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	<channel>
		<title>Conservation news</title>
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		<link>https://news.mongabay.com/list/malaysia/</link>
		<description>Environmental science and conservation news</description>
		<lastBuildDate>Wed, 05 Aug 2026 06:54:33 +0000</lastBuildDate>
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	<url>https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2020/05/16160320/cropped-mongabay_icon-32x32.png</url>
	<title>Malaysia environmental news</title>
	<link>https://news.mongabay.com/list/malaysia/</link>
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				<item>
					<title>Carbon markets alone won’t keep Southeast Asia’s forests standing, study says</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/carbon-markets-alone-wont-keep-southeast-asias-forests-standing-study-says/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/carbon-markets-alone-wont-keep-southeast-asias-forests-standing-study-says/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>04 Aug 2026 02:00:36 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Carolyn Cowan]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Isabel Esterman]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/08/02095503/Banner_Pied-hornbill_RAB-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=325137</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[agribusiness, Biodiversity, Business, Carbon Credits, Carbon Dioxide, Carbon Market, Carbon Sequestration, Conservation, Conservation Finance, Deforestation, Ecosystems, Finance, Forest Carbon, Forestry, Forests, Funding, Mitigation, Rainforests, Research, Secondary Forests, Solutions, Sustainable Forest Management, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Lush, leafy and luxuriantly diverse, tropical forests are home to an immense array of plants, animals and fungi. They also provide humanity with water, clean air and flood protection, and lock vast amounts of carbon in their tree trunks, roots and soils. Yet, forest conservation often loses out to extractive industries and agribusiness when valued [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Lush, leafy and luxuriantly diverse, tropical forests are home to an immense array of plants, animals and fungi. They also provide humanity with water, clean air and flood protection, and lock vast amounts of carbon in their tree trunks, roots and soils. Yet, forest conservation often loses out to extractive industries and agribusiness when valued through a purely economic lens. As a result, forests across the planet continue to be cleared in pursuit of financial profits. Across Southeast Asia alone, nearly 68 million hectares (168 million acres) of forest was lost between 2001 and 2023, much of it cleared to make way for logging, plantations and agriculture, according to researchers. However, new research indicates “massive and untapped” conservation potential remains within commercial concessions across the region. The study, published in Nature Communications, analyzed satellite data from 3,754 logging, oil palm, timber and rubber plantation concessions across four countries: Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar. Roughly 42 million hectares (104 million acres) of intact forest was identified inside these concessions — an area larger than the entire country of Malaysia. Losing these forests could lead to emissions in the range of 1.2 gigatons of carbon dioxide over the next three decades, the study says, equivalent to 20% of all industrial carbon dioxide emissions across all 11 ASEAN countries between 2000 and 2023. Protection of forests inside production landscapes, therefore, presents a significant opportunity for conservation, the study authors say, if concession holders could be incentivized to switch from converting land to protecting it.&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/carbon-markets-alone-wont-keep-southeast-asias-forests-standing-study-says/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
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										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/carbon-markets-alone-wont-keep-southeast-asias-forests-standing-study-says/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-325137</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Malaysia clamps down on toxic trade with total e-waste import ban</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/malaysia-clamps-down-on-toxic-trade-with-total-e-waste-import-ban/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/malaysia-clamps-down-on-toxic-trade-with-total-e-waste-import-ban/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>20 Jul 2026 20:31:31 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Ashley Yeong]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Isabel Esterman]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/07/20175559/electronic-e-waste-malaysia-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=324139</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Malaysia, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Business, E-waste, Environment, Environmental Law, Global Environmental Crisis, Governance, International Trade, Law, Law Enforcement, Pollution, Trade, and Waste]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[KLANG, Malaysia — On the morning of July 7, 2026, a shipping container declared to contain tin ore caught fire shortly after offloading at Port Klang, Malaysia. After firefighters doused the flames, they pried open the steel doors and found no industrial metals — only a cargo packed full of scorched electrical and electronic waste, [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[KLANG, Malaysia — On the morning of July 7, 2026, a shipping container declared to contain tin ore caught fire shortly after offloading at Port Klang, Malaysia. After firefighters doused the flames, they pried open the steel doors and found no industrial metals — only a cargo packed full of scorched electrical and electronic waste, or e-waste. Investigators and NGOs have long raised concerns about containers with falsely declared documents regularly slipping into Malaysia’s illegal recycling yards. To slip past customs, smugglers often falsify paperwork, declaring hazardous waste as legitimate raw materials. However, this particular shipment met with a strict new rule: an absolute ban on e-waste imports that took full effect on April 1, 2026, under Malaysia’s new Customs Order. But enforcing this rule means combing through millions of containers a year, playing a game of whack-a-mole against a black market that disguises itself as honest green businesses. Nik Ezanee Mohd Faisal, the chief of the Malaysian Border Control and Protection Agency (AKPS), has told reporters that the sheer volume of containers passing through national ports daily makes manual detection challenging. Between Jan. 26 and July 7, a specialized e-waste joint task force called Op Green Shield has inspected 685 containers, an AKPS spokesperson told Mongabay. Among these containers, 143 containers packed with 3,370 short tons (3,057 metric tons) of e-waste have already been sent back to their countries of origin since operations began. Another 531 containers, including backlog from previous operations, are earmarked for the next phased repatriation&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/malaysia-clamps-down-on-toxic-trade-with-total-e-waste-import-ban/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/malaysia-clamps-down-on-toxic-trade-with-total-e-waste-import-ban/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-324139</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Southeast Asian nations chart important new course toward environmental justice (commentary)</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/southeast-asian-nations-chart-important-new-course-toward-environmental-justice-commentary/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/southeast-asian-nations-chart-important-new-course-toward-environmental-justice-commentary/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>11 Jun 2026 22:57:53 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[John Knox]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Erik Hoffner]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/08/11081601/jambi_220653_2560px-768x512-1.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=321042</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Brunei, Cambodia, East Timor, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Southeast Asia, Thailand, and Vietnam]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Commentary, Conservation, Environment, Environmental Law, Governance, Law, and Social Justice]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have made an important commitment to environmental justice for the 680 million people who call this region home. Now comes the hard part: putting it into practice. Last October, ASEAN member states — Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Timor-Leste, and [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) have made an important commitment to environmental justice for the 680 million people who call this region home. Now comes the hard part: putting it into practice. Last October, ASEAN member states — Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Timor-Leste, and Vietnam — adopted a Declaration on the Right to a Safe, Clean, Healthy and Sustainable Environment. They are currently in the process of drafting a regional plan of action to give it life. The right to a healthy environment as it’s usually called is now globally accepted as a fundamental human right. ASEAN first recognized this right in 2012 in the ASEAN Human Rights Declaration. In 2022, the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed the right in a virtually unanimous vote: 161 governments voted in favor, none against, and only eight abstained. At the national level, more than 100 countries now include it in their constitutions. Southeast Asia enjoys a rich natural heritage, like this coral reef in the Philippines, that supports the lives and livelihoods of millions of people. Image courtesy of Jett Britnell/Coral Reef Image Bank. At the same time, international tribunals and domestic courts have made strides in clarifying what the right requires. In July 2025, the International Court of Justice, also known as the World Court, issued an opinion on climate change in which it said the human right to a healthy environment is inherent and essential for other human rights, including&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/southeast-asian-nations-chart-important-new-course-toward-environmental-justice-commentary/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/southeast-asian-nations-chart-important-new-course-toward-environmental-justice-commentary/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-321042</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>A blueprint for effective activism 10 years after defeating a dam in Borneo (analysis)</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/a-blueprint-for-effective-activism-10-years-after-defeating-a-dam-in-borneo-analysis/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/a-blueprint-for-effective-activism-10-years-after-defeating-a-dam-in-borneo-analysis/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>10 Jun 2026 18:59:56 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Jessica MerrimanJoe Lamb]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Erik Hoffner]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/06/09193920/Baram-dam-1-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=320891</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Borneo, Malaysia, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Activism, Analysis, Commentary, Community Development, Conservation, Dams, Development, Ecosystems, Energy, Environment, Forests, Freshwater, Governance, Human Rights, Hydroelectric Power, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Rights, Land Rights, Rivers, Tropical Forests, and Tropics]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[In October 2015, Indigenous activists from Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Cambodia, Brazil, the United States, and Honduras, together with delegates from longhouse communities throughout the Malaysian state of Sarawak, gathered at Tanjung Tepalit, an Indigenous Kenyah village on the Baram River on the island of Borneo. They called the gathering WISER: the World Indigenous Summit [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[In October 2015, Indigenous activists from Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Cambodia, Brazil, the United States, and Honduras, together with delegates from longhouse communities throughout the Malaysian state of Sarawak, gathered at Tanjung Tepalit, an Indigenous Kenyah village on the Baram River on the island of Borneo. They called the gathering WISER: the World Indigenous Summit on Environment and Rivers. Tanjung Tepalit hosted the gathering because the village, along with more than two dozen others along the river, was scheduled to be drowned. The Baram Dam, a 1,200-megawatt hydroelectric mega project backed by the Sarawak state government and aligned with a regional industrial development scheme called the Sarawak Corridor of Renewable Energy (SCORE), would have flooded an area of more than 400 square kilometers (more than 150 square miles) and displaced an estimated 20,000 Kenyah, Kayan, and Penan people. Muslims, Catholics, Evangelicals, Buddhists, agnostics, and people who followed traditional Indigenous religions were among the attendees. As we gathered, Peter Kallang, the Kenyah founder and chair of the local advocacy group SAVE Rivers, addressed the assembly: &#8220;We are people of many faiths,&#8221; he said, &#8220;but we are united in one mission. To protect our forest homes and our ways of life.&#8221; In one sense the WISER gathering was a strategy meeting to coordinate an international coalition against a state-corporate project. In another, and perhaps deeper sense, WISER was rooted in something older. It was an assertion that the values that hold communities to their land across generations — the sanctity of the&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/a-blueprint-for-effective-activism-10-years-after-defeating-a-dam-in-borneo-analysis/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/a-blueprint-for-effective-activism-10-years-after-defeating-a-dam-in-borneo-analysis/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-320891</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Loopholes undermine palm oil industry’s antideforestation pledges</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/loopholes-undermine-palm-oil-industrys-antideforestation-pledges/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/loopholes-undermine-palm-oil-industrys-antideforestation-pledges/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>27 May 2026 21:51:57 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Hans Nicholas Jong]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Alexandra Popescu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/11/02173520/sabah_1209-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=320195</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Indonesia, Malaysia, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Certification, Commodity agriculture, Corporate Social Responsibility, Deforestation, Drivers Of Deforestation, EUDR, Forest Destruction, Forest Loss, Governance, International Trade, Monitoring, Palm Oil, Plantations, Rainforests, Satellite Imagery, and Supply Chain]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[JAKARTA — More than a decade after the palm oil industry embraced a pledge to not deforest, clear tropical peatlands, or use exploitative practices, policies to that end now cover most of the global palm oil trade, as major traders, refiners and consumer brands have pledged to keep deforestation-linked palm oil out of their supply [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[JAKARTA — More than a decade after the palm oil industry embraced a pledge to not deforest, clear tropical peatlands, or use exploitative practices, policies to that end now cover most of the global palm oil trade, as major traders, refiners and consumer brands have pledged to keep deforestation-linked palm oil out of their supply chains. However, deforestation linked to palm oil continues, particularly in Indonesia, the world’s largest producer of the commodity. Satellite analysis by forest-mapping initiative TheTreeMap shows 31,073 hectares (76,783 acres) of forest were cleared for palm oil in Indonesia in 2025, slightly higher than the 30,956 hectares (76,494 acres) recorded in 2024 — highlighting persistent gaps in how the industry enforces its zero-deforestation pledges. In some cases, palm oil from newly cleared land still enters supply chains that companies describe as deforestation-free. “No Deforestation, No Peat, No Exploitation” (NDPE) policies aim to eliminate three major sources of harm in palm oil production: clearing natural forests, developing plantations on carbon-rich peatlands, and exploiting workers or local communities. By 2020, these commitments covered roughly 83% of palm oil refinery capacity in Indonesia and Malaysia, the world’s main producing region. In recent years, companies have also built systems to enforce these pledges. Many now publish grievance mechanisms where violations can be reported, while third-party monitoring groups use satellite imagery to track forest loss and flag suspicious activity. Large-scale corporate deforestation in Indonesia has fallen compared to the mid-2010s, when some plantation companies were clearing vast areas of rainforest. Deforestation for&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/loopholes-undermine-palm-oil-industrys-antideforestation-pledges/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/loopholes-undermine-palm-oil-industrys-antideforestation-pledges/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-320195</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Building bridges for human-wildlife coexistence: Interview with Yap Jo Leen</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/building-bridges-for-human-wildlife-coexistence-interview-with-yap-jo-leen/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/building-bridges-for-human-wildlife-coexistence-interview-with-yap-jo-leen/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>27 May 2026 00:54:06 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Isabelle LeongPhilip Jacobson]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Isabel Esterman]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/05/26092551/Yap-conducts-canopy-bridge-education-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=320118</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Malaysia, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Cities, Community-based Conservation, Conservation, Conservation Solutions, Deforestation, Development, Endangered Species, Environment, Forestry, Forests, Human-wildlife Conflict, Innovation, Interviews, Interviews with conservation players, Mammals, Monkeys, Primates, Rainforests, Solutions, urban ecology, Wildlife, and Wildlife Corridors]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[TANJUNG BUNGAH, Malaysia — When Yap Jo Leen was tracking dusky langurs in the forests of Penang for her master’s degree in 2016, she watched a langur they called Towkay Soh — Hokkien for “lady boss” — get hit by a car while trying to cross a busy coastal road. Dazed, the langur managed to [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[TANJUNG BUNGAH, Malaysia — When Yap Jo Leen was tracking dusky langurs in the forests of Penang for her master’s degree in 2016, she watched a langur they called Towkay Soh — Hokkien for “lady boss” — get hit by a car while trying to cross a busy coastal road. Dazed, the langur managed to get back on its feet and retreat into a tree while Yap and her colleagues blocked traffic. As Towkay Soh recuperated over the next few days, the langur group’s empathy for each other was on full display, Yap says. “Female individuals, they would approach her and groom her and even try to make her feel better,” Yap says. “I always believe that the primates, humans and monkeys, we all share a similarity, which is connection.” Two dusky langurs called &#8220;Kim&#8221; (left) and &#8220;Sunny&#8221; (right) named by the Langur Project Penang at a playground near a residential area in the Tanjung Bungah area of George Town on Malaysia&#8217;s Penang Island. For Malaysia&#8217;s endangered dusky langurs, recognizable by the characteristic white &#8220;eye masks&#8221; that stand out against their black fur, survival increasingly depends on manmade crossings across urban landscapes and the work of &#8220;citizen scientists&#8221;. Image by Mohd Rasfan / AFP. Other langurs weren’t so lucky. From 2016 to 2018, Yap recorded eight langur roadkill deaths in the same area. So, in 2019, Yap and her collaborators built an artificial canopy bridge over the road, made from old fire hoses. Since then, they’ve recorded zero langur roadkill&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/building-bridges-for-human-wildlife-coexistence-interview-with-yap-jo-leen/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-320118</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>To tackle trafficking in gibbons, experts probe what drives demand</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/to-tackle-trafficking-in-gibbons-experts-probe-what-drives-demand/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/to-tackle-trafficking-in-gibbons-experts-probe-what-drives-demand/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>20 Apr 2026 18:37:43 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Ana Norman Bermúdez]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Isabel Esterman]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/04/17085412/gibbon-in-a-cage-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=317705</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Malaysia, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Apes, Biodiversity, Conservation, Endangered Species, Environment, Environmental Law, Gibbons, Illegal Trade, Mammals, Tropical Forests, Wildlife, Wildlife Trade, and Wildlife Trafficking]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[“When we first got Joy, we thought she was a monkey,” says Esther. A hunter had come to her village in the Malaysian state of Sabah, on the island of Borneo, to sell wild meat. He showed Esther (not her real name) and her husband a weeks-old primate with long arms, dark skin and large, [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[“When we first got Joy, we thought she was a monkey,” says Esther. A hunter had come to her village in the Malaysian state of Sabah, on the island of Borneo, to sell wild meat. He showed Esther (not her real name) and her husband a weeks-old primate with long arms, dark skin and large, round eyes. Worried the animal might otherwise be killed for food, she decided to take her home. It was only later that she realized Joy was not a monkey, but a gibbon. Gibbons are small apes, more closely related to chimpanzees and humans than to monkeys. Across their range in South and Southeast Asia, they are increasingly threatened by the exotic pet trade. Despite laws that prohibit their capture, sale and ownership, demand for pet gibbons continues to drive illegal trade in wild-caught animals, much of which now plays out online. In 2025, gibbon trafficking seizures reached an all-time high, with confiscations of 336 individual gibbons recorded between January and August alone, accounting for around 20% of all records since 2016, according to an analysis by wildlife trade monitoring network TRAFFIC. Because gibbons are highly social animals and will defend their young to the death, the capture of an infant gibbon often represents the annihilation of an entire family group. Between 2016 and August 2025, more than 200 seizures were recorded, but “in reality, the trade is likely much bigger,” says Elizabeth John of TRAFFIC. While Indonesia and Vietnam have historically dominated the trade, India&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/to-tackle-trafficking-in-gibbons-experts-probe-what-drives-demand/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/to-tackle-trafficking-in-gibbons-experts-probe-what-drives-demand/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-317705</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Forest advocates accuse EU energy firm of Dutch biomass certification fraud</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/forest-advocates-accuse-eu-energy-firm-of-dutch-biomass-certification-fraud/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/forest-advocates-accuse-eu-energy-firm-of-dutch-biomass-certification-fraud/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>13 Mar 2026 16:21:42 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Justin Catanoso]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Glenn Scherer]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2023/05/25141443/wood-pellets-burning-768x512.jpeg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=315699</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Planetary Boundaries]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, European Union, Global, Malaysia, and Netherlands]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Bioenergy, carbon, Carbon Emissions, Carbon Sequestration, Climate Change, Controversial, Deforestation, Energy, Environment, Environmental Law, Forests, Governance, Industry, Politics, Renewable Energy, Sustainability, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[For years, a battle has raged between EU nations that claim their forest biomass certification policies safeguard against deforestation, promote sustainability and enable carbon-emissions reductions, even as forest advocates have argued that those policies fail to combat climate change, are badly flawed or outright fraudulent. EU policymakers remain entrenched today, defending their certification schemes as [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[For years, a battle has raged between EU nations that claim their forest biomass certification policies safeguard against deforestation, promote sustainability and enable carbon-emissions reductions, even as forest advocates have argued that those policies fail to combat climate change, are badly flawed or outright fraudulent. EU policymakers remain entrenched today, defending their certification schemes as a means of complying with laws to stop burning coal and for achieving national net-zero goals, despite evidence that burning wood pellets to make energy is dirtier than coal. But now forest advocates are turning up the pressure in the Netherlands in an unprecedented way. In a possible first-of-its-kind action, the Dutch Public Prosecution Service is considering a criminal investigation against RWE, one of the Netherlands’ largest energy providers. RWE faces allegations made by two forest advocacy groups that the company, which has collected billions of euros in Dutch biomass subsidies, misrepresented itself by claiming that hundreds of thousands of tons of wood pellets imported from Malaysia came entirely from sawmill waste. The two advocacy groups, Comite Schone Lucht and Biofuelwatch, say their research establishes that those pellets come mostly from whole trees, contributing to Malaysian deforestation. The Public Prosecution Service, the sole authority responsible for investigating and prosecuting Dutch criminal offenses, is expected to decide how to proceed by the end of March. Research shows that “biomass burning power plants emit 150% the CO2 of coal, and 300-400% the CO2 of natural gas, per unit energy produced.” Image by GIZ Bush Control and Biomass&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/forest-advocates-accuse-eu-energy-firm-of-dutch-biomass-certification-fraud/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/forest-advocates-accuse-eu-energy-firm-of-dutch-biomass-certification-fraud/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-315699</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Seagrass restoration in Malaysia finds multi-species approach boosts recovery</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/02/seagrass-restoration-in-malaysia-finds-multi-species-approach-boosts-recovery/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/02/seagrass-restoration-in-malaysia-finds-multi-species-approach-boosts-recovery/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>04 Feb 2026 11:43:11 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Carolyn Cowan]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Isabel Esterman]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/02/04113337/1-Merambong-shoal_MHZakaria-scaled-e1770205099453-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=313704</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Malaysia, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Coastal Ecosystems, Conservation, Conservation Solutions, Development, Dredging, Ecosystems, Environment, Habitat Loss, Marine, Marine Conservation, Oceans, Research, Restoration, Seagrass, and Solutions]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[In the shallow waters off Johor Bahru’s rapidly urbanizing shoreline in Peninsular Malaysia, a busy assemblage of crabs, marine worms and mollusks are a sign of recovery. Just over a decade ago, the wafting seagrass meadow they now inhabit had been laid waste by development. In 2014, dredgers working on a massive land reclamation project [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[In the shallow waters off Johor Bahru’s rapidly urbanizing shoreline in Peninsular Malaysia, a busy assemblage of crabs, marine worms and mollusks are a sign of recovery. Just over a decade ago, the wafting seagrass meadow they now inhabit had been laid waste by development. In 2014, dredgers working on a massive land reclamation project to build a “Forest City” at the tip of the peninsula had dispersed plumes of sediment across the Merambong Shoal, one of Malaysia’s most extensive seagrass beds. Seagrasses, distinct from seaweeds, are flowering plants that form vibrant underwater meadows. Filtering pollutants, cycling nutrients, sequestering carbon and providing habitat for a rich diversity of marine life, they help maintain the health of coastal seas. While the Department of Environment recognized the harm and issued a stop-work order later that year, the damage was done: Roughly 10 hectares (25 acres) of seagrass meadow had been destroyed. To try to rectify the situation, the developer, Country Garden Pacificview Sdn. Bhd., ramped up mitigation measures and enlisted the help of marine scientists at the University of Putra Malaysia (UPM) to attempt recovering the seagrass. In a new study, the UPM researchers document the results of their decade-long (2015-25) seagrass restoration and monitoring program at the Merambong Shoal. Their approach, which focused on transplanting seedlings of a combination of fast-growing seagrass species, achieved relatively high survival rates — 66% in some recovery plots. What’s more, as the meadow stabilized, they recorded the natural return of many other types of seagrasses&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/02/seagrass-restoration-in-malaysia-finds-multi-species-approach-boosts-recovery/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/02/seagrass-restoration-in-malaysia-finds-multi-species-approach-boosts-recovery/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-313704</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Ditches on peatland oil palm plantations are an overlooked source of methane: Study</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/ditches-on-peatland-oil-palm-plantations-are-an-overlooked-source-of-methane-study/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/ditches-on-peatland-oil-palm-plantations-are-an-overlooked-source-of-methane-study/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>30 Dec 2025 14:18:37 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[John Cannon]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Isabel Esterman]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/12/30075343/Tropical-peatland-clearance-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=312273</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Borneo, Malaysia, Southeast Asia, and Tropics]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, carbon, Carbon Dioxide, Carbon Emissions, Climate Change, Conservation, Environment, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Methane, Peatlands, Politics, Research, Soil Carbon, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The water-filled ditches that laced through the oil palm plantation in Sarawak, a Malaysian state on the island of Borneo, nagged at Kuno Kasak when he saw them in 2022. He knew that these canals, used to draw water out of spongy peatlands to make them suitable for agriculture, had been shown to be sources [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The water-filled ditches that laced through the oil palm plantation in Sarawak, a Malaysian state on the island of Borneo, nagged at Kuno Kasak when he saw them in 2022. He knew that these canals, used to draw water out of spongy peatlands to make them suitable for agriculture, had been shown to be sources of methane. But just how much remains an open question, with too few data points to make estimates with certainty. Though methane dissipates more quickly in the atmosphere than CO2, it’s more than 20 times more effective at trapping heat. It’s also responsible for nearly a third of the global temperature rise since the industrial revolution, making accurate methane accounting imperative for addressing climate change. Kasak, a professor of environmental technology at Estonia’s University of Tartu, is the lead author of a recent study in which he and his colleagues report that methane from these drainage canals accounted for as much as 10% of the total greenhouse gases from a given hectare of the oil palm plantations they studied. At the same time, the ditches covered no more than 4% of the plantations’ total area. “This is significant because it means that previous estimates of emissions from drained peatlands likely underestimate the contribution from ditches, which are often ignored in global carbon accounting,” Kasak told Mongabay in an email. They also found that the ditches were sources of CO2. One of the oil palm plantations where Kasak and his colleagues sampled emissions from drainage ditches.&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/ditches-on-peatland-oil-palm-plantations-are-an-overlooked-source-of-methane-study/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/ditches-on-peatland-oil-palm-plantations-are-an-overlooked-source-of-methane-study/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-312273</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Endangered knowledge and endangered plants: Threats to Indigenous medicinal traditions in Borneo</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/endangered-knowledge-and-endangered-plants-threats-to-indigenous-medicinal-traditions-in-borneo/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/endangered-knowledge-and-endangered-plants-threats-to-indigenous-medicinal-traditions-in-borneo/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>01 Dec 2025 00:42:10 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Cassidy Beach]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rhett Butler]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/11/29162522/beach_indigenous_medicine_1-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=310375</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Borneo, Malaysia, Sarawak, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Botany, Environment, Indigenous Peoples, Medicinal Plants, Medicine, Plants, and Traditional Knowledge]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[In Borneo’s dense rainforest, some communities of Punan people still find their medicine among the trees. For generations the forest has been their living pharmacy, with each medicinal plant tied to tradition. But as modern pressures grow, both the forest and the knowledge it shelters are slipping away. To understand what’s at stake, researchers from [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[In Borneo’s dense rainforest, some communities of Punan people still find their medicine among the trees. For generations the forest has been their living pharmacy, with each medicinal plant tied to tradition. But as modern pressures grow, both the forest and the knowledge it shelters are slipping away. To understand what’s at stake, researchers from Universiti Putra Malaysia traveled to Punan communities in the Malaysian state of Sarawak to document traditional medicinal practices and identify the plants behind them. The results were recently published in the journal Tropical Conservation Science. Tribes in Sarawak, Borneo live in stilted longhouses often along rivers. Historically housing one kin group, today a longhouse is typically home to multiple extended families of mixed heritage. Photo by Beatrice Anak Kayok Thirteen Indigenous Punan people guided ecologist Keeren Sundara Rajoo and his colleagues through the forest, locating plants and sharing a “spider web” of stories and knowledge. “When a plant species disappears, it’s not only a biological loss,” Sundara Rajoo said. “It also erases part of a community’s heritage and traditional knowledge system.” Indigenous communities in Sarawak live in stilted longhouses, home to multiple families in private bilik rooms that open onto a shared ruai, the center of communal life. Another tribe’s longhouse may stand only 40 kilometers (25 miles) away, Sundara Rajoo said, yet each group preserves its own system of beliefs, unique language, and festivals. Among these communities, the Punan are struggling to hold onto some of these cultural traditions. They believe their medicine draws&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/endangered-knowledge-and-endangered-plants-threats-to-indigenous-medicinal-traditions-in-borneo/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/endangered-knowledge-and-endangered-plants-threats-to-indigenous-medicinal-traditions-in-borneo/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-310375</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Gibbon trafficking pushes rehabilitation centers to the max in North Sumatra</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/11/gibbon-trafficking-pushes-rehabilitation-centers-to-the-max-in-north-sumatra/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/11/gibbon-trafficking-pushes-rehabilitation-centers-to-the-max-in-north-sumatra/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>12 Nov 2025 00:30:49 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Carolyn Cowan]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Philip Jacobson]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/11/11190508/Trafficked-infant-gibbons-confiscated-in-North-Sumatra-in-March-2025.-Image-courtesy-of-Jason-Savage-Photography-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=309282</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Southeast Asia, and Thailand]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Apes, Biodiversity, Conservation, Endangered Species, Environment, Environmental Law, Forests, Gibbons, Illegal Trade, Law Enforcement, Mammals, Pet Trade, Poaching, Primates, Wildlife, Wildlife Trade, Wildlife Trafficking, and Zoos]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[MEDAN, Indonesia — Two infant siamang gibbons cling to each other. Barely 6 months old, their lanky limbs entwine their tiny bodies as they stare out of the triage cage, their wide eyes shining. Each is an orphaned victim of the illegal pet trade. Like most trafficked gibbons, their mothers were likely shot and killed [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[MEDAN, Indonesia — Two infant siamang gibbons cling to each other. Barely 6 months old, their lanky limbs entwine their tiny bodies as they stare out of the triage cage, their wide eyes shining. Each is an orphaned victim of the illegal pet trade. Like most trafficked gibbons, their mothers were likely shot and killed by poachers before they were wrested from her body and shipped into the trade. Deprived of maternal body heat and milk, the youngsters now instinctively grip each other as if for comfort. At the back of the rescue enclosure, a smaller body hunkers in a corner, shrouded in solitude and silence. A tiny Javan gibbon, it glances up from time to time, but is wary. “The Javan gibbon is still shy,” says Sinan Serhadli, support officer at the gibbon rehabilitation and release program run by the Orangutan Information Centre (OIC) as part of the Sumatran Rescue Alliance (SRA) in Indonesia’s North Sumatra province. “He will eat, but he doesn’t want any contact with humans.” Sinan Serhadli inspects the health of two siamang gibbons that were confiscated from traffickers in March 2025. Image by Carolyn Cowan / Mongabay. The infant siamangs (Symphalangus syndactylus) and Javan gibbon (Hylobates moloch) were brought to the SRA rehabilitation center on the outskirts of Gunung Leuser National Park in March 2025 after an Indonesian naval patrol confiscated them from a boat intercepted in the Strait of Malacca. The vessel, believed to be destined for Peninsular Malaysia or southern Thailand, was smuggling&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/11/gibbon-trafficking-pushes-rehabilitation-centers-to-the-max-in-north-sumatra/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/11/gibbon-trafficking-pushes-rehabilitation-centers-to-the-max-in-north-sumatra/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-309282</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Cautious win for Indigenous groups in Malaysia as palm oil firm pauses forest clearing</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/11/cautious-win-for-indigenous-groups-in-malaysia-as-palm-oil-firm-pauses-forest-clearing/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/11/cautious-win-for-indigenous-groups-in-malaysia-as-palm-oil-firm-pauses-forest-clearing/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>11 Nov 2025 22:48:58 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Danielle Keeton-Olsen]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Isabel Esterman]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/11/11175004/Community-Blockade_borneoproject-768x512.jpeg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=309126</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Borneo, Malaysia, Sarawak, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Conservation, Deforestation, Environment, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Rights, Land Rights, Palm Oil, Plantations, Rainforests, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Indigenous activists in central Sarawak state in Malaysian Borneo have declared victory, at least temporarily, after palm oil firm Urun Plantations agreed to a moratorium on clearing land in a disputed area. Penan and Kenyah residents of the Long Urun region alleged that the plantation, which is certified as sustainable, was clearing natural forest that [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Indigenous activists in central Sarawak state in Malaysian Borneo have declared victory, at least temporarily, after palm oil firm Urun Plantations agreed to a moratorium on clearing land in a disputed area. Penan and Kenyah residents of the Long Urun region alleged that the plantation, which is certified as sustainable, was clearing natural forest that should remain standing — even as the plantation company maintains any land clearing was within legal guidelines. This Sept. 24, 2025 image shows land clearing in the Long Urun area. Image courtesy of The Borneo Project. According to a press release from Indigenous rights and environmental protection NGO SAVE Rivers, community leaders reported that the Glenealy/Samling Belaga Mill, the last remaining mill within 50 kilometers (30 miles) still buying palm fruit from Urun Plantations, has suspended sourcing from the plantation. The moratorium agreement also follows a recent media campaign by SAVE Rivers and environmental advocacy group The Borneo Project, which called on international palm oil producer SD Guthrie (formerly known as Sime Darby Plantation and one of the world’s largest producers of certified sustainable palm oil), to suspend purchases from the Glenealy/Samling Belaga Mill. Satellite imagery shows deforestation within Urun Plantations’ concession. Image by Emilie Languedoc / Mongabay. Eileen Clare Ipa, a resident of Long Urun’s Uma Pawa village, told Mongabay she was glad the company had stopped cutting trees, but she saw them still planting oil palm and doing maintenance on the cleared area. Ipa said she wants the company to leave that area&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/11/cautious-win-for-indigenous-groups-in-malaysia-as-palm-oil-firm-pauses-forest-clearing/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/11/cautious-win-for-indigenous-groups-in-malaysia-as-palm-oil-firm-pauses-forest-clearing/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-309126</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Asian golden cat range expands, but declines continue amid rising threats</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/11/asian-golden-cat-range-expands-but-declines-continue-amid-rising-threats/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/11/asian-golden-cat-range-expands-but-declines-continue-amid-rising-threats/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>07 Nov 2025 15:45:14 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Sean Mowbray]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Glenn Scherer]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/11/07124346/Image_2-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=309032</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Almost Famous Animals]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Nepal, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and Vietnam]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animal Behavior, Animals, Camera Trapping, Cats, Conservation, Deforestation, Environment, Forest Fragmentation, Habitat Loss, Human-wildlife Conflict, Mammals, Predators, Research, Small Cats, Snares, Species, Tropical Deforestation, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[A single camera trap image of an Asian golden cat, photographed in Nepal&#8217;s Jajarkot district, has expanded this felid species’ range westward by nearly 400 kilometers (248 miles). Out of nearly 60,000 camera trap images snapped in 2024 in the district, this elusive cat showed itself just once. It’s likely, says Badri Baral, program coordinator [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[A single camera trap image of an Asian golden cat, photographed in Nepal&#8217;s Jajarkot district, has expanded this felid species’ range westward by nearly 400 kilometers (248 miles). Out of nearly 60,000 camera trap images snapped in 2024 in the district, this elusive cat showed itself just once. It’s likely, says Badri Baral, program coordinator with Nature Conservation Initiative Nepal, that more Asian golden cats could be found between Jajarkot and the Gaurishankar Conservation Area, an area until recently believed to mark the felid’s farthest westward distribution. This positive news about the elusive wildcat, which dwells in forests across South and Southeast Asia, comes at nearly the same time as bad news, as its IUCN status went from near threatened to vulnerable. A single camera trap image of an Asian golden cat from Jajarkot, has extended its range by nearly 400 kilometers westward in Nepal. Image courtesy of Badri Baral/NCI-Nepal. Researchers say the Asian golden cat (Catopuma temminckii) was likely once abundant across its range. That’s not the case today, with numbers thinned and populations lost due to an excess of threats including deforestation, snaring, and retaliatory killings. Those risks, along with more accurate occurrence and population data featured in IUCN’s 2023 species assessment, are behind the revised threat status. The shift to vulnerable “represents a genuine concern,” says Thomas Gray, Tiger Landscape and Recovery Lead with the WWF Tigers Alive Initiative, who was part of the assessment team. The new IUCN listing also highlights the challenges of assigning a&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/11/asian-golden-cat-range-expands-but-declines-continue-amid-rising-threats/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/11/asian-golden-cat-range-expands-but-declines-continue-amid-rising-threats/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-309032</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Strong ethics set journalists apart in a changing information landscape (commentary)</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/11/ethics-are-what-set-journalists-apart-in-a-changing-information-landscape-commentary/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/11/ethics-are-what-set-journalists-apart-in-a-changing-information-landscape-commentary/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>07 Nov 2025 14:18:00 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Lee Kwai Han]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Karen Coates]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/11/07140208/Adobe-Express-file-28-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=309065</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Letters to the Future]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia and Malaysia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Artificial Intelligence, Ethics, Journalism, and Media]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[&#160; “What‘s wrong with the media?” I texted a friend on WhatsApp in July 2021. That was during the COVID-19 pandemic, when we were constantly flooded with information about infection cases around us, changes in movement restriction rules and vaccination plans. However, we were both getting frustrated with the false information and sensational headlines that [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[In this series, Our Letters to the Future, the sixth cohort of Mongabay’s Y. Eva Tan Conservation Reporting Fellows share their views on environmental journalism, conservation and the future for their generation, amid multiple planetary crises. Each commentary is a personal reflection, based on individual fellows’ experiences in their home communities and the insights gained through the past six months of the fellowship. The series spans the Global South — Malaysia, India, Colombia, Brazil, Nigeria and the Democratic Republic of Congo — showcasing a broad diversity of ideas and the common ground these young environmental journalists share as they embark on their careers. &nbsp; “What‘s wrong with the media?” I texted a friend on WhatsApp in July 2021. That was during the COVID-19 pandemic, when we were constantly flooded with information about infection cases around us, changes in movement restriction rules and vaccination plans. However, we were both getting frustrated with the false information and sensational headlines that we encountered frequently. At that time, I was not a journalist and never had I thought of becoming one. But now, I strive to be the journalist that I once longed for to help me make sense of the confusing world. Yet, who are journalists? The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines a journalist as “a person employed by a newspaper, magazine, or radio or television station to gather, write, or report news.” Searching on other online dictionaries yields similar results. But in the digital age, anyone can gather and publish information online, in text,&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/11/ethics-are-what-set-journalists-apart-in-a-changing-information-landscape-commentary/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/11/ethics-are-what-set-journalists-apart-in-a-changing-information-landscape-commentary/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-309065</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>UNESCO biosphere listing raises hope, questions for Malaysia’s Kinabatangan floodplain</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/11/unesco-biosphere-listing-raises-hope-questions-for-malaysias-kinabatangan-floodplain/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/11/unesco-biosphere-listing-raises-hope-questions-for-malaysias-kinabatangan-floodplain/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>06 Nov 2025 21:57:32 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Keith Anthony Fabro]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Isabel Esterman]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/11/03105023/20170410-132702-1-1.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=308711</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia and Malaysia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Conservation, Environment, Palm Oil, Protected Areas, Rainforests, Threats To Rainforests, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Malaysia’s Kinabatangan floodplain, home to orangutans, pygmy elephants and proboscis monkeys, has officially joined UNESCO’s global network of biosphere reserves, protected areas of high biological and cultural diversity. Covering 413,866 hectares (1.02 million acres) of forests, wetlands, and villages in eastern Sabah, the newly declared Kinabatangan Biosphere Reserve (KBR) connects the Heart of Borneo, a [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Malaysia’s Kinabatangan floodplain, home to orangutans, pygmy elephants and proboscis monkeys, has officially joined UNESCO’s global network of biosphere reserves, protected areas of high biological and cultural diversity. Covering 413,866 hectares (1.02 million acres) of forests, wetlands, and villages in eastern Sabah, the newly declared Kinabatangan Biosphere Reserve (KBR) connects the Heart of Borneo, a transboundary rainforest conservation area, with the Lower Kinabatangan–Segama Wetlands. The latter is itself a Ramsar site, or a wetland of global importance, and connects to the new reserve’s diverse wetland ecosystem, together forming one of Southeast Asia’s last remaining lowland forest corridors that ensures ecological connectivity between inland forests and the coast. UNESCO made the announcement on Sept. 27, following the 5th World Congress of Biosphere Reserves in China.Under UNESCO’s Man and the Biosphere (MAB) Programme, the site joins more than 700 biosphere reserves worldwide intended as “living laboratories” where biodiversity protection coexists with sustainable livelihoods. The designation followed years of consultation among government agencies, researchers and local communities, led by the Sabah Biodiversity Centre (SaBC) and endorsed by the Malaysian National Commission for UNESCO (MNCU). Officials say they hope it will strengthen coordination between conservation, agriculture and tourism actors in one of Malaysia’s most intensively used landscapes. But while the UNESCO listing brings international prestige, Kinabatangan’s past and present reveal a landscape heavily fragmented by plantations and uneven land governance. Conservationists warn that unless long-standing structural issues are addressed, the new status may fall short of its promise. An isolated fragment of forest sites&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/11/unesco-biosphere-listing-raises-hope-questions-for-malaysias-kinabatangan-floodplain/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/11/unesco-biosphere-listing-raises-hope-questions-for-malaysias-kinabatangan-floodplain/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-308711</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Malaysian farmers demand transparency over proposed seed quality bill</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/10/malaysian-farmers-demand-transparency-over-proposed-seed-quality-bill/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/10/malaysian-farmers-demand-transparency-over-proposed-seed-quality-bill/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>10 Oct 2025 15:28:31 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Lee Kwai Han]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Karen Coates]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/10/10061025/imgonline-com-ua-FrameBlurred-gIlUnSoAPiJT-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=307342</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Malaysia, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Agroecology, Conflict, Conservation, Environment, Environmental Law, Farming, Food, Food Industry, Food Prices, food security, Industrial Agriculture, Resource Conflict, and Social Justice]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[This is Part 2 of a two-part series on proposed changes to Malaysia’s seed laws. Part 1 published Sept. 29 here. In a farmland surrounded by oil palm and rubber plantations in Perak, in northwestern Malaysia, a coconut sapling lies on the ground. Its young leaves stand upright and are still fused. Farmer Mohd Naim [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[This is Part 2 of a two-part series on proposed changes to Malaysia’s seed laws. Part 1 published Sept. 29 here. In a farmland surrounded by oil palm and rubber plantations in Perak, in northwestern Malaysia, a coconut sapling lies on the ground. Its young leaves stand upright and are still fused. Farmer Mohd Naim Razak kneels beside it and checks the leaves. “It’s not stable yet,” he says. A healthy sapling should be spreading its fronds, like the others in his farm. It is a pandan coconut sapling. If it adapts well to his farm, it will start bearing fruit in three years. The juice from a pandan coconut (Cocos nucifera) is known for its sweet fragrance, resembling that of pandan, a fragrant plant commonly used in Southeast Asian cuisine. Mohd Naim also plans to sell coconut seeds in the future. He says farmers can’t work without seeds. “Seeds are farmers’ important assets.” So, for him, farmers have to appreciate, conserve, save and take care of seeds. “We must also know that we have to control [seeds] ourselves,” he says. But while Mohd Naim works on his farm, a new challenge looms: Malaysia is set to propose a new law that could contradict his belief in farmers’ responsibility and rights over seeds. This is one of two proposed changes to Malaysian seed laws that have small-scale farmers concerned about their rights. In 2026, the Ministry of Agriculture and Food Security is expected to propose a crop seed quality bill&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/10/malaysian-farmers-demand-transparency-over-proposed-seed-quality-bill/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/10/malaysian-farmers-demand-transparency-over-proposed-seed-quality-bill/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-307342</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Malaysian small-scale farmers worry about rights under proposed seed law changes</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/malaysian-small-scale-farmers-worry-about-rights-under-proposed-seed-law-changes/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/malaysian-small-scale-farmers-worry-about-rights-under-proposed-seed-law-changes/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>29 Sep 2025 17:32:49 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Lee Kwai Han]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Karen Coates]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Food systems]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/09/29055933/Mohd-Naim-Razak-explaining-different-coconut-varieties-have-different-shape-of-trunk-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=306664</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Malaysia, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Agroecology, Community Development, Conflict, Conservation, Environment, Environmental Law, Farming, Fellows, Food, Food Industry, Food Prices, food security, Industrial Agriculture, Resource Conflict, and Social Justice]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[This is Part 1 of a two-part series on proposed changes to Malaysia’s seed laws. Part 2 reports more on Malaysia’s seed quality bill. On an August Sunday morning, a rice mill roars in a public park in the busy Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur. Paddy farmer Azhar Hashim has brought it from his house in [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[This is Part 1 of a two-part series on proposed changes to Malaysia’s seed laws. Part 2 reports more on Malaysia’s seed quality bill. On an August Sunday morning, a rice mill roars in a public park in the busy Malaysian capital, Kuala Lumpur. Paddy farmer Azhar Hashim has brought it from his house in Perak state, 280 kilometers (175 miles) away, for the farmers’ carnival. Golden paddy turns into white rice as the machine grinds. At the carnival, farmers and NGOs give out free seeds and plant cuttings, sell saplings and food made from their harvest. Visitors guess plant names from seeds. Many leave with freshly milled rice. The carnival is part of the Malaysian Food Sovereignty Forum (FKMM) initiative to bring farmers and public members together to talk about seeds — something that’s been in the public eye recently. FKMM, a coalition of farmers, fishers, breeders, academics and professionals, is opposing a proposed law amendment to Malaysia’s Protection of New Plant Varieties (PNPV) Act, which, if implemented, critics say could hurt the rights of small farmers. The PNPV Act came into force in 2007. Under this act, a plant breeder can apply to the government for exclusive rights over a new plant variety. If the variety meets the criteria, the breeder is granted 15- to 25-year breeder’s rights. The granted rights are gazetted and added to a public list. While the act protects breeders’ rights, it exempts small farmers who farm less than 0.2 hectares of land (0.5&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/malaysian-small-scale-farmers-worry-about-rights-under-proposed-seed-law-changes/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/malaysian-small-scale-farmers-worry-about-rights-under-proposed-seed-law-changes/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-306664</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>A critical stopover for shorebirds awaits protection in Malaysia</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/08/a-critical-stopover-for-shorebirds-awaits-protection-in-malaysia/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/08/a-critical-stopover-for-shorebirds-awaits-protection-in-malaysia/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>13 Aug 2025 16:04:59 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Lee Kwai Han]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Karen Coates]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/08/13143956/Spoon-billed-sandpiper-in-Tiaozini-China_Photo-by-Dongming-Li_202210151005153-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=304221</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Malaysia, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Birds, Coastal Ecosystems, Conservation, Critically Endangered Species, Endangered Species, Environment, Fellows, Habitat, Habitat Degradation, Habitat Loss, Mangroves, Migration, Protected Areas, Research, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[TELUK AIR TAWAR, Malaysia — The tide is rising. On the Teluk Air Tawar-Kuala Muda coast (TAT-KM) of Penang state in Peninsular Malaysia, fishers are boating out to the sea for their morning catch. From afar, small brownish birds walk on the mudflat outside the mangrove-lined coast. When a boat gets closer, a flock of [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[TELUK AIR TAWAR, Malaysia — The tide is rising. On the Teluk Air Tawar-Kuala Muda coast (TAT-KM) of Penang state in Peninsular Malaysia, fishers are boating out to the sea for their morning catch. From afar, small brownish birds walk on the mudflat outside the mangrove-lined coast. When a boat gets closer, a flock of about 100 birds soars at once, swirls in unison, and lands farther away. It’s early July when Mongabay visits, the quieter time of the year in the TAT-KM mudflat. Come December, this mudflat will turn into a crowded pit stop for the birds. More than 12,000 migratory shorebirds — common redshanks (Tringa totanus), bar-tailed godwits (Limosa lapponica), Asian dowitchers (Limnodromus semipalmatus) — from Siberia and Alaska, about 10,000 kilometers (6,200 miles) away, will rest and feed here. Some birds will winter in TAT-KM, while others will stay long enough to refuel and continue their 20,000-km (12,400-mi) flight to Australia and New Zealand. Along this route, or flyway, they rely on a network of coastal wetlands like TAT-KM to support their journey. Among the birds that once stopped here is the critically endangered spoon-billed sandpiper (Calidris pygmaea), a small shorebird with a unique spatula-shaped bill. Of all eight global flyways, it flies only on the East Asian-Australasian Flyway (EAAF), a migration route spanning 22 countries in Siberia, East Asia, Southeast Asia, Australia and New Zealand. Spoon-billed sandpipers in Tiaozini, China. Image courtesy of Dongming Li. However, this sandpiper has been so severely impacted by habitat loss,&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/08/a-critical-stopover-for-shorebirds-awaits-protection-in-malaysia/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/08/a-critical-stopover-for-shorebirds-awaits-protection-in-malaysia/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-304221</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>NASA satellites show surge in Indonesia hotspots as 2025 fires send smoke to Malaysia</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/08/nasa-satellites-show-surge-in-indonesia-hotspots-as-2025-fires-send-smoke-to-malaysia/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/08/nasa-satellites-show-surge-in-indonesia-hotspots-as-2025-fires-send-smoke-to-malaysia/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>13 Aug 2025 13:08:47 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Hans Nicholas Jong]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Hans Nicholas Jong]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2023/07/24234827/indonesia_20150815-768x512.jpeg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=304212</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Riau, Southeast Asia, and Sumatra]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Air Pollution, Business, Corporate Environmental Transgressors, Corporations, data, Deforestation, Environment, Fires, Forests, Peatlands, Pollution, Rainforest Destruction, Rainforests, Remote Sensing, Satellite Imagery, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[JAKARTA — Indonesia’s 2025 fire season is spiraling into one of the worst in recent memory, with a sharp spike in hotspots and toxic haze already choking parts of Malaysia. Forest and peat fires, mostly caused by deliberate land clearing for agriculture, are an annual problem in Indonesia that strain relations with neighboring countries. July [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[JAKARTA — Indonesia’s 2025 fire season is spiraling into one of the worst in recent memory, with a sharp spike in hotspots and toxic haze already choking parts of Malaysia. Forest and peat fires, mostly caused by deliberate land clearing for agriculture, are an annual problem in Indonesia that strain relations with neighboring countries. July 2025 has seen a dramatic escalation in fire activity across Indonesia with official data from NASA satellites showing a surge in fire hotspots compared with previous months. NASA’s VIIRS (S-NPP) satellite detected 794 hotspots in July — up nearly tenfold from June and more than thirtyfold from May. The hotspots in July also represent a more than tenfold increase from the same period last year (68 in July 2024) and are significantly higher than the 532 hotspots recorded in July 2023. Graph showing hotspots in Indonesia from 2023 to 2025 based on NASA’s VIIRS (S-NPP) satellite. Image courtesy of Indonesia&#8217;s Ministry of Environment. Data from NASA’s Terra and Aqua MODIS satellites paint a similar picture, showing 879 hotspots in July, a more than tenfold increase from May, and are higher than the same period last year (463 in July 2024 and 776 in July 2023). While VIIRS has finer resolution and detects smaller fires, MODIS captures a wider range of fire activity multiple times per day. These are all high-confidence hotspots, meaning satellite algorithms consider them very likely to be actual vegetation fires, not false alarms. The sharp spike in fire activity highlights how the&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/08/nasa-satellites-show-surge-in-indonesia-hotspots-as-2025-fires-send-smoke-to-malaysia/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-304212</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Upmarket fish maw trade in Singapore &#038; Malaysia includes endangered species: Study</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/08/upmarket-fish-maw-trade-in-singapore-malaysia-includes-endangered-species-study/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/08/upmarket-fish-maw-trade-in-singapore-malaysia-includes-endangered-species-study/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>06 Aug 2025 15:33:46 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Keith Anthony Fabro]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Isabel Esterman]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/08/06151613/15430637796_4791d70d4c_o-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=303862</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, China, East Asia, Malaysia, and Singapore]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Conservation, Consumption, Critically Endangered Species, Ecosystems, Endangered Species, Environment, Environmental Law, Fish, Fishing, Food, Food Industry, Food Prices, Illegal Trade, International Trade, Marine, Marine Conservation, Natural Resources, Overconsumption, Overfishing, Research, Saltwater Fish, Trade, Wildlife, and Wildlife Trade]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Fish maw — the dried swim bladder of ray-finned fishes — is prized across East and Southeast Asia as a culinary delicacy and symbol of wealth and status. In Chinese culture, it’s served at family and business gatherings. Beyond tradition, maw is promoted for supposed health and beauty benefits, from aiding recovery after childbirth to [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Fish maw — the dried swim bladder of ray-finned fishes — is prized across East and Southeast Asia as a culinary delicacy and symbol of wealth and status. In Chinese culture, it’s served at family and business gatherings. Beyond tradition, maw is promoted for supposed health and beauty benefits, from aiding recovery after childbirth to reducing signs of aging due to its high collagen content. As demand has surged with urbanization and rising incomes, fish maw trade has grown into a multimillion-dollar industry. In Hong Kong alone, studies have found maw imports were worth up to $394 million between 2015 and 2018, with some single bladders selling for nearly half a million dollars. Rare species fetch the highest prices, but once processed, maw is hard to identify — this opens the door to mislabeling and substitutions that mislead buyers. “Given the value of the trade, it is surprising that we do not really know what species are involved or where they are coming from,” Benjamin Wainwright, a marine biologist at the National University of Singapore, told Mongabay by email. A new study, published in Conservation Letters in June 2025, sheds light on the fish maw trade in Singapore and Malaysia. Led by Wainwright and marine taxonomist Seah Ying Giat of Universiti Malaysia Terengganu, the study used DNA barcoding to identify the species behind the trade — revealing, among others, the presence of two vulnerable, four endangered and two critically endangered species on the IUCN Red List, including the European eel&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/08/upmarket-fish-maw-trade-in-singapore-malaysia-includes-endangered-species-study/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-303862</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Malaysia’s turtle egg buyback scheme saved thousands — but is it sustainable?</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/07/malaysias-turtle-egg-buyback-scheme-saved-thousands-but-is-it-sustainable/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/07/malaysias-turtle-egg-buyback-scheme-saved-thousands-but-is-it-sustainable/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>31 Jul 2025 05:02:34 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Keith Anthony Fabro]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Isabel Esterman]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/07/28141435/leatherback-turtle-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=303290</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Malaysia, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Conservation, Consumption, Ecosystems, Endangered Species, Environment, Environmental Law, Illegal Trade, Marine, Marine Animals, Marine Conservation, Oceans, Reptiles, Sea Turtles, Turtles, Wildlife, Wildlife consumption, and Wildlife Trade]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[On the moonlit beaches of Terengganu state, on Malaysia’s east coast, green sea turtles have been returning for generations to lay their eggs. For just as long, people have collected, sold and eaten the eggs as a delicacy, supporting coastal livelihoods but stressing turtle populations. As a conservation compromise to balance livelihoods and turtle protection, [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[On the moonlit beaches of Terengganu state, on Malaysia’s east coast, green sea turtles have been returning for generations to lay their eggs. For just as long, people have collected, sold and eaten the eggs as a delicacy, supporting coastal livelihoods but stressing turtle populations. As a conservation compromise to balance livelihoods and turtle protection, the state’s Department of Fisheries (DoF) introduced a licensing system in 1951, auctioning rights to harvest eggs from designated beaches. In 1961, it added a buyback scheme, paying licensed collectors to hand over eggs for relocation to protected hatcheries. With limited resources, the DoF partnered with NGOs like Marine Conservation and Research Organisation Malaysia (PULIHARA), which has run buyback efforts since 2016. While the scheme helped divert eggs from markets, it also faced financial and logistical challenges — especially until 2022, when Terengganu expanded its leatherback turtle (Dermochelys coriacea) egg ban to cover all species, ending legal egg sales altogether. Now, a study published in Ocean &amp; Coastal Management in May 2025 offers the clearest picture yet of the buyback model’s conservation impact — and its limits — in this new legal landscape. “We wanted to better understand the conservation impact of our efforts &#8230; and whether such a model could remain viable in the long term,” said lead author Seh Ling Long, who conducted the study while at PULIHARA and now works as a senior program officer at wildlife trade watchdog TRAFFIC. During the five-year study period, from 2016 to 2021, PULIHARA bought more&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/07/malaysias-turtle-egg-buyback-scheme-saved-thousands-but-is-it-sustainable/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-303290</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Across Southeast Asia, Indigenous women challenge extraction and erasure</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/07/across-southeast-asia-indigenous-women-challenge-extraction-and-erasure/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/07/across-southeast-asia-indigenous-women-challenge-extraction-and-erasure/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>25 Jul 2025 21:04:50 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Hướng Thiện]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Isabel Esterman]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/07/25170629/Lumads-hold-slogans-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=303181</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Southeast Asia, and Thailand]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Activism, Conflict, Environment, Environmental Law, Gender, Human Rights, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Rights, Law, Protests, Social Conflict, Social Justice, Violence, and Women In Science]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[A few years ago, Maria Suryanti Jun had idea little idea of what an environmental defender was. Nor did she have any intention of becoming one. But since December 2022, when a geothermal project was approved for her community in Poco Leok — which sits on an active volcano in the Indonesian province of East [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[A few years ago, Maria Suryanti Jun had idea little idea of what an environmental defender was. Nor did she have any intention of becoming one. But since December 2022, when a geothermal project was approved for her community in Poco Leok — which sits on an active volcano in the Indonesian province of East Nusa Tenggara — Maria, now 46 years old, stepped up to advocate for her hometown. In a series of demonstrations against the project, funded by German development bank KfW, Maria and other Indigenous residents have protested what they feel is a lack of transparency from the project developers. This includes scant consultation with the community about the project and its environmental and cultural impacts. Today, Maria is one of the most prominent faces of the Poco Leok movement. But, as a woman and an Indigenous person, she has encountered numerous obstacles in her journey as an activist. Indigenous communities face disproportionately high levels of poverty and are also likely to be disproportionately affected by extractive projects, due to poverty, social marginalization and cultural and economic links to nature. In Southeast Asia, the rights and status of Indigenous communities are often not fully recognized by national governments. Women, meanwhile, are often doubly disadvantaged within and outside of their communities, due to traditional gender roles and limited opportunities for education or self-development. Maria and other women from Poco Leoka are at the forefront of opposing is an expansion of the controversial Ulumbu geothermal plant. Image courtesy of&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/07/across-southeast-asia-indigenous-women-challenge-extraction-and-erasure/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/07/across-southeast-asia-indigenous-women-challenge-extraction-and-erasure/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-303181</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Study finds worrying uptick in proboscis monkey trade in Indonesia</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/07/study-finds-worrying-uptick-in-proboscis-monkey-trade-in-indonesia/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/07/study-finds-worrying-uptick-in-proboscis-monkey-trade-in-indonesia/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>18 Jul 2025 17:47:53 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Spoorthy Raman]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Isabel Esterman]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/07/18153442/proboscis-monkey-2-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=302807</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Borneo, Brunei, Indonesia, Kalimantan, Malaysia, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Bushmeat, Conservation, Deforestation, Endangered Species, Environmental Law, Forests, Fragmentation, Habitat Loss, Hunting, Illegal Trade, Mammals, Monkeys, Pet Trade, Poaching, Primates, Regulations, Wildlife, Wildlife Trade, and Wildlife Trafficking]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[With its long, pendulous nose, characteristic pot belly and large size, the odd-looking, leaf-eating proboscis monkey (Nasalis larvatus) may not feature on the list of the world’s cutest animals. Yet, this endangered primate, a Borneo native living along rivers and swampy mangrove forests, seems to have gained newfound appeal in recent years in the international [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[With its long, pendulous nose, characteristic pot belly and large size, the odd-looking, leaf-eating proboscis monkey (Nasalis larvatus) may not feature on the list of the world’s cutest animals. Yet, this endangered primate, a Borneo native living along rivers and swampy mangrove forests, seems to have gained newfound appeal in recent years in the international wildlife trade, according to a study published in the journal Discover Animals. The researchers searched the internet for media reports of seizures, social media ads and legal trade data from CITES — the international wildlife trade agreement — relating to proboscis monkeys between 1999 and 2024. They found about a hundred individuals in the illegal trade, all from Indonesia. There was a marked uptick in the trade in the last decade, with nearly half of the individuals traded listed on social media platforms such as Facebook and Instagram. In addition, zoos in Indonesia were found to have increasingly acquired these monkeys since 2016, possibly from the wild. The researchers say this surge in trade could have repercussions for the conservation of this endangered species. Proboscis monkeys are legally protected in all three countries where they are found: Malaysia, Brunei and Indonesia. It is illegal to keep, buy or sell them or their parts. The species is also listed on CITES Appendix I, which prohibits all international commercial trade, except for exchanges between zoos and for scientific research. While proboscis monkeys have been on study co-author Vincent Nijman’s radar since his Ph.D. research nearly three decades&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/07/study-finds-worrying-uptick-in-proboscis-monkey-trade-in-indonesia/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-302807</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Uniting plantations to save Bornean elephants: Interview with Farina Othman</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/06/uniting-plantations-to-save-bornean-elephants-interview-with-farina-othman/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/06/uniting-plantations-to-save-bornean-elephants-interview-with-farina-othman/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>10 Jun 2025 14:34:58 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Lee Kwai Han]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Karen Coates]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/06/09170118/borneo-elephants-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=300428</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Borneo, Malaysia, Sabah, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Animals, Biodiversity, Community-based Conservation, Conservation, Conservation leadership, Deforestation, Elephants, Endangered Species, Environment, Fellows, Forests, Happy-upbeat Environmental, Human-wildlife Conflict, Interviews, Interviews with conservation players, Palm Oil, Plantations, Rainforests, Tropical Forests, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[In 2006, Farina Othman heard a loud boom when she was observing a group of Bornean elephants in a forest in the Lower Kinabatangan area, one of the largest floodplains in Malaysia. She recognized that it was the sound from a bamboo cannon. It’s a type of homemade firecracker locals use to chase elephants away. [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[In 2006, Farina Othman heard a loud boom when she was observing a group of Bornean elephants in a forest in the Lower Kinabatangan area, one of the largest floodplains in Malaysia. She recognized that it was the sound from a bamboo cannon. It’s a type of homemade firecracker locals use to chase elephants away. At that time, she had just started her master’s studies, focusing on Bornean elephants (Elephas maximus borneensis). She felt humans were being unfair to the elephants. Determined to help, she decided to step in to be their voice. Today, only about 1,000 Bornean elephants remain in the wild, mainly in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo. In 2024, the species was listed as endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. The plight of the Bornean elephants began in the 1970s. Between 1973 and 2010, Sabah lost more than 52% of its lowland forest (below 500 meters, or 1,640 feet, above sea level) to logging. Many of these lands were later converted into oil palm plantations. For the Bornean elephants, more than half of their ideal habitat is gone. Othman, now in her early 40s, has become a Bornean elephant conservationist and teaches at Universiti Malaysia Sabah. She told Mongabay that habitat loss and fragmentation fuel human-elephant conflict. “They don&#8217;t want to live or share the landscape with the elephants,” Othman said of some local communities. Despite being protected by law, the elephants face retaliatory killings by gun or poison. Farina Othman, a Bornean elephant conservationist who&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/06/uniting-plantations-to-save-bornean-elephants-interview-with-farina-othman/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-300428</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Carbon capture projects promise a climate fix — and a fossil fuel lifeline</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/06/carbon-capture-projects-promise-a-climate-fix-and-a-fossil-fuel-lifeline/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/06/carbon-capture-projects-promise-a-climate-fix-and-a-fossil-fuel-lifeline/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>04 Jun 2025 15:22:04 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Nithin Coca]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Isabel Esterman]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/06/04113435/GP0SU3HU3-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=300175</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Southeast Asia, and Thailand]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Business, carbon, Carbon Dioxide, Carbon Emissions, Carbon Sequestration, Climate, Climate Change, climate finance, Conservation, Energy, Energy Efficiency, Environment, Environmental Law, Fossil Fuels, Governance, Industry, Natural Gas, Oil, and Politics]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The Kasawari gas field, off the coast of Malaysian Borneo, was discovered in 2011 and has been seen as a lifeline for the country’s energy dreams. Malaysia has long depended on oil and gas exports for economic expansion and government revenue, and this new field promised to allow state-owned oil company Petronas and its partners [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The Kasawari gas field, off the coast of Malaysian Borneo, was discovered in 2011 and has been seen as a lifeline for the country’s energy dreams. Malaysia has long depended on oil and gas exports for economic expansion and government revenue, and this new field promised to allow state-owned oil company Petronas and its partners to continue fossil gas and petroleum production. But this time, Malaysia is seeking to harness the discovery for more than just oil and gas. The government and Petronas have announced plans to make the Kasawari field the world’s largest offshore carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) project, storing CO2 from around the world as soon as 2028. The plan is to build a fixed offshore platform 200 kilometers (120 miles) from the coast, where compressed CO2 will be reinjected into a depleted reservoir via a 138-km (86-mi) subsea pipeline. It’s part of an ambitious plan to make CCS central to Malaysia’s energy transition, after its inclusion in the National Energy Transition Roadmap, and the March passage of a Carbon Capture, Utilisation, and Storage (“CCUS”) Bill, which sets guidelines for CO2 storage and transport. The Kasawari CCS project is one of several proposed and planned across Southeast Asia, including in Indonesia and Thailand. Proponents argue that, due to the young age of the region’s existing coal and gas-fired power plants and expected growth in energy demand, renewables like wind and solar won’t be enough to meet climate and regional net-zero targets. “There is intensive discussion among Government&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/06/carbon-capture-projects-promise-a-climate-fix-and-a-fossil-fuel-lifeline/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-300175</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>EUDR risk classifications omit governance &#038; enforcement failures, critics say</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/06/eudr-risk-classifications-omit-governance-enforcement-failures-critics-say/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/06/eudr-risk-classifications-omit-governance-enforcement-failures-critics-say/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>03 Jun 2025 09:18:18 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Hans Nicholas Jong]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Hans Nicholas Jong]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/08/06053741/sabah_2092-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=300088</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Climate Change, Corporate Environmental Transgressors, Corporate Social Responsibility, Deforestation, Drivers Of Deforestation, Environment, Forestry, Forests, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Rights, International Trade, Land Rights, Palm Oil, Politics, Rainforest Destruction, Rainforests, Supply Chain, Threats To Rainforests, Trade, Tropical Forests, and Zero Deforestation Commitments]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[SINGAPORE — The EU’s landmark anti-deforestation law is under fire for a risk classification system that critics say overlooks illegal logging and governance failures — potentially undermining the very goal of halting forest loss. The EUDR’s benchmarking system, which affects the level of checks and requirements faced by exporters and EU importers alike, appears to [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[SINGAPORE — The EU’s landmark anti-deforestation law is under fire for a risk classification system that critics say overlooks illegal logging and governance failures — potentially undermining the very goal of halting forest loss. The EUDR’s benchmarking system, which affects the level of checks and requirements faced by exporters and EU importers alike, appears to focus overwhelmingly on deforestation metrics and existing EU political sanctions, according to an analysis by nonprofit Forest Trends. At the same time, it overlooks equally critical issues like governance, corruption and law enforcement capacity, the analysis found. Forest Trends warns that this narrow focus risks missing systemic governance failures and enforcement gaps — the very conditions that enable illegal deforestation to flourish, even when official forest loss appears low. The risks are especially high as illegal deforestation is widespread in many tropical countries that export their goods to the EU, with estimates suggesting that 50-90% of deforestation in some tropical regions is illegal. This approach may misclassify countries with weak enforcement and high illegality as low or standard risk. Many countries with well-documented governance failures, such as the Republic of Congo and Papua New Guinea, are classified as “low risk,” alongside Finland and Norway. As part of its implementation, the EUDR uses a benchmarking system to classify countries based on their deforestation risk: low, standard or high. This classification determines the level of inspections and obligations placed on operators and member states’ authorities. Forest Trends pointed out that the World Bank designates the Republic of&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/06/eudr-risk-classifications-omit-governance-enforcement-failures-critics-say/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-300088</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Borneo project hopes to prove that forests and oil palms can coexist</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/05/borneo-project-hopes-to-prove-that-forests-and-oil-palms-can-coexist/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/05/borneo-project-hopes-to-prove-that-forests-and-oil-palms-can-coexist/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>15 May 2025 00:50:33 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Louise Hunt]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Morgan Erickson-Davis]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/05/14235348/RIV_0908-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=299033</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Borneo, Malaysia, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Agroecology, Agroforestry, Ecosystems, Elephants, Endangered Species, Environment, Forests, Green, Habitat, Industrial Agriculture, Landscape Restoration, Palm Oil, Plantations, Primates, Rainforests, Reforestation, Restoration, Soil Carbon, Trees, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The Kinabatangan River is the last major area in Malaysian Borneo’s Sabah state with a semblance of forest corridor linking the interior rainforest with mangroves on the east coast, according to Marc Ancrenaz, scientific director of Sabah-based NGO Hutan. It’s a hub for biodiversity, with orangutans, proboscis monkeys and pygmy elephants among the threatened species [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The Kinabatangan River is the last major area in Malaysian Borneo’s Sabah state with a semblance of forest corridor linking the interior rainforest with mangroves on the east coast, according to Marc Ancrenaz, scientific director of Sabah-based NGO Hutan. It’s a hub for biodiversity, with orangutans, proboscis monkeys and pygmy elephants among the threatened species that dwell there. But most of the floodplain has been converted to agriculture, mainly oil palm, leaving a “very fragmented, very degraded,” landscape, Ancrenaz says. “We still have about 50,000 hectares [124,000 acres] of protected forest on both sides of the river, but they are isolated from one another, so a lot of wildlife is stuck in these forest islands. Unfortunately, they are not enough to sustain viable populations of orangutan and other species,” says Ancrenaz, who co-founded the community-based environmental NGO with Isabelle Lackman 30 years ago with a mission to conserve Borneo’s iconic wildlife. At 560 kilometers (350 miles), the Kinabatangan is Malaysia&#8217;s second-longest river. Image by Alain Rival/TRAILS Monoculture oil palm plantations expanded rapidly in Malaysia and Indonesia in recent decades. While they’ve been a commercial success, the large-scale deforestation of rainforest and peatlands that they’ve wrought has damaged biodiversity and ecosystems. “We know we need to diversify this landscape. So far, the oil palm industry views other trees as competitors, that’s why they go for monoculture,” Ancrenaz says. But this mindset is starting to shift, as agroforestry, in which crops and livestock are grown among native trees and shrubs, is gaining&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/05/borneo-project-hopes-to-prove-that-forests-and-oil-palms-can-coexist/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/05/borneo-project-hopes-to-prove-that-forests-and-oil-palms-can-coexist/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-299033</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Agroforestry can reduce deforestation, but supportive policies matter, study finds</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/04/agroforestry-can-reduce-deforestation-but-supportive-policies-matter-study-finds/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/04/agroforestry-can-reduce-deforestation-but-supportive-policies-matter-study-finds/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>21 Apr 2025 08:00:25 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Carolyn Cowan]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Isabel Esterman]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/04/18144233/Banner_Agroforestry-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=297826</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Southeast Asia, Thailand, and Vietnam]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Adaptation To Climate Change, Agriculture, Agroecology, Agroforestry, Avoided Deforestation, Carbon Sequestration, Climate, Climate Change, Conservation, Conservation Solutions, Deforestation, Environment, Food, Forest Products, Forests, Green, Nature-based climate solutions, Solutions, Sustainability, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Intensifying heat waves, extreme floods and forest fires have devastated parts of Southeast Asia in recent years, spurring experts and authorities to look for holistic solutions. Agroforestry, the practice of growing crops alongside useful trees and shrubs, is increasingly touted as one such solution that simultaneously addresses the biodiversity and climate crises while enhancing farmer [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Intensifying heat waves, extreme floods and forest fires have devastated parts of Southeast Asia in recent years, spurring experts and authorities to look for holistic solutions. Agroforestry, the practice of growing crops alongside useful trees and shrubs, is increasingly touted as one such solution that simultaneously addresses the biodiversity and climate crises while enhancing farmer livelihoods and meeting societal needs for food, timber and other key products. Now, a new study published in Nature Sustainability suggests the benefits of this more climate-friendly and sustainable farming method might extend even further. The findings reveal agroforestry has helped reduce deforestation across Southeast Asia by an estimated 250,319 hectares (618,552 acres) per year between 2015 and 2023, preventing between 43.3 million and 74.4 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions annually. “These diverse [agroforestry] systems can provide alternative sources of income [for farmers] — fuelwood, timber, fruits, and other products — reducing the economic pressure to clear more forests,” study lead author Steve Hoong Chen Teo, a researcher at the National University of Singapore, told Mongabay. Teo and his colleagues found that areas of Southeast Asia with agroforestry typically lost less forest than similar areas without it, resulting in a net reduction in deforestation across landscapes where agroforestry is practiced. The team suggest this is primarily due to the relative efficiency and profitability of agroforestry reducing farmers’ need to encroach into surrounding forests. “While benefits vary by region, overall we found that agroforestry can help conserve forest remnants in [agricultural] landscapes,” Teo said, adding&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/04/agroforestry-can-reduce-deforestation-but-supportive-policies-matter-study-finds/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/04/agroforestry-can-reduce-deforestation-but-supportive-policies-matter-study-finds/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-297826</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Illegal trafficking of siamang gibbons is a concerning and underreported crisis (commentary)</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/04/illegal-trafficking-of-siamang-gibbons-is-a-concerning-and-underreported-crisis-commentary/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/04/illegal-trafficking-of-siamang-gibbons-is-a-concerning-and-underreported-crisis-commentary/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>18 Apr 2025 16:04:05 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Sinan Serhadli]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Erik Hoffner]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/01/29082403/siamang-gibbon-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=297832</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[India, Indonesia, Malaysia, North Sumatra, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and Sumatra]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Apes, Commentary, Conservation, Gibbons, Illegal Trade, Mammals, Wildlife, Wildlife Trade, and Wildlife Trafficking]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Siamangs are the largest of the 20 gibbon species, and belong to their own genus, Symphalangus. Distributed across Sumatra, Peninsular Malaysia, and the southernmost part of Thailand, their unforgettable and emblematic call defines the soundscape of the hill forests in the region. Despite still having several population strongholds across their range, with their number likely [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Siamangs are the largest of the 20 gibbon species, and belong to their own genus, Symphalangus. Distributed across Sumatra, Peninsular Malaysia, and the southernmost part of Thailand, their unforgettable and emblematic call defines the soundscape of the hill forests in the region. Despite still having several population strongholds across their range, with their number likely being around 100,000 across Sumatra, they are classified as endangered on the IUCN Red List. Gibbons, also known as “small apes,” receive far less conservation attention than their “great ape” cousins, and so the trafficking of gibbons is still a big and increasing threat to their long-term survival. By contrast, orangutan trafficking has decreased over the last five years and is seen as a higher-profile crime compared to trafficking gibbons. Among all gibbon range countries, Indonesia is the hotspot for gibbon trafficking, which is reflected in the numerous wildlife rescue centers across the country that shelter gibbons. Of all gibbon species, the siamang (Symphalangus syndactylus) is the most trafficked, making it one of the most, if not the most trafficked ape species, globally. Recent news highlights this trend, with five Siamang infants being confiscated at Chennai International Airport in India. As Mongabay recently highlighted, India is becoming the main destination for smuggled gibbons, likely coming from Sumatra via Malaysia. On March 3, Indonesian authorities off the coast of North Sumatra busted a ship en route to Malaysia, and among human trafficking victims, 10 gibbons, of which seven were siamangs, were also being trafficked. Siamangs spend&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/04/illegal-trafficking-of-siamang-gibbons-is-a-concerning-and-underreported-crisis-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-297832</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Smuggling networks exploit migrant debt to fuel tiger poaching in Malaysia, study shows</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/04/smuggling-networks-exploit-migrant-debt-to-fuel-tiger-poaching-in-malaysia-study-shows/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/04/smuggling-networks-exploit-migrant-debt-to-fuel-tiger-poaching-in-malaysia-study-shows/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>01 Apr 2025 03:20:53 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Keith Anthony Fabro]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rebecca Kessler]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/03/31063827/MalayanTiger_WithLeech_CreditNuvistaTV-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=296710</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Illegal Wildlife Trade and Oceans]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Malaysia, Peninsular Malaysia, Southeast Asia, and Vietnam]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Big Cats, Conservation, Crime, Fishing, Human Rights, Illegal Fishing, Illegal Trade, Tigers, trafficking, Wildlife, Wildlife Trade, and Wildlife Trafficking]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Fewer than 150 Malayan tigers remain in their home range of Peninsular Malaysia. Poaching to supply an illegal trade in their body parts is a major threat to the survival of this critically endangered subspecies of tiger, Panthera tigris jacksoni. A new study details a link between the trafficking of people and Malayan tiger parts: [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Fewer than 150 Malayan tigers remain in their home range of Peninsular Malaysia. Poaching to supply an illegal trade in their body parts is a major threat to the survival of this critically endangered subspecies of tiger, Panthera tigris jacksoni. A new study details a link between the trafficking of people and Malayan tiger parts: Vietnamese migrant workers in Malaysia, indebted to their employers, often turn to the illegal wildlife trade, while network managers and vessel captains use fishing boats to smuggle tiger parts to Vietnam. The study, published in January in the journal Trends in Organized Crime, drew on six months of interviews with 53 people familiar with fishing-boat smuggling routes and wildlife trade networks between Malaysia and Vietnam. These individuals included poachers, transporters, brokers, wildlife traders and consumers who purchased the final products. Tiger skins, bones and other body parts are trafficked for traditional medicine and ornaments. Bones are particularly coveted for unproven treatment of ailments like joint pain, epilepsy and sexual performance issues. &#8220;Criminal groups are entrepreneurial and adaptive and can capitalize on emerging opportunities,” Rob Pickles, counter-wildlife crime research and analytics chief with wildcat conservation NGO Panthera Malaysia and lead author of the study, said in a news release. “Understanding how and where these networks converge provides law enforcement agencies with a wider range of options for disrupting wildlife trafficking and recovering the tiger.&#8221; Economic hardship, worker exploitation Between 1999 and 2018, nearly 6,000 species of flora and fauna were seized in global trade, contributing to&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/04/smuggling-networks-exploit-migrant-debt-to-fuel-tiger-poaching-in-malaysia-study-shows/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-296710</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Mangrove deforestation for commodities limits conservation funding in SE Asia</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/02/mangrove-deforestation-for-commodities-limits-conservation-funding-in-se-asia/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/02/mangrove-deforestation-for-commodities-limits-conservation-funding-in-se-asia/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>25 Feb 2025 14:12:21 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Carolyn Cowan]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Isabel Esterman]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/02/25133159/Banner-3-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=294977</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Blue Carbon, Carbon Credits, Carbon Emissions, Carbon Market, Carbon Sequestration, Climate Change, Coastal Ecosystems, Conservation, Deforestation, Drivers Of Deforestation, Ecosystems, Forest Carbon, Forests, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Mangroves, Nature-based climate solutions, Reforestation, Research, Restoration, Solutions, and Wetlands]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Home to one-third of all mangroves globally, Southeast Asia has outsize potential to lock away greenhouse gases in these carbon-dense ecosystems. But deforestation for a range of commodities, cyclone damage, and rising sea levels severely jeopardize the region’s capacity to lean on its mangroves as nature-based solutions to climate change. A new study shows that [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Home to one-third of all mangroves globally, Southeast Asia has outsize potential to lock away greenhouse gases in these carbon-dense ecosystems. But deforestation for a range of commodities, cyclone damage, and rising sea levels severely jeopardize the region’s capacity to lean on its mangroves as nature-based solutions to climate change. A new study shows that 1.8 million hectares (4.4 million acres), or 85%, of Southeast Asia’s mangrove forests considered viable for blue carbon credit investments are at risk of destruction due to the expansion of oil palm, rice and aquaculture over the next 25 years. The study, published in the journal Communications Earth &amp; Environment, concludes these pressures undermine the integrity of blue carbon credits as a way of funding conservation. This could make it more challenging for policymakers and conservationists to realize the true potential of mangroves for mitigating global biodiversity and climate challenges, the authors say. “It’s sort of a reality check — we can’t really rely 100% on carbon markets to conserve mangroves,” study co-author Yiwen Zeng, a conservation scientist at the Nanyang Technological University in Singapore, told Mongabay. A mangrove forest in the Raja Ampat archipelago in Indonesia. Image by Rhett A. Butler/Mongabay. Hectare for hectare, mangroves can store up to five times more greenhouse gases than rainforests, making them a key focus of blue carbon credits. The viability of these credits, which are typically bought by firms looking to offset their emissions, is contingent on the mangrove forest remaining intact and thus locking away carbon&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/02/mangrove-deforestation-for-commodities-limits-conservation-funding-in-se-asia/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-294977</doi>				</item>
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