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	<channel>
		<title>Conservation news</title>
		<atom:link href="https://news.mongabay.com/feed/?location=ecuador&#038;post_type=post" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" />
		<link>https://news.mongabay.com/list/ecuador/</link>
		<description>Environmental science and conservation news</description>
		<lastBuildDate>Fri, 03 Jul 2026 19:09:21 +0000</lastBuildDate>
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<image>
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	<title>Ecuador environmental news</title>
	<link>https://news.mongabay.com/list/ecuador/</link>
	<width>32</width>
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				<item>
					<title>Monika Silva Koniuszek, 41, defended the everyday things corruption corrodes</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/monika-silva-koniuszek-41-defended-the-everyday-things-corruption-corrodes/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/monika-silva-koniuszek-41-defended-the-everyday-things-corruption-corrodes/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>18 Jun 2026 15:23:49 +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/20/2026/06/18151921/Monika-Silva-helping-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=321441</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Founder's briefs]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Ecuador, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Corruption, Endangered Environmentalists, Obituary, and Violence]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[&#160; Montañita is a place many people intend to pass through. They come for surf, sun, music, and a stretch of Ecuador’s coast known for surf, music, and its free-spirited nature. Some stay longer. They open small businesses, learn the workings of the communes, put children into local schools, and begin to notice what visitors [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[&nbsp; Montañita is a place many people intend to pass through. They come for surf, sun, music, and a stretch of Ecuador’s coast known for surf, music, and its free-spirited nature. Some stay longer. They open small businesses, learn the workings of the communes, put children into local schools, and begin to notice what visitors often do not see: the sewage that is not properly treated, the public works that arrive without answers, the land whose ownership becomes uncertain, and the turtles whose nesting beaches are treated as available ground. For a woman from northern Poland, the change of country became something beyond expatriate life. Ecuador was where she made a home, ran a hostel, raised two daughters, and became part of Santa Elena’s disputes and loyalties. Monika Silva Koniuszek, who was found dead on June 8th at her home in Montañita, was 41. The circumstances of her death remain under investigation. In the weeks before she died, she had spoken publicly of warnings that there was a plan to kill her. She had alerted authorities and sought protection. After her death, Polish diplomats, the European Union, human-rights groups, and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights called for a thorough and independent inquiry. Her public work began with local problems. Montañita’s inadequate sewage system troubled her. So did the way decisions about beaches, mangroves, public land, and services seemed to benefit the same networks of power. She came to see poverty, malnutrition, poor infrastructure, and environmental damage as linked by&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/monika-silva-koniuszek-41-defended-the-everyday-things-corruption-corrodes/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/monika-silva-koniuszek-41-defended-the-everyday-things-corruption-corrodes/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-321441</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>In Ecuador, an Indigenous community goes thirsty despite its two rivers</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/in-ecuador-an-indigenous-community-goes-thirsty-despite-its-two-rivers/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/in-ecuador-an-indigenous-community-goes-thirsty-despite-its-two-rivers/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>12 Jun 2026 07:00:07 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Gabriela Verdezoto Landívar]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Alexandre de Santi]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/06/11163242/MUJERES-Y-NINAS-CAPIRONA-1200x800-1-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=321009</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Ecuador, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Conservation, Crime, Drinking Water, Environment, Environmental Law, Freshwater, Global Environmental Crisis, Health, Illegal Mining, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Rights, Mining, Pollution, Rainforest Destruction, Rainforests, Rivers, Social Justice, Water, Water Pollution, and Water Scarcity]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[In the mining-plagued Ecuadorian Amazon, not even two rivers are enough to ensure safe water for an Indigenous community.]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The man&#8217;s cheekbones are painted with achiote, a red pigment extracted from the seeds of the Bixa orellana plant. He wears a thin headband over his gray hair, and a traditional green shirt with yellow and blue trim on the collar and sleeves. In his right hand, he holds a wooden spear, 2.5 meters long, or just over 8 feet, made from the chonta palm (Bactris gasipaes). He stares at the journalist. His dark eyes widen as he laments the occurrence of several cases of community residents, including children, suffering from fungal infections. “Even two people have already died from stomach pain, and at the hospital, they said: ‘Maybe it’s the water.’” The video was first broadcast on Sept. 28, 2024, on an Ecuadorian national news program. The man recorded is Galo Villamil, one of the leaders of the Capirona community, an Indigenous Kichwa resistance enclave in the Ecuadorian Amazon. One year before, in 2023, 22-year-old Joana Ashanga and her 2-year-old nephew, Ville Ashanga, were victims of what the community considers the fatal consequence of river pollution. “Despite the complaints, official reports from the [Ecuadorian] Ministry of Health made no mention of links between the pollution and the deaths, which generated distrust and outrage,” said Linda Tapuy, president of the Capirona community, before an audience at a university auditorium in Ecuador’s capital, Quito, two years after the deaths. The victims’ death certificates said the cause of death was “unknown.” For the Indigenous group, appearing in that television news story was&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/in-ecuador-an-indigenous-community-goes-thirsty-despite-its-two-rivers/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/in-ecuador-an-indigenous-community-goes-thirsty-despite-its-two-rivers/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-321009</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>New golf-ball sized blue octopus species now identified in the Galapagos</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2026/06/new-golf-ball-sized-blue-octopus-species-now-identified-in-the-galapagos/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2026/06/new-golf-ball-sized-blue-octopus-species-now-identified-in-the-galapagos/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>05 Jun 2026 04:37:39 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[David Brown]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Shreya Dasgupta]]>
					</author>
															<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/06/11174331/octopus-galapagos-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?post_type=short-article&#038;p=320625</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Galapagos and Pacific Ocean]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Conservation, Ecosystems, Environment, Marine, Marine Animals, Marine Conservation, Oceans, Species Discovery, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[While on a deep-sea expedition in the Galapagos in 2015, scientists found a golf-ball sized, short-armed blue octopus. In a recent study, they confirmed that it’s new to science. The newly described octopus, named Microeledone galapagensis, was first sighted with a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) near an underwater mountain, roughly 1,773 meters (5,800 feet) below [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[While on a deep-sea expedition in the Galapagos in 2015, scientists found a golf-ball sized, short-armed blue octopus. In a recent study, they confirmed that it’s new to science. The newly described octopus, named Microeledone galapagensis, was first sighted with a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) near an underwater mountain, roughly 1,773 meters (5,800 feet) below the Pacific Ocean surface close to Darwin Island.   Expedition researchers from the Charles Darwin Foundation and the Galápagos National Park Directorate collected it with their ROV. They saw two more octopus individuals on video. The body of the collected specimen was preserved and sent to octopus expert Janet Voight at the Field Museum in Chicago, Illinois, U.S.  Voight and colleagues at the museum scanned the octopus using computed tomography (CT) to create a 3D model of the individual. The researchers then used the CT model to examine its internal organs and mouth parts.    “When you describe a new species of octopus, you have to look at all the parts, including the mouth, the beak, and the teeth. And to see those things, you have to cut the specimen open. We only had the one specimen, so I didn’t want to take it apart,” Voight said in a press release.   A comparison of the blue octopus’ parts with those from other octopus species revealed that it was a new-to-science species. Unlike many octopuses, Microeledone galapagensis is small, squat, and has short, stubby arms with few arm suckers. “One of the interesting questions about&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2026/06/new-golf-ball-sized-blue-octopus-species-now-identified-in-the-galapagos/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2026/06/new-golf-ball-sized-blue-octopus-species-now-identified-in-the-galapagos/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-320625</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Has Ecuador started fracking? New oil project causes confusion and concern</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/has-ecuador-started-fracking-new-oil-project-causes-confusion-and-concern/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/has-ecuador-started-fracking-new-oil-project-causes-confusion-and-concern/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>28 May 2026 16:44:58 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Maxwell Radwin]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Alexandra Popescu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/05/28163704/AP20204647205374-1-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=320253</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Ecuador, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Conservation, Deforestation, Energy, Environment, Environmental Law, Forests, Oil, Oil Drilling, Politics, Rainforests, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Earlier this month, state-owned oil company Petroecuador announced a new project involving “hydraulic fracturing” in an oil block in the Ecuadorian Amazon. As a result, some observers spoke out against the environmental risks of high-volume shale “fracking,” in which water and chemicals are injected at high pressures into the tight bedrock to release trapped oil [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Earlier this month, state-owned oil company Petroecuador announced a new project involving “hydraulic fracturing” in an oil block in the Ecuadorian Amazon. As a result, some observers spoke out against the environmental risks of high-volume shale “fracking,” in which water and chemicals are injected at high pressures into the tight bedrock to release trapped oil and gas. Shale fracking tends to cause air pollution, uses high quantities of water, and can result in contamination that creates public health risks for surrounding communities. But while “hydraulic fracturing” and shale “fracking” involve similar processes, they’re carried out at entirely different intensities, with different designs, the observers later said. The two terms are often used interchangeably, and the government didn’t explain the distinction or follow up when the groups asked for clarification, they said. “It’s striking because, for us, one of the concerns is the lack of information associated with this announcement,” Sebastián Valdivieso, Ecuador country director for the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), told Mongabay. The announcement concerned oil in Block 57, also known as the Shushufindi Libertador block, located in Sucumbíos province, which is largely covered by Amazonian rainforest. New drilling there would yield 930 barrels a day, extracted with the help of service provider Chuanqing Drilling Engineering Corporation (CCDC), a subsidiary of China National Petroleum Corporation. In its announcement, Petroecuador said it was the first time in the country’s history that hydraulic fracturing would be used on subsurface limestone, where those kinds of operations aren’t usually carried out. A group of&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/has-ecuador-started-fracking-new-oil-project-causes-confusion-and-concern/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/has-ecuador-started-fracking-new-oil-project-causes-confusion-and-concern/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-320253</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>How much suffering do invasive species cause? Researchers are measuring that</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/how-much-suffering-do-invasive-species-cause-researchers-are-measuring-that/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/how-much-suffering-do-invasive-species-cause-researchers-are-measuring-that/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>28 May 2026 13:03:10 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Daniel Shailer]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Alexandra Popescu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/05/28112829/Anoplolepis_gracilipes_458690499-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=320237</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Ecuador, Galapagos, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animal Behavior, Animal Welfare, Animals, Biodiversity, Conservation, Ecology, Endangered Species, Invasive Species, Monitoring, Research, and Threatened species]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Avian vampire flies (Philornis downsi) were not discovered in the Galápagos Islands for almost three decades after they were thought to have arrived from mainland Ecuador in the 1960s. Even then, the first were found by accident. Birgit Fessl, a landbird ecologist, was surveying for native species on the island of Santa Cruz in 1997 [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Avian vampire flies (Philornis downsi) were not discovered in the Galápagos Islands for almost three decades after they were thought to have arrived from mainland Ecuador in the 1960s. Even then, the first were found by accident. Birgit Fessl, a landbird ecologist, was surveying for native species on the island of Santa Cruz in 1997 when she reached into the branches of a tree to take down the huge, domed nest of a woodpecker finch. Inside was a surprise. “We found one dying chick, another dead one which just looked sucked dry and 20 large maggots full of blood,” said Fessl, who now leads the Charles Darwin Foundation’s Landbird Conservation program. “I was stunned — the first dead baby in my hands. Then I realized it wasn’t an accident: It was everywhere,” she told Mongabay over a WhatsApp call. Across each of the Galapagos’ human-inhabited islands, vampire flies had already wrought havoc, killing some chicks in nests they infiltrated and leaving others maimed for life. “But it went unseen because people didn’t really know what to look for.” Around the world, more than 37,000 invasive species have been introduced to new environments. Many of these cause suffering, from vampire flies maiming finches to yellow crazy ants (Anoplolepis gracilipes) spraying acid at the eyes of shrikes (Laniidae) on Minami-Daitō Island, Japan, and Australian quolls (Dasyurus) bleeding from the nose after eating toxic cane toads (Rhinella marina). But none of these are measured by the current global standard for assessing the impact&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/how-much-suffering-do-invasive-species-cause-researchers-are-measuring-that/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/how-much-suffering-do-invasive-species-cause-researchers-are-measuring-that/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-320237</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Tracking Lucero: Scientists follow a rare Eastern Pacific leatherback sea turtle</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2026/05/tracking-lucero-scientists-follow-a-rare-eastern-pacific-leatherback-sea-turtle/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2026/05/tracking-lucero-scientists-follow-a-rare-eastern-pacific-leatherback-sea-turtle/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>26 May 2026 20:33:53 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Bobby Bascomb]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Shreya Dasgupta]]>
					</author>
															<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/05/26202912/20260320-NikkiRiddy-7O4A8545-BW-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?post_type=short-article&#038;p=320155</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Ecuador]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Bycatch, Conservation, Fisheries, Fishing, Marine, Marine Animals, Marine Conservation, Migration, Oceans, Sea Turtles, Turtles, Turtles And Tortoises, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Fewer than 1,000 leatherback sea turtles remain in the Eastern Pacific, nesting along the coastline that runs from Mexico to Ecuador. Scientists have previously fitted tracking devices to leatherbacks on other beaches across Latin America and from bycatch near Ecuador. However, they recently tagged the first nesting leatherback in Ecuador, the southern limit of the [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Fewer than 1,000 leatherback sea turtles remain in the Eastern Pacific, nesting along the coastline that runs from Mexico to Ecuador. Scientists have previously fitted tracking devices to leatherbacks on other beaches across Latin America and from bycatch near Ecuador. However, they recently tagged the first nesting leatherback in Ecuador, the southern limit of the species’ nesting range. Scientists named the turtle Lucero, “morning star” in Spanish, and estimated her age at 25-40 years. They plan to gather data on her migration and feeding patterns, which should help inform conservation policies for the critically endangered subpopulation. (Globally, the species, Dermochelys coriacea, is listed as vulnerable.) Researchers from Ecuador-based Fundacion Reina Laud were at sea when they first spotted Lucero heading toward a remote stretch of beach to nest. They alerted Callie Veelenturf, a marine conservation biologist and founder of the U.S.-based Leatherback Project. The team didn’t know where Lucero would emerge, so they stationed people the length of the beach with radios to watch out for her, according to Veelenturf. “It was really quite an adventure because we just spent multiple nights out on the beach waiting for her,” she told Mongabay in a video call. When sea turtles lay eggs, they enter a trance-like state in which they don’t seem to notice activity around them, Veelenturf said. That’s when the team attached a satellite tag to the top of Lucero’s shell. Now, each time she surfaces to breathe, the tag pings a satellite and transmits information about her movements. Leatherbacks&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2026/05/tracking-lucero-scientists-follow-a-rare-eastern-pacific-leatherback-sea-turtle/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2026/05/tracking-lucero-scientists-follow-a-rare-eastern-pacific-leatherback-sea-turtle/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-320155</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Three Thai nationals suspected of smuggling Galápagos iguanas arrested in Ecuador</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2026/05/three-thai-nationals-suspected-of-smuggling-galapagos-iguanas-arrested-in-ecuador/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2026/05/three-thai-nationals-suspected-of-smuggling-galapagos-iguanas-arrested-in-ecuador/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>21 May 2026 23:39:04 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Spoorthy Raman]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Bobbybascomb]]>
					</author>
															<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/05/21233641/701876074_1299166468998345_3099907893730859528_n-e1779406698851-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?post_type=short-article&#038;p=319955</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Ecuador and Galapagos]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Illegal Trade, Lizards, Marine, Marine Animals, Reptiles, Wildlife, Wildlife Trade, and Wildlife Trafficking]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The Ecuadorian National Police arrested three Thai nationals on May 19, 2026, at the José Joaquín de Olmedo International Airport in Guayaquil on suspicion of wildlife trafficking. They seized 12 marine iguanas (Amblyrhynchus cristatus), endemic to the Galápagos. The reptiles were found stuffed in handbags with their legs tightly bound. One was dead and those [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The Ecuadorian National Police arrested three Thai nationals on May 19, 2026, at the José Joaquín de Olmedo International Airport in Guayaquil on suspicion of wildlife trafficking. They seized 12 marine iguanas (Amblyrhynchus cristatus), endemic to the Galápagos. The reptiles were found stuffed in handbags with their legs tightly bound. One was dead and those that survived had numbness in their limbs, the Ministry of Environment and Energy said in a social media post. The reptiles are now under specialized care.   All four species of endemic Galápagos iguanas, including marine iguanas, are protected under Ecuadorian laws and have the highest level of protections under CITES, the global wildlife trade treaty. Both protections prohibit removing the iguanas from the wild or selling them. “The illegal extraction and trade of Galápagos species poses a threat to one of Ecuador&#8217;s and the world&#8217;s most important natural heritage sites,” the Ministry of Environment and Energy said in a press release. It added the government is monitoring and coordinating efforts to “prevent and punish wildlife crimes.” The operation was carried out by the national police, in coordination with the Environmental Authority, the Galápagos National Park Directorate and the Governing Council of the Galápagos Special Regime. Further investigations are ongoing. In the last week, four separate cases of marine iguanas, discarded on sidewalks in Guayaquil, were also reported, indicating trafficking. That brings the total to 16 suspected smuggled iguanas in about a week. Sandra Altherr, a co-founder of German NGO Pro Wildlife who has been&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2026/05/three-thai-nationals-suspected-of-smuggling-galapagos-iguanas-arrested-in-ecuador/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2026/05/three-thai-nationals-suspected-of-smuggling-galapagos-iguanas-arrested-in-ecuador/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-319955</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<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[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 [&#8230;]]]>
						</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>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/ecuador-failing-to-end-yasuni-oil-drilling-interview-with-waorani-leader-juan-bay/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-319326</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Inside the fight to save the little-known Galápagos petrel</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/inside-the-fight-to-save-the-little-known-galapagos-petrel/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/inside-the-fight-to-save-the-little-known-galapagos-petrel/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>30 Apr 2026 14:02:27 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Sean Mowbray]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Alexandra Popescu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/04/30134940/Image_4_petrel-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=318478</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Ecuador, Galapagos, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Biodiversity, Birds, Conservation, Conservation Solutions, Critically Endangered Species, Endangered Species, Habitat Degradation, Happy-upbeat Environmental, Invasive Species, Marine, Nature-based climate solutions, Protected Areas, Solutions, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Critically endangered Galápagos petrels spend much of their life at sea, but as they return to breed in the only place they call home, a litany of threats awaits. Over the last 60 years, in particular until the 1980s, the population of the Galápagos petrel (Pterodroma phaeopygia) declined significantly, with only 15,000 individuals remaining today, [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Critically endangered Galápagos petrels spend much of their life at sea, but as they return to breed in the only place they call home, a litany of threats awaits. Over the last 60 years, in particular until the 1980s, the population of the Galápagos petrel (Pterodroma phaeopygia) declined significantly, with only 15,000 individuals remaining today, according to the latest IUCN Red List assessment of the species. And although that number could be as high as 20,000 as new colonies are being discovered, pressure from invasive species that prey on the bird and degrade its habitat keeps the petrel on the edge. But decades-long conservation efforts have refined strategies to protect these seabirds, while a new initiative will involve thousands of Galápagos private landowners in securing their fragile nesting grounds. “Even though it&#8217;s an oceanic bird, you don&#8217;t see them that often,” Paola Sangolquí, a marine conservation coordinator with Ecuadorian NGO Jocotoco, told Mongabay in a video interview. The petrels spend most of their time out on the open water, hunting squid and fish. When they return to land, it’s to the upland and remote areas of the Galápagos islands of San Cristóbal, Floreana, Santa Cruz, Isabela and Santiago, where they nest in burrows or natural crevices. These tend to be far from the islands’ human settlements, and because the birds are also largely nocturnal, that makes them even more difficult to spot. “They nest in these foggy, misty areas up in the highlands, surrounded by dense vegetation,” Sangolquí says. “It&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/inside-the-fight-to-save-the-little-known-galapagos-petrel/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/inside-the-fight-to-save-the-little-known-galapagos-petrel/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-318478</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>AI tool tracks spread of illegal gold mining in Amazon protected areas</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/ai-tool-tracks-spread-of-illegal-gold-mining-in-amazon-protected-areas/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/ai-tool-tracks-spread-of-illegal-gold-mining-in-amazon-protected-areas/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>24 Apr 2026 09:56:11 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Constance Malleret]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Alexandra Popescu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Amazon]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2021/06/11143403/foto_58-edit-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=317945</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Latin America, Peru, South America, Suriname, and Venezuela]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Artificial Intelligence, Biodiversity, Deforestation, Drivers Of Deforestation, Forest Destruction, Forest Loss, Gold Mining, Illegal Mining, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Rights, Land Rights, Mining, Protected Areas, and Satellite Imagery]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[In July 2025, the Indigenous Shuar people celebrated the end of a decade-long struggle when they received official titles for three communities — the Shuar Tunants, Kampan and Tsuntsuim –- within the Kutukú Shaimi Protected Forest, in the south of the Ecuadorean Amazon. But in one of those communities, satellite imagery shows that between August [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[In July 2025, the Indigenous Shuar people celebrated the end of a decade-long struggle when they received official titles for three communities — the Shuar Tunants, Kampan and Tsuntsuim –- within the Kutukú Shaimi Protected Forest, in the south of the Ecuadorean Amazon. But in one of those communities, satellite imagery shows that between August and December 2025, a gaping hole appeared in the forest around a riverbend — a mining scar. Despite the Tunants territory’s newly formalized status, deforestation due to gold mining nearly tripled, reaching 2 hectares (5 acres) in size in the last three months of 2025, according to Amazon Mining Watch Panorama, a new quarterly report. The report shows that deforestation due to illegal gold mining continues to grow across the Amazon, threatening protected parts of the rainforest. In total, 6,000 hectares (more than 14,800 acres) — about seven times the size of Central Park in New York City — of new mining scars appeared across protected areas and Indigenous territories over the last three months of 2025. This mining is presumed to be illegal, as most Amazonian countries have legislation prohibiting mining in Indigenous territories and protected areas, with experts warning that greater law enforcement is needed. Most of the deforestation caused by mining during that period took place in Brazil, with roughly 2,000 hectares (about 5,000 acres) of forest being cleared. This was followed by Peru with 1,700 hectares (4,200 acres), and Guyana with 900 hectares (about 2,200 acres). New mining scars were also&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/ai-tool-tracks-spread-of-illegal-gold-mining-in-amazon-protected-areas/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/ai-tool-tracks-spread-of-illegal-gold-mining-in-amazon-protected-areas/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-317945</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Luis Yanza, campaigner who battled big oil in the Amazon rainforest</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/luis-yanza-campaigner-who-battled-big-oil-in-the-amazon-rainforest/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/luis-yanza-campaigner-who-battled-big-oil-in-the-amazon-rainforest/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>21 Apr 2026 01:37:53 +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/20/2026/04/21013032/Luis-Yanza-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=317840</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Ecuador, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Environment, Environmental Law, extractives, Fossil Fuels, Indigenous Peoples, Obituary, Oil, Oil Drilling, and Pollution]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[For much of the late 20th century, oil development in the Ecuadorian Amazon proceeded with little restraint. Wastewater and drilling residues were discharged into rivers or left in open pits. Forest was cleared. Communities downstream relied on contaminated water for drinking, cooking, and bathing. Over time, residents reported rising rates of illness, including cancers and [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[For much of the late 20th century, oil development in the Ecuadorian Amazon proceeded with little restraint. Wastewater and drilling residues were discharged into rivers or left in open pits. Forest was cleared. Communities downstream relied on contaminated water for drinking, cooking, and bathing. Over time, residents reported rising rates of illness, including cancers and respiratory disease. People might argue about the scale of the contamination, but no one could argue that it wasn&#8217;t visible. By the early 1990s, the region had become a test of whether affected communities could use the law to hold a multinational oil company to account. That effort took shape as a long legal battle against Texaco, later acquired by Chevron. It moved between jurisdictions, from New York to Ecuador, and drew in tens of thousands of plaintiffs from Indigenous and settler communities. The case would last decades. It required organizing across remote territories, gathering testimony and evidence, and sustaining attention in a legal process designed to exhaust both. Luis Yanza was central to that work. He died on March 27th 2026, from cancer, after years spent in the same landscapes where contamination was alleged to have taken hold. His role was not primarily in courtrooms. While lawyers argued motions and judges weighed jurisdiction, he traveled the back roads and rivers of the northern Amazon, meeting communities, explaining the case, and maintaining a coalition that spanned more than 80 villages and several Indigenous peoples. Luis Yanza in his youth. Yanza grew up in Lago Agrio,&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/luis-yanza-campaigner-who-battled-big-oil-in-the-amazon-rainforest/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-317840</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Indigenous &#038; community leaders say, ‘secure forest financing with us, not for us’ (commentary)</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/indigenous-leaders-say-secure-forest-financing-with-us-not-for-us-commentary/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/indigenous-leaders-say-secure-forest-financing-with-us-not-for-us-commentary/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>07 Apr 2026 19:27:23 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Inés Morales LastraJosé IvanildoLevi Sucre]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Erik Hoffner]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/12/18204154/amazon_241209144749x-1-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=317133</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Brazil, Costa Rica, Ecuador, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[climate finance, Commentary, Conservation, Conservation Finance, Environment, Finance, Forests, Governance, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Rights, Rainforests, Redd, Sustainable Development, Sustainable Forest Management, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[In recent years, we have seen clear signs that the global market for forest and nature-based carbon credits is gaining momentum. More and more companies and governments are turning to forests as part of their climate strategies, and analysts expect this trend to continue as demand grows for solutions that deliver real and verifiable benefits for the [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[In recent years, we have seen clear signs that the global market for forest and nature-based carbon credits is gaining momentum. More and more companies and governments are turning to forests as part of their climate strategies, and analysts expect this trend to continue as demand grows for solutions that deliver real and verifiable benefits for the climate, nature and people. Recent market assessments show sustained activity in the voluntary carbon market in 2025 and project further growth toward 2026, particularly for high-integrity credits linked to nature and forests. For those of us who live in and protect tropical forests, this is an important moment. As government forest protection programs, known as jurisdictional REDD+, begin to operate on a larger scale, covering entire forest countries or states, more funding will flow through systems that affect our territories, our livelihoods and our future. Whether this expansion strengthens our autonomy and benefits our communities or repeats old patterns of exclusion will depend, above all, on the full participation of our peoples in the process that determines how the benefits and revenues from these transactions are shared. We write as Indigenous, Afro-descendant, and traditional forest harvesting community leaders. From our perspective, how benefits are shared is not a technical detail or a box to check for governments seeking to sell credits, or companies buying them. It is central to ensuring that transactions are fair and that our rights are respected, and central to the very survival of our way of life. Indigenous and community leaders like this Kichwa guide in the Ecuadorian Amazon should help point the&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/indigenous-leaders-say-secure-forest-financing-with-us-not-for-us-commentary/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-317133</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Is the Galápagos damselfish extinct?</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/is-the-galapagos-damselfish-extinct/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/is-the-galapagos-damselfish-extinct/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>07 Apr 2026 01:06:25 +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/20/2026/04/05013742/Galapagos_damselfish-Azurina_eupalama-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=316982</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Founder's briefs]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Ecuador, Galapagos, Latin America, Pacific Ocean, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Climate Change, El Nino, Endangered Species, Extinction, Fish, Islands, Marine, Marine Animals, and Oceans]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[&#160; A small, blue-gray fish that once gathered in loose schools along the rocky shores of the Galápagos Islands has become the subject of a more precise question: whether it is already gone. The Galápagos damselfish (Azurina eupalama) has not been recorded since 1983. Before that, it was regularly encountered. Specimens were collected by nearly [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[&nbsp; A small, blue-gray fish that once gathered in loose schools along the rocky shores of the Galápagos Islands has become the subject of a more precise question: whether it is already gone. The Galápagos damselfish (Azurina eupalama) has not been recorded since 1983. Before that, it was regularly encountered. Specimens were collected by nearly every major scientific expedition to the islands across the 20th century, and divers could expect to find it at multiple sites. Its disappearance has therefore drawn attention not only for its outcome, but for its abruptness. Azurina eupalama, engraving of type specimen from Heller &#038; Snodgrass (1903). A recent paper by Jack Stein Grove and Benjamin Victor revisits the evidence and concludes that the species is now likely extinct. The paper, published in the Journal of the Ocean Science Foundation, assembles historical records, ecological context, and decades of unsuccessful searches to argue that the absence is no longer plausibly explained by oversight. The timing points to a specific event. The last confirmed sighting came in the aftermath of the 1982–83 El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO), one of the most intense on record. During such episodes, the cold, nutrient-rich upwelling that sustains the Galápagos marine ecosystem weakens or stops. Warmer, less productive water spreads across the archipelago, reducing plankton availability and disrupting food webs. For a species like the Galápagos damselfish, this would have been consequential. It was an obligate planktivore, dependent on the steady supply of microscopic organisms that thrive under normal upwelling conditions. It&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/is-the-galapagos-damselfish-extinct/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/is-the-galapagos-damselfish-extinct/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-316982</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Return of the giant tortoises</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2026/04/return-of-the-giant-tortoises/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2026/04/return-of-the-giant-tortoises/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>02 Apr 2026 21:20:17 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Sam Lee]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Sam Lee]]>
					</author>
															<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/04/02211927/%40RashidCruz_SantaCruz-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?post_type=short-article&#038;p=316877</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Ecuador, Galapagos, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Conservation, Turtles And Tortoises, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[For the first time in nearly two centuries, giant tortoises are once again roaming Floreana Island in the Galápagos, a conservation milestone more than a decade in the making.]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[For the first time in nearly two centuries, giant tortoises are once again roaming Floreana Island in the Galápagos, a conservation milestone more than a decade in the making.This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2026/04/return-of-the-giant-tortoises/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-316877</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Extinction—or just unseen? What Centinela reveals about biodiversity data gaps</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/extinction-or-just-unseen-what-centinela-reveals-about-biodiversity-data-gaps/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/extinction-or-just-unseen-what-centinela-reveals-about-biodiversity-data-gaps/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>30 Mar 2026 00:59:42 +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/20/2026/03/27234141/Dracontium_croatii-168689532-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=316449</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Founder's briefs]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Ecuador, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Botany, Conservation, Endangered Species, Environment, Extinction, Fragmentation, Habitat Loss, and Plants]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[In 1991, botanists Calaway Dodson and Alwyn Gentry advanced a striking proposition. Surveying a rapidly deforested ridge in western Ecuador, they suggested that dozens of plant species known only from that site—Centinela—had likely vanished with the forest. The idea was later distilled into the “Centinelan extinction hypothesis”: that habitat clearing can trigger the immediate, global [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[In 1991, botanists Calaway Dodson and Alwyn Gentry advanced a striking proposition. Surveying a rapidly deforested ridge in western Ecuador, they suggested that dozens of plant species known only from that site—Centinela—had likely vanished with the forest. The idea was later distilled into the “Centinelan extinction hypothesis”: that habitat clearing can trigger the immediate, global extinction of narrowly distributed species. It was a powerful claim. It gave a concrete example of how biodiversity loss might unfold in tropical forests, where many species appear rare, localized, and poorly documented. It also rested on a deeper uncertainty. In such systems, what has not been recorded is often treated as if it does not exist. A 2024 reassessment, published in Nature Plants, returns to Centinela using decades of additional collections and records. Drawing on herbarium records, literature, expert input, and targeted field surveys, the authors reconstruct what is known about the site’s flora. Their conclusion is straightforward. Nearly all of the species once thought endemic to Centinela have been found elsewhere. Of 98 putative microendemics, 99% are now known from other locations. Landscape of Centinela, Ecuador, and five plant species once hypothesized to have gone extinct in the region but now confirmed as extant. a, A typical landscape dominated by pasture and agriculture, with small remnant patches of forest (Photo by J. Nicolás Zapata). b–d, Herbs Gasteranthus extinctus (b), Gasteranthus atratus (Gesneriaceae) (c) and Dracontium croatii (Araceae) (d). e,f, Trees Browneopsis macrofoliolata (Fabaceae) (e) and Amyris centinelensis (Rutaceae) (f). Photos b–f by John&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/extinction-or-just-unseen-what-centinela-reveals-about-biodiversity-data-gaps/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/extinction-or-just-unseen-what-centinela-reveals-about-biodiversity-data-gaps/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-316449</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Ecuador’s new ecological corridor connects Andes and Amazon ecosystems</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/ecuadors-new-ecological-corridor-connects-andes-and-amazon-ecosystems/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/ecuadors-new-ecological-corridor-connects-andes-and-amazon-ecosystems/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>09 Mar 2026 19:54:36 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Maxwell Radwin]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Alexandra Popescu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/03/09194846/WCS_Llanganates-RBY_-%C2%A9-Victor-Utreras-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=315451</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Ecuador, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Conservation, Deforestation, Environment, Environmental Law, Forests, Governance, Indigenous Peoples, Politics, Protected Areas, Rainforests, Tropical Forests, and Wildlife Corridors]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Ecuador has announced the creation of a new biological corridor designed to connect the eastern ranges of the Andes with the Amazon Rainforest, part of a larger initiative to strengthen ecological connectivity and protect biodiversity. The Llanganates–Yasuní Connectivity Corridor, officially announced this month, spans 2,159 square kilometers (834 square miles) across two provinces, connecting Llanganates [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Ecuador has announced the creation of a new biological corridor designed to connect the eastern ranges of the Andes with the Amazon Rainforest, part of a larger initiative to strengthen ecological connectivity and protect biodiversity. The Llanganates–Yasuní Connectivity Corridor, officially announced this month, spans 2,159 square kilometers (834 square miles) across two provinces, connecting Llanganates National Park with Yasuní Biosphere Reserve. It’s one of several projects in the country aiming to preserve ecological connectivity between the Andes and Amazon, a transition zone vital for species adaptation as climate change and human pressure reshape habitats. “By securing ecological connectivity between the Andes and the Amazon, we are helping safeguard biodiversity, strengthen climate resilience, and support local communities whose livelihoods depend on healthy ecosystems,” WCS Ecuador country director Sebastian Valdivieso said in a press release. “This corridor reflects the power of collaboration between national authorities, local governments, civil society and international partners.” Yasuní Biosphere Reserve covers 27,564 km2 (10,643 mi2) of Amazon Rainforest, while Llanganates National Park covers 2,197 km2 (848 mi2) of high-elevation ecosystems in the Andes. The two protected areas appear close on a map but are actually separated by significant elevation differences, with parts of Llanganates reaching around 4,000 meters (13,000 feet) above sea level. Now, the corridor allows “altitudinal connectivity” between the two protected areas, according to WCS Ecuador, one of the organizations overseeing the project. The corridor will help protect species that need to migrate between different elevations, such as the black-and-chestnut eagle (Spizaetus isidori). It could&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/ecuadors-new-ecological-corridor-connects-andes-and-amazon-ecosystems/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/ecuadors-new-ecological-corridor-connects-andes-and-amazon-ecosystems/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-315451</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>China’s Pacific squid fishery rife with labor, fishing abuses: Report</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/chinas-pacific-squid-fishery-rife-with-labor-fishing-abuses-report/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/chinas-pacific-squid-fishery-rife-with-labor-fishing-abuses-report/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>03 Mar 2026 15:47:41 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Francesco De Augustinis]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rebecca Kessler]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/03/03141824/39-with-seabird-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=315118</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Chile, China, East Asia, Ecuador, Global, Peru, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animal Welfare, Animals, Biodiversity, Conservation, Crime, Environment, Environmental Law, Fish, Fisheries, Fishing, Forced labor, Illegal Fishing, Law, Marine, Marine Animals, Marine Conservation, Oceans, Overfishing, Saltwater Fish, Wildlife, and Wildlife Trafficking]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Labor abuses including violence, debt bondage and withheld wages and medical care, overfishing, shark finning, marine mammal killings: A new report exposes bad practices and a weak regulatory framework governing the jumbo flying squid fishery in the Southeast Pacific Ocean. The report was launched on Feb. 19, just days before the annual meeting of the [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Labor abuses including violence, debt bondage and withheld wages and medical care, overfishing, shark finning, marine mammal killings: A new report exposes bad practices and a weak regulatory framework governing the jumbo flying squid fishery in the Southeast Pacific Ocean. The report was launched on Feb. 19, just days before the annual meeting of the commission of the South Pacific Regional Fishery Management Organisation (SPRFMO), the intergovernmental body that manages the fishery. The report drew on interviews with 81 fishers, mainly Indonesian sailors who worked between 2021 and 2025 on 60 Chinese vessels targeting jumbo flying squid (Dosidicus gigas) in the region. “Our interviews revealed that these vessels are engaged in widespread fisheries abuses and labor abuses,” Dominic Thomson, head of the investigation for U.K.-based NGO the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF), told Mongabay. Jumbo flying squid, also known as Humboldt squid, are large-bodied animals averaging 50 to 80 centimeters (20 to 31 inches) in length. They concentrate in the South Pacific Ocean, off the coast of South America, where they play a key mid-trophic role in the marine ecosystem, serving both as a predator of smaller species and as prey for sharks, swordfish, sperm whales, dolphins and other marine life. The species is among the most commercially important squid species, accounting for about 30% of global squid landings. The fishery involves South American countries fishing mainly within their exclusive economic zones (EEZs): Ecuador, Chile and Peru. The latter has for decades been the world&#8217;s leading producer. In the last decade,&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/chinas-pacific-squid-fishery-rife-with-labor-fishing-abuses-report/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/chinas-pacific-squid-fishery-rife-with-labor-fishing-abuses-report/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-315118</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Giant tortoises return to Galápagos island 180 years after relatives went extinct</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2026/02/giant-tortoises-return-to-galapagos-island-180-years-after-relatives-went-extinct/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2026/02/giant-tortoises-return-to-galapagos-island-180-years-after-relatives-went-extinct/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>20 Feb 2026 21:07:53 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Bobby Bascomb]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Alexandra Popescu]]>
					</author>
															<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/02/20200545/CarlosEspinosa_Espanola-e1771618094429-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?post_type=short-article&#038;p=314587</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Galapagos]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Conservation, Endangered Species, Extinction, Islands, and Turtles And Tortoises]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[For the first time in nearly two centuries, giant tortoises are once again roaming Floreana Island in the Galápagos, a conservation milestone more than a decade in the making. Early settlers on Floreana Island altered the landscape and hunted the Floreana giant tortoise (Chelonoidis niger niger) into extinction about 180 years ago. But while working [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[For the first time in nearly two centuries, giant tortoises are once again roaming Floreana Island in the Galápagos, a conservation milestone more than a decade in the making. Early settlers on Floreana Island altered the landscape and hunted the Floreana giant tortoise (Chelonoidis niger niger) into extinction about 180 years ago. But while working on Wolf Volcano, roughly 180 kilometers (112 miles) away on Isabela Island, researchers with the Galápagos Conservancy noticed something unexpected. “The tortoises seemed different,” Penny Becker, CEO of Island Conservation told Mongabay in a video call. “They looked different and they were behaving differently.” So, the researchers took DNA samples from those tortoises and compared them with DNA from tortoise bones found in caves on Floreana. “Indeed, there were some pretty strong genetics left in the Wolf [Volcano] population from tortoises that were here on Floreana,” Becker said. How the heavy terrestrial reptiles got to Wolf Volcano remains uncertain. They could have floated on ocean currents or been transported by whaling ships that kept tortoises for food. In any case, scientists launched a breeding program using the Wolf Volcano tortoises to establish a new hybrid population for reintroduction to Floreana. On Feb. 20, with support from local residents and a consortium of partners, 156 endangered tortoises were released. Each of them is between 10 and 13 years old. They will reach sexual maturity at roughly 25 years old, so building a self-sustaining population will take time. Becker is confident in the project’s long-term success. The tortoises’&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2026/02/giant-tortoises-return-to-galapagos-island-180-years-after-relatives-went-extinct/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2026/02/giant-tortoises-return-to-galapagos-island-180-years-after-relatives-went-extinct/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-314587</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>In Ecuador’s Chocó, roads shape the fate of the rainforest</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/02/in-ecuadors-choco-roads-shape-the-fate-of-the-rainforest/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/02/in-ecuadors-choco-roads-shape-the-fate-of-the-rainforest/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>18 Feb 2026 19:05:01 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Maxwell Radwin]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Alexandra Popescu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/02/06153811/DJI_20250923101309_0020_V-2-768x450.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=313840</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Choco Forest, Ecuador, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Conservation, Deforestation, Environment, Forests, Governance, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Rights, Infrastructure, Land Conflict, Land Rights, Protected Areas, Rainforests, Roads, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[HOJA BLANCO, Ecuador — Some parts of the rainforest in northwestern Ecuador used to be so dense and impenetrable that only a few hundred people were believed to live there. Even when loggers moved into the area in the 1980s and 1990s, setting up the first roads, it would take hours to travel only a [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[HOJA BLANCO, Ecuador — Some parts of the rainforest in northwestern Ecuador used to be so dense and impenetrable that only a few hundred people were believed to live there. Even when loggers moved into the area in the 1980s and 1990s, setting up the first roads, it would take hours to travel only a few miles. It’s one of the rainiest regions on the planet, and the terrain rises sharply into the western Andes before dropping off into rivers and valleys. Because it was so inaccessible, the area remained one of the most biodiverse on the planet, with thousands of endemic plant species and hundreds of birds and amphibians. But in recent decades, much of that biodiversity has been lost. The region, known as the Chocó, has experienced historic deforestation, with only around 3% of its lower-elevation forest — below 900 meters (3,000 feet) — still remaining. In one area of the Chocó, in Esmeraldas province, the rise in deforestation coincided with the arrival of timber companies like Endesa-Botrosa, which built some of the first roads while logging the forest. Even when the companies reduced their work in the area a few years ago, deforestation continued to pose a major threat — largely because the companies left behind roads that people want to extend, conservation groups in the area say. Today, many of the roads that used to take hours to navigate are relatively clean and patched up, allowing people from other parts of the country to move in.&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/02/in-ecuadors-choco-roads-shape-the-fate-of-the-rainforest/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/02/in-ecuadors-choco-roads-shape-the-fate-of-the-rainforest/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-313840</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Abandoned tuna-fishing devices pollute the Galápagos Marine Reserve</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/02/abandoned-tuna-fishing-devices-pollute-the-galapagos-marine-reserve/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/02/abandoned-tuna-fishing-devices-pollute-the-galapagos-marine-reserve/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>09 Feb 2026 17:35:37 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Marlowe Starling]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rebecca Kessler]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/02/05155327/a.-BANNER-GP01Y49-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=313784</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Ecuador, Galapagos, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Conservation, Coral Reefs, Ecosystems, Environment, Environmental Law, Fish, Fisheries, Fishing, Marine, Marine Animals, Marine Conservation, Marine Protected Areas, Oceans, Pollution, Saltwater Fish, Tuna, Water Pollution, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[SANTA CRUZ, GALÁPAGOS ISLANDS, Ecuador — “Good morning,” Walter Borbor, a social media-famous fisher, says to his followers in a 2022 Instagram video. “What we have here is a plantado.” He points to a large black floating device with a trailing rope that’s wrapped around the tail of a decomposing whale — right in the [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[SANTA CRUZ, GALÁPAGOS ISLANDS, Ecuador — “Good morning,” Walter Borbor, a social media-famous fisher, says to his followers in a 2022 Instagram video. “What we have here is a plantado.” He points to a large black floating device with a trailing rope that’s wrapped around the tail of a decomposing whale — right in the middle of the Galápagos Marine Reserve. Plantado is the local name for a fish aggregating device (FAD), a tool industrial tuna fleets commonly deploy to attract numerous tuna they can scoop up all at once. Modern drifting FADs have been used since the 1980s to improve fishing efficiency. Over the past 25 years, they’ve become the primary tuna fishing method, according to a May study in the journal Science. Meanwhile, Ecuador’s tuna fleet grew by roughly half over the same period. Both factors have contributed to more and more abandoned FADs drifting into the Galapagos Marine Reserve from international fleets, sources told Mongabay. Abandoned FADs pose numerous problems. They shed plastic as they break down, damage coral reefs and collide with artisanal fishing boats. Inti Keith, a researcher with the Charles Darwin Foundation, a Galápagos-based science and conservation group, said scientists routinely find sharks, turtles, sea lions, seabirds and other wildlife entangled in the netting — or worse, dead. Now, Galápagos agencies and organizations are banding together to better track and collect these devices. But the root of the issue — their deployment outside the marine reserve — remains a challenge. Yellowtail surgeonfish (Prionurus punctatus)&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/02/abandoned-tuna-fishing-devices-pollute-the-galapagos-marine-reserve/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/02/abandoned-tuna-fishing-devices-pollute-the-galapagos-marine-reserve/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-313784</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Data show oil and gas blocks cover one-fourth of Ecuador, mostly in the Amazon</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2026/01/data-show-oil-and-gas-blocks-cover-one-fourth-of-ecuador-mostly-in-the-amazon/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2026/01/data-show-oil-and-gas-blocks-cover-one-fourth-of-ecuador-mostly-in-the-amazon/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>29 Jan 2026 17:47:56 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Aimee Gabay]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Bobbybascomb]]>
					</author>
															<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/01/29174638/AP25074585755550-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?post_type=short-article&#038;p=313514</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon and Ecuador]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Development, Mining, Natural Gas, Oil Drilling, and Threats To Rainforests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Ecuador has 65 oil and gas lease blocks, 88% of them in the Amazon, covering a quarter of the country’s total area. That’s according to a new data set from the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI). Many of the lease blocks overlap with several Indigenous territories, including the Cuyabeno-Imuya Intangible Zone, which is home to 11 [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Ecuador has 65 oil and gas lease blocks, 88% of them in the Amazon, covering a quarter of the country’s total area. That’s according to a new data set from the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI). Many of the lease blocks overlap with several Indigenous territories, including the Cuyabeno-Imuya Intangible Zone, which is home to 11 Indigenous communities from the Secoya, Siona, Cofán, Kichwa and Shuar nations. Oil and gas leases also overlap with other Indigenous Shuar communities in Pastaza and Morona Santiago provinces, among others. A Mongabay estimate based on the dataset found that roughly 21% of the leases overlap with protected areas and 61% overlap with Indigenous territories in Ecuador. Image by Andrés Alegría/Mongabay. The SEI data set also shows lease blocks overlapping with protected areas, including the west side of Yasuní National Park.  In a historic referendum in 2023, more than 5.2 million Ecuadorians voted to halt all current and future oil drilling in the park. Cofán-Bermejo Ecological Reserve (RECB) and Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve, both home to a great diversity of wildlife including pink river dolphins (Inia geoffrensis) and jaguars (Panthera onca), also host active oil and gas production blocks, according to the data. Combined, the blocks cover 7 million hectares (17 million acres), one-fourth of Ecuador’s total land area. Alexandra Almeida, president of Ecuadorian environmental organization Acción Ecológica, told Mongabay via WhatsApp messages that the chemicals used for oil production are highly toxic to both the environment and human health. “Many of these are released into the environment&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2026/01/data-show-oil-and-gas-blocks-cover-one-fourth-of-ecuador-mostly-in-the-amazon/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-313514</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Photos: Kew Gardens&#8217; top 10 newly named plants and fungi for 2025</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/01/photos-kew-gardens-top-10-newly-named-plants-and-fungi-for-2025/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/01/photos-kew-gardens-top-10-newly-named-plants-and-fungi-for-2025/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>12 Jan 2026 23:24:04 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Liz Kimbrough]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Liz Kimbrough]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/01/12223115/02.-Telipogon-cruentilabrum-CREDIT-L.Baquero-03-768x512.png" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=312879</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Botswana, Brazil, Ecuador, England, Namibia, Peru, and South Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Botany, Conservation, Deforestation, Endangered Species, Environment, Forest Destruction, Forests, Fungi, Green, Happy-upbeat Environmental, New Discovery, Plants, Rainforests, Species Discovery, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Over the past year, scientists at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, in the U.K., officially named 125 plants and 65 fungi. The new-to-science species include a parasitic fungus that turns Brazilian spiders into “zombies,” a critically endangered orchid with blood-red markings from Ecuador&#8217;s cloud forests, and a shrub named after the fire demon from the [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Over the past year, scientists at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, in the U.K., officially named 125 plants and 65 fungi. The new-to-science species include a parasitic fungus that turns Brazilian spiders into “zombies,” a critically endangered orchid with blood-red markings from Ecuador&#8217;s cloud forests, and a shrub named after the fire demon from the 2004 Hayao Miyazaki film Howl&#8217;s Moving Castle. Each year, Kew releases a list of its “top 10” new plant and fungal species to showcase nature&#8217;s vast diversity, as well as its fragility, as many newly described species are already in danger. According to Kew’s “State of the World&#8217;s Plants and Fungi 2023” report, three out of four undescribed plants are threatened with extinction. One species described in 2025, Cryptacanthus ebo, a bromeliad from the Ebo Forest in Cameroon, may have already gone extinct. Each year, researchers worldwide officially name about 2,500 new plants and even more fungi. An estimated 100,000 plant species and between 2 million and 3 million fungal species remain to be described and named by science. Many of these unnamed fungi are endophytes that live entirely within plant tissues, making up the plants’ microbiomes. &#8220;Describing new plant and fungal species is essential at a time when the impacts of biodiversity loss and climate change accelerate before our eyes,&#8221; Martin Cheek, a senior research leader in Kew&#8217;s Africa team, said in a press release. &#8220;It is difficult to protect what we do not know, understand and have a scientific name for.&#8221; Although a species may be&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/01/photos-kew-gardens-top-10-newly-named-plants-and-fungi-for-2025/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/01/photos-kew-gardens-top-10-newly-named-plants-and-fungi-for-2025/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-312879</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>The rise of CC35 and the business behind its climate deals</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/carbon-and-charisma-how-climate-network-cc35-tricked-its-way-to-the-limelight/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/carbon-and-charisma-how-climate-network-cc35-tricked-its-way-to-the-limelight/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>22 Dec 2025 22:32:40 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Gloria Pallares]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Alexandra Popescu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/03/26194650/Landscape-1-Parque-Nacional-El-Impenetrable-Matias-Rebak-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=311902</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Argentina, Brazil, Ecuador, Latin America, South America, and Spain]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Carbon Credits, Carbon Emissions, Carbon Market, Carbon Offsets, Climate Change, climate finance, Conservation, Corporate Social Responsibility, Deforestation, Environment, Environmental Law, Forest Carbon, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Indigenous Peoples, Law Enforcement, Mongabay investigation, and Politics]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[This investigation was produced with support from the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ). Isabel Alarcón contributed reporting from Ecuador. BARCELONA — Covering more than 65 million hectares (160 million acres) across Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia and Paraguay, the Gran Chaco is South America’s second-largest forest after the Amazon Rainforest. Over the last decades, the dry forest [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[This investigation was produced with support from the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ). Isabel Alarcón contributed reporting from Ecuador. BARCELONA — Covering more than 65 million hectares (160 million acres) across Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia and Paraguay, the Gran Chaco is South America’s second-largest forest after the Amazon Rainforest. Over the last decades, the dry forest ecosystem that fosters thousands of plant and animal species and 9 million people has lost about a quarter of its area to agriculture. In 2024, the Gran Chaco was especially threatened in Argentina’s Santiago del Estero province, where it lost 54,000 hectares (133,000 acres) of forest. A few years earlier, the province’s forest ecosystem was the object of an announcement at COP26 in Glasgow, U.K. On Nov. 2, 2021, Global Carbon Parks Inc., a Miami-based startup, announced a $200-million carbon contract with the province of Santiago del Estero that, according to several sources, would support nature conservation and decarbonization in the region. The startup aimed to trade in carbon credits from subnational protected areas. The announcement of the public-private arrangement was hosted by Capital Cities 35 (CC35), a climate alliance of mayors across the Americas that aims to build capacity to tackle climate change, implement the Paris Agreement and the U.N.’s 2030 Agenda. But findings from a Mongabay investigation suggest that the secretary-general of CC35, Argentinian Sebastián Navarro, used his position at CC35 in ways that benefited private carbon businesses like Global Carbon Parks, which he controlled through majority stakeholder Ethic International, Inc, a holding company&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/carbon-and-charisma-how-climate-network-cc35-tricked-its-way-to-the-limelight/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-311902</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>The Amazon in 2026: A challenging year ahead, now off the center stage</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/the-amazon-in-2026-a-challenging-year-ahead-now-off-the-center-stage/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/the-amazon-in-2026-a-challenging-year-ahead-now-off-the-center-stage/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>22 Dec 2025 14:27:23 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Alexandre de Santi]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Alexandre de Santi]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/03/19151029/Parque_Estadual_Encontro_das_Aguas_Thomas-Fuhrmann_2023-_01_Jaguar_-_Panthera_onca_swimming-scaled-e1710871756906-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=311879</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, French Guiana, Guyana, Latin America, Peru, South America, Suriname, and Venezuela]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[agribusiness, Agriculture, Bioeconomy, Climate Change, Conflict, Deforestation, Drivers Of Deforestation, Environment, Environmental Law, Governance, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Reserves, Indigenous Rights, Land Conflict, Land Grabbing, Land Rights, Politics, Rainforest Destruction, Rainforests, and Threats To Rainforests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[As Belém's COP30 ended in compromise, political forces moved swiftly to accelerate destruction far from the global spotlight. 
]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The Amazon enters 2026 carrying the bitter taste of compromise. The world’s attention was fixed on Belém for the COP30 summit in November, transforming the Brazilian city into a brief, intense stage for climate diplomacy, where ambitious calls for a fossil fuel phaseout ultimately died on the negotiating floor. Yet, in 2025, the true battle for the rainforest was fought far from the Blue Zone. In the quiet shadows, powerful political forces moved to roll back environmental protections in Brazil (which holds 64% of the rainforest), successfully passing the anti-conservation bills and green-lighting critical infrastructure projects. This dual reality — grand promises versus accelerated development on the frontier — set the defining tension for the year, even as a more hopeful, grassroots movement gained momentum, finding new, valuable purpose for biodiversity in innovations, proving the rainforest is worth far more standing than cut. COP30 was wrapped in global expectations. Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva opened the summit by proposing a road map to enable humankind to overcome its dependence on fossil fuels in a fair and planned manner and to halt deforestation. However, the ambitious calls for a fossil fuel phaseout were excluded from the official COP outcomes. In response, Brazil, alongside the Colombian and Dutch delegations, agreed to develop road maps outside the formal U.N. process. This effort will culminate in the First International Conference on the Just Transition Away from Fossil Fuels, scheduled for April 2026, in Santa Marta, Colombia, to negotiate an equitable Fossil Fuel&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/the-amazon-in-2026-a-challenging-year-ahead-now-off-the-center-stage/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/the-amazon-in-2026-a-challenging-year-ahead-now-off-the-center-stage/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-311879</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Drug gangs in Ecuador and Peru also involved in shark fin trafficking: Report</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2025/12/drug-gangs-in-ecuador-and-peru-also-involved-in-shark-fin-trafficking-report/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2025/12/drug-gangs-in-ecuador-and-peru-also-involved-in-shark-fin-trafficking-report/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>19 Dec 2025 14:02:58 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Shanna Hanbury]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Shreya Dasgupta]]>
					</author>
															<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/12/19130809/dji_fly_20250711_103220_0053_1752262462429_photo-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?post_type=short-article&#038;p=311739</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Ecuador and Peru]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Drug Trade, Elasmobranchs, Fishing, Illegal Trade, Oceans, shark finning, Sharks, and Wildlife Trafficking]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Narcotrafficking gangs operating out of Manabí, a coastal province of Ecuador, are also involved in trafficking shark fins alongside their drug operations, according to a recent investigation by Ecuadorian news agency Código Vidrio. Evidence from wiretaps, surveillance and raids seen by Código Vidrio reporters suggests that gangs are capturing and finning sharks and transporting the [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Narcotrafficking gangs operating out of Manabí, a coastal province of Ecuador, are also involved in trafficking shark fins alongside their drug operations, according to a recent investigation by Ecuadorian news agency Código Vidrio. Evidence from wiretaps, surveillance and raids seen by Código Vidrio reporters suggests that gangs are capturing and finning sharks and transporting the fins as a secondary income stream alongside cocaine and fuel. According to Código Vidrio, Ecuadorian police say that shark fin shipments pass through the Galápagos Islands, where fins are preserved and stored, en route to Asia. Carlos Ortega, the head of Ecuador’s antinarcotics police, told Código Vidrio that authorities seized two fishing vessels in 2024 and 2025 near the Galápagos carrying a combined 27 metric tons of shark fins. In both cases, the crews were on the same route that criminal groups use to deliver cocaine to Central America and the U.S., Ortega said. Shark fishing is illegal in Ecuador, but a 2007 law allows for the sale of sharks caught as bycatch. This loophole has since made Ecuador a top exporter of shark fins, despite the ban on targeted fishing. Código Vidrio’s findings follow an October 2025 Mongabay Latam investigation that revealed that Los Choneros and Los Lobos, two drug gangs, had teamed up with sea pirates to expand into fishing. Artisanal fishers in Ecuador and Peru told Mongabay the gangs had seized control of ports and forced fishers to pay them part of their earnings. Other fishers are pushed into the high-risk activity&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2025/12/drug-gangs-in-ecuador-and-peru-also-involved-in-shark-fin-trafficking-report/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-311739</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>All new roads lead to increased deforestation in Ecuador’s Indigenous territory</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/all-new-roads-lead-to-increased-deforestation-in-ecuadors-indigenous-territory/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/all-new-roads-lead-to-increased-deforestation-in-ecuadors-indigenous-territory/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>19 Dec 2025 09:40:50 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Ana Cristina Alvarado]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Jeremy Hance]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/12/19093425/vias-achuar-2025-09-15-19h12m48s546-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=311713</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Ecuador, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Conservation, Deforestation, Forests, Illegal Logging, Indigenous Peoples, Infrastructure, Logging, Primary Forests, and Roads]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Between March and May 2025, at least eight children from the Achuar Indigenous community died of leptospirosis in the southern Ecuadorian Amazon. The disease is preventable with access to safe drinking water and timely treatment. But these two conditions are absent in Taisha, one of the poorest five cantons in Ecuador and the one with [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Between March and May 2025, at least eight children from the Achuar Indigenous community died of leptospirosis in the southern Ecuadorian Amazon. The disease is preventable with access to safe drinking water and timely treatment. But these two conditions are absent in Taisha, one of the poorest five cantons in Ecuador and the one with lowest coverage of basic services. Months earlier, provincial and canton authorities built access roads to Taisha, promising to address this neglect. But these projects — implemented without the full consent of the Achuar, environmental control strategies and, in some cases, technical criteria or permits — had fatal consequences. Two Achuar people were murdered. Illegal loggers used the roads and took advantage of the lack of control on the part of authorities to reach Achuar territory. The demand for timber quickly found supply in a canton where almost eight out of 10 people live in poverty or extreme poverty, according to the National Institute of Statistics and Census (INEC). Taisha also makes up a large part of Achuar territory, which is home to “one of the best-preserved and most biodiverse forests in Ecuador,” according to a recent report by the organization Amazon Conservation’s Andean Amazon Monitoring Program (MAAP). Several Achuar sold the illegal loggers timber from the cedro (Cedrelo odorata) and chuncho (Cedrelinga cateniformis) tree species from their land, says Waakiach Kuja, president of the Achuar Nation of Ecuador (NAE), who gave an interview to Mongabay Latam after coordinating the transfer of a sick community member&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/all-new-roads-lead-to-increased-deforestation-in-ecuadors-indigenous-territory/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-311713</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>‘Neither appropriate nor fair’: Ecuador ordered to pay oil giant Chevron $220m</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2025/12/neither-appropriate-nor-fair-ecuador-ordered-to-pay-oil-giant-chevron-220m/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2025/12/neither-appropriate-nor-fair-ecuador-ordered-to-pay-oil-giant-chevron-220m/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>18 Dec 2025 09:38:06 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Shanna Hanbury]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Shreya Dasgupta]]>
					</author>
															<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/12/18093639/AP274741873870-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?post_type=short-article&#038;p=311600</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Ecuador and United States]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Conservation, Environment, Environmental Law, Fossil Fuels, Freshwater, Indigenous Peoples, Oil, Oil Drilling, Oil Spills, Politics, Pollution, Rainforest Destruction, Rainforests, Threats To Rainforests, and Water Pollution]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Indigenous and rural communities in Ecuador’s Amazon have condemned an international arbitration ruling that ordered Ecuador to pay more than $220 million to U.S. oil giant Chevron. The sum is to compensate the company for alleged denial of justice in a trial that found Chevron, operating through its predecessor Texaco, guilty of widespread environmental damage [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Indigenous and rural communities in Ecuador’s Amazon have condemned an international arbitration ruling that ordered Ecuador to pay more than $220 million to U.S. oil giant Chevron. The sum is to compensate the company for alleged denial of justice in a trial that found Chevron, operating through its predecessor Texaco, guilty of widespread environmental damage in northeastern Ecuador. The Union for People Affected by Texaco’s Oil Operations (UDAPT), which represents six Indigenous nations and 80 communities, said the decision forces the Ecuadorian public to compensate a company after it caused one of the worst environmental disasters in the region’s history. “It is neither appropriate nor fair. Chevron came to Ecuador, took more than $30 billion from the oil it extracted, polluted the Amazon, caused the extinction of peoples and the deaths of hundreds of people from cancer,” the organization wrote in a statement. “The affected communities took the company to court and won, yet now the entire country has to pay.” In 1993, residents in the Lago Agrio oil basin sued Texaco, later acquired by Chevron, for environmental damage caused during its operations from 1964-1992. Ecuadorian courts found the company had opted for a substandard oil waste disposal system, which dumped more than 16 billion gallons (61 billion liters) of toxic water in at least 880 unlined open pits across the Amazon Rainforest. These pools contaminated groundwater, soil and rivers that local communities depended on for drinking, fishing, bathing and more, the rulings said. Oil spills and gas flaring were&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2025/12/neither-appropriate-nor-fair-ecuador-ordered-to-pay-oil-giant-chevron-220m/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-311600</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Noisy traffic is making Galápagos’ yellow warblers angry</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2025/12/noisy-traffic-is-making-galapagos-yellow-warblers-angry/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2025/12/noisy-traffic-is-making-galapagos-yellow-warblers-angry/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>15 Dec 2025 21:20:30 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Mongabay.com]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Shanna Hanbury]]>
					</author>
															<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/12/15212008/YellowWarblerPair-e1747736581772-1-768x512.jpeg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?post_type=short-article&#038;p=311439</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Ecuador and Galapagos]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Birds, Conservation, Environment, Research, Roads, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[A recent study found that birds that live closer to roads display more aggression than birds of the same species that live farther away from noisy vehicles, Mongabay’s Spoorthy Raman reported. Researchers looked at the behavioral differences of male Galápagos yellow warblers (Setophaga petechia aureola) on two islands of the Galápagos, an Ecuadorian archipelago in [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[A recent study found that birds that live closer to roads display more aggression than birds of the same species that live farther away from noisy vehicles, Mongabay’s Spoorthy Raman reported. Researchers looked at the behavioral differences of male Galápagos yellow warblers (Setophaga petechia aureola) on two islands of the Galápagos, an Ecuadorian archipelago in the Pacific Ocean known for its rich biodiversity. Within known territories of 38 male yellow warblers on the islands, the researchers played prerecorded songs of an intruding warbler on a speaker. To some recordings, they had added traffic noises, while the others only had warbler calls. Male yellow warblers tend to shoo away other males that wander into their territory with songs. On both islands, the researchers found the same pattern in response: Male birds that lived closer to the roads were more aggressive when the speaker played recordings of an intruding bird’s song with added traffic noise than those that lived far away from roads. The birds living closer to roads circled the speaker in closer proximity, rather than simply singing — behavior associated with aggression and higher risk of physical conflict. The birds also increased the lower-pitched noises in their song, presumably to be heard over the traffic noise, while those living far from the roads sang in higher pitches. “Many species may adjust their behaviors and be able to live near noise, but the most sensitive species are likely not able to change their behaviors or deal with the stress of daily&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2025/12/noisy-traffic-is-making-galapagos-yellow-warblers-angry/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-311439</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Across Latin America populist regimes challenge nature conservation goals</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/across-latin-america-populist-regimes-challenge-nature-conservation-goals/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/across-latin-america-populist-regimes-challenge-nature-conservation-goals/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>08 Dec 2025 12:00:54 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Timothy J. Killeen]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Mayra]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Amazon]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/12/05172501/reunion-ex-presidentes-achivo-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=310658</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Perfect Storm in the Amazon]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Bolivia, Brazil, Ecuador, Latin America, Peru, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[agribusiness, Commodity agriculture, Conservation, Environmental Law, extractives, Forest Destruction, Governance, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Rights, Industrial Agriculture, Land Rights, Oil Drilling, and Threats To Rainforests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The election of populist politicians seldom bodes well for the people of the Amazon or the conservation of its biodiversity and ecosystem services. Most are just stylistic versions of the generic politician: individuals motivated by self-interest who portray themselves as champions of the common man or woman. Occasionally, however, a charismatic individual appears who succeeds [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
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							<![CDATA[The election of populist politicians seldom bodes well for the people of the Amazon or the conservation of its biodiversity and ecosystem services. Most are just stylistic versions of the generic politician: individuals motivated by self-interest who portray themselves as champions of the common man or woman. Occasionally, however, a charismatic individual appears who succeeds beyond the normal confines of the political arena to completely dominate electoral politics. Almost invariably, this person will have authoritarian tendencies and work to weaken institutional integrity, pervert electoral systems and persecute the opposition using a corrupt judicial system. They can arise from either the left or right, but they share a disdain for democratic principles and the rule of law. Populist demagogues are adept at appealing to the emotions of the so-called common man or woman; they employ simple language and use slogans that resonate with the public&#8217;s frustrations with the slow (or nonexistent) pace of economic and social reform. They use polarising rhetoric to exploit societal divisions projected as ‘us versus them’, which may be racial, geographic, class or a combination of all three. Exploiting anger at the status quo is common to their political playbook, an easy tactic because of the self-dealing of elites who have enriched themselves while underinvesting in the working poor. Invariably, they promise simplistic solutions to complex issues, ignoring both science and economic theory. The assault on elites is usually extended to foreign organizations, particularly those associated with multilateral organisations controlled by the advanced economies. This sets the&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/across-latin-america-populist-regimes-challenge-nature-conservation-goals/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-310658</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Countries overwhelmingly support bid to bar Galápagos iguanas from international trade</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2025/12/countries-overwhelmingly-support-bid-to-bar-galapagos-iguanas-from-international-trade/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2025/12/countries-overwhelmingly-support-bid-to-bar-galapagos-iguanas-from-international-trade/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>03 Dec 2025 19:25:17 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Spoorthy Raman]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Shreya Dasgupta]]>
					</author>
															<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/12/03191832/marine-iguana-1-768x512.jpeg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?post_type=short-article&#038;p=310554</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Ecuador and Galapagos]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Conservation, Crime, Endangered Species, Illegal Trade, Lizards, Reptiles, Wildlife, Wildlife Trade, and Wildlife Trafficking]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Four species of iguanas from the Galápagos Islands have received the highest protection against international commercial trade at the ongoing summit of CITES, the global wildlife trade convention, in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. The Galápagos land iguana (Conolophus subcristatus), Galápagos pink land iguana (C. marthae), Barrington land iguana (C. pallidus) and marine iguana (Amblyrhynchus cristatus) are found [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Four species of iguanas from the Galápagos Islands have received the highest protection against international commercial trade at the ongoing summit of CITES, the global wildlife trade convention, in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. The Galápagos land iguana (Conolophus subcristatus), Galápagos pink land iguana (C. marthae), Barrington land iguana (C. pallidus) and marine iguana (Amblyrhynchus cristatus) are found only on the islands that inspired Darwin’s theory of evolution. All are threatened by climate change and invasive species. Ecuador, which governs the Galápagos Islands, submitted two separate proposals to list the land iguana species and the marine iguana on CITES Appendix I, which prohibits all commercial international trade. Both proposals were accepted by consensus, without any opposition expressed by the parties to CITES, comprised of 184 countries and the European Union. Previously, all four Galápagos iguanas were listed on Appendix II, meaning their legal trade was permitted, under strict import and export requirements. Recently, however, researchers found a suspicious rise in traded Galápagos iguanas, with export permits issued by countries where none of the species are native. Ecuador, the only country where the reptiles are found in the wild, has not issued any export permits for them, raising concerns about illegal trade. All Galápagos iguanas are nationally protected in Ecuador, and removing them from the wild or selling them is illegal. But these reptiles fetch top dollar on the black market from reptile collectors and private zoos, and traffickers have been caught attempting to smuggle them from the islands. CITES data show that in&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2025/12/countries-overwhelmingly-support-bid-to-bar-galapagos-iguanas-from-international-trade/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-310554</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>In Ecuador’s Yasuní, cameras reveal the wild neighbors visitors rarely see</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/in-ecuadors-yasuni-cameras-reveal-the-wild-neighbors-visitors-rarely-see/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/in-ecuadors-yasuni-cameras-reveal-the-wild-neighbors-visitors-rarely-see/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>02 Dec 2025 10:28:24 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Ana Cristina Alvarado]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Jeremy Hance]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/12/02102105/jaguar-portada-enhanced-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=310427</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Ecuador, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Camera Trapping, Community-based Conservation, Conservation, Conservation Technology, Indigenous Peoples, Technology, Wildlife, and Wildtech]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Ecuador’s northern Amazon is home to some of the most biodiverse areas on the planet, including Yasuní National Park. But visitors are rarely able to see iconic large mammals like deer, lowland tapirs (Tapirus terrestris) or the mythic jaguar (Panthera onca). In the middle of the dense jungle, the only tangible evidence of these creatures [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Ecuador’s northern Amazon is home to some of the most biodiverse areas on the planet, including Yasuní National Park. But visitors are rarely able to see iconic large mammals like deer, lowland tapirs (Tapirus terrestris) or the mythic jaguar (Panthera onca). In the middle of the dense jungle, the only tangible evidence of these creatures is usually their tracks. However, the Sani Lodge, a community-run ecotourism venture in Yasuní, is deploying camera traps to document wildcats, rodents, primates and other mammals that share the same paths as humans — and are closer than they seem. “The footage shows that the animals are watching and listening to us,” says Javier Hualinga, a naturalist guide and former manager of the Sani Isla Kichwa community tourism project, which sits inside the national park and south of Cuyabeno Wildlife Reserve. Covering 31,000 hectares (76,000 acres), the Sani Lodge is owned and run by the Indigenous Kichwa community. Even for Hualinga — who uses his honed senses to find monkeys 40 meters (130 feet) up in the trees, amphibians camouflaged between leaves, and insects disguised as branches — locating a wildcat is like looking for a needle in a haystack. For this reason, the camera-trap project is an opportunity to show clients the wildlife they help to preserve with their visit. Wildcats like pumas often approach and investigate the camera traps. Image courtesy of fStop Foundation. Sani Lodge, which opened in 2002, has become a buffer against oil exploitation, the advance of the agricultural frontier,&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/in-ecuadors-yasuni-cameras-reveal-the-wild-neighbors-visitors-rarely-see/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-310427</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>The long life of a Galápagos tortoise</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2025/11/the-long-life-of-a-galapagos-tortoise/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2025/11/the-long-life-of-a-galapagos-tortoise/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>29 Nov 2025 14:59:42 +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/20/2025/11/29145512/gramma-head-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?post_type=short-article&#038;p=310372</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Founder's briefs]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[California and Galapagos]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Captive Breeding, Conservation, Endangered Species, Environment, Ex-situ Conservation, Green, Herps, Hope and optimism, Invasive Species, Reptiles, Turtles And Tortoises, and Zoos]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Founder&#8217;s Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries. She moved slowly, as if time were something best savored. Visitors leaned over railings or knelt at the edge of her enclosure as she stretched her neck toward a leaf of romaine. Children noted she was older than [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Founder&#8217;s Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries. She moved slowly, as if time were something best savored. Visitors leaned over railings or knelt at the edge of her enclosure as she stretched her neck toward a leaf of romaine. Children noted she was older than their grandparents. Their parents did the math and realized she was older than the zoo itself. Few paused to consider that she once walked on a very different kind of ground. Gramma, the Galápagos tortoise who died recently in San Diego at an estimated 141 years of age, carried with her a past that was not merely long but instructive. When she hatched on one of the islands that gave Darwin his insight into evolution, giant tortoises were still common. Tens of thousands roamed the lava plains. But she was born into a landscape already thinned by more than a century of human appetite. To sailors in earlier centuries, a tortoise was a barrel of fresh meat that moved itself. Crews dragged them across jagged rock and stacked them in ship holds, alive for months without food or water. Oil rendered from their fat lit lamps. Their abundance made caution seem unnecessary. Her own journey north was a quieter chapter of that same story. Taken from the Galápagos, she passed through The Bronx Zoo before arriving in California around 1930. The San Diego Zoo became her home: concrete underfoot, predictable meals, and the curiosity of&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2025/11/the-long-life-of-a-galapagos-tortoise/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-310372</doi>				</item>
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