026/05/australia-is-failing-to-meet-its-environment-targets-argues-ecologist/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>26 May 2026 20:52:57 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Mike DiGirolamo]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Mikedigirolamo]]>
					</author>
															<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/05/25073856/Black-flanked_Rock_Wallaby-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?post_type=podcasts&#038;p=320095</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Australia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Biodiversity credits, Conservation, Environment, Environmental Policy, Global Environmental Crisis, Governance, Interviews, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
												<description>
								<![CDATA[Australia is one of 17 “megadiverse” countries that account for 70% of Earth’s biodiversity. However, Australia is unique in having the highest mammalian extinction rate in the world. That makes conservation on the island continent, where most of the wildlife is found nowhere else on Earth, all the more urgent. Conservation and environmental scientists have [&#8230;]]]>
							</description>
																						<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Australia is one of 17 “megadiverse” countries that account for 70% of Earth’s biodiversity. However, Australia is unique in having the highest mammalian extinction rate in the world. That makes conservation on the island continent, where most of the wildlife is found nowhere else on Earth, all the more urgent. Conservation and environmental scientists have come out against the Australian federal government’s claim that it’s “on track” to meet most of its targets under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework agreed upon at the U.N. biodiversity summit in 2022. This week on the Mongabay Newscast, Euan Ritchie, a professor of wildlife ecology and conservation at Australia’s Deakin University, and a councilor with the Biodiversity Council, an academic alliance in the country, argues why conservationists say the Australian government is failing its commitments. “The short answer, unfortunately, is that Australia is doing terribly in terms of honoring its international obligations to meet those targets in the agreement. If we look at the number of threatened species in Australia, it&#8217;s more than 2,200 now, and that list continues to increase,” Ritchie says. Despite being a relatively wealthy nation by gross domestic product per capita, Australia funds conservation at a diminutive scale compared to other industrialized countries.  The latest annual budget allocates 0.06% of federal spending to nature. Ritchie and some 60 fellow experts suggest that it would only take about 1% of the federal budget to save most threatened species and restore soils and rivers. In 2024, the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/podcast/2026/05/australia-is-failing-to-meet-its-environment-targets-argues-ecologist/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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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, Health, Interviews, Pandemics, Planetary Health, 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>]]>
						</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>
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							<![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>]]>
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					<title>Ecuador failing to end Yasuní oil drilling: Interview with Waorani leader Juan Bay</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/ecuador-failing-to-end-yasuni-oil-drilling-interview-with-waorani-leader-juan-bay/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/ecuador-failing-to-end-yasuni-oil-drilling-interview-with-waorani-leader-juan-bay/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>13 May 2026 14:23:42 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Aimee Gabay]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Latoya Abulu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/05/13134716/21303977088_8474f7875c_o-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=319326</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Ecuador, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Conservation, Deforestation, Environment, Environmental Law, Forests, Governance, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Reserves, Indigenous Rights, Interviews, Land Rights, Mining, Oil, Oil Drilling, Politics, Rainforest Destruction, Rainforests, and Threats To Rainforests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
												<description>
								<![CDATA[- Mongabay recently interviewed Juan Bay, the president of the Waorani Nation (NAWE) in Ecuador, on the stalled efforts to shut down oil drilling in Yasuní National Park that overlaps with Indigenous territories.<br />- A voter referendum in 2023 required the Ecuadorian government to shut down the 43-ITT oil block by August 2024, and the decision was backed up in a 2025 ruling by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR).<br />- Since then, however, there’s been virtually no progress, Bay said, with the government having shuttered just 10 out of 247 oil wells in the block.<br />- Bay said communities continue to suffer from the environmental and cultural destruction caused by oil exploitation, as well as the internal divisions that formed between some Waorani communities.<br />]]>
							</description>
																						<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[In 2023, Ecuadorians voted for a binding referendum to end oil drilling in the 43-ITT oil block in Yasuní National Park. In 2025, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights (IACHR) echoed the call in a ruling for the Ecuadorian state to do more to protect uncontacted Indigenous peoples whose territories overlap with the park. But nearly three years since the referendum, and a year since the court ruling, the Ecuadorian government has still not closed the 43-ITT block. Juan Bay, the president of the Waorani Nation (NAWE), whose ancestral territory overlaps with the park, recently traveled to the U.N. Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues (UNPFII) in New York to denounce the lack of progress and express his frustrations with the state. The Aug. 20, 2023, referendum saw the majority of voters choose to halt all future oil drilling in Yasuní, which involved the closure of 43-ITT and the creation of a commission to oversee the implementation of the results. The government had one year to withdraw from the oil block, by August 2024, but there’s been little progress since then. Bay said only 10 out of 247 oil wells in the block have been shut down. “More than a year has passed [since the deadline] and the government is doing nothing to shut down that [operation] and leave the resource in the ground, which is the will of the Ecuadorian people,” Mariana Yumbay Yallico, a Waranka woman and member of Ecuador’s National Assembly, representing Bolívar province, told Mongabay at the&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/ecuador-failing-to-end-yasuni-oil-drilling-interview-with-waorani-leader-juan-bay/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<title>Protest works, but is under attack and needs your help, veteran activists say</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/podcast/2026/05/protest-works-but-is-under-attack-and-needs-your-help-veteran-activists-say/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/podcast/2026/05/protest-works-but-is-under-attack-and-needs-your-help-veteran-activists-say/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>12 May 2026 21:21:10 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Mike DiGirolamo]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Mikedigirolamo]]>
					</author>
															<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/05/12030049/PROTEST_1_13_26_NoAuth_cc_WEB-768x512.jpeg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?post_type=podcasts&#038;p=319005</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Global and United States]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Activism, Books, Civil Disobedience, Climate Change, Climate Justice, Environment, Interviews, Protests, and Social Justice]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
												<description>
								<![CDATA[“We are experiencing what some people call sort of a shutdown of the public square in the United States and around the world,” says veteran environmental activist André Carothers. Along with the former executive director of Greenpeace US, Annie Leonard, the two have co-authored a new book about the history of protest, why it works, [&#8230;]]]>
							</description>
																						<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[“We are experiencing what some people call sort of a shutdown of the public square in the United States and around the world,” says veteran environmental activist André Carothers. Along with the former executive director of Greenpeace US, Annie Leonard, the two have co-authored a new book about the history of protest, why it works, and why it’s under attack. Protest: Respect It. Defend It. Use It. was written to “remind readers about the role protests played in gaining a lot of the progress that we take for granted today,” Leonard says. Earth Day 1970 famously saw around 10% of the U.S. population actively participating in one of the largest demonstrations in the nation&#8217;s history. This led to a number of landmark environmental laws that are arguably taken for granted today. Protest highlights how movements begin, and ultimately shape public discourse leading to these significant victories. The authors also highlight how some in society often lionize protest movements of the past, while condemning ones of the present, forgetting that at their inception, protests and the movements they represent are often unpopular. Leonard and Carothers point to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., whose approval rating never went above 50% in all his years as a civil rights leader. His disapproval rating stood at 75% the year he was assassinated. “There&#8217;s something about the gymnastics of history that allows us to honor these people well after they&#8217;re dead, but not when it&#8217;s happening right in front of them,” Carothers says. If you’re&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/podcast/2026/05/protest-works-but-is-under-attack-and-needs-your-help-veteran-activists-say/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
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										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/podcast/2026/05/protest-works-but-is-under-attack-and-needs-your-help-veteran-activists-say/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
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					<title>A new documentary film captures rare mountain gorilla behavior</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/podcast/2026/05/a-new-documentary-film-captures-rare-mountain-gorilla-behavior/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/podcast/2026/05/a-new-documentary-film-captures-rare-mountain-gorilla-behavior/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>05 May 2026 21:08:08 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Mike DiGirolamo]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Latoya Abulu]]>
					</author>
															<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/05/01030443/Ben-Cherry-Gorilla-Selection-236-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?post_type=podcasts&#038;p=318525</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa and Rwanda]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Apes, Charismatic Animals, Conservation, Film, Gorillas, Great Apes, Interviews, Science, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
												<description>
								<![CDATA[ “That might be something that you see in a decade, not in two years of filming,” Tara Stoinksi, CEO of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund, tells me. The behavior she’s referring to occurs in mountain gorilla groups, such as a “dominance transfer,” where a younger male silverback takes over leadership from an older male, and [&#8230;]]]>
							</description>
																						<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[ “That might be something that you see in a decade, not in two years of filming,” Tara Stoinksi, CEO of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund, tells me. The behavior she’s referring to occurs in mountain gorilla groups, such as a “dominance transfer,” where a younger male silverback takes over leadership from an older male, and infanticide, where an outsider or ostracized gorilla kills the offspring of a new mother within the group. The former of these was captured on camera within days of filming for the new Netflix documentary A Gorilla Story: Told by David Attenborough. Stoinski joins the Mongabay Newscast to discuss her role as a scientific adviser on the years-long project, the rarity of the behaviors captured on camera, and her thoughts on gorilla conservation in the Greater Virunga Landscape of Rwanda, Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo. “These gorillas now live basically in a small island of forests surrounded by some of the highest rural human population densities in Africa,” Stoinski says while discussing conservation challenges for mountain gorillas. Filming for the documentary took place in Rwanda, where the pressures and challenges mountain gorillas face differ from those in Virunga National Park in the neighboring DRC. Threats to gorillas in the latter include armed conflict, poaching, logging, and hunting for the wild meat trade. Stoinski says that within Rwanda’s Volcanoes National Park, where the documentary was filmed, the threats are different. “Climate change is an issue for the gorillas … also, climate change affects the people&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/podcast/2026/05/a-new-documentary-film-captures-rare-mountain-gorilla-behavior/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
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					<title>Why evidence matters in environmental journalism</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2026/05/why-evidence-matters-in-environmental-journalism/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2026/05/why-evidence-matters-in-environmental-journalism/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>01 May 2026 17:43:19 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Rhett Ayers Butler]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rhett Butler]]>
					</author>
															<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/03/05173347/Mali-Dogon-2011-scaled-e1777657323575-768x512.jpeg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?post_type=short-article&#038;p=318607</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Global]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Environment, Interviews With Environmental Journalists, and Journalism]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
												<description>
								<![CDATA[Environmental reporting often begins with a simple proposition: that facts still matter. At a time when climate change and biodiversity loss have become fixtures of public debate, the work of journalism can appear both urgent and increasingly difficult. Scientific evidence accumulates, while political responses lag. Between the two sits a kind of reporting that tries [&#8230;]]]>
							</description>
																						<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Environmental reporting often begins with a simple proposition: that facts still matter. At a time when climate change and biodiversity loss have become fixtures of public debate, the work of journalism can appear both urgent and increasingly difficult. Scientific evidence accumulates, while political responses lag. Between the two sits a kind of reporting that tries to translate research, policy and lived experience into something readers can grasp. Much of that work is incremental. A story may start with a field biologist’s findings, a community confronting a development project, or a government decision that reshapes the fate of a forest or fishery. The reporting rarely resolves the underlying problem. Its purpose is more modest: to document what is happening and explain why it matters. For John Cannon, a staff features writer at Mongabay, that principle guides nearly every assignment. “Evidence-based reporting [is] at the heart of what we do at Mongabay,” he says. “I believe it’s perhaps the most profound way we can contribute to making things better.” Cannon’s route into journalism began with an academic interest in the natural world. He studied biology at Ohio State University and later earned a graduate degree in science writing from the University of California, Santa Cruz. Along the way, he served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Niger, an experience that introduced him to the economic and social pressures shaping conservation in parts of the Sahel. He began contributing to Mongabay in 2014 and joined the organization full-time two years later. Since then,&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2026/05/why-evidence-matters-in-environmental-journalism/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<title>How Spoorthy Raman tells the world’s wildlife stories from a desk in the middle of the Atlantic</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/how-spoorthy-raman-tells-the-worlds-wildlife-stories-from-a-desk-in-the-middle-of-the-atlantic/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/how-spoorthy-raman-tells-the-worlds-wildlife-stories-from-a-desk-in-the-middle-of-the-atlantic/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>01 May 2026 10:16:23 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Alejandro Prescott-Cornejo]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Alejandroprescottcornejo]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/05/01094239/Happy-to-call-Newfoundland-home-where-ocean-surrounds-me-1-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=318511</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Canada and Global]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Human-wildlife Conflict, Interviews, Interviews With Environmental Journalists, Journalism, Wildlife, and Wildlife Trade]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
												<description>
								<![CDATA[- Spoorthy Raman is a staff writer at Mongabay, where she covers wildlife, biodiversity and the complexities of the wildlife trade.<br />- She began her environmental journalism journey with a Mongabay internship in 2022, which opened the door to writing for other outlets including Hakai, Audubon, BioScience, Nature and others.<br />- Raman says her inspiration comes from a lifelong curiosity about science, a love for nature, and an admiration for the living world.<br />- She’s especially proud of her reporting on biodiversity, wildlife and Indigenous food traditions, including award-winning work on baby Dungeness crabs, wild rice restoration in the Great Lakes, and species affected by the wildlife trade.<br />]]>
							</description>
																						<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[“Sitting at my desk on an island in the Atlantic, I can speak to some of the best scientists, conservationists and people invested in protecting the planet across the world,” says Mongabay staff writer Spoorthy Raman. From her home in St. John’s, Newfoundland, on Canada’s east coast, she gathers perspectives on the state of nature that span countries, cultures and ecosystems. Raman’s journey at Mongabay began with an internship in 2022, following a stint as a science communicator. This then led to bylines in outlets like Hakai, Audubon, BioScience and Nature, and to recognition, including the Sustainability, Environmental Achievement &amp; Leadership award and a Digital Publishing Award in 2024. Now a full-time member of Mongabay’s Wildlife Desk, she reports on a range of issues related to biodiversity, with specializations in animal behavior and the complex worlds of the wildlife trade and poaching. These last two areas can be particularly grim, yet serve as a poignant reminder of why the work matters. “With every image of dead wildlife I see as part of my work, I am reminded of the enormous biodiversity loss this is contributing to,” Raman says. Across the more than 100 stories she has produced at Mongabay, a few projects have been especially meaningful. One is her reporting on wild rice restoration by Indigenous peoples across the Great Lakes region of Canada and the United States. Another is about the thriving illegal wildlife trade in California, driven by the pet trade. She’s especially proud of her ongoing series&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/how-spoorthy-raman-tells-the-worlds-wildlife-stories-from-a-desk-in-the-middle-of-the-atlantic/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
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										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/how-spoorthy-raman-tells-the-worlds-wildlife-stories-from-a-desk-in-the-middle-of-the-atlantic/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
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					<title>Reciprocity, not extraction: Centering an Indigenous approach to forestry</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/podcast/2026/04/reciprocity-not-extraction-centering-an-indigenous-approach-to-forestry/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/podcast/2026/04/reciprocity-not-extraction-centering-an-indigenous-approach-to-forestry/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>28 Apr 2026 20:24:11 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Mike DiGirolamo]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Mikedigirolamo]]>
					</author>
															<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/02/03130348/Simmonds-Group-just-east-of-Goose-Alex-Harris-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?post_type=podcasts&#038;p=317960</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Canada]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Community Forests, Conservation, Earth Science, Environment, Forestry, Forests, Interviews, Interviews With Environmental Journalists, and Old Growth Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
												<description>
								<![CDATA[Forester and scientist Suzanne Simard is well known for her landmark 1997 paper, which demonstrated that two distinct species of trees could share resources. At the time, it turned traditional Western forestry thinking on its head. Instead of the Darwinian view of trees as being in competition with each other, it introduced the idea that [&#8230;]]]>
							</description>
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							<![CDATA[Forester and scientist Suzanne Simard is well known for her landmark 1997 paper, which demonstrated that two distinct species of trees could share resources. At the time, it turned traditional Western forestry thinking on its head. Instead of the Darwinian view of trees as being in competition with each other, it introduced the idea that these trees may actually help each other, and that industrial logging practices may be missing the forest for the trees. In recent years, Simard has been advocating for Indigenous knowledge as the only way to save the Earth and its forests. Environmental reporter Erica Gies spent some time in the field with Simard and her colleagues in a First Nations collective, and also learned about her large-scale experiment, The Mother Tree Project, which seeks to find the most sustainable form of forestry for both people and ecosystems. Gies joins the Mongabay Newscast to explain what she learned from Simard and why she advocates Indigenous knowledge and systems, which are governed by rules of reciprocity. A shift in her thinking occurred when she read the dissertation of fisheries ecologist Teresa Sm’hayetsk Ryan, who now works with Simard. “She realized that, you know, the people were also a very important part of the complex forest relationships,” Gies says. “Which is much more of a reciprocity kind of mentality. If you take, you also give back. There is a responsibility to care for the system. Because if you don&#8217;t, and if you overexploit it, it would be really easy to starve,&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/podcast/2026/04/reciprocity-not-extraction-centering-an-indigenous-approach-to-forestry/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<title>What it takes to make conservation work in Central Africa: Luis Arranz&#8217;s 46-year journey</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/what-it-takes-to-make-conservation-work-in-central-africa-luis-arranzs-46-year-journey/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/what-it-takes-to-make-conservation-work-in-central-africa-luis-arranzs-46-year-journey/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>27 Apr 2026 10:48:03 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[David AkanaRhett Ayers Butler]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rhett Butler]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/04/13132444/Luis-Arranza-CAR-by-Nuria-Ortega-WWF-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=316927</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Central Africa, Central African Republic, Congo Basin, and Democratic Republic Of Congo]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Community-based Conservation, Conflict, Conservation, Environment, Human-wildlife Conflict, Interviews, Parks, Protected Areas, Wildlife, and Wildlife Rangers]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
												<description>
								<![CDATA[- Luis Arranz has spent more than four decades managing protected areas in Central Africa, taking a field-based approach shaped by long tenures in places like Zakouma, Garamba, Dzanga-Sangha, and Salonga.<br />- He argues that conservation is less about new plans than about execution—maintaining teams, logistics, and consistent operations in remote and difficult terrain.<br />- Success depends on aligning conservation with local livelihoods, through mechanisms such as tourism and other income-generating activities tied to protected areas.<br />- Progress is fragile: parks rely heavily on external funding, operate in unstable security contexts, and can quickly deteriorate without sustained presence on the ground.<br />]]>
							</description>
																						<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Luis Arranz arrived in Africa in 1980 with little more than a degree in biology and a determination to work in the field. Without contacts or a clear path, he drove south from Spain in a small Citroën 2CV, crossing the Sahara over several weeks and repairing the car as it failed along the way. The journey is unusual. The work that followed is uncommon in its form and duration: more than four decades spent managing protected areas in Central Africa. His career has taken him through Equatorial Guinea, Angola, and South America, but it is in Central Africa that it has largely settled. He has led or helped run parks including Monte Alén, Zakouma, Garamba, Dzanga-Sangha, and now Salonga, often remaining in each for extended periods. That continuity has shaped his approach. He tends to describe conservation less in terms of design than of execution—what can be maintained over time, and what cannot. Photo courtesy of Luis Arranz This perspective runs through a series of conversations that took place in forests, villages, and vehicles across the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of Congo in March 2026. Arranz is skeptical of the emphasis placed on planning processes and external analysis. He returns instead to implementation. “We know what we have to do,” he says, referring to the distance between written plans and what can be carried out in practice. Much of the work, in his account, comes down to transport, communication, and maintaining teams across large and difficult&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/what-it-takes-to-make-conservation-work-in-central-africa-luis-arranzs-46-year-journey/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
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					<title>How marine flyways could help save the world’s declining seabird population</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/podcast/2026/04/how-marine-flyways-could-help-save-the-worlds-declining-seabird-population/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/podcast/2026/04/how-marine-flyways-could-help-save-the-worlds-declining-seabird-population/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>21 Apr 2026 23:39:42 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Mike DiGirolamo]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Mikedigirolamo]]>
					</author>
															<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/04/17031359/Antipodean_albatross_1-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?post_type=podcasts&#038;p=317744</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Global]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Birds, Conservation, Ecosystems, Environment, Environmental Policy, Interviews, Marine, Marine Conservation, Seabirds, and Wildtech]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
												<description>
								<![CDATA[The routes taken by migratory birds, known as flyways, often cross vast expanses of ocean. Six of these marine flyways have now been formally recognized by the U.N.’s Convention on Migratory Species, at the suggestion of scientists who published their findings on these flyways in the British Ecological Society&#8217;s Journal of Applied Ecology. Tammy Davies, [&#8230;]]]>
							</description>
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							<![CDATA[The routes taken by migratory birds, known as flyways, often cross vast expanses of ocean. Six of these marine flyways have now been formally recognized by the U.N.’s Convention on Migratory Species, at the suggestion of scientists who published their findings on these flyways in the British Ecological Society&#8217;s Journal of Applied Ecology. Tammy Davies, a co-author of the paper and marine science coordinator at BirdLife International, joins the Mongabay Newscast this week to discuss the conservation potential of the six flyways, and what the formal recognition by CMS does and doesn’t do. “It’s a fantastic communication tool for highlighting these amazing journeys that the seabirds undertake and the fact that multiple people, stakeholders, and countries need to come together and everyone can do their bit,” Davies says. She notes that 151 bird species rely on these migratory routes, which connect 1,300 key biodiversity areas that the birds regularly use. Having nations focus on protecting these areas, and reducing bycatch from fishing, are just some of the ways countries can coordinate conservation efforts along these routes. But this effort requires shared responsibility across the 54 nations that these flyways bisect. The flyways provide a formal mechanism for nations to do this, Davies says. “They&#8217;re facing threats throughout their life cycle,” she says. “You really need like a coordinated approach to address all of these threats when the seabirds are either breeding on land or when they&#8217;re out at sea.” Conservation goals and even some of the tools used to protect&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/podcast/2026/04/how-marine-flyways-could-help-save-the-worlds-declining-seabird-population/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<title>How do you write the life of someone who avoided the spotlight? Miriam Horn on her biography of George Schaller</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/how-do-you-write-the-life-of-someone-who-avoided-the-spotlight-miriam-horn-on-her-biography-of-george-schaller/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/how-do-you-write-the-life-of-someone-who-avoided-the-spotlight-miriam-horn-on-her-biography-of-george-schaller/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>21 Apr 2026 05:38:14 +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/20/2026/04/15224710/george-schaller-alaska-768x512.jpeg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=317455</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Global]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Books, Conservation, Environment, Interviews, Interviews With Environmental Journalists, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
												<description>
								<![CDATA[- Miriam Horn’s Homesick for a World Unknown presents George B. Schaller as a figure best understood through accumulation rather than revelation, tracing a life oriented outward toward animals and the field.<br />- Drawing on journals, letters, and archival material, the book moves between landscapes and institutions, emphasizing how Schaller worked and how knowledge was produced under field conditions rather than focusing on personal introspection or narrative drama.<br />- Horn situates Schaller within broader shifts in zoology and conservation, showing how his long-term observational approach both reflected and helped shape changing scientific practices and conservation thinking.<br />- In an April 2026 exchange with Rhett Ayers Butler, Horn discussed the challenges of writing about a subject who resisted interpretation, as well as the practical and structural decisions involved in shaping the biography.<br />]]>
							</description>
																						<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Some biographies are built around revelation. Others proceed by accumulation, assembling a life from fragments that resist easy interpretation. Miriam Horn’s Homesick for a World Unknown: The Life of George B. Schaller falls into the latter category. It takes as its subject George Schaller, a figure widely regarded as one of the most consequential field biologists of the twentieth century, yet one who spent much of his career deflecting attention from himself. Writing about such a person presents a structural problem: how to render a life whose central impulse was to look outward. Horn approaches this constraint directly. Her biography draws heavily on field journals, letters, and archival material, allowing Schaller’s habits of observation to shape the narrative without turning the book into a compilation of documents. It is neither a conventional intellectual history nor a purely personal account; instead, it tracks a method of seeing as much as the arc of a career, moving fluidly between landscapes and institutions. That balance reflects Horn’s own trajectory. Before turning to long-form writing, she spent years working within conservation institutions, including the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and the United States Forest Service (USFS). Those experiences inform her treatment of Schaller’s work, which rarely fits neatly into disciplinary categories. He is presented both as a scientist and as a practitioner working within systems shaped by politics, funding, and local realities. The biography follows him across multiple regions, but its emphasis is less on cataloguing his achievements than on how knowledge is produced under&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/how-do-you-write-the-life-of-someone-who-avoided-the-spotlight-miriam-horn-on-her-biography-of-george-schaller/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<title>Bringing the world’s rewilders together: Interview with Alister Scott</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/bringing-the-worlds-rewilders-together-interview-with-alister-scott/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/bringing-the-worlds-rewilders-together-interview-with-alister-scott/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>20 Apr 2026 21:34:07 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Spoorthy Raman]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Morgan Erickson-Davis]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/04/20054500/American_Bison_AdF-2-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=317737</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Global]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Birds, Conservation, Ecosystems, Interviews, Interviews with conservation players, Restoration, Rewilding, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
												<description>
								<![CDATA[- Rewilding — the process of letting nature take over — is gaining momentum across the globe with several grassroots organizations working on efforts to restore landscapes.<br />- Global Rewilding Alliance (GRA), an umbrella organization with nearly 300 partner organizations across six continents, aims to bring these efforts together and help rewilders collaborate and learn from each other.<br />- In an interview with Mongabay, executive director Alister Scott shares what rewilding looks like in practice, challenges it faces and how his organization is helping rewilders take the movement forward.<br />]]>
							</description>
																						<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Rewilding — the process of letting nature take over — is having its moment across the world at every scale. From an 18th-century abandoned farm in the French Alps, to a volcanic lake in Indonesia, to primates being brought back into Brazil&#8217;s national parks, to restoring Kalahari’s savanna ecosystem in South Africa — conservationists are tirelessly using nature’s landscape engineers to restore its wild ways. And, in many cases, it’s working: Birds are returning to their once-abandoned abodes, more carbon is getting into the ground, the earth is cooling down, animals once thought locally extinct are reappearing and ecosystems on the whole are getting healthier. This transformation is not limited to land. In marine protected areas — where industrial fishing and other extractive activities are banned — coral reefs are once again teeming with marine life, fish are thriving and whales are making a comeback. As the world slowly inches towards the ambitious 30&#215;30 goal, earmarking 30% of Earth’s land and oceans as protected areas by 2030, rewilding is poised to play a catalyst. In the last two decades, various rewilding projects aimed at bringing back species and restoring whole ecosystems have sprung. But most have been siloed, evolving separately from each other. In 2021, the Global Rewilding Alliance (GRA) was formed to bring together these efforts, strengthen collaboration and connect rewilders across continents. Today, the alliance connects nearly 300 organizations across six continents, which are together rewilding more than 2 million square kilometers (760,000 square miles) of land —&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/bringing-the-worlds-rewilders-together-interview-with-alister-scott/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
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					<title>Studying the world’s largest gathering of forest elephants with sound and field observation</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/studying-the-worlds-largest-gathering-of-forest-elephants-with-sound-and-field-observation/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/studying-the-worlds-largest-gathering-of-forest-elephants-with-sound-and-field-observation/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>19 Apr 2026 14:46:29 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[David AkanaRhett Ayers Butler]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rhett Butler]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/04/19152433/ivonne-kienast-2026-16x9-1-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=316782</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Central Africa, Central African Republic, Congo Basin, and Democratic Republic Of Congo]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Apes, Bioacoustics, Biodiversity, Conservation, Conservation Technology, Education, Elephants, Endangered Species, Environment, Forests, Gorillas, Great Apes, Indigenous Peoples, Interviews, Primates, Rainforests, Research, Traditional People, Tropical Forests, Wildlife, Wildtech, and Women In Science]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
												<description>
								<![CDATA[- At Dzanga Bai in the Central African Republic—one of the few places where forest elephants gather in large numbers—researchers can observe behaviors that are otherwise difficult to document in dense rainforest.<br />- Ivonne Kienast leads long-term research combining direct observation with acoustic monitoring, building a detailed record of elephant behavior, social structure, and change over time.<br />- Her work highlights how sustained presence, local collaboration, and incremental data collection shape understanding of both elephants and the broader forest system they inhabit.<br />- Kienast spoke with Rhett Ayers Butler, Mongabay founder and CEO, and David Akana, director of Mongabay Africa, over two weeks of conversations in the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of the Congo during March 2026. Her responses have been edited and consolidated.<br />]]>
							</description>
																						<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[In the far southwest of the Central African Republic, where dense forest gives way to a broad clearing, elephants gather in numbers rarely seen elsewhere. The place is known as Dzanga Bai. Forest elephants are among the least visible large mammals in Africa. In closed-canopy rainforest, they move in small groups, often at night, communicating over long distances through low-frequency calls that travel beyond human hearing. Much of their social life unfolds out of sight. Dzanga Bai is one of the few places where that pattern breaks. Here, elephants emerge from the forest to feed on minerals in the soil. They linger. Families converge, separate, and return. Individuals can be recognized over years. Behaviors that are otherwise inferred—through tracks, fragments of sound, or brief encounters—can be followed more directly. Dzanga Bai in Dzanga-Sangha Special Reserve, Central African Republic. Photo by Rhett Ayers Butler For decades, the clearing has drawn researchers trying to understand a species that resists easy study. Long-term work here, including that of researchers such as Andrea Turkalo, has shaped much of what is known about forest elephants. Ivonne Kienast is part of that effort. She leads the Dzanga Forest Elephant Project, part of the Elephant Listening Project at Cornell University. Her work combines long-term behavioral observation with passive acoustic monitoring. The objective is to understand how forest elephants live and to detect early signs of change. In practice, this means continuous field presence, physically demanding work, and coordination across a network of relationships that extend well beyond&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/studying-the-worlds-largest-gathering-of-forest-elephants-with-sound-and-field-observation/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
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					<title>From the Atlantic Forest to the Amazon: Alexandre de Santi on camaraderie and uncovering hidden truths in Brazil</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/from-the-atlantic-forest-to-the-amazon-alexandre-de-santi-on-camaraderie-and-uncovering-hidden-truths-in-brazil/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/from-the-atlantic-forest-to-the-amazon-alexandre-de-santi-on-camaraderie-and-uncovering-hidden-truths-in-brazil/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>16 Apr 2026 18:31:38 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Alejandro Prescott-Cornejo]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Alana Linderoth]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/04/16182105/20240314_201222-1-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=317667</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Brazil, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Climate, Conservation, Interviews, Interviews With Environmental Journalists, and Journalism]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
												<description>
								<![CDATA[- Alexandre de Santi is Mongabay’s managing editor for Brazil, where he leads coverage of the Amazon and other national environmental issues.<br />- His career spans more than two decades, from founding the investigative studio Fronteira to serving as deputy editor at The Intercept Brazil, where he helped lead landmark investigations.<br />- Since joining Mongabay in 2022, Santi has brought a collaborative approach to investigative reporting, including editing a 2024 story that exposed links between Amazon carbon credits and timber laundering.<br />- This interview is part of Inside Mongabay, a series that spotlights the people who bring environmental and conservation stories to life across our global newsroom.<br />]]>
							</description>
																						<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[When telling stories about nature, Alexandre de Santi’s interest stems from the climate. “Climate collapse is the greatest challenge of my generation,” he says. Before joining Mongabay, Santi began his career as a reporter in 1999. His trajectory included founding the editorial studio Fronteira, contributing as a founding associate of Porto Alegre-based news nonprofit Matinal, and serving as deputy editor at The Intercept Brazil, where he played a key role in major investigations, including the Vaza Jato scandal that led to political turmoil in Brazil. Santi joined Mongabay in 2022 and became managing editor for Brazil in 2025. He has always lived in the country’s urban landscapes where the Atlantic Forest once stood. Today, less than 24% of it remains. “It always struck me how the forest is always trying to regain its space in the urban concrete,” he says. For Santi, Brazil’s urban expansion stands in stark contrast to the nature and communities that predate it. He says Indigenous peoples have long understood how to coexist with the natural world rather than oppose it. While fully adopting traditional lifestyles is unrealistic today, drawing inspiration from “many of those concepts” could guide Brazil and other rapidly growing countries toward an alternative development model, he says. Santi sees reasons to hope for the future. “There’s too much potential and an opportunity to make things better.” One of his proudest achievements at Mongabay was editing an investigation into Brazil’s carbon credit market that exposed a timber laundering scam. “We revealed something truly&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/from-the-atlantic-forest-to-the-amazon-alexandre-de-santi-on-camaraderie-and-uncovering-hidden-truths-in-brazil/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<title>Coexisting with America’s growing urban coyote population is easier than you think</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/podcast/2026/04/coexisting-with-americas-growing-urban-coyote-population-is-easier-than-you-think/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/podcast/2026/04/coexisting-with-americas-growing-urban-coyote-population-is-easier-than-you-think/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>14 Apr 2026 23:01:04 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Mike DiGirolamo]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Mikedigirolamo]]>
					</author>
															<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/07/24194057/City-coyote-2-2048x1638-1-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?post_type=podcasts&#038;p=317069</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[North America and United States]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Carnivores, Environment, Human-wildlife Conflict, Interviews, Trapping, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
												<description>
								<![CDATA[Coyotes are now present in almost every major urban-metropolitan area in the United States, yet conflicts between the canines and humans are exceptionally low. Between 1960 and 2006, only 146 documented coyote attacks on humans occurred in the U.S. and Canada. Yet there are 4.5 million dog attacks on humans annually in the U.S. alone. [&#8230;]]]>
							</description>
																						<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Coyotes are now present in almost every major urban-metropolitan area in the United States, yet conflicts between the canines and humans are exceptionally low. Between 1960 and 2006, only 146 documented coyote attacks on humans occurred in the U.S. and Canada. Yet there are 4.5 million dog attacks on humans annually in the U.S. alone. Despite the low number of conflicts with coyotes, nearly one coyote is killed every minute in the United States on average, according to the nonprofit organization Project Coyote. Camilla Fox, the group’s founder and executive director, joins this week&#8217;s podcast to discuss the myths and misconceptions around coyotes (Canis latrans), why they’re largely peaceful and critical for ecosystem health, and how humans can coexist better with the growing urban population of coyotes. “For a lot of people … who grow up in urban areas, a coyote is the first predator they&#8217;ve ever experienced in their lives,” she explains. “But … if you can arm yourself with knowledge and educate yourself about this animal, you&#8217;ll come to see not only their ecological role, but also what an amazing animal” it is. Coyotes mostly eat rodents and are critical for regulating rodent populations, Fox explains. Depending on location, they also help regulate the abundance of mesopredators such as raccoons and skunks. This, in turn, helps protect existing biodiversity, such as birds (which are declining across the U.S.). “By having the presence of a coyote in the landscape, they will help, through competitive exclusion, to keep these mesocarnivore&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/podcast/2026/04/coexisting-with-americas-growing-urban-coyote-population-is-easier-than-you-think/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/podcast/2026/04/coexisting-with-americas-growing-urban-coyote-population-is-easier-than-you-think/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
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					<title>Can nature outcompete war in Eastern Congo?</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/can-nature-outcompete-war-in-eastern-congo/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/can-nature-outcompete-war-in-eastern-congo/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>13 Apr 2026 23:26:11 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[David AkanaRhett Ayers Butler]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rhett Butler]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/04/10225923/drc_260324_103134432-EMMANUEL-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=317207</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Central Africa, Congo Basin, and Democratic Republic Of Congo]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Conservation, Environment, Forests, Governance, Green, Interviews, Landscape Restoration, Parks, Protected Areas, Rainforests, Sustainability, Tropical Forests, Violence, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
												<description>
								<![CDATA[- In eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, pressure on Virunga National Park reflects deeper economic and governance dynamics, where conservation competes with immediate livelihood needs tied to charcoal production and agriculture.<br />- Emmanuel de Merode frames environmental decline as a consequence of how people earn a living, arguing that protecting biodiversity requires addressing energy access, jobs, and local economic systems.<br />- Virunga has developed an integrated model built around renewable energy, small business development, financial access, and localized security, aimed at shifting incentives away from conflict-linked and extractive activities.<br />- The proposed Green Corridor extends this approach across a national scale, testing whether a viable economic system can be built that depends on maintaining forests rather than clearing them, despite ongoing conflict and political constraints.<br />]]>
							</description>
																						<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[In eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, discussion of conservation often centers on loss: forests cleared, wildlife depleted, conflict spreading across landscapes that once supported some of the richest ecosystems on Earth. At Virunga National Park, those pressures are concentrated. The park, Africa’s oldest, contains glaciers, volcanoes, forests, and wetlands within a single protected area. It also sits within a region shaped by decades of instability, where armed groups, informal economies, and weak governance are part of daily life. Virunga National Park. Image courtesy of Bitini Ndiyanabo Kanane. Emmanuel de Merode, who has led Virunga since 2008, does not begin with ecology. His training is in anthropology, and that shapes how he describes the park. The condition of wildlife, he suggests, follows from deeper forces. Forest loss, poaching, and insecurity are not simply environmental problems. They emerge from how people earn a living, how authority functions, and how money and resources circulate. In eastern Congo, conservation cannot be separated from the economy. For many communities around Virunga, the choices are immediate. Clearing forest for agriculture or producing charcoal can generate income that supports a household. The benefits of conservation are harder to see and often accrue far beyond the region. The imbalance shows up in daily decisions about fuel, food, and access to land. As de Merode describes it, the system asks some of the poorest populations to bear the cost of protecting assets valued globally. The pressure on the park is reinforced by conflict. Since the mid-1990s, eastern Congo&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/can-nature-outcompete-war-in-eastern-congo/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<title>Creating the North Atlantic’s largest MPA network: Interview with Azores President José Manuel Bolieiro</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/creating-the-north-atlantics-largest-mpa-network-interview-with-azores-president-jose-manuel-bolieiro/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/creating-the-north-atlantics-largest-mpa-network-interview-with-azores-president-jose-manuel-bolieiro/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>09 Apr 2026 15:27:39 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Maria José Mendes]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Autumn Spanne]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/04/08153215/a.-BANNER-%C2%A9gianfrs-iNaturalist-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=317158</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Atlantic Ocean, Europe, European Union, and Portugal]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Conservation, Conservation leadership, Environment, Environmental Law, Fish, Interviews, Interviews with conservation players, Marine, Marine Conservation, Marine Protected Areas, Oceans, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
												<description>
								<![CDATA[- In May, José Manuel Bolieiro, president of the Portuguese-administered Azores region, will be honored at the international Peter Benchley Ocean Awards, known as the “Oscars for the Ocean.”<br />- Bolieiro played a key role in the recent expansion of the archipelago’s existing ocean protections with the establishment of the Azores Marine Protected Areas Network, now the largest MPA network in the North Atlantic.<br />- He spoke to Mongabay about the importance of ensuring adequate funding and enforcement for the new MPA network, his hope that Portugal can be a global reference for ocean conservation, and how growing up in the Azores fostered his deep love of the sea.<br />]]>
							</description>
																						<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[José Manuel Bolieiro says he’s been an environmentalist for as long as he can remember. He recalls captivating encounters with marine life as a teenager while diving in the North Atlantic waters of his native São Miguel, one of the nine islands that make up the Portuguese-administered Azores archipelago. The gaze of the moray eel remains etched in his memory: “It&#8217;s impressive because it watches us vigilantly, without aggression,” he tells Mongabay. Bolieiro’s early interactions with the ocean proved formative. A member of the Social Democratic Party, Bolieiro is a former mayor of Ponta Delgada, the largest city in the Azores, and has served as president of the regional government of the Azores since 2020, championing the establishment of a remarkable network of marine protected areas (MPAs) in the biodiverse waters around the archipelago. The region is home to numerous species of dolphins and whales, sharks and turtles, and rich in corals, hydrothermal vent ecosystems and seamounts. The previous government of the Azores, which is run as an autonomous region of Portugal, had set a goal of protecting 15% of the archipelago’s waters. But Bolieiro dreamed bigger: He sought marine protection covering 30% by 2030. In 2024, the regional parliament approved legislation for the new Azores Marine Protected Areas Network, and it came into force on Jan. 1 of this year. At 287,000 square kilometers (110,800 square miles) — more than three times the land area of Portugal — it’s now the largest MPA network in the North Atlantic Ocean.&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/creating-the-north-atlantics-largest-mpa-network-interview-with-azores-president-jose-manuel-bolieiro/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<title>Tracking environmental crime in the Amazon: A conversation with Alexa Vélez</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/tracking-environmental-crime-in-the-amazon-a-conversation-with-alexa-velez/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/tracking-environmental-crime-in-the-amazon-a-conversation-with-alexa-velez/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>09 Apr 2026 01:37:36 +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/20/2026/04/06223007/amazon_241208_123215013-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=315312</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Conversations with Mongabay leaders]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Latin America, Peru, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Crime, Environment, Interviews, Interviews With Environmental Journalists, Journalism, and Satellite Imagery]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
												<description>
								<![CDATA[- Environmental investigations in Latin America increasingly combine field reporting with tools such as satellite imagery, cross-border collaboration, and long-term investigative work to document deforestation, illegal mining, wildlife trafficking, and other environmental violations.<br />- Over the past decade, Mongabay Latam has built a regional reporting network and partnerships with dozens of media outlets, helping environmental investigations reach audiences across the region.<br />- Alexa Vélez, managing editor of Mongabay Latam, has spent nearly ten years helping coordinate investigations, support reporters, and shape the outlet’s investigative approach to environmental reporting.<br />- Vélez spoke with Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler in March 2026 about investigative journalism in Latin America, the role of technology in environmental reporting, and how Mongabay Latam’s work has evolved over the past decade.<br />]]>
							</description>
																						<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Environmental crimes rarely occur in isolation. A road cut into a forest may appear first as a faint line in satellite imagery. Months later it becomes a corridor for timber, wildlife, and sometimes cocaine. The early stages often unfold far from capitals and rarely attract immediate scrutiny. When the evidence does emerge, it tends to arrive through a patchwork of sources: scientists sharing coordinates, local communities describing unfamiliar aircraft, or reporters willing to spend months tracing how a clearing became a network. Environmental journalism in Latin America has grown around precisely these kinds of fragments. The region contains some of the world’s most biodiverse landscapes and some of its most persistent environmental activities. Illegal mining, wildlife trafficking, and forest clearing often intersect with organized crime and political interests. Yet sustained reporting on these issues has historically been limited. Many large news organizations treat the environment as an occasional beat rather than a structural concern. Investigative work requires time, technical expertise, and sometimes the willingness to operate in difficult or dangerous conditions. In recent years the practice has begun to change. Satellite imagery, open databases, and new mapping tools allow reporters to track environmental change with greater precision than was possible even a decade ago. A clearing detected in a remote basin can be compared against historical imagery, connected to land concessions, and matched with field reporting. What once depended largely on eyewitness accounts now involves a blend of remote sensing, traditional reporting, and collaboration across borders. Those collaborations have become&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/tracking-environmental-crime-in-the-amazon-a-conversation-with-alexa-velez/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
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										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/tracking-environmental-crime-in-the-amazon-a-conversation-with-alexa-velez/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
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					<title>The ‘unfair’ job of being a conservationist in a world working against nature</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/podcast/2026/04/the-unfair-job-of-being-a-conservationist-in-a-world-working-against-nature/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/podcast/2026/04/the-unfair-job-of-being-a-conservationist-in-a-world-working-against-nature/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>07 Apr 2026 23:00:57 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Mike DiGirolamo]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Mikedigirolamo]]>
					</author>
															<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/02/27012421/Jessie_-Lonely-Conservationists-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?post_type=podcasts&#038;p=316403</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Global]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Activism, Conservation, Conservation leadership, Conservation Philosophy, Health, Interviews, Interviews with conservation players, NGOs, and Psychology]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
												<description>
								<![CDATA[Jessie Panazzolo was given a stuffed gorilla when she was 3, and from then on, she always wanted to be a conservationist. But a reasonable career track of being gainfully employed or on a livable wage almost doesn’t exist in the sector, she explains to me this week on the Mongabay Newscast. She details the [&#8230;]]]>
							</description>
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							<![CDATA[Jessie Panazzolo was given a stuffed gorilla when she was 3, and from then on, she always wanted to be a conservationist. But a reasonable career track of being gainfully employed or on a livable wage almost doesn’t exist in the sector, she explains to me this week on the Mongabay Newscast. She details the dwindling career prospects, the grueling conditions conservationists must endure, and the mental toll they’re taking on themselves. Following Jeremy Hance’s reporting on the mental health crisis afflicting conservationists, I contacted Panazzolo to gain more insight into her journey in the conservation sector and how she came to lead a community of like-minded professionals who had heartbreaking stories about pursuing their passions. Panazzolo has been fired for being sick, twice. And had trees thrown at her by orangutans. But these are far from the only struggles she and other conservationists have faced. “I&#8217;ve been chased by tigers or have orangutans rip trees out of the ground and chucked in my direction. But all of these are seen as like not normal risks that you&#8217;d put in risk assessments.” She founded The Lonely Conservationists and Earth Carer Care to provide resources to conservationists of all walks of life and to offer workshops to conservation NGOs on improving working conditions and caring for their employees. “I wanted to make sure that there was light shed on a range of struggles faced in the conservation industry and give more weight to the need to start to address these. And&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/podcast/2026/04/the-unfair-job-of-being-a-conservationist-in-a-world-working-against-nature/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
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					<title>How saving birds protects the planet: Interview with author Scott Weidensaul</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/how-saving-birds-protects-the-planet-interview-with-author-scott-weidensaul/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/how-saving-birds-protects-the-planet-interview-with-author-scott-weidensaul/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>07 Apr 2026 14:55:50 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Erik Hoffner]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Erik Hoffner]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/04/06210935/1280px-American_oystercatcher_-_Cape_May_NJ-e1775509837438-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=317044</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[North America and United States]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Birds, Books, Conservation, Conservation Solutions, Ecosystems, Environment, Happy-upbeat Environmental, Indigenous Peoples, Interviews, Protected Areas, Reintroductions, Restoration, and Solutions]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
												<description>
								<![CDATA[- Birds are struggling, with serious population declines that seem in some cases to be accelerating, which author Scott Weidensaul says in his new book should serve as a warning that the systems on which they depend – and on which we all depend – are breaking down.<br />- But birds also serve as a handy, readily apparent barometer for when things are starting to go right, too, he argues, in a new interview at Mongabay.<br />- The bestselling author centers multiple promising efforts to revive species in “The Return of the Oystercatcher: Saving Birds to Save the Planet,” which W.W. Norton is publishing later this month.<br />]]>
							</description>
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							<![CDATA[Best-selling author Scott Weidensaul&#8217;s new book is a celebration of species recovery efforts led by scientists, conservationists, and Indigenous communities around the world, beginning with the successful rebound of the American oystercatcher (Haematopus palliatus), a large and charismatic shorebird which had been declining for decades, until people made a plan and the birds responded. But it&#8217;s not just a book about oystercatchers, rather, the author centers multiple efforts to revive species in “The Return of the Oystercatcher: Saving Birds to Save the Planet,” across a range of geographies and in his signature style. In it, he travels the U.S. East Coast and Europe, bringing readers stories of hope from Massachusetts to Ukraine. Mongabay caught up with Weidensaul just weeks before the book&#8217;s release on April 21, 2026. His responses have been lightly edited for clarity and brevity. Mongabay: Your new book is about much more than birds, as you say in the intro, &#8220;a world that works for birds will work for all.&#8221; Can you explain? Scott Weidensaul: Birds are at once among the most diverse group of vertebrates on the planet, and arguably the most widely distributed; except for the most remote parts of the central Antarctic plateau, you can’t find a square mile of land or ocean that is not at least seasonally inhabited by birds. Add to that their immense migrations, and you realize that birds are plugged into every ecosystem on Earth. &nbsp; Snow geese are another species that has responded strongly to conservation programs. Image courtesy&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/how-saving-birds-protects-the-planet-interview-with-author-scott-weidensaul/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
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										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/how-saving-birds-protects-the-planet-interview-with-author-scott-weidensaul/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
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					<title>Banned but not silenced: Gerry Flynn’s commitment to uncovering the truth across the Mekong</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/banned-but-not-silenced-gerry-flynns-commitment-to-uncovering-the-truth-across-the-mekong/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/banned-but-not-silenced-gerry-flynns-commitment-to-uncovering-the-truth-across-the-mekong/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>02 Apr 2026 18:25:42 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Alejandro Prescott-Cornejo]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Alana Linderoth]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/04/02182332/Gerald-Flynn-reporting-in-Banteay-Meachey-province-2020-1200x800-1-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=316862</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Cambodia, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Illegal Logging, Interviews With Environmental Journalists, Journalism, and Logging]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
												<description>
								<![CDATA[- Gerald “Gerry” Flynn is Mongabay’s features writer for Southeast Asia, reporting on the intersection of human rights, ecosystems and natural resource governance.<br />- In January 2025, Flynn was permanently banned from Cambodia in what appeared to be retaliation for his journalistic work; he is now based in Thailand and covers the Mekong region more broadly.<br />- He emphasizes that environmental journalism in authoritarian contexts must expose realities often omitted from state-controlled media.<br />- Flynn says he values on-the-ground reporting, amplifying local voices and balancing bravery with safety.<br />]]>
							</description>
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							<![CDATA[In a region where independent environmental journalism is often unwelcome, one Mongabay journalist has made a career of tackling often inconvenient truths while accepting personal risks as a necessary part of the work. Gerald “Gerry” Flynn has been based in Southeast Asia since 2017, reporting largely from Cambodia on the intersection of human rights, ecosystems and natural resource governance. Flynn joined Mongabay as a features writer in 2023, following a Rainforest Investigations Network Fellowship with the Pulitzer Center from 2022 to 2023, during which he investigated illegal logging networks across Cambodia, with a focus on the Cardamom Mountains. Upon joining the team, he continued to investigate illegal logging, fishing, mining and land grabs. “These stories are what drew me to environmental journalism,” he says. “Getting on the ground, holding the powerful accountable, and giving voices to those who put their own lives and liberty on the line to protect their natural resources.” However, in January 2025, Flynn was denied entry and banned from Cambodia, a move seemingly in retaliation for his reporting — a setback that only cemented his confidence in evidence-based reporting as fundamental for revealing infractions against nature in autocratic societies. “The violence of the response to environmental reporting in authoritarian jurisdictions only serves to highlight the importance and value of dragging environmental crimes out of the shadows and into the cold, harsh light of public scrutiny,” he says. An investigation into a senior Cambodian official’s illegal logging operation meant taking to the waters of the Sekong River&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/banned-but-not-silenced-gerry-flynns-commitment-to-uncovering-the-truth-across-the-mekong/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
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										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/banned-but-not-silenced-gerry-flynns-commitment-to-uncovering-the-truth-across-the-mekong/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
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					<title>Meaningful conservation demands truth, not just facts, says political ecologist</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/podcast/2026/03/meaningful-conservation-demands-truth-not-just-facts-says-political-ecologist/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/podcast/2026/03/meaningful-conservation-demands-truth-not-just-facts-says-political-ecologist/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>31 Mar 2026 23:00:12 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Mike DiGirolamo]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Hayat Indriyatno]]>
					</author>
															<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/03/23062409/raja-ampat_230122-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?post_type=podcasts&#038;p=316097</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Global]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Conservation Philosophy, Energy, Environment, Interviews, Politics, Social Justice, and Social Media]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
												<description>
								<![CDATA[The people and policies that control how humans treat the natural world are increasingly dominated by a small class of elite political entities and corporations, argues our guest, political ecologist Bram Buscher at Wageningen University in the Netherlands, on this week&#8217;s Newscast. This power, he says, is concentrated on platforms that have no allegiance to [&#8230;]]]>
							</description>
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							<![CDATA[The people and policies that control how humans treat the natural world are increasingly dominated by a small class of elite political entities and corporations, argues our guest, political ecologist Bram Buscher at Wageningen University in the Netherlands, on this week&#8217;s Newscast. This power, he says, is concentrated on platforms that have no allegiance to fact or truth, but rather serve only what increases their bottom line. Understanding this power dynamic and speaking truth to it is essential for the environmental movement to succeed. &#8220;If you keep on doing the same kind of things and not take the root causes, the root structural forms of power into account, you may have nice terms like nature-based solutions, ecosystem services, natural capital, but they don&#8217;t actually challenge the power structures to change,” he says. That structure he refers to as “platform capitalism.” Tasks humans used to do through various options or pathways are now gate-kept by tech companies. These companies have monopolized these platforms, including social media, generative artificial intelligence, and search engines that prioritize data collection over sincere citizen engagement. This makes it difficult for the environmental movement’s message to find an open audience. In some cases, people cannot tell the difference between what is real and what is not anymore. Buscher has written his thoughts in his book The Truth About Nature: Environmentalism in the Era of Post-Truth Politics and Platform Capitalism, which explains why “speaking facts to power” does not fundamentally change the policies currently failing the environment. Speaking&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/podcast/2026/03/meaningful-conservation-demands-truth-not-just-facts-says-political-ecologist/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
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