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		<title>Conservation news</title>
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		<link>https://news.mongabay.com/list/cattle/</link>
		<description>Environmental science and conservation news</description>
		<lastBuildDate>Wed, 26 Aug 2026 20:45:26 +0000</lastBuildDate>
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	<title>News on Cattle</title>
	<link>https://news.mongabay.com/list/cattle/</link>
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				<item>
					<title>Land records reveal how Mennonites are reshaping Belize’s forests</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/land-records-reveal-how-mennonites-are-reshaping-belizes-forests/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/land-records-reveal-how-mennonites-are-reshaping-belizes-forests/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>31 Jul 2026 18:45:53 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Maxwell Radwin]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Andy Lehren]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/07/31152733/1-FEATURE--768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=324951</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Belize and Central America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Agrochemicals, Cattle, Conservation, Crops, Culture, Encroachment, Environment, Environmental Law, Environmental Policy, Farming, Food, Forest Fragmentation, Forests, Governance, Industrial Agriculture, Land Rights, Livestock, Monocultures, Plantations, Politics, Primary Forests, Protected Areas, Rainforests, Ranching, Regulations, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[SPANISH LOOKOUT, Belize — When the Mennonite community here purchased a property four years ago in the middle of the Maya Forest Corridor, a government-recognized stretch of land designed to connect forests in the region, conservation groups were concerned. Community members began clearing land before completing an environmental impact assessment, resulting in fires and pollution, [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[SPANISH LOOKOUT, Belize — When the Mennonite community here purchased a property four years ago in the middle of the Maya Forest Corridor, a government-recognized stretch of land designed to connect forests in the region, conservation groups were concerned. Community members began clearing land before completing an environmental impact assessment, resulting in fires and pollution, according to one report. In addition, Mennonites beat a conservation coalition that had also wanted to purchase the land for the corridor. The battle for that piece of real estate is just one example of how Mennonites conduct business in Belize, and how those moves have led to extensive deforestation. The small Central American country, flanked by Mexico, Guatemala and the Caribbean Sea, is about the size of the U.S. state of New Jersey, but its dense jungle is now much smaller than it once was. The nation lost around 20% of its forest cover between 2001 and 2025 — more than 350,000 hectares (865,000 acres), similar to the U.S. state of Rhode Island. Much of the deforestation in Belize has been tied to Mennonites, the conservative and largely insular Christian denomination that began migrating to Belize more than six decades ago, cutting down the rainforest to establish new colonies. While reports documenting Mennonites and deforestation are common, far less understood is the corporate machinery they’ve put in place for this expansion. Mongabay conducted extensive interviews and reviewed dozens of land records to better understand the way Mennonites became one of the most prolific land&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/land-records-reveal-how-mennonites-are-reshaping-belizes-forests/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/land-records-reveal-how-mennonites-are-reshaping-belizes-forests/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-324951</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Before giant meat producer JBS expands to Nigeria, people deserve answers (commentary)</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/before-giant-meat-producer-jbs-expands-to-nigeria-people-deserve-answers-commentary/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/before-giant-meat-producer-jbs-expands-to-nigeria-people-deserve-answers-commentary/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>31 Jul 2026 00:17:17 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Felix Horne]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Erik Hoffner]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2023/02/01174203/Foto-3-768x512.png" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=324939</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Global, Nigeria, and West Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Business, Cattle, Climate, Climate Change, Commentary, Deforestation, Environment, Food, Food Industry, food security, Governance, Natural Resources, and Nutrition]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Nigeria may soon become the site of one of the largest livestock investments in its history. JBS, the world&#8217;s largest meat company, is pursuing a reported $2.5 billion investment that could reshape parts of the country&#8217;s agricultural sector. The proposal has been welcomed by many for its potential economic benefits, but before it moves forward, [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Nigeria may soon become the site of one of the largest livestock investments in its history. JBS, the world&#8217;s largest meat company, is pursuing a reported $2.5 billion investment that could reshape parts of the country&#8217;s agricultural sector. The proposal has been welcomed by many for its potential economic benefits, but before it moves forward, Nigerians deserve clear answers about what it could mean for communities, land, water, and the climate. Much of the discussion around the project has focused on jobs, agricultural development, food security, and economic opportunity. Those are important goals. But there is another dimension that deserves far greater scrutiny: Methane. JBS is not simply the world&#8217;s largest meat producer. It is also responsible for more methane emissions than ExxonMobil and Shell combined, according to estimates published by Greenpeace in 2024. JBS undoubtedly disputes these figures, but the broader point is difficult to ignore: When measured by climate impact, the world&#8217;s largest livestock companies increasingly belong in the same conversation as the world&#8217;s largest fossil fuel companies. Methane rarely attracts the same public attention as carbon dioxide, yet it is responsible for roughly a third of the warming the world is experiencing today. Because it traps far more heat than carbon dioxide over the short term, cutting methane emissions is widely seen as one of the fastest ways to slow near-term climate change. Much of the public debate focuses on oil and gas. But industrial livestock production is also a major source, accounting for much of the&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/before-giant-meat-producer-jbs-expands-to-nigeria-people-deserve-answers-commentary/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/before-giant-meat-producer-jbs-expands-to-nigeria-people-deserve-answers-commentary/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-324939</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>‘The shape of the land will change:’ South African villages resist heavy sands mine</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/the-shape-of-the-land-will-change-south-african-villages-resist-heavy-sands-mine/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/the-shape-of-the-land-will-change-south-african-villages-resist-heavy-sands-mine/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>28 Jul 2026 12:09:18 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Anna Weekes]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Malavikavyawahare]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/07/22132058/Phozi-4-768x512.png" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=324290</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, South Africa, and Southern Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Cattle, Conflict, Conservation, Environment, Finance, Fishing, Freshwater, Governance, Land Conflict, Mining, Natural Resources, Oceans, Tourism, and Water]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[PHOZI VILLAGE, South Africa — On a grassy mountainside overlooking the Indian Ocean on South Africa&#8217;s Eastern Cape coast, dozens of cattle graze freely. For generations, families in the small rural villages of Tyolomnqa, Phozi, and Qaga, about 30 miles from the nearest city, KuGompo, have relied on these communal lands for food, income, healing [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[PHOZI VILLAGE, South Africa — On a grassy mountainside overlooking the Indian Ocean on South Africa&#8217;s Eastern Cape coast, dozens of cattle graze freely. For generations, families in the small rural villages of Tyolomnqa, Phozi, and Qaga, about 30 miles from the nearest city, KuGompo, have relied on these communal lands for food, income, healing and spiritual connection. Residents of the village say a planned open-cast mine complex spread over thousands of hectares of communal land threatens their way of life. The Tyolomnqa Heavy Mineral Sands Project, proposed by Johannesburg-based Vendicom Minerals Beneficiation Group, is targeting zircon, rutile, ilmenite and leucoxene — heavy mineral ores used in products ranging from ceramic tiles and paint pigments to titanium for aircraft, medical implants and some renewable energy technologies. Though, its initial application to prospect in the area was rejected by the government on procedural grounds, communications from a consultancy hired by Vendicom to conduct the environmental and social impact assessment show that the company is still keen to mine in the region. The area Vendicom is eyeing is spread across up to 18 miles (29 kilometers) of communal grazing land stretching across the Tyolomnqa, Keiskamma and Kiwane estuaries. The three rivers, all of whose names are derived from Indigenous words, flow through rolling grasslands before reaching estuaries fringed by dunes and sandy beaches. The word Keiskamma comes from the Khoekhoe language and is commonly translated as &#8220;place of sweet waters.&#8221; For generations, rural isiXhosa communities have relied on these connected ecosystems for&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/the-shape-of-the-land-will-change-south-african-villages-resist-heavy-sands-mine/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/the-shape-of-the-land-will-change-south-african-villages-resist-heavy-sands-mine/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-324290</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>How snow leopards, wolves and leopards share the same Himalayan valley, study</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/how-snow-leopards-wolves-and-leopards-share-the-same-himalayan-valley-study/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/how-snow-leopards-wolves-and-leopards-share-the-same-himalayan-valley-study/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>26 Jun 2026 15:54:22 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Liz Kimbrough]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Sharon Guynup]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2023/11/10052813/himalayan-wolf-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=321933</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia and Nepal]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Biodiversity Hotspots, Camera Trapping, Cats, Cattle, Charismatic Animals, Climate Change, Conservation, Habitat, Habitat Loss, Leopards, Livestock, Mammals, Snow Leopards, Threatened species, Ungulates, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Three of Asia’s most formidable predators share territory in a remote Nepal valley by eating different prey, according to a new study. Researchers found that diet, not time or space, is what keeps snow leopards (Panthera uncia), common leopards (Panthera pardus), and Himalayan wolves (Canis lupus chanco) from coming into direct conflict. The study, published [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Three of Asia’s most formidable predators share territory in a remote Nepal valley by eating different prey, according to a new study. Researchers found that diet, not time or space, is what keeps snow leopards (Panthera uncia), common leopards (Panthera pardus), and Himalayan wolves (Canis lupus chanco) from coming into direct conflict. The study, published in PLOS One, drew on more than six years of camera-trapping and scat analysis in the Lapchi Valley of the Gaurishankar Conservation Area in Nepal’ s central Himalayas. Researchers set 26 cameras across the landscape over three survey periods between 2018 and 2025 and identified each predator&#8217;s diet by analyzing fecal DNA and examining prey hair under a microscope. Blue sheep (Pseudois nayaur) are an important food source for the snow leopards in Nepal. Photo courtesy of Narayan Koju. Snow leopards, they found, fed mainly on wild ungulates, including blue sheep (Pseudois nayaur), musk deer (Moschus leucogaster), Himalayan tahr (Hemitragus jemlahicus), and Himalayan serow (Capricornis sumatraensis). Blue sheep alone made up nearly half their diet. Himalayan wolves ate a mix of wild prey like blue sheep and musk deer as well as livestock such as goats, horses, and yaks (Bos grunniens). Leopards relied heavily on livestock and animals associated with human settlements, including dogs, though barking deer (Muntiacus muntjak) and goral (Naemorhedus goral) also appeared in their scats. Snow leopards and wolves shared roughly three-quarters of their prey, far more than either shared with leopards. Of the three, snow leopards had the narrowest diet, concentrating&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/how-snow-leopards-wolves-and-leopards-share-the-same-himalayan-valley-study/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/how-snow-leopards-wolves-and-leopards-share-the-same-himalayan-valley-study/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-321933</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Brazil curbs Amazon deforestation in Piripkura, but ranchers’ cattle linger</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/brazil-curbs-amazon-deforestation-in-piripkura-but-ranchers-cattle-linger/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/brazil-curbs-amazon-deforestation-in-piripkura-but-ranchers-cattle-linger/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>22 Jun 2026 16:00:10 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Aimee Gabay]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Latoya Abulu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/06/22144947/cattle-in-mato-grosso-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=321585</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Brazil, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Cattle, Conservation, Environment, Governance, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Reserves, Land Conflict, Land Grabbing, Law, Protected Areas, and Ranching]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[A crackdown by the Brazilian government on land-grabbers who cleared primary Amazon forest for ranching and other agricultural activities in the Piripkura Indigenous Territory is yielding some results, with satellite analysis by Mongabay indicating a decline in deforestation. But one tricky problem remains, according to government agents and Indigenous rights organizations: removing their cattle. The [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[A crackdown by the Brazilian government on land-grabbers who cleared primary Amazon forest for ranching and other agricultural activities in the Piripkura Indigenous Territory is yielding some results, with satellite analysis by Mongabay indicating a decline in deforestation. But one tricky problem remains, according to government agents and Indigenous rights organizations: removing their cattle. The 242,405-hectare (598,995-acre) Piripkura Indigenous Territory in west-central Brazil’s Mato Grosso state is home to the last two — known — Indigenous Piripkura people in voluntary isolation. According to Jair Candor, the coordinator of the Funai unit that protects isolated Indigenous groups, a third Piripkura person left the land and married into another tribe, the Karipuna, several decades ago. Funai, the country’s Indigenous affairs agency, has not yet ruled out the possibility that more isolated people live there. Ranchers coming in with their cattle to graze land have contributed to a large share of forest loss here. According to data from Global Forest Watch, the area lost a total tree cover of 1,769 hectares (4,371 acres) in 2021 — equivalent to 2,500 soccer fields — representing the largest increase since 2004, when the area lost was almost double (3,276 hectares, or 8,095 acres). Since the spike in 2021, due to successful operations by government agencies, deforestation has declined substantially, and despite a slight increase in 2023, losses remained far below 2021 levels and continued to decrease in 2024 and 2025. By 2025, tree cover loss had fallen to 106 hectares (262 acres). While deforestation has slowed&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/brazil-curbs-amazon-deforestation-in-piripkura-but-ranchers-cattle-linger/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/brazil-curbs-amazon-deforestation-in-piripkura-but-ranchers-cattle-linger/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-321585</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>European Commission linked leather to deforestation, then ignored it</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/european-commission-linked-leather-to-deforestation-then-ignored-it/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/european-commission-linked-leather-to-deforestation-then-ignored-it/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>28 May 2026 01:00:17 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Elisângela MendonçaEmmanuelle Picaud]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Andy Lehren]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/05/28213101/EuropeanCommission2-1-1-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=320201</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Brazil, Chaco, European Union, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Business, Conservation, Deforestation, Environment, Forests, Governance, International Trade, leather, Mongabay investigation, Supply Chain, Trade, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The clock is ticking in Brussels. By June 1, the European Commission, the bloc’s executive body, is set to receive feedback on its proposal to remove leather, hides and skins from the EU’s Deforestation Regulation (EUDR). Officials, however, are trying to push this amendment even after the commission’s own research confirmed that cattle hides also [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The clock is ticking in Brussels. By June 1, the European Commission, the bloc’s executive body, is set to receive feedback on its proposal to remove leather, hides and skins from the EU’s Deforestation Regulation (EUDR). Officials, however, are trying to push this amendment even after the commission’s own research confirmed that cattle hides also drive forest loss, a Mongabay analysis shows. According to the commission’s Staff Working Document, research designed to support proposed regulations, leather can be associated with up to 390 square kilometers (149 square miles) of deforestation per year. That area is roughly twice the size of the city of Pisa, in the heart of Italy’s leather production and trade. This means that bovine hides could account for up to 17% of the total 2,280 km2 (880 mi2) deforestation risk linked to all commodities covered by the new regulation. Although the evidence is part of the documentation, the commission decided to ignore it and balance out “quantitative and qualitative considerations,” it said in the document. The commission&#8217;s Staff Working Document was published May 4, alongside a delegated act, as part of a proposed simplification package Brussels is putting forward ahead of the EUDR being enacted at the end of the year. After the public consultation, the commission could formally adopt the draft delegated act. Then the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union generally have two months to object. If they don’t, the changes will automatically be enacted. In its working documentation, the commission argues&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/european-commission-linked-leather-to-deforestation-then-ignored-it/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/european-commission-linked-leather-to-deforestation-then-ignored-it/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-320201</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Despite restrictions, forest loss continued on Ituna land, home to isolated people</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/despite-restrictions-forest-loss-continues-on-ituna-land-home-to-isolated-people/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/despite-restrictions-forest-loss-continues-on-ituna-land-home-to-isolated-people/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>05 May 2026 19:46:15 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Aimee Gabay]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Latoya Abulu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/05/04162414/Ituna_Itata-2-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=318685</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Brazil, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Cattle, Conservation, data, Deforestation, Drivers Of Deforestation, Environment, Environmental Law, Forests, Governance, Illegal Logging, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Rights, Land Rights, Livestock, Ranching, Remote Sensing, and Uncontacted Tribes]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Illegal invasions in the Ituna/Itatá Indigenous territory in Brazil’s Pará state, home to isolated Igarapé Ipiaçava Indigenous people, has continued since 2022, during one of the latest land use restriction orders meant to protect the territory, according to satellite analysis by Mongabay. Between 2022 and 2025, data from Global Forest Watch show the area lost [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Illegal invasions in the Ituna/Itatá Indigenous territory in Brazil’s Pará state, home to isolated Igarapé Ipiaçava Indigenous people, has continued since 2022, during one of the latest land use restriction orders meant to protect the territory, according to satellite analysis by Mongabay. Between 2022 and 2025, data from Global Forest Watch show the area lost 2,211 hectares (5,463 acres) of tree cover. But, in the last few years, forest loss has plummeted significantly in what was one of the most deforested Indigenous lands following operations by the country’s Indigenous affairs agency, Funai. Cleiton Gabriel, the coordinator of the Middle Xingu Ethno-Environmental Protection Front, a specialized Funai unit, told Mongabay via WhatsApp that the forest loss in Ituna/Itatá is caused by land-grabbers who clear the forest without authorization for cattle ranching and other agricultural activities. “The deforestation in the Ituna/Itatá region historically stems from the illegal occupation of the territory,” Gabriel explained. “This is driven by land grabbing, the establishment of agricultural activities, especially intensive livestock farming, and also smaller-scale laboratory operations, mainly cocoa processing.” The land use restriction order, which prohibits unauthorized individuals from entering Ituna/Itatá, has been in place since 2011 to protect the isolated people. The precautionary measure has been renewed six times, the most recent being in 2025. Global Forest Watch data show that Ituna/Itatá was the third-most deforested area in Brazil between 2011, the year of the first land restriction order, and 2021. It was the most deforested Indigenous land in 2019. This has affected Funai’s&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/despite-restrictions-forest-loss-continues-on-ituna-land-home-to-isolated-people/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/despite-restrictions-forest-loss-continues-on-ituna-land-home-to-isolated-people/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-318685</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>EU moves to drop leather from deforestation law after industry lobbying</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/eu-moves-to-drop-leather-from-deforestation-law-after-industry-lobbying/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/eu-moves-to-drop-leather-from-deforestation-law-after-industry-lobbying/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>05 May 2026 01:57:09 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Elisângela Mendonça]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Andy Lehren]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/05/04202221/g.-8314902334_838bcb1b13_o-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=318700</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Brazil, Chaco, European Union, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Business, Conservation, Deforestation, Environment, Forests, Governance, International Trade, leather, Mongabay investigation, Supply Chain, Trade, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The leather industry spent most of the last year intensifying an already determined lobbying campaign in Brussels to win an exemption from the European Union’s Deforestation Regulation, or EUDR. The effort is paying off: on May 4, the European Commission, the EU’s executive body, formally proposed excluding leather, hides, and skins from the regulation’s product [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The leather industry spent most of the last year intensifying an already determined lobbying campaign in Brussels to win an exemption from the European Union’s Deforestation Regulation, or EUDR. The effort is paying off: on May 4, the European Commission, the EU’s executive body, formally proposed excluding leather, hides, and skins from the regulation’s product scope, ahead of the law being enacted at the end of the year. The Commission’s proposal is being introduced through a delegated act, a legal mechanism that allows the EU executive to amend non-essential parts of an existing law without reopening the whole regulation for a full legislative debate. This process is set to change the EUDR’s Annex I, which lists the commodities covered by the deforestation regulation. Legal experts, including Brussels-based Mayer Brown senior associate Irina Antoshevska, have previously identified this delegated act review as a critical opening for industries seeking to add or remove Combined Nomenclature (CN) customs codes from the regulation’s scope. Following the publication of the draft, citizens and other stakeholders can provide feedback until June 1, the Commission said in a statement. After that, the Commission could formally adopt the act. Then, the parliament and the Council of the European Union generally have two months to object. If they don’t, the changes will automatically be enacted. The leather exemption is part of a broader “simplification review” announced by the European Commission to ease administrative burdens linked to the EUDR. Behind the scenes, however, leather industry groups have seized on the&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/eu-moves-to-drop-leather-from-deforestation-law-after-industry-lobbying/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/eu-moves-to-drop-leather-from-deforestation-law-after-industry-lobbying/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-318700</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Conservationist wins top award to protect lions and people in Zimbabwe</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/conservationist-wins-top-award-to-protect-lions-and-people-in-zimbabwe/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/conservationist-wins-top-award-to-protect-lions-and-people-in-zimbabwe/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>30 Apr 2026 02:49:06 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Ryan Truscott]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Terna Gyuse]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/04/28190853/a-Moreangels_Mbizah_2026_Zimbabwe_Chizarira_National_Park_Moreangels_Mbizah_Posing_During_Lion_Tracking_Session_01-scaled-1-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=318318</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Southern Africa, and Zimbabwe]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Big Cats, Biodiversity, Cats, Cattle, Community-based Conservation, Conservation, Conservation Solutions, Endangered Species, Environment, Human-wildlife Conflict, Lions, Mammals, Predators, Solutions, Top Predators, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Lion conservationist Moreangels Mbizah and her colleagues chose the name “Batabilili” for the community guardians they’re training in northern Zimbabwe. The word means &#8220;protectors&#8221; in the local language, Tonga, and its meaning cuts both ways: the guardians protect people and their livestock from lions, and lions from people. Both jobs are essential in this part [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Lion conservationist Moreangels Mbizah and her colleagues chose the name “Batabilili” for the community guardians they’re training in northern Zimbabwe. The word means &#8220;protectors&#8221; in the local language, Tonga, and its meaning cuts both ways: the guardians protect people and their livestock from lions, and lions from people. Both jobs are essential in this part of the Southern African country. When cattle are killed by lions, the economic losses suffered by families are considerable; when farmers retaliate by killing lions, it worsens the plight of an emblematic species, Panthera leo, now vulnerable to extinction across the continent. “In some cases these lions are female lions and at times some of them would have cubs, so when the females die [at the hands of people] the cubs would probably die [also],” says Mbizah, who is the winner of one of this year’s Whitley Awards, prestigious international conservation prizes given out annually by the U.K.’s Whitley Fund for Nature. A young lion at rest. Image courtesy of the Whitley Fund for Nature. The 50,000-pound ($67,500) prize money will go toward supporting the work by Mbizah’s NGO, Wildlife Conservation Action, in three additional rural wards — small administrative areas comprising clusters of villages and around 4,800 people — that are prone to human-carnivore conflict. This will include the recruitment of six new Batabilili. The protectors head out early each morning to look for tracks or droppings and warn farmers about the presence of predators or elephants (Loxodonta africana) so that they can avoid&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/conservationist-wins-top-award-to-protect-lions-and-people-in-zimbabwe/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/conservationist-wins-top-award-to-protect-lions-and-people-in-zimbabwe/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-318318</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>EUDR is starting to steer company actions, despite slow progress: Report</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/eudr-is-starting-to-steer-company-actions-despite-slow-progress-report/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/eudr-is-starting-to-steer-company-actions-despite-slow-progress-report/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>14 Apr 2026 20:46:20 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Constance Malleret]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Alexandra Popescu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/09/11180020/AP23291581278710-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=317553</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[European Union and Latin America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Beef, Cattle, Commodity agriculture, Conservation, Corporate Social Responsibility, Corporations, Deforestation, Forest Loss, Illegal Logging, Law, Law Enforcement, leather, Palm Oil, Soy, Supply Chain, Sustainability, Timber, Tropical Deforestation, and Zero Deforestation Commitments]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Some companies have made headway toward removing deforestation from their supply chains in the last year, in preparation for the European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), according to a new report by the NGO Global Canopy. This shows that the upcoming regulation is driving some progress despite an unfavorable global climate for environmental commitments. The Forest [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Some companies have made headway toward removing deforestation from their supply chains in the last year, in preparation for the European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), according to a new report by the NGO Global Canopy. This shows that the upcoming regulation is driving some progress despite an unfavorable global climate for environmental commitments. The Forest 500 Report 2026 examined the corporate commitments on deforestation, land conversion and human rights of the 500 companies with most influence over nine commodities linked to deforestation and covered by the EUDR: beef, cocoa, coffee, leather, palm, pulp and paper, rubber, soy and timber. It found that more than a quarter of companies reported new forms of implementation action in 2025, and 14% specifically mentioned the EUDR in documents about deforestation commitments. Forest 500 is based on public documents, and more companies could be making decisions based on the EUDR in private, the report notes. The EUDR is due to take effect Dec. 30 this year after several delays. “The EUDR is the main focus of this report. The key takeaway is that it’s working, it’s appearing in lots of company reporting, with 68 companies in our assessment citing it in regard to deforestation commitments, especially with traceability,” said Chloe Rollscane, a research associate at Global Canopy. “Even though [the EUDR] is not in place yet, it’s obvious that companies are getting ready for it.” These companies include producers and processors in source countries, as well as traders and retailers in the EU, Rollscane told&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/eudr-is-starting-to-steer-company-actions-despite-slow-progress-report/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/eudr-is-starting-to-steer-company-actions-despite-slow-progress-report/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-317553</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>How wild cattle recovery is transforming local livelihoods near key Thai reserve</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/how-wild-cattle-recovery-is-transforming-local-livelihoods-near-key-thai-reserve/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/how-wild-cattle-recovery-is-transforming-local-livelihoods-near-key-thai-reserve/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>02 Apr 2026 09:31:41 +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/20/2026/04/02074243/a.-BANNER-Bos_javanicus_wild_Banteng_-_Huai_Kha_Khaeng_19936183473-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=316796</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Southeast Asia, and Thailand]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Cattle, Community-based Conservation, Conservation, Critically Endangered Species, Dry Forests, Ecotourism, Endangered Species, Forests, Human-wildlife Conflict, Mammals, Protected Areas, Solutions, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[HUAI KHA KHAENG, Thailand — “Five years ago, we’d never have been able to see this,” says Boonlert Tianchang, raising a pair of binoculars to his beaming eyes. “To see just one banteng, we would have had to go deep into the forest. Now, they’re right here.” We’re standing on a wildlife-viewing platform overlooking a [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[HUAI KHA KHAENG, Thailand — “Five years ago, we’d never have been able to see this,” says Boonlert Tianchang, raising a pair of binoculars to his beaming eyes. “To see just one banteng, we would have had to go deep into the forest. Now, they’re right here.” We’re standing on a wildlife-viewing platform overlooking a roughly 8-hectare (20-acre) grassland in the buffer area surrounding the northeastern boundary of Huai Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary, a flagship protected area in Thailand’s Uthai Thani province. Russet-colored banteng (Bos javanicus), one of the world’s rarest species of wild cattle, step one by one into the clearing from the cover of the forest. Mothers, calves and adult males browse the vegetation nonchalantly, their stocky bright-orange bodies contrasting almost comically with their spindly white legs and snowy rumps. “This is the only place in Thailand where you can see a lot of banteng like this,” says Boonlert, who lives in the buffer area and leads a community-based ecotourism initiative focused on tours to see this increasingly common sight. “I see them here so often,” he says. “But every time, I’m humbled thinking of all the work that’s gone into protecting them [to] get to this point.” Boonlert Tianchang scans the landscape at a wildlife watching platform in Rabam subdistrict. Image by Carolyn Cowan for Mongabay. Protection prompts recovery As large herbivores, banteng play a vital role in dispersing seeds and cycling nutrients in the dry, open-canopy forests that are their preferred habitat. Their browsing of understory&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/how-wild-cattle-recovery-is-transforming-local-livelihoods-near-key-thai-reserve/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/how-wild-cattle-recovery-is-transforming-local-livelihoods-near-key-thai-reserve/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-316796</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>‘Sharing is off the table’ as drought reshapes the culture of Ethiopia’s pastoralists</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/sharing-is-off-the-table-as-drought-reshapes-the-lives-of-ethiopias-pastoralists/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/sharing-is-off-the-table-as-drought-reshapes-the-lives-of-ethiopias-pastoralists/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>01 Apr 2026 07:00:46 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Kaleab Girma]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Latoya Abulu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/03/31210152/a.-BANNER-UF146DY-00262634-768x512.jpeg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=316668</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, East Africa, and Ethiopia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Cattle, Climate, Climate Change, Culture, Drinking Water, Drought, Environment, Extreme Weather, Flooding, Food, food security, Global Environmental Crisis, Livestock, Pasture, Social Conflict, Subsistence Agriculture, Water, and Weather]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[JIJIGA, Ethiopia — The land here used to speak. At dawn in Kebribeyah district, Somali Regional State, eastern Ethiopia, the plains stretch wide beneath a pale sky, with dusty shades of brown and yellow broken by thorny acacia trees and the slow movement of livestock across the horizon. For generations, pastoralists learned to read the [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[JIJIGA, Ethiopia — The land here used to speak. At dawn in Kebribeyah district, Somali Regional State, eastern Ethiopia, the plains stretch wide beneath a pale sky, with dusty shades of brown and yellow broken by thorny acacia trees and the slow movement of livestock across the horizon. For generations, pastoralists learned to read the landscape. The arrival of seasonal winds, the timing of the rains, and the alignment of stars all carried meaning. Mohamoud Sulub, a 50-year-old livestock herder, grew up relying on these signs in Guuyow village. They told him when to move his herd and when to stay. He knew his neighbors would, in hard times, understand them, too — and help when needed. That knowledge is now failing him. This year, Mohamoud says, there is simply nowhere to go. “The land is all drought,” he tells Mongabay. The father of six has spent his entire life herding animals across this arid landscape, as his father did before him. Today he keeps 40 goats and sheep, five cows and six camels. “When the rains are good, the land is fine and there is no need to move,” he says. “But during drought, we migrate.” In this photo taken Sunday, Sept. 3, 2017, dust clouds blow across the parched landscape in the Danan district of the Somali region of Ethiopia, which hasn&#8217;t seen significant amounts of rain in the past three years. Image by AP Photo/Elias Meseret. For generations, pastoralists like Mohamoud relied on mobility and strong social&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/sharing-is-off-the-table-as-drought-reshapes-the-lives-of-ethiopias-pastoralists/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-316668</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Climate change tests Nepal’s wild and domesticated yaks </title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/climate-change-tests-nepals-wild-and-domesticated-yaks/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/climate-change-tests-nepals-wild-and-domesticated-yaks/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>27 Mar 2026 09:11:51 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Sonam Lama Hyolmo]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Abhaya Raj Joshi]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/03/27070859/IMG_9939-e1774595484405-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=316414</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Nepal, and South Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Cattle, Climate Change, Conservation, Environment, Habitat Degradation, Indigenous Peoples, Pasture, Traditional Knowledge, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[KATHMANDU — In the rugged mountains of the Dolpo region in western Nepal, Youngdung Jhama Lama spent her childhood herding nagton (domesticated yaks) across the vast alpine pastures. Two decades on, mobile herding has greatly changed. “We only have four yaks left now,” said the 24-year-old resident of Vijer (Tra) village in Nepal’s largest and [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[KATHMANDU — In the rugged mountains of the Dolpo region in western Nepal, Youngdung Jhama Lama spent her childhood herding nagton (domesticated yaks) across the vast alpine pastures. Two decades on, mobile herding has greatly changed. “We only have four yaks left now,” said the 24-year-old resident of Vijer (Tra) village in Nepal’s largest and remotest district, Dolpa. For traditional herders such as Lama, rearing yaks (Bos grunniens), valued for transport, meat and wool, is becoming challenging due to rising costs, climate change, lack of local markets for yak produce, frequent spread of diseases and other socioeconomic pressures. This has not only increased challenges for domesticated yaks, but also for their wild cousins (Bos mutus). “My family sold dozens of them in the neighboring Mustang district last fall because it was more labor-intensive and costly to rear them, and we had limited kharka (pastureland/rangeland) to graze them,” Lama said. Many young people across the Himalayan rangelands are leaving for better opportunities in big cities or abroad, creating a shortage of labor. According to the National Population and Housing Census 2021 Internal Migration in Nepal report, in the country’s mountains, in-migration increased from 9,698 (2.2%) in 1971 to 75,542 (2.4%) in 2021, but excess out-migration resulted in a negative net migration of -543,966 by 2021. According to the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), climate change is affecting Himalayan high-altitude ecosystems used for grazing. It is altering how water circulates in these landscapes, changing the timing and availability of moisture.&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/climate-change-tests-nepals-wild-and-domesticated-yaks/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-316414</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>In Brazil, regenerative farming advances, but deforestation still pressures ecosystems</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/in-brazil-regenerative-farming-advances-but-deforestation-still-pressures-ecosystems/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/in-brazil-regenerative-farming-advances-but-deforestation-still-pressures-ecosystems/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>17 Mar 2026 16:58:15 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Mie Hoejris Dahl]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Alexandra Popescu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[agroecology]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Food systems]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/03/17165558/BANNER-UF17MGJ-25178_0047-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=315826</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Brazil, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[agribusiness, Agriculture, Agroecology, Biodiversity, Cattle, Climate Change, Commodity agriculture, Conservation, Crops, Deforestation, Degraded Lands, Ecosystems, Farming, Forest Destruction, Habitat Degradation, Industrial Agriculture, Pesticides, Ranching, Restoration, and Soil Carbon]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[SINOP, Brazil — In Brazil’s Mato Grosso state, the country’s agricultural heartland, vast stretches of lush Amazon rainforest and Cerrado savanna give way to seemingly endless fields of soy. Located in a transition zone where the Amazon and Cerrado meet the Pantanal wetlands, about 90% of the state’s area was once covered in native vegetation. [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[SINOP, Brazil — In Brazil’s Mato Grosso state, the country’s agricultural heartland, vast stretches of lush Amazon rainforest and Cerrado savanna give way to seemingly endless fields of soy. Located in a transition zone where the Amazon and Cerrado meet the Pantanal wetlands, about 90% of the state’s area was once covered in native vegetation. But from the 1970s onward, agricultural innovation and public policies — including subsidies that encouraged farmers to settle and clear land in Mato Grosso — allowed the agricultural frontier to advance rapidly, turning Mato Grosso into one of Brazil’s main farming powerhouses. The Amazon, the world’s largest tropical rainforest, covers about 60% of Brazil. The Cerrado, one of the world’s most expansive savannas, spans some 2 million square kilometers (772,000 square miles) of tropical grasslands, trees and watersheds that regulate rainfall patterns and temperatures. About a fifth of the Brazilian Amazon has been deforested since monitoring began in 1985, and nearly half of the native vegetation of the Cerrado biome has been cleared for cattle and soy. Some of Mato Grosso’s former vast soy fields and cattle pasture have been left degraded — eroded grasslands that function neither as forest nor productive farmland. At a Biancon Group farm in Mato Grosso’s Itaúba municipality, Ivan Biancon, co-owner of the family-owned agribusiness group, scoops soil into his hands and lets it fall. The soil, he says, is now healthy enough to grow cotton, corn and soy beans. When he and his brother, Igor, first arrived, “these were&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/in-brazil-regenerative-farming-advances-but-deforestation-still-pressures-ecosystems/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/in-brazil-regenerative-farming-advances-but-deforestation-still-pressures-ecosystems/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-315826</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Study finds livestock pushing lions away from shared rangeland in Kenya</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/study-finds-livestock-pushing-lions-away-from-shared-rangeland-in-kenya/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/study-finds-livestock-pushing-lions-away-from-shared-rangeland-in-kenya/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>12 Mar 2026 20:05:24 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Charles Mpaka]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Terna Gyuse]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[africa]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/03/12195736/Lions_Kenya_MaraPredatorConservationProgram-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=315684</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, East Africa, and Kenya]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Big Cats, Biodiversity, Cats, Cattle, Community-based Conservation, Conservation, Conservation Solutions, Endangered Species, Human-wildlife Conflict, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Rights, Land Conflict, Land Rights, Land Use Change, Lions, Mammals, National Parks, Pasture, Predators, Solutions, Top Predators, Tourism, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Lions, Africa’s largest predators, are a near-universal source of fear for the continent’s wildlife. But in Kenya, it’s the king of the jungle that’s now becoming fearful — of domestic livestock. In Kenya, most wildlife is found outside formally protected areas. The lions, zebras and elephants that attract tourists mostly live in pastoralist rangeland. For [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Lions, Africa’s largest predators, are a near-universal source of fear for the continent’s wildlife. But in Kenya, it’s the king of the jungle that’s now becoming fearful — of domestic livestock. In Kenya, most wildlife is found outside formally protected areas. The lions, zebras and elephants that attract tourists mostly live in pastoralist rangeland. For farmers and herders, this can be both a curse — coexistence is hard work where predators sometimes attack livestock and cattle compete with wild herbivores for grass — and a blessing — many community-owned conservancies profitably lease portions of their land to tourism operators for safaris and lodges, generating revenue for their members. In most conservancies’ grazing plans, herders can make use of the entire landscape. This allows grazing pressure to be more evenly distributed, but it also assumes that when herders and their livestock aren’t present in an area, other herbivores and the predators that hunt them make free use of the space. Niels Mogensen, a biologist with the Mara Predator Conservation Program, a Kenya Wildlife Trust initiative aimed at preserving large carnivores, says no one had actually checked to see if this was true before now. A lioness with cubs, Mara Conservancy, Kenya. Image by Ross Pollack via Flickr (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0).  Between 2015 and 2023, he and his colleagues carried out surveys at seven community-owned wildlife conservancies in the Mara ecosystem. They covered nearly 69,000 kilometers (43,000 miles) in total, collecting data about the presence of lions, and wild and domestic herbivores.&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/study-finds-livestock-pushing-lions-away-from-shared-rangeland-in-kenya/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/study-finds-livestock-pushing-lions-away-from-shared-rangeland-in-kenya/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-315684</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Agroforestry offers market-based way to boost Amazon rains &#038; farmer incomes (analysis)</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/02/agroforestry-offers-market-based-way-to-boost-amazon-rains-farmer-incomes-analysis/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/02/agroforestry-offers-market-based-way-to-boost-amazon-rains-farmer-incomes-analysis/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>25 Feb 2026 19:24:48 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Timothy J. Killeen]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Erik Hoffner]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2020/11/10131843/IMG_2580-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=314788</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Brazil, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[agribusiness, Agriculture, Agroecology, Agroforestry, Analysis, Biodiversity, Biofuels, Business, Cattle, climate finance, Commentary, Conservation Finance, Deforestation, Environment, Finance, Forests, Governance, Green, Livestock, Pasture, Rainforests, Ranching, Tropical Deforestation, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The Amazon Rainforest generates its own weather. Each day, the forest&#8217;s 390 billion trees release approximately 20 billion metric tons of water vapor into the atmosphere through evapotranspiration, creating what Brazilian scientists call rios voadores — flying rivers. These aerial currents of moisture flow westward from the Atlantic, recirculating water from the forest canopy before [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The Amazon Rainforest generates its own weather. Each day, the forest&#8217;s 390 billion trees release approximately 20 billion metric tons of water vapor into the atmosphere through evapotranspiration, creating what Brazilian scientists call rios voadores — flying rivers. These aerial currents of moisture flow westward from the Atlantic, recirculating water from the forest canopy before turning south to deliver rainfall across South America&#8217;s agricultural heartlands. But the mechanism is breaking down. Since the 1970s, Brazil has cleared 88 million hectares (217 million acres) of Amazon forest, most converted into low-productivity pastures, with around 45 million hectares (111 million acres) considered severely or moderately degraded. The consequences extend beyond biodiversity loss, carbon emissions and social disruption: deforestation threatens the continent&#8217;s productive capacity and the economic livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people. Droughts in 2023 and 2024 affected more than 50 million hectares (124 million acres) of forest, and scientists warn that continued deforestation could push the system past a tipping point where the Amazon can no longer sustain its rainfall regime. Yet hidden within this environmental crisis lies an economic opportunity. Brazil&#8217;s Forest Code, revised in 2012, requires private properties in the country’s Amazonian region to maintain native vegetation on 80% of their landholding as a “legal reserve” (reserva legal). Properties that clear forest beyond the 80% threshold carry a &#8220;forest debt&#8221; with a legal obligation to restore equivalent forest cover. Analysis using Brazil&#8217;s Rural Environmental Registry (CAR) indicates about 280,000 properties are noncompliant, with a collective deficit of 10&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/02/agroforestry-offers-market-based-way-to-boost-amazon-rains-farmer-incomes-analysis/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-314788</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>In Brazil, a free platform uses government data to track EUDR compliance</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/02/in-brazil-a-free-platform-uses-government-data-to-track-eudr-compliance/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/02/in-brazil-a-free-platform-uses-government-data-to-track-eudr-compliance/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>25 Feb 2026 17:13:05 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Constance Malleret]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Jeremy Hance]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/02/25095127/7-3-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=314738</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Brazil, Cerrado, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Cattle, Conservation, data, Deforestation, Environment, Environmental Law, Forests, Regulations, and Technology]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[In 2020, a research paper published in the journal Science found that 20% of soy exports and at least 17% of beef exports from Brazil’s Cerrado and Amazon biomes to the European Union had been tainted by illegal deforestation. At the time, the EU was debating the EUDR, its regulation on deforestation-free products. Producer countries [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[In 2020, a research paper published in the journal Science found that 20% of soy exports and at least 17% of beef exports from Brazil’s Cerrado and Amazon biomes to the European Union had been tainted by illegal deforestation. At the time, the EU was debating the EUDR, its regulation on deforestation-free products. Producer countries like Brazil were pushing back, worried about the cost and feasibility of complying with the regulations, said Raoni Rajão, an associate professor at the Federal University of Minas Gerais (UFMG) in Brazil and lead author of the paper. The study, which analyzed land use across 815,000 rural properties in the Amazon and Cerrado, showed that “technology and data do exist to implement government systems for universal traceability,” Rajão told Mongabay. This prompted him and other UFMG researchers to develop an online platform that uses official records to cross-check data on land use, deforestation, cattle transport, and compliance with environmental laws of rural properties, making the information public and free. Called Selo Verde (“Green Label” in English), the platform was first trialed in 2021 for soy and beef in the Amazonian state of Pará. Three other Brazilian states have since adopted their own version of it, offering a model for guaranteeing that commodities destined for the EU — such as soy, beef, coffee and cacao — are compliant with the EUDR. Due to come into effect at the end of this year after two postponements, the EUDR puts the onus on importers to ensure that certain&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/02/in-brazil-a-free-platform-uses-government-data-to-track-eudr-compliance/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/02/in-brazil-a-free-platform-uses-government-data-to-track-eudr-compliance/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-314738</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Botswana shows how smarter cattle herding can save lions, reopen ancient wildlife pathways</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/02/botswana-shows-how-smarter-cattle-herding-can-save-lions-reopen-ancient-wildlife-pathways/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/02/botswana-shows-how-smarter-cattle-herding-can-save-lions-reopen-ancient-wildlife-pathways/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>24 Feb 2026 13:51:00 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Gloria Dickie]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Sharon Guynup]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[africa]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/02/20101714/africa-lion-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=314550</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Botswana, and Southern Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Big Cats, Biodiversity, Cats, Cattle, Community-based Conservation, Conservation, Conservation Solutions, Endangered Species, Environment, Environmental Law, Human-wildlife Conflict, Lions, Mammals, Predators, Solutions, Top Predators, Traditional Knowledge, Wildlife, and Wildlife Corridors]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The lions that roamed the plains of northern Botswana were dying. One by one, the big cats were succumbing to poisoned bait planted by exasperated villagers. The lions had been chipping away at their livelihood, feasting on the cattle that they left to graze along the Okavango Delta. By the end of 2013, around 30 [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The lions that roamed the plains of northern Botswana were dying. One by one, the big cats were succumbing to poisoned bait planted by exasperated villagers. The lions had been chipping away at their livelihood, feasting on the cattle that they left to graze along the Okavango Delta. By the end of 2013, around 30 lions — more than half of the northern Okavango population — had been killed in just one year. More than a decade later, the situation is radically different. The lion population has rebounded. Cub survival rate is up. And cattle losses are dramatically down. It’s the result of years of hard work: restoring traditional herding practices, collaring and tracking lions, and, most recently, establishing a market for ‘wildlife-friendly beef.’ This serves as a model, wildlife advocates say, for other parts of southern Africa where modern grazing practices have collided with big cats’ appetites. “It can be adapted to just about anywhere,” said Andrew Stein, the founder of Communities Living Sustainably Among Wildlife (CLAWS) Conservancy, which is based in Botswana. In the last 25 years, more than half the lions have vanished from the plains of Africa, largely due to conflicts with communities. As human populations have expanded, the animal’s range has shrunk, leaving remnant isolated groups. Today, there are fewer than 25,000 lions left across the continent. But in southern Africa, one large continuous population still roams the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA TFCA), the world’s largest transnational land-based protected area, which runs across Angola,&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/02/botswana-shows-how-smarter-cattle-herding-can-save-lions-reopen-ancient-wildlife-pathways/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/02/botswana-shows-how-smarter-cattle-herding-can-save-lions-reopen-ancient-wildlife-pathways/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-314550</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Australia’s land-use squeeze</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/01/australias-land-use-squeeze/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/01/australias-land-use-squeeze/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>29 Jan 2026 22:53:59 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Rhett Ayers Butler]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rhett Butler]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/01/29225240/australia_fnq_0493-26-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=313300</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Founder's briefs]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Australia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Biodiversity, Cattle, Cities, Conservation, Deforestation, Environment, Fires, Forests, Green, Habitat Degradation, Land Use Change, Logging, and Ranching]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Mongabay recently launched the Australian Biodiversity Special Reporting Project, which will produce sustained, high-quality journalism on Australia’s unique wildlife, ecosystems, and the threats they face—including habitat destruction, invasive species, climate change, and extractive industries. Journalists interested in being involved can learn more via Mongabay.org. Australia likes to think of itself as a country with space [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Mongabay recently launched the Australian Biodiversity Special Reporting Project, which will produce sustained, high-quality journalism on Australia’s unique wildlife, ecosystems, and the threats they face—including habitat destruction, invasive species, climate change, and extractive industries. Journalists interested in being involved can learn more via Mongabay.org. Australia likes to think of itself as a country with space to spare. On maps it is a continent with most of its people pressed into a thin coastal rim, leaving a vast interior that looks empty. Ecologically, that impression is misleading. Much of Australia’s biodiversity is concentrated in habitats that sit close to where people farm, build, log, and dig. Over the past 20–30 years, land use change has continued to reshape those places. The result has been a slow narrowing of options for wildlife, even in a nation that prides itself on its natural heritage. The basic story is not complicated. Native vegetation is cleared or degraded. Habitat becomes smaller, more fragmented, and less resilient. Populations thin out. Some disappear. Australia’s national environment reporting treats habitat loss and modification as one of the major pressures on biodiversity, alongside invasive species and climate change. A continent of fragments Australia has already lost a meaningful share of its native vegetation since European settlement, and the long-run trend is still reflected in modern landscapes. The 2021 State of the Environment report notes that native vegetation has been replaced across large areas by agriculture, cities, and infrastructure, with some vegetation groups losing a substantial portion of their original&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/01/australias-land-use-squeeze/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/01/australias-land-use-squeeze/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-313300</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Silvopasture gains momentum in the Amazon, but can it shrink beef’s footprint?</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/01/silvopasture-gains-momentum-in-the-amazon-but-can-it-shrink-beefs-footprint/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/01/silvopasture-gains-momentum-in-the-amazon-but-can-it-shrink-beefs-footprint/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>12 Jan 2026 12:26:56 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Charlie Espinosa]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Alexandra Popescu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Amazon]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/01/07120648/PHOTO-2025-12-06-10-21-49-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=312670</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Bolivia, Brazil, and Peru]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Agroecology, Agroforestry, Beef, Biodiversity, Carbon Emissions, Cattle, Conservation, Emission Reduction, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Pasture, Ranching, Threats To Rainforests, and Trees]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[In the rolling hills of Iñapari, a remote town in the Peruvian Amazon on the tri-border with Bolivia and Brazil, cattle ranchers are ditching grass monocultures, which have been shown to harm biodiversity, in favor of forested pastures. For Antonio Cardozo, a local rancher who has planted hundreds of native trees, the switch has improved [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[In the rolling hills of Iñapari, a remote town in the Peruvian Amazon on the tri-border with Bolivia and Brazil, cattle ranchers are ditching grass monocultures, which have been shown to harm biodiversity, in favor of forested pastures. For Antonio Cardozo, a local rancher who has planted hundreds of native trees, the switch has improved his cattle’s diet and health, while also providing him with additional sources of food and income. “Learning has a cost, but in a few years you start to see a difference,” says Cardozo, who has been combining trees with rotational grazing, a practice that keeps the soil intact and allows grass to regrow. In less than a year, this practice allowed him to more than double the number of cows he grazes per hectare Livestock farming is responsible for roughly 80% of the deforestation in the Amazon Basin and 14.5% of greenhouse gas emissions globally. Yet agricultural solutions receive just 7% of global climate funding and were absent from the recent COP30 climate summit agreement. According to some researchers, planting trees in pastures, an agroforestry technique known as silvopasture, represents one of the most effective yet neglected opportunities to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. Under ideal conditions, silvopasture sequesters carbon in trees and soils while providing better forage and shade to heat-stressed cows, leading to healthier animals that emit less methane and occupy less land. It can also help small farmers adapt to climate-related disasters — responsible for $2.9 trillion in losses over the last&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/01/silvopasture-gains-momentum-in-the-amazon-but-can-it-shrink-beefs-footprint/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-312670</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Deforestation climbs in Central America’s largest biosphere reserve</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/deforestation-climbs-in-central-americas-largest-biosphere-reserve/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/deforestation-climbs-in-central-americas-largest-biosphere-reserve/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>31 Dec 2025 20:09:53 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Morgan Erickson-Davis]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Morgan Erickson-Davis]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/12/31195758/2048px-Bairds_Tapir_Tapirus_bairdii_captive_specimen-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=312462</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Central America, Latin America, and Nicaragua]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Amphibians, Cattle, Critically Endangered Species, Endangered Species, Environment, Fires, Forest Loss, Forests, Green, Herps, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Rights, Mammals, Pasture, Primary Forests, Rainforests, Ranching, Salamanders, Tropical Forests, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Encompassing some 7,400 square kilometers, or 2,860 square miles, along the Honduran border, Nicaragua’s Bosawás Biosphere Reserve is the largest biosphere reserve in Central America. It’s home to the Miskito and Mayanga Indigenous groups as well as countless species; endangered Geoffrey&#8217;s spider monkeys (Ateles geoffroyi) and Baird&#8217;s tapirs (Tapirus bairdii) inhabit Bosawas, as do critically [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Encompassing some 7,400 square kilometers, or 2,860 square miles, along the Honduran border, Nicaragua’s Bosawás Biosphere Reserve is the largest biosphere reserve in Central America. It’s home to the Miskito and Mayanga Indigenous groups as well as countless species; endangered Geoffrey&#8217;s spider monkeys (Ateles geoffroyi) and Baird&#8217;s tapirs (Tapirus bairdii) inhabit Bosawas, as do critically endangered Saslaya moss salamanders (Nototriton saslaya), that are found nowhere else in the world. But, increasingly over the past several decades, Bosawás has also become host to cattle ranches and gold mines, at the cost of its rainforest. Despite its designation as a UNESCO site, Bosawás Biosphere Reserve has lost more than 30% of its primary forest cover since the turn of the century, according to satellite data from the University of Maryland’s Global Land Analysis and Discovery lab and visualized on the monitoring platform Global Forest Watch. Deforestation surged to a record high in 2024, with 740 km2 (286 mi2) — 10% of the reserve’s land area — cleared in a single year. A satellite image captured April 2025 by Sentinel 2b shows recently deforested areas in Bosawás Biosphere Reserve. The data show fire activity in Bosawás also rose in 2024, with 35% of annual tree cover loss caused by fire, representing a 700% jump from 2023. Preliminary data for 2025 indicate forest loss has continued this year, with satellite imagery showing telltale patches of brown spreading ever deeper into Bosawás’s remaining old-growth rainforest. Cattle ranching is one of the main drivers of forest&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/deforestation-climbs-in-central-americas-largest-biosphere-reserve/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-312462</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Satellite data show forest loss persists in Brazilian Amazon’s most deforested reserve</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/satellite-data-show-forest-loss-persists-in-brazilian-amazons-most-deforested-reserve/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/satellite-data-show-forest-loss-persists-in-brazilian-amazons-most-deforested-reserve/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>30 Dec 2025 21:51:05 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Morgan Erickson-Davis]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Morgan Erickson-Davis]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/12/30212511/AP20236730024384-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=312370</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Brazil, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Cattle, Environment, Fires, Forests, Green, Habitat Loss, Old Growth Forests, Pasture, Primary Forests, Protected Areas, Rainforests, Ranching, Slash-and-burn, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Brazil’s Triunfo do Xingu Environmental Protection Area encompasses an area of Amazon Rainforest more than half the size of Belgium. Or at least it used to. The embattled reserve has lost around half of its primary forest cover since it was created in 2006, according to satellite data from the University of Maryland’s Global Land [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Brazil’s Triunfo do Xingu Environmental Protection Area encompasses an area of Amazon Rainforest more than half the size of Belgium. Or at least it used to. The embattled reserve has lost around half of its primary forest cover since it was created in 2006, according to satellite data from the University of Maryland’s Global Land Analysis and Discovery (GLAD) lab and visualized on monitoring platform Global Forest Watch. The data show 2024 had the highest rate of forest loss, rocketing 400% over 2023. Preliminary data show forest loss continued in 2025, concentrated in the northern portion of the 1.7-million-hectare (4.2-million-acre) reserve, where most of the largest tracts of forest remain. Satellite data from the University of Maryland show primary forest loss jumped 400% between 2023 and 2024. Image by Mongabay. Google Timelapse shows forest loss advancing rapidly through Triunfo do Xingu. This has given Triunfo do Xingu the dubious distinction of being the protected area with the highest rate of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. The main cause? Cattle. Triunfo do Xingu lies in the heart of Brazil’s cattle country, where cows outnumber people 38 to one. To feed this legion of cattle, ranchers carve pasture from forest, often using slash-and-burn techniques to clear areas and renew degraded soil. During a visit in 2023, Mongabay reporters observed the charred remains of sawed-down trees, and were told by local small-scale famers and officials that fires set by ranchers can spread out of control, consuming crops, homes and forest alike. “They set&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/satellite-data-show-forest-loss-persists-in-brazilian-amazons-most-deforested-reserve/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-312370</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Researchers find concerning gaps in global maps used for EUDR compliance</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/researchers-find-concerning-gaps-in-global-maps-used-for-eudr-compliance/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/researchers-find-concerning-gaps-in-global-maps-used-for-eudr-compliance/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>19 Dec 2025 14:57:38 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[John Cannon]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Alexandra Popescu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[global forests]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/12/19083601/d.-BANNER-UF18USU-A84A9875-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=311699</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Europe, European Union, and Global]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Business, Cacao, Cattle, Coffee, Conservation, Deforestation, Economics, Environment, Environmental Law, Forests, Governance, Industrial Agriculture, Industry, International Trade, Logging, Plantations, Politics, Rainforests, Rubber, Soy, Threats To Rainforests, Timber, timber trade, Trade, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[A recent scientific review of forest maps used to ensure compliance with the European Union’s Regulation on Deforestation-free products, known as the EUDR, suggests that most may over- or underestimate forest areas, which could lead to inaccurate assessments of deforestation risk. The authors write that those inconsistencies point to the need for EU companies to [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[A recent scientific review of forest maps used to ensure compliance with the European Union’s Regulation on Deforestation-free products, known as the EUDR, suggests that most may over- or underestimate forest areas, which could lead to inaccurate assessments of deforestation risk. The authors write that those inconsistencies point to the need for EU companies to be discerning about which maps they use to ensure they comply with the regulation. The requirements will go into effect for most companies on Dec. 30, 2026, after a second postponement in as many years by the European Parliament. Only two of the 21 data sets in the assessment met all of the indicators used to assess risk used by the EUDR. The regulation will apply to seven commodities — cattle, cocoa, coffee, palm oil, rubber, soy and timber — as well as the products they’re used to make. Companies and government agencies are planning to use maps of satellite and other remote-sensing data to determine whether products entering EU countries are linked to deforestation after Dec. 31, 2020, the regulation’s cutoff date. Importing companies and the EU countries’ government agencies tasked with screening imported goods for compliance will compare georeferenced plots for a commodity with historical maps of forest and tree cover to determine whether it was produced at the expense of recently cleared forest. But many such maps exist, and the EUDR doesn’t specify the use of any one map. That means that a company using one map to verify compliance might come&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/researchers-find-concerning-gaps-in-global-maps-used-for-eudr-compliance/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-311699</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>In Brazil, a new label gives more visibility to deforestation-free beef</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/in-brazil-a-new-label-gives-more-visibility-to-deforestation-free-beef/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/in-brazil-a-new-label-gives-more-visibility-to-deforestation-free-beef/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>18 Dec 2025 14:22:42 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Constance Malleret]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Alexandra Popescu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Amazon]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/01/17151530/Beyond-Fire_Cattle_12_DSC_2938-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=311607</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Brazil, European Union, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Beef, Cattle, Deforestation, Drivers Of Deforestation, EUDR, Forest Destruction, Forest Loss, International Trade, Monitoring, Pasture, Rainforests, Ranching, Supply Chain, Threats To Rainforests, and Tropical Deforestation]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Amid growing pressure for beef supply chains to be deforestation-free, a new certification system in Brazil will allow meatpackers, importers and retailers to guarantee that the meat cuts they sell are not associated with deforestation. Down the line, this could also help companies become compliant with the European Union’s regulation on deforestation-free products (EUDR). The [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Amid growing pressure for beef supply chains to be deforestation-free, a new certification system in Brazil will allow meatpackers, importers and retailers to guarantee that the meat cuts they sell are not associated with deforestation. Down the line, this could also help companies become compliant with the European Union’s regulation on deforestation-free products (EUDR). The voluntary Beef on Track (BoT) label, launched by the Institute of Forest and Agricultural Management and Certification (Imaflora) in October and due to come into effect in 2026, is the first certification of its kind to guarantee deforestation-free beef. It will do so by building on existing monitoring, reporting and verification protocols adopted by the meat industry, rather than by designing new systems. “We’re not reinventing the wheel; we’re giving visibility to processes that already exist,” said Marina Guyot, Imaflora’s executive manager for climate, land use and public policy. Imaflora was involved in creating two initiatives that encourage best practices in the beef industry through monitoring, reporting and verification in recent years: the Beef on Track program (Boi na Linha in Portuguese) for beef produced in the Amazon, set up in 2019, and the Cerrado Protocol, launched in 2024. Companies that are already 95% compliant with these protocols are automatically eligible for BoT’s lowest certification level. Imaflora plans to develop similar frameworks for other Brazilian biomes in the future. The BoT certification will also rely on criteria from the Working Group of Indirect Suppliers (GTFI in Portuguese), a cross-sector body working to uproot deforestation from&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/in-brazil-a-new-label-gives-more-visibility-to-deforestation-free-beef/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-311607</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Deforestation and disease spread as Nicaragua ignores illegal cattle ranching</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/10/deforestation-and-disease-spread-as-nicaragua-ignores-illegal-cattle-ranching/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/10/deforestation-and-disease-spread-as-nicaragua-ignores-illegal-cattle-ranching/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>20 Oct 2025 07:00:26 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Maxwell Radwin]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Alexandra Popescu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/10/16200006/8-1-768x500.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=307836</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Central America, Latin America, and Nicaragua]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Beef, Cattle, Conservation, Deforestation, Diseases, Environment, Environmental Law, Forest Destruction, Forests, Governance, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Rights, International Trade, Land Conflict, Land Grabbing, Land Rights, Meat, Politics, Protected Areas, Public Health, Rainforests, Ranching, Threats To Rainforests, Trade, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Illegal cattle ranching has torn through Nicaragua’s rainforests in recent years, supplying a growing international market for meat despite calls for better oversight of the industry. Now, the country is feeling the consequences, as disease spreads through the unchecked movement of livestock. Cases of New World screwworm (Cochliomyia hominivorax), or NWS, a fly that feeds [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Illegal cattle ranching has torn through Nicaragua’s rainforests in recent years, supplying a growing international market for meat despite calls for better oversight of the industry. Now, the country is feeling the consequences, as disease spreads through the unchecked movement of livestock. Cases of New World screwworm (Cochliomyia hominivorax), or NWS, a fly that feeds on warm-blooded animals, have exploded across the country. Experts have traced the outbreak to Nicaragua’s massive cattle ranching industry, which transports herds from grazeland to slaughterhouses without always following protocol. “Nicaraguan beef sold in the United States, Mexico and other global markets is fueling the destruction of the largest remaining tracts of rainforest in the country,” said a new report from environmental group Re:wild. “[It’s] facing one of the most aggressive outbreaks of [NWS] in its recent history.” Beef is one of Nicaragua’s top exports, and has continued to grow since President Daniel Ortega returned to power in 2007. Between January 2024 and June 2025, the country exported more than 60 million kilograms (132 million pounds) of beef to the U.S., valued at more than $390 million, according to U.S. maritime import data obtained by the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA). Cattle ranching helped exacerbate the spread of NWS, a parasite that first appeared in Panama in 2023 before reaching other parts of Central America and Mexico. Reported cases in Nicaragua rose from 11,930 at the start of 2025 to 19,700 in early July, according to the country’s Institute for Agricultural Protection and Health. Indio Maíz&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/10/deforestation-and-disease-spread-as-nicaragua-ignores-illegal-cattle-ranching/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-307836</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>As wolves roam California, livestock losses remain low, yet ranchers’ fears grow</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/10/as-wolves-roam-california-livestock-losses-remain-low-yet-ranchers-fears-grow/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/10/as-wolves-roam-california-livestock-losses-remain-low-yet-ranchers-fears-grow/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>16 Oct 2025 20:17:17 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Spoorthy Raman]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Sharon Guynup]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/10/16120223/3c589a96-f102-4b07-a3e9-601b22bbd964-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=307707</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[California, North America, and United States]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Cattle, Conflict, Conservation, Ranching, Wildlife, and Wolves]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[This is the second part of Mongabay’s series on the expanding wolf population in California. Read the first, third and fourth parts. In May 2025, five counties in northern California — mostly rural farm and ranch land — declared an unprecedented state of emergency. It wasn’t a natural disaster or civil unrest that led to [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[This is the second part of Mongabay’s series on the expanding wolf population in California. Read the first, third and fourth parts. In May 2025, five counties in northern California — mostly rural farm and ranch land — declared an unprecedented state of emergency. It wasn’t a natural disaster or civil unrest that led to panic, but rather a bunch of thriving canids — wolves, to be precise. They’d killed livestock, and according to some residents, were exhibiting “bold, abnormal behavior” and “coming too close to homes.” Between October and December 2024, wolves killed 19 cattle in an area home to more than 300,000 cows, but the wolves are, in reality, returning to what was once their own homes. Gray wolves (Canis lupus) roamed the Californian landscape for thousands of years until the last one was shot in the 1920s. But over the last decade, they have started recolonizing their former territories, migrating south from Oregon, and their numbers have begun to rebound with howling success. Today, between 50 and 70 wolves live in 10 packs across the state, with most concentrated in the northeast — around counties that declared a state of emergency. Wolves, like all big carnivores, can go after livestock, but they prefer wild prey, particularly elk and deer, said Amaroq Weiss, senior wolf advocate with the Center for Biological Diversity, who has spent more than three decades studying wolves across the United States. “That&#8217;s what they evolved to eat for millions of years.” Studies show wolves&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/10/as-wolves-roam-california-livestock-losses-remain-low-yet-ranchers-fears-grow/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-307707</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Biodiversity loss due to land use change could be highly underestimated: Study</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/10/biodiversity-loss-due-to-land-use-change-could-be-highly-underestimated-study/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/10/biodiversity-loss-due-to-land-use-change-could-be-highly-underestimated-study/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>14 Oct 2025 10:00:30 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Mark Hillsdon]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Alexandra Popescu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Amazon]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2022/04/04160611/5-plate-billed-mountain-toucan-is-native-to-Ecuador-and-a-portion-of-Colombia-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=307580</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Colombia, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Birds, Cattle, Deforestation, Drivers Of Deforestation, Endangered Species, Forest Destruction, Forest Loss, Habitat Loss, Land Use Change, Pasture, Planetary Boundaries, Ranching, and Research]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[A survey of Colombian birdlife, which evolved over more than a decade into the world’s largest-ever ornithological study, has found that clearing forests to create new pastures is causing as much as 60% more damage to biodiversity than previously thought. Until now, research into the impact on biodiversity of land use change has generally involved [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[A survey of Colombian birdlife, which evolved over more than a decade into the world’s largest-ever ornithological study, has found that clearing forests to create new pastures is causing as much as 60% more damage to biodiversity than previously thought. Until now, research into the impact on biodiversity of land use change has generally involved small-scale, local surveys. But this approach does not accurately represent the larger-scale damage caused to nature, says study co-author David Edwards, a professor of plant ecology at the University of Cambridge. When forests are converted to pasture, some species win and others lose, he explains, and measuring the biodiversity loss at a local scale does not capture the larger-scale effect of these land clearances, which are occurring across the ranges of many different species. “When people want to understand the wider impact of deforestation on biodiversity, they tend to do a local survey and extrapolate the results,” Edwards tells Mongabay in a phone interview. “But the problem is that tree clearance is occurring at massive spatial scales, across all sorts of different habitats and elevations.” By focusing on isolated sites, researchers were missing how these effects accumulate across regions, he says. Large areas of Tinigua National Natural Park have been razed for illegal livestock ranching. Image by María Jimena Neira Niño. In 2024, Colombia lost 113,608 hectares (about 280,700 acres) of forest, a 43% increase compared with 2023, when deforestation had dropped to its lowest level in more than two decades. But while organized crime,&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/10/biodiversity-loss-due-to-land-use-change-could-be-highly-underestimated-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-307580</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>To track a unicorn: Laos team goes all out to find the last saolas</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/to-track-a-unicorn-laos-team-goes-all-out-to-find-the-last-saolas/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/to-track-a-unicorn-laos-team-goes-all-out-to-find-the-last-saolas/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>30 Sep 2025 04:49:36 +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/20/2025/09/02105213/8-768x512.png" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=306770</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Laos, Southeast Asia, and Vietnam]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Cattle, Conservation, Conservation Technology, Critically Endangered Species, DNA, Environment, Forests, Green, Innovation, Mammals, Snares, Tracking, Ungulates, Wildlife, and Wildtech]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Few people have the opportunity to meet near-mythical beasts in real life — but Rob Timmins has. He’s one of the few biologists ever to spend time with a saola, a wild ox once known as the “Asian unicorn,” and arguably the most threatened large mammal on the planet. First described by science in 1993, [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Few people have the opportunity to meet near-mythical beasts in real life — but Rob Timmins has. He’s one of the few biologists ever to spend time with a saola, a wild ox once known as the “Asian unicorn,” and arguably the most threatened large mammal on the planet. First described by science in 1993, the species, Pseudoryx nghetinhensis, has only ever been recorded alive a handful of times: five camera-trap detections, and a few individuals briefly held in captivity. Timmins met one of those captive animals, a female named Martha, in 1996 after she was captured by villagers in Laos and taken to a nearby facility. She survived there only a few weeks before passing away. Martha was “truly beautiful amidst all the sadness of her captivity,” says Timmins, who is now chief technical adviser of the Saola Foundation for Annamite Mountain Conservation. “In behavior, [she] was very unlike any other ungulate I’d ever seen. Very docile, seemingly very calm.” The saola’s peaceful nature has in fact earned it a nickname in a Lao dialect: Saat Supphap, which means “polite animal.” The species is considered so evolutionarily distinct it’s placed in a genus of its own. Sporting a hefty pair of dark horns, a sloping back and bold flashes of white across the face, saolas resemble antelopes, yet their closest living relatives are wild cattle like gaur and buffalo. Yet the world is on the cusp of losing this gentle, one-of-a-kind mammal forever, before scientists have even begun to&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/to-track-a-unicorn-laos-team-goes-all-out-to-find-the-last-saolas/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-306770</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Permaculture promises peace, food, increased equality in Kenyan county</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/permaculture-promises-peace-food-increased-equality-in-kenyan-county/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/permaculture-promises-peace-food-increased-equality-in-kenyan-county/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>24 Sep 2025 10:09:45 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Gilbert Nakweya]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Terna Gyuse]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/09/23091848/SalinaChepsatTomatoes_BaringoKenya_GilbertNakweya-237-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=306390</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, East Africa, and Kenya]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Agroecology, Agroforestry, Biodiversity, Cattle, Climate Change, Community Development, Community-based Conservation, Conservation, Conservation Solutions, Drought, Environment, Governance, Grasslands, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Rights, and Solutions]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[BARINGO, Kenya — Salina Chepsat and a neighbor are loading tomatoes into a vehicle in the scorching midday heat. Chepsat picked the produce earlier that morning from her farm in the remote village of Loboi, a stone’s throw from west-central Kenya’s Lake Bogoria. From there, it’s headed to the market in the town of Marigat, [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[BARINGO, Kenya — Salina Chepsat and a neighbor are loading tomatoes into a vehicle in the scorching midday heat. Chepsat picked the produce earlier that morning from her farm in the remote village of Loboi, a stone’s throw from west-central Kenya’s Lake Bogoria. From there, it’s headed to the market in the town of Marigat, 30 kilometers (19 miles) away. Amid the overlapping challenges facing her community in largely semiarid Baringo county — repeated droughts, badly degraded land, and conflict between and among ethnic communities — this tall, 49-year-old widow and mother of three is prospering as a farmer. This season’s bumper harvest is special to her, Chepsat tells Mongabay, because she plans to use the proceeds of her labor to pay to roof and plaster a new house she’s been building for the past two years. “When I settled here, I was mainly planting maize, beans and millet. Although I was earning income to sustain me and my children, I wasn’t making enough to construct a good house like the one I am building,” she says. “Unpredictable rainfall has been a limiting factor, especially for maize.” Making compost on a farm in Baringo County: the Indigenous Women and Girls Initiative&#8217;s is training women — and some men — to make organic fertilizer and pesticides. Image by Gilbert Nakweya for Mongabay. Farming on the rise Chepsat learned to farm from her parents and grandparents. But for those older generations of Indigenous Endorois, agriculture was usually a sideline to herding livestock.&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/permaculture-promises-peace-food-increased-equality-in-kenyan-county/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-306390</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Marfrig&#8217;s bonds funded beef from illegally deforested areas in Brazil</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/marfrigs-bonds-funded-beef-from-illegally-deforested-areas-in-brazil/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/marfrigs-bonds-funded-beef-from-illegally-deforested-areas-in-brazil/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>23 Sep 2025 13:47:58 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Bruna BronoskiO Joio e o Trigo]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Alexandre de Santi]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Food systems]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/09/22101956/header-marfrig-v1-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=306344</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Brazil, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Beef, Cattle, Corporate Environmental Transgressors, Corporate Social Responsibility, Deforestation, Drivers Of Deforestation, Illegal Logging, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Rights, Pasture, Rainforests, Ranching, Supply Chain, Threats To Rainforests, and Tropical Deforestation]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Tied to clearing in Amazon and Cerrado, shipments from 'world's largest hamburger producer’ reach Europe and Asia.]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Leia em português. Brazilian meatpacking giant Marfrig spent $1 billion from bonds it issued to buy cattle from a ranch linked to its board chair — with some of that cattle originating from illegally deforested areas of the Amazon and Cerrado, an investigation has found. Marfrig Global Foods SA, which bills itself as the world’s largest hamburger producer, has raised 11 billion reais ($2 billion) since 2019 from issuing a type of corporate bond known in Brazil as an agribusiness receivables certificate (CRA). Half of that amount — 5.5 billion reais, or $1 billion — was used exclusively to purchase cattle from feedlots run by MFG Agropecuária, whose managing partner is Marfrig&#8217;s board chairman, Marcos Antonio Molina dos Santos. Bondholders include individual investors, buying through brokerage apps or indirectly via financial operators. Part of the money went toward buying cattle originating from illegally deforested areas of the Amazon Rainforest and Cerrado savanna, according to an investigation by Joio e o Trigo (republished by Mongabay), in partnership with the Center for Climate Crime Analysis (CCCA), a nonprofit organization that supports global climate action. MFG, indicated in CRA documents as the rural producer receiving the proceeds of the bond issuance, purchases cattle from other suppliers, known as indirect suppliers. The last of these bonds matures in 2032. According to a 2024 public document Marfrig shared with investors, 100% of cattle purchased by the six MFG feedlots are sold to Marfrig slaughterhouses. MFG has been a wholly owned Marfrig subsidiary since 2014. The&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/marfrigs-bonds-funded-beef-from-illegally-deforested-areas-in-brazil/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-306344</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>More than half the world’s forests fragmented in 20 years — but protection works: Study</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/more-than-half-the-worlds-forests-fragmented-in-20-years-but-protection-works-study/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/more-than-half-the-worlds-forests-fragmented-in-20-years-but-protection-works-study/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>11 Sep 2025 18:19:10 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Ruth Kamnitzer]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Morgan Erickson-Davis]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/09/11182803/AP18330696503362-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=305801</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Global]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Biodiversity, Cattle, Environment, Fires, Forest Fragmentation, Forest Loss, Forests, Fragmentation, Green, Habitat Loss, Logging, Mining, Pasture, Rainforests, Ranching, Slash-and-burn, Temperate Forests, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[“If you can imagine walking into a huge, 1,000-kilometer square [386-square-mile] tropical forest … it&#8217;s moist and damp [with] rich soil and an overstory. You imagine walking into a 10-meter [33-foot] patch of forest and it&#8217;s just a totally different thing. It&#8217;s drier, it&#8217;s more open, it&#8217;s more harsh, and there&#8217;ll be far fewer species,” [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[“If you can imagine walking into a huge, 1,000-kilometer square [386-square-mile] tropical forest … it&#8217;s moist and damp [with] rich soil and an overstory. You imagine walking into a 10-meter [33-foot] patch of forest and it&#8217;s just a totally different thing. It&#8217;s drier, it&#8217;s more open, it&#8217;s more harsh, and there&#8217;ll be far fewer species,” says Thomas Crowther, ecology professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH Zurich). Fragmentation, the process by which large areas of intact forest become broken up into smaller pieces, is increasing in most of the world’s forests, according to a new Science study authored by Crowther and other researchers at institutions in Switzerland, Australia, China, the U.S. and the UK.   The study finds that more than 50% of the world’s forests became more fragmented between 2000 and 2020. Tropical forests fared the worst, with the findings indicating that up to 80% were fragmented over 20 years. This has profound implications for global biodiversity and ecosystem health, Crowther says. “[T]he scary thing is, even if we kept the same amount of forest area on the planet, if we&#8217;re turning those big intact ones into all the tiny fragments, we&#8217;re losing a lot of the ecological functionality.” Fragmentation can happen in different ways and for different reasons. Shifting cultivation can pockmark intact forests with clearings. New roads into previously intact areas can bring miners or loggers, creating a dendritic pattern of forest loss. Development can eat away at a forest’s perimeter. Stands of trees&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/more-than-half-the-worlds-forests-fragmented-in-20-years-but-protection-works-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-305801</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Guatemala closes oil field, increases security in Maya Biosphere Reserve</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/guatemala-closes-oil-field-increases-security-in-maya-biosphere-reserve/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/guatemala-closes-oil-field-increases-security-in-maya-biosphere-reserve/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>05 Sep 2025 16:09:01 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Maxwell Radwin]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Alexandra Popescu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/09/05160105/540547179_1219827613518092_5132558235579538579_n-768x500.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=305502</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Central America, Guatemala, and Latin America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Cattle, Conservation, Deforestation, Environment, Environmental Law, Forest Destruction, Forest Loss, Forests, Governance, Land Conflict, Land Rights, Law Enforcement, Logging, Oil Drilling, Politics, Protected Areas, Rainforests, Ranching, Threats To Rainforests, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Officials in Guatemala have announced plans to occupy a recently closed oil field with the aim of increasing enforcement in protected areas badly hit by organized crime. The Xan oil field inside Laguna del Tigre National Park, in northern Guatemala, will become a base for military and law enforcement personnel tasked with protecting the rainforest [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Officials in Guatemala have announced plans to occupy a recently closed oil field with the aim of increasing enforcement in protected areas badly hit by organized crime. The Xan oil field inside Laguna del Tigre National Park, in northern Guatemala, will become a base for military and law enforcement personnel tasked with protecting the rainforest from illegal cattle ranching, logging and drug trafficking. The move has been billed as a major security and conservation win while also reducing the country’s economic dependence on fossil fuels. “This marks the beginning of a process of taking control of a vast portion of the national territory that has long been open to all kinds of actors who often exploit it for illicit activities,” President Bernardo Arévalo said during a speech about the new facility. The oil field, formerly operated by Anglo-French firm Perenco, produced between 5,000 and 7,000 barrels of crude oil a day, accounting for around 90% of national output. But the extraction process was water-intensive and posed pollution risks, leading the government to deem it unprofitable. The operation was also controversial because of its location inside Laguna del Tigre National Park, a 337,899-hectare (834,967-acre) protected area within the Maya Biosphere Reserve. The reserve spans millions of hectares and connects northern Guatemala with protected forests in Belize and southern Mexico, creating one of the largest biological corridors in Mesoamerica. The government chose not to renew the oil concession, which ended last month, but Perenco will still operate a pipeline until 2044. The&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/guatemala-closes-oil-field-increases-security-in-maya-biosphere-reserve/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-305502</doi>				</item>
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