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		<title>Conservation news</title>
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		<link>https://news.mongabay.com/list/conservation-finance/</link>
		<description>Environmental science and conservation news</description>
		<lastBuildDate>Wed, 11 Nov 2026 19:28:32 +0000</lastBuildDate>
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	<title>News on Conservation Finance</title>
	<link>https://news.mongabay.com/list/conservation-finance/</link>
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				<item>
					<title>‘Developed nations are not honoring their commitments’: DRC negotiator on biodiversity finance</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/11/developed-nations-are-not-honoring-their-commitments-drc-negotiator-on-biodiversity-finance/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/11/developed-nations-are-not-honoring-their-commitments-drc-negotiator-on-biodiversity-finance/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>11 Nov 2026 19:27:37 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Latoya Abulu]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Latoya Abulu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/11/11164749/Daniel-Mukubi-Kikuni-DRC_IPCC65_14Oct2026_photo_0-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=335690</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Conservation Finance]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Central Africa, Congo Basin, Democratic Republic Of Congo, and Global]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[30x30 conservation target, Biodiversity, Business, Conflict, Conservation, Conservation Finance, Economics, Environmental Policy, Finance, Funding, Governance, Interviews, philanthropy, and Politics]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[YEREVAN, Armenia — Discussions were running much longer — and tenser — than they were supposed to during one of the last sessions of the 2026 U.N. biodiversity summit (COP17) in Armenia. The recurring culprit: Money, or more specifically, biodiversity finance. It recalled earlier discussions four years ago during the COP15 summit in Montreal, which [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[YEREVAN, Armenia — Discussions were running much longer — and tenser — than they were supposed to during one of the last sessions of the 2026 U.N. biodiversity summit (COP17) in Armenia. The recurring culprit: Money, or more specifically, biodiversity finance. It recalled earlier discussions four years ago during the COP15 summit in Montreal, which ended in momentary panic when one party threatened to pull out at the last minute over finance issues. One of the parties at the center of disagreements during both summits was the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC): Holder of the biggest share of the second-largest rainforest in the world — the Congo Basin — and veracious critic on the world stage for increased, and “more effective,” finance to help industrially developing countries meet global biodiversity goals. Among the recurring figures representing the country at environmental conferences is Daniel Mukubi, often on the microphone, intervening and vocal about better and more equitable access to finance. “All this weight &#8230; the objectives, targets of the global biodiversity framework &#8230; It requires additional efforts for developing countries, such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to be able to find alternatives,” says Mukubi in an exclusive interview with Mongabay. “Additional means to enable Indigenous peoples and local communities that depend on forests and ecosystems, but also on forest products for their livelihoods, to be able to find means of subsistence that will allow them not to continue destroying the forest.” A local person carrying firewood, Yangambi, Tshopo, DRC.&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/11/developed-nations-are-not-honoring-their-commitments-drc-negotiator-on-biodiversity-finance/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
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										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/11/developed-nations-are-not-honoring-their-commitments-drc-negotiator-on-biodiversity-finance/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-335690</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Kenya launches $160 million conservation initiative to support communities and biodiversity</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/11/kenya-launches-160-million-conservation-initiative-to-support-communities-and-biodiversity/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/11/kenya-launches-160-million-conservation-initiative-to-support-communities-and-biodiversity/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>06 Nov 2026 10:52:44 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Lynet Otieno]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Malavika Vyawhare]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/11/05164636/Rebecca-M-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=335064</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, East Africa, and Kenya]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[30x30 conservation target, Animals, Biodiversity, Conservation, Conservation Finance, Conservation Solutions, Ecotourism, Finance, Governance, Plants, Science, Solutions, Tourism, Trees, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The government of Kenya has launched a 10-year, $160 million conservation program that will target 17.3 million hectares (43 million acres) of existing conservation areas and community-managed land across 31 counties. The government projects that the initiative, which also aims to establish 2.7 million hectares of new conserved areas, will benefit 1.6 million people and [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The government of Kenya has launched a 10-year, $160 million conservation program that will target 17.3 million hectares (43 million acres) of existing conservation areas and community-managed land across 31 counties. The government projects that the initiative, which also aims to establish 2.7 million hectares of new conserved areas, will benefit 1.6 million people and create nearly 22,800 jobs. Dubbed Thamani Asili (which means “value of nature” in Swahili) the program, announced on Oct. 21, aims to secure long-term financing for protecting biodiversity while improving livelihoods, water security and climate resilience through an $80 million contribution from the government, which philanthropic partners are expected to match. Tourism and Wildlife Cabinet Secretary Rebecca Miano presided over the launch of the program at the Tsavo West National Park, southern Kenya, on behalf of Kenya’s President William Ruto. The 10-year initiative brings together the Kenyan government, the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS), NGO The Nature Conservancy (TNC), conservation initiative Enduring Earth and other conservation partners. “Using the Project Finance for Permanence (PFP) model, Thamani Asili establishes a long-term financing framework designed to move conservation beyond short-term funding cycles towards predictable investment, institutional accountability and measurable results,” a KWS press release about the initiative says. Kenya’s Cabinet Secretary for Environment and Tourism, Rebecca Miano, met with officials from the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) and other conservation partners ahead of presiding over the launch of a $160 million conservation-focused fund, Image courtesy of Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS). There are four initial priority landscapes for this project:&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/11/kenya-launches-160-million-conservation-initiative-to-support-communities-and-biodiversity/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/11/kenya-launches-160-million-conservation-initiative-to-support-communities-and-biodiversity/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-335064</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Leaders grapple with finance and harmful subsidies at UN’s COP17 biodiversity conference</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/leaders-grapple-with-finance-and-harmful-subsidies-at-uns-cop17-biodiversity-conference/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/leaders-grapple-with-finance-and-harmful-subsidies-at-uns-cop17-biodiversity-conference/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>31 Oct 2026 07:07:34 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[John Cannon]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Terna Gyuse]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/10/31062001/DSC_9185-768x512.jpeg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=334599</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Global]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[30x30 conservation target, Biodiversity, Conservation, Conservation Finance, and Finance]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[YEREVAN, Armenia — Visitors entering the main hallway of the 2026 U.N. biodiversity conference (COP17) encounter a mural of a herd of elephants. The installation, led by the NGO Friends of the Earth International, doesn’t celebrate the gains that some elephant populations have made in recent decades. Instead, it uses the &#8220;elephants in the room&#8221; [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[YEREVAN, Armenia — Visitors entering the main hallway of the 2026 U.N. biodiversity conference (COP17) encounter a mural of a herd of elephants. The installation, led by the NGO Friends of the Earth International, doesn’t celebrate the gains that some elephant populations have made in recent decades. Instead, it uses the &#8220;elephants in the room&#8221; metaphor for the entrenched, but often-ignored financial systems that lead to widespread biodiversity destruction. &#8220;It is astounding that the global economy is spending only $1 on nature protection for each $30 that it spends on nature destruction,&#8221; said An Lambrechts, a biodiversity politics expert with Greenpeace International, at a COP17 press conference. Lambrechts was referring to a key finding from the State of Finance for Nature 2026 report from the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP). WWF International&#8217;s recent Living Planet report found that populations of wild vertebrates fell by an average of 73% between 1970 and 2022. The authors tagged climate change, agriculture and — notably — the flow of money toward nature-averse industries and practices. Industrial logging in Papua New Guinea’s New Ireland province. Image by John Cannon/Mongabay. The 196 parties that adopted the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) in 2022 laid out the ambition in its Target 18 of slashing $500 billion annually from subsidies and other financial support for activities that harm biodiversity. Unsustainable fishing and industrial agriculture, for example, contribute directly to the dwindling of plant, animal and fungal life. But financial support for such “nature-negative” activities remains high — at $7.3&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/leaders-grapple-with-finance-and-harmful-subsidies-at-uns-cop17-biodiversity-conference/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/leaders-grapple-with-finance-and-harmful-subsidies-at-uns-cop17-biodiversity-conference/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-334599</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>‘Design conservation with those who will live with it’: 30 by 30 in Africa</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/design-conservation-with-those-who-will-live-with-it-30-by-30-in-africa/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/design-conservation-with-those-who-will-live-with-it-30-by-30-in-africa/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>29 Oct 2026 08:58:34 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Sasha Nunneley]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Terna Gyuse]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/10/29083339/DSC05020_AdrianPonsardWCS-1-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=334316</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, East Africa, Liberia, Namibia, Southern Africa, Tanzania, and West Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[30x30 conservation target, Biodiversity, Conservation, Conservation Finance, Environment, Environmental Policy, Forests, Governance, Indigenous Rights, Oceans, Politics, Tropical Forests, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Perhaps the best-known target of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) is what’s commonly known as “30 by 30,” the aim to bring at least 30% of the world&#8217;s terrestrial, inland water, coastal and marine ecosystems into effective conservation and equitable management by the year 2030. According to Skytruth’s tracker, which combines multiple databases to [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Perhaps the best-known target of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) is what’s commonly known as “30 by 30,” the aim to bring at least 30% of the world&#8217;s terrestrial, inland water, coastal and marine ecosystems into effective conservation and equitable management by the year 2030. According to Skytruth’s tracker, which combines multiple databases to provide a ready overview, as of October 2026, African countries had secured 19.9% of terrestrial and 17.2% of marine areas, a tick above the global coverage of 18.7% of land, and 10% of marine landscapes. As delegates from around the world gather in the ancient city of Yerevan, Armenia, for the 17th Conference of Parties (COP17) to the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity from Oct. 19 to 30, it seems unlikely that the 30 by30 target will be met. Since the GBF was agreed in 2022, diverse observers have argued that we should also be turning our attention to what lies beneath these numbers. “The objective is not simply to reach 30% on paper by 2030,” says Daniel Marnewick, a conservation expert with the IUCN, the global wildlife conservation authority. “It is to secure biodiversity, strengthen ecological resilience, and build conservation approaches that are socially legitimate, locally grounded, and sustainable over the long term.” Beneath the headline figures, Marnewick says, “land and natural resources are under increasing pressure from competing demands, including agriculture, infrastructure, energy, mining, and other forms of economic development.” One obvious obstacle across the African continent arises from governments&#8217; own conflicting priorities.&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/design-conservation-with-those-who-will-live-with-it-30-by-30-in-africa/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/design-conservation-with-those-who-will-live-with-it-30-by-30-in-africa/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-334316</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Pemba&#8217;s new marine protected areas show the power of collaboration to meet 30&#215;30 goal</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/pembas-new-marine-protected-areas-show-the-power-of-collaboration-to-meet-30x30-goal/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/pembas-new-marine-protected-areas-show-the-power-of-collaboration-to-meet-30x30-goal/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>29 Oct 2026 07:45:46 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Sasha Nunneley]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Terna Gyuse]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[africa]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/10/29063925/DSC04884_AdrianPonsardWCS-scaled-1-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=334310</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, East Africa, and Tanzania]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[30x30 conservation target, Conservation, Conservation Finance, Environmental Policy, Finance, Fisheries, Governance, Marine Protected Areas, Oceans, and Protected Areas]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Omar Hamad Salim, like many other fishermen from Tumbe village, relies on the ocean for food, an income and a way of life. A number of years ago, he and his fellow fishers began returning from the sea with less and less. “Fishers would go to sea and return with very few fish, or sometimes [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Omar Hamad Salim, like many other fishermen from Tumbe village, relies on the ocean for food, an income and a way of life. A number of years ago, he and his fellow fishers began returning from the sea with less and less. “Fishers would go to sea and return with very few fish, or sometimes none at all,” Salim says. “And this was not a temporary situation; the shortage had persisted for an extended period.” Salim is one of 12 elected members of the fisheries committee for the Tumbe shehia, or ward, on the north-eastern shore of Pemba Island, part of the semi-autonomous archipelago of Zanzibar. Shehia fishing committees elsewhere on Pemba’s east coast were also worried as their catches shrank. They decided that something had to change. Salim and a few others from Tumbe village conducted a more detailed assessment of what was actually happening, which they then presented to the rest of the village during a public meeting. Fishing committees on Pemba island’s east coast grew worried as their catches shrank. Image courtesy of Adrian Ponsard/WCS. In a phone interview, Jean Mensa, director of the Tanzania Marine Program for conservation organization WCS, told Mongabay that government officials had raised the possibility of establishing a conservation area on Pemba’s eastern coastline with WCS. Villagers in the area, he said, attributed the faltering fisheries primarily to overfishing. The conservation organization seized the opportunity. “We asked them point blank if they wanted to have a marine conservation area in the area,&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/pembas-new-marine-protected-areas-show-the-power-of-collaboration-to-meet-30x30-goal/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/pembas-new-marine-protected-areas-show-the-power-of-collaboration-to-meet-30x30-goal/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-334310</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>IUCN’s Madhu Rao on the world’s protected areas: Progress, pressures and the race to 2030</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/iucns-madhu-rao-on-the-worlds-protected-areas-progress-pressures-and-the-race-to-2030/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/iucns-madhu-rao-on-the-worlds-protected-areas-progress-pressures-and-the-race-to-2030/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>21 Oct 2026 13:56:12 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[David Akana]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Malavika Vyawhare]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/10/21112232/amazon_200158-1-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=333419</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[30x30 conservation target, Animals, Biodiversity, Conservation, Conservation Finance, Conservation Solutions, Deforestation, Economics, Ecosystems, Environment, Finance, Forests, Governance, Natural Resources, Protected Areas, Research, Solutions, Water, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[A park ranger in the Democratic Republic of Congo survived an ambush that killed colleagues. In Cambodia, mines and dams are pressing against land set aside for wildlife. In the Amazon, illegal miners are changing tactics as authorities try to remove them from Indigenous territories. These are different places, with different problems documented by Mongabay, [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[A park ranger in the Democratic Republic of Congo survived an ambush that killed colleagues. In Cambodia, mines and dams are pressing against land set aside for wildlife. In the Amazon, illegal miners are changing tactics as authorities try to remove them from Indigenous territories. These are different places, with different problems documented by Mongabay, but they point to a question now confronting governments: How much protection does a protected area actually provide? That question will follow delegates to Yerevan, Armenia, for the U.N. Biodiversity Conference, COP17, from Oct. 19-30. In 2022, countries agreed to conserve at least 30% of land and inland waters and 30% of coastal and marine areas by 2030. The commitment, known as Target 3 or “30 by 30,” is not simply about drawing new boundaries on maps. It also requires conservation to work, ecosystems to remain connected and the rights of Indigenous peoples and local communities to be respected. COP17 will conduct the first collective review of progress under the agreement. Also read: As global 30×30 goal lags, Colombia shows how progress can be made A new Earth Insight analysis maps oil, gas and mining concessions overlapping protected and conserved areas across the tropics, highlighting threats to global biodiversity goals. Image courtesy of Earth Insight. The evidence arriving ahead of the meeting is sobering. A new study by Earth Insight, the IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas and other partners found that nearly 62 million hectares (153 million acres) of terrestrial protected and conserved areas&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/iucns-madhu-rao-on-the-worlds-protected-areas-progress-pressures-and-the-race-to-2030/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/iucns-madhu-rao-on-the-worlds-protected-areas-progress-pressures-and-the-race-to-2030/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-333419</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Delegates at biodiversity COP17 should follow the lead of Global South women (commentary)</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/delegates-at-biodiversity-cop17-should-follow-the-lead-of-global-south-women-commentary/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/delegates-at-biodiversity-cop17-should-follow-the-lead-of-global-south-women-commentary/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>21 Oct 2026 00:40:07 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Valentina Figuera Martínez]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Erik Hoffner]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/09/24184300/Captura-de-pantalla-2025-06-26-a-las-1.57.38-p.m-768x512.png" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=333386</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Global]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Biodiversity credits, Commentary, Conservation, Conservation Finance, Finance, Gender, Governance, Nature-based climate solutions, and Traditional Knowledge]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[As global leaders convene in Armenia this week for the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) conference of the parties (COP17), it is difficult to ignore how women’s oppression is deeply intertwined with the exploitation of ecosystems. After almost two decades of pledges, biodiversity action remains underfunded, forest loss continues to be a growing threat, [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[As global leaders convene in Armenia this week for the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) conference of the parties (COP17), it is difficult to ignore how women’s oppression is deeply intertwined with the exploitation of ecosystems. After almost two decades of pledges, biodiversity action remains underfunded, forest loss continues to be a growing threat, socio-ecological transitions are a low priority, and ecosystems are spiraling toward collapse. The impacts of resulting climate disasters and biodiversity destruction are not felt equally, yet gender justice issues also remain unresolved within these international talks. In Yerevan, Armenia, countries will consider the first global review of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF), which was the first formal assessment to measure progress since its adoption in 2022. COP17 is also poised to advance efforts on biodiversity finance under the umbrella of common but differentiated responsibilities. But progress cannot be measured only in targets, financial commitments and international mechanisms. We should also ask a more basic question: What can we learn from the people who are already protecting biodiversity in their territories? Women leading agroecology and community conservation initiatives in Zambia. Image courtesy of Kapyanga Women Association &amp; Zamsof. While hundreds of policymakers spend long hours negotiating decisions to promote false solutions and powerful corporate actors lobby to continue profiting from biodiversity destruction and obstruct environmental regulations, women from the Global South continue working without big cameras or fancy social media presences to protect what is left of their territories. They are ensuring the continuation of&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/delegates-at-biodiversity-cop17-should-follow-the-lead-of-global-south-women-commentary/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-333386</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Navigating crisis and opportunity in conservation funding (commentary)</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/navigating-crisis-and-opportunity-in-conservation-funding-commentary/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/navigating-crisis-and-opportunity-in-conservation-funding-commentary/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>19 Oct 2026 23:10:39 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Fred Nelson]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rhett Butler]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/10/20182411/Seaweed_farming_7277-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=333181</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Navigating conservation's crisis]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Commentary, Community-based Conservation, Conservation, Conservation Finance, Funding, and philanthropy]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The past two years have been a dramatic period for conservation funding. The greatest attention has focused on the sudden dissolution of USAID in early 2025, as well as the wider crisis in aid funding as European development budgets also undergo major shifts; total international development aid fell by roughly a quarter last year. These [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The past two years have been a dramatic period for conservation funding. The greatest attention has focused on the sudden dissolution of USAID in early 2025, as well as the wider crisis in aid funding as European development budgets also undergo major shifts; total international development aid fell by roughly a quarter last year. These changes are driven by political forces and financial pressures that are only likely to intensify in the coming years. USAID’s dissolution alone removed $1 billion annually from the international environmental funding ecosystem, creating sudden deficits and fiscal crises for organizations large and small, all around the world. While most conservation organizations impacted by these changes in the near term are understandably focused on plugging gaps, keeping programs running, and addressing shortfalls, the bigger picture is reckoning with the ‘end of big aid’ and what the future of global conservation funding looks like. Beyond the aid crisis and its implications, though, the present moment is also one of dynamic change and new opportunities in global conservation funding. While it cannot replace the sheer volume of lost public development aid, private philanthropic funding for conservation is on the increase. Climate mitigation funding from foundations- of which nature conservation and restoration is now a significant focus- more than doubled between 2020 and 2024, to roughly $6 billion. A great deal of much-needed focus in recent years has been on the lack of conservation and climate funding reaching Indigenous Peoples and local communities, but here there is also significant&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/navigating-crisis-and-opportunity-in-conservation-funding-commentary/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-333181</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Finance and Indigenous rights top Africans’ agenda as biodiversity summit opens in Yerevan</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/finance-and-indigenous-rights-top-africans-agenda-as-biodiversity-summit-opens-in-yerevan/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/finance-and-indigenous-rights-top-africans-agenda-as-biodiversity-summit-opens-in-yerevan/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>19 Oct 2026 20:23:35 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Ashoka MukpoJohn CannonLatoya AbuluTerna Gyuse]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Terna Gyuse]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[africa]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/06/17140534/maasai-1-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=333161</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Central Africa, Democratic Republic Of Congo, Madagascar, and Southern Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[30x30 conservation target, Conservation, Conservation Finance, Environmental Policy, Governance, Human Rights, Indigenous Peoples, and Indigenous Rights]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[As the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity&#8217;s 17th summit opens in Yerevan, Armenia, on Oct. 19, what’s at stake for Africa? In 2022, parties signed the Kunming-Montreal Biodiversity Framework, agreeing to maintain, restore, and substantially increase the area of natural ecosystems and end human-induced extinction of threatened species; to sustainable use of biodiversity; to fair [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[As the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity&#8217;s 17th summit opens in Yerevan, Armenia, on Oct. 19, what’s at stake for Africa? In 2022, parties signed the Kunming-Montreal Biodiversity Framework, agreeing to maintain, restore, and substantially increase the area of natural ecosystems and end human-induced extinction of threatened species; to sustainable use of biodiversity; to fair and equitable sharing of both monetary and non-monetary benefits derived from genetic resources; and to establish adequate means to implement the framework — including finance, scientific cooperation and building capacity of all parties. The summit, which runs through Oct. 30, marks the halfway point to the deadlines for a first set of 23 action-oriented global targets. The progress report is not encouraging: Fewer than half of countries say they are on track to meet their self-designed biodiversity targets. “The report shows that many of the critical elements of progress, including finance, capacity, cooperation and data — are still missing in action,” U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said in a press release accompanying the organization’s State of Biodiversity Action report. Three of the world&#8217;s &#8220;megadiverse&#8221; countries are in Africa: The Democratic Republic of the Congo, Madagascar and South Africa make the list of 17 countries that are each home to at least 5,000 of the world&#8217;s plant species that are endemic. None of the three met the initial 2024 deadline for a national biodiversity strategy as set out under Kunming — South Africa still hasn’t submitted an action plan. The headline goal — to see 30% of&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/finance-and-indigenous-rights-top-africans-agenda-as-biodiversity-summit-opens-in-yerevan/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-333161</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Conservation is bringing species back. Governments must help those gains last</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/conservation-is-bringing-species-back-governments-must-help-those-gains-last/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/conservation-is-bringing-species-back-governments-must-help-those-gains-last/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>19 Oct 2026 12:38:55 +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/20/2026/10/19122516/blue_gecko_herps_639-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=333095</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Founder's briefs]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Global]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[30x30 conservation target, Biodiversity, Conservation, Conservation Finance, Environmental Policy, Protected Areas, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[&#160; Last year the Christmas Island shrew, slender-billed curlew, and three Australian bandicoots were among the species formally declared extinct. None has been seen in at least 30 years, but bureaucracy takes a while. They may be joined in the next decade or so by the vaquita and the Sumatran rhino. A child born today [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[&nbsp; Last year the Christmas Island shrew, slender-billed curlew, and three Australian bandicoots were among the species formally declared extinct. None has been seen in at least 30 years, but bureaucracy takes a while. They may be joined in the next decade or so by the vaquita and the Sumatran rhino. A child born today may grow up knowing them through archival footage of the last few animals or AI-generated simulations. But biodiversity loss isn’t only about species extinction. The death of a single elder elephant can have consequences for the entire herd. Her knowledge of water sources, for example, can be critical in a drought. And the disappearance of that herd can have knock-on effects on a forest. Seeds lose their dispersal mechanisms, and clearings maintained by elephants may fill in. The result is a less resilient ecosystem even if the change isn’t immediately apparent. Forest elephants in Dzanga Bai, Central African Republic. Image by Rhett A. Butler/Mongabay. Delegates gathering in Yerevan, Armenia, for the U.N.’s COP17 biodiversity talks will assess countries’ progress toward goals to slow these kinds of losses. Under the Kunming-Montreal biodiversity framework, adopted in 2022, governments pledged to conserve 30% of land and seas by 2030 and restore degraded ecosystems. Only four years remain before that deadline. The previous agreement doesn’t inspire much hope: not a single one of the 20 Aichi biodiversity targets had been fully achieved globally by 2020. Implementation of these agreements is also entirely at the mercy of whoever holds office.&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/conservation-is-bringing-species-back-governments-must-help-those-gains-last/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-333095</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Nearly 90% of countries adopt biodiversity targets, but most remain off track</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/nearly-90-of-countries-adopt-biodiversity-targets-but-most-remain-off-track/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/nearly-90-of-countries-adopt-biodiversity-targets-but-most-remain-off-track/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>17 Oct 2026 22:50:40 +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/20/2024/10/14035049/andrean-cock-of-the-rock-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=333071</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Founder's briefs]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Global]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[30x30 conservation target, Biodiversity, Conservation, Conservation Finance, and Protected Areas]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Thousands of delegates are now gathering in Yerevan to discuss the future of life on Earth as we know it at the U.N.’s COP17 biodiversity summit. Countries have made considerable progress in developing national conservation plans under the biodiversity framework agreed to at COP15 in Montreal in 2022, but most remain well off pace to [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Thousands of delegates are now gathering in Yerevan to discuss the future of life on Earth as we know it at the U.N.’s COP17 biodiversity summit. Countries have made considerable progress in developing national conservation plans under the biodiversity framework agreed to at COP15 in Montreal in 2022, but most remain well off pace to meet the overall goals set for 2030, according to an assessment published by the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity on Thursday. The report finds that nearly 90% of the Convention on Biological Diversity&#8217;s 196 parties have established national biodiversity targets, close to 60% have completed national biodiversity strategies and action plans, and more than 70% have submitted national reports. However, fewer than half of the national targets assessed by governments are on track. The U.S. is not a party to the treaty. Graphical representation of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. From State of Biodiversity Action: Global Report on Collective Progress in the Implementation of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework The framework set 23 targets aimed at halting and reversing biodiversity loss by 2030. They include conserving 30% of the world&#8217;s land and seas, restoring 30% of degraded ecosystems, reducing pollution and invasive species, slowing species extinctions, reforming subsidies that damage nature, and mobilizing $200 billion a year for biodiversity. Most countries have incorporated much of that agenda into national policy. At the time the report was prepared, 162 parties (83%) had established targets aligned with the global framework, covering an average of 22&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/nearly-90-of-countries-adopt-biodiversity-targets-but-most-remain-off-track/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-333071</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Biodiversity credits shouldn’t copy the carbon market playbook (commentary)</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/09/biodiversity-credits-shouldnt-copy-the-carbon-market-playbook-commentary/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/09/biodiversity-credits-shouldnt-copy-the-carbon-market-playbook-commentary/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>24 Sep 2026 13:25:37 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Jubanayan Saikia]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Erik Hoffner]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2021/10/12125135/8.-Habenaria-criniferaNasrilatha-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=330636</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Global]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Biodiversity credits, Business, Carbon Market, climate finance, Commentary, Conservation, Conservation Finance, and Finance]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Here is the argument I want to make plainly, before anything else: the biodiversity credit market should stop trying to copy carbon&#8217;s trick of reducing everything to one tradable unit, and should instead measure its own success by how continuously and independently a claim can be verified. Chasing a single elegant number, the way carbon [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Here is the argument I want to make plainly, before anything else: the biodiversity credit market should stop trying to copy carbon&#8217;s trick of reducing everything to one tradable unit, and should instead measure its own success by how continuously and independently a claim can be verified. Chasing a single elegant number, the way carbon markets did with metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (tCO2e), is not what this field should be racing toward. It may, in fact, be the wrong goal altogether. The clearest evidence for this sits in plain view, in numbers that most people read as an embarrassment rather than as information. Every few months, a new market research report tells us exactly how large the global biodiversity credit market is. The trouble is, no two reports agree. One puts the 2025 market at roughly $90 million. Another, published around the same time, puts it at $7.1 billion. A third lands somewhere near $5.7 billion. These are not small rounding-off differences. They are the same year, the same broad market, and estimates that differ by a factor of nearly 80. Mangroves and coral reef in Papua New Guinea. Image by Matt Curnock / Ocean Image Bank. Most commentary treats this gap as a sign that the data are still catching up with a young market, but I read it differently. The disagreement is not a data problem waiting for better satellites to fix. It is telling us something true about biodiversity that the carbon market never had&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/09/biodiversity-credits-shouldnt-copy-the-carbon-market-playbook-commentary/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-330636</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Community-based conservation is a good climate investment in Brazil &#038; beyond (commentary)</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/09/community-based-conservation-is-a-good-climate-investment-in-brazil-beyond-commentary/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/09/community-based-conservation-is-a-good-climate-investment-in-brazil-beyond-commentary/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>17 Sep 2026 14:39:13 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Ana Cristina BarrosCarlos Eduardo Viveiros GrelleKatia Ribeiro Torres]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Erik Hoffner]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/01/29122935/Fisher-768x512.png" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=330134</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Brazil, Global, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[climate finance, Commentary, Community Development, Community-based Conservation, Conservation, Conservation Finance, Development, Finance, Governance, Indigenous Peoples, and Sustainable Forest Management]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[More than half a century has passed since Garrett Hardin published The Tragedy of the Commons in Science in 1968. In that influential article, he argued that human greed and short-term thinking would drive societies toward collapse. Hardin illustrated his argument with the well-known example of herders sharing a pasture: each herder would receive all [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[More than half a century has passed since Garrett Hardin published The Tragedy of the Commons in Science in 1968. In that influential article, he argued that human greed and short-term thinking would drive societies toward collapse. Hardin illustrated his argument with the well-known example of herders sharing a pasture: each herder would receive all the income from adding another animal, while the cost of consuming the grass would be shared by all. The path toward pasture depletion was therefore set, as some herders would keep adding animals for their own benefit rather than restrain themselves in the name of an abstract collective good. For Hardin, there was no way to change this equation; the solution for the sustainability of life on the planet was population control. Two decades later, and not by chance, it was a woman who challenged this foretold tragedy, showing that, under certain conditions, human beings can be organized and perceptive enough to cooperate and avert collective failure. Elinor Ostrom developed a theory of cooperation applied to the use of common-pool resources, explaining how locally agreed rules can enable shared benefits. It was an expression of confidence in human social intelligence. The point is not to decide who was right or wrong. Hardin’s argument helps us understand why reducing greenhouse gas emissions remains so difficult, as do countless examples of the degradation of humanity’s natural heritage and, consequently, of the foundations of our future. Ostrom, in turn, helps explain many successful cases of collective natural resource&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/09/community-based-conservation-is-a-good-climate-investment-in-brazil-beyond-commentary/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-330134</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Biodiversity corridor payments boost household incomes in Vietnam’s Annamite mountains</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/09/biodiversity-corridor-payments-boost-household-incomes-in-vietnams-annamite-mountains/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/09/biodiversity-corridor-payments-boost-household-incomes-in-vietnams-annamite-mountains/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>14 Sep 2026 02:00:47 +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/20/2026/09/13113754/Banner_Original_WW1304086-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=329528</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Southeast Asia, and Vietnam]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Community Forests, Conservation, Conservation Finance, Forest Fragmentation, Fragmentation, Funding, Governance, Habitat, Indigenous Peoples, Payments For Ecosystem Services, Protected Areas, Research, Sustainable Forest Management, Wildlife, and Wildlife Corridors]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Conservationists say connecting existing protected areas through biodiversity corridors is vital in many landscapes to prevent further loss of species and habitats. Yet the households living inside conservation areas often face stark financial tradeoffs associated with lost access to resources, sometimes making new designations controversial. A recent study from the rugged mountains of central Vietnam, [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Conservationists say connecting existing protected areas through biodiversity corridors is vital in many landscapes to prevent further loss of species and habitats. Yet the households living inside conservation areas often face stark financial tradeoffs associated with lost access to resources, sometimes making new designations controversial. A recent study from the rugged mountains of central Vietnam, however, suggests that biodiversity corridors can bring significant economic benefits to the households who live inside them. The study, published in Conservation Science and Practice, analyzed interviews with 120 families living in four villages in Quang Nam and Thua Thien provinces within the Annamite mountain range to find out how financial incentives tied to two biodiversity corridors connecting isolated protected areas affected people’s lives and livelihoods. Households inside biodiversity corridors earned substantially more, mainly from conservation-linked payments, than those outside them. However, they also made less money from forest resources due to greater restrictions on how they could use their land. The researchers say their findings underscore how conservation-linked payments and other longer-term benefits from living near flourishing forests, such as water purification, healthy pollinator populations and conservation-based jobs, can help communities recoup income they once derived from forest exploitation. “By providing regular financial benefits from forest protection, programs like PFES [Payment for Forest Ecosystem Services] create incentives for communities to maintain forest cover and reduce pressures on critical habitats,” study lead author Nguyen Van Tri Tin, a conservation scientist at Southern Cross University in Australia at the time of the study, told Mongabay in&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/09/biodiversity-corridor-payments-boost-household-incomes-in-vietnams-annamite-mountains/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-329528</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Indigenous land back in Chile brings mixed bag of environmental outcomes: Study</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/09/indigenous-land-back-in-chile-brings-mixed-bag-of-environmental-outcomes-study/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/09/indigenous-land-back-in-chile-brings-mixed-bag-of-environmental-outcomes-study/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>09 Sep 2026 18:59:33 +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/20/2026/09/09154250/Pictures-of-the-Week-Latin-America-and-Caribbean-Photo-Gallery-768x512.jpeg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=329292</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Indigenous Peoples and Conservation]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Chile, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Community Forests, Community-based Conservation, Conservation, Degraded Lands, forest degradation, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Reserves, Land Rights, Land Use Change, Livestock, Payments For Ecosystem Services, Plantations, Protected Areas, and Timber]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Indigenous land restitution in Chile came with a mixed bag of environmental outcomes and did not boost natural forest cover, according to a new study published in Nature Sustainability. While the return of ancestral lands gave the Indigenous Mapuche communities in southern Chile greater control over how their land was used — leading to an [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Indigenous land restitution in Chile came with a mixed bag of environmental outcomes and did not boost natural forest cover, according to a new study published in Nature Sustainability. While the return of ancestral lands gave the Indigenous Mapuche communities in southern Chile greater control over how their land was used — leading to an increase in grasslands for livestock production and a reduction in non-native tree plantations — it did not improve biodiversity, carbon sequestration or erosion control. Researchers say these findings challenge long-held assumptions that Indigenous self-determination automatically equates to positive changes in natural forests, carbon sequestration or biodiversity. “In the past, conservation advocates have at times adopted romanticized views of what such self-determination would mean, assuming that Indigenous communities will always choose to allocate land towards more ‘natural’ uses,” said study co-author Robert Heilmayr, an associate professor at the University of California Santa Barbara in the U.S. He told Mongabay over email that the new research “complicates this narrative,” arguing that true self-determination only emerges when Indigenous communities define for themselves what land uses align with their needs and values. The study set out to understand how Indigenous land restitution in Biobío, Araucanía, Los Ríos and Los Lagos reshapes the environment. It did so by analyzing satellite and administrative data from 1,577 properties across 36 communities to compare land use and environmental outcomes before and after land restitution. Researchers focused on what happened after a Chilean land restitution program, known as the Chilean Indigenous Land and Water&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/09/indigenous-land-back-in-chile-brings-mixed-bag-of-environmental-outcomes-study/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/09/indigenous-land-back-in-chile-brings-mixed-bag-of-environmental-outcomes-study/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-329292</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>In Panama’s Darién, Indigenous communities test a new way to fund conservation</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/09/in-panamas-darien-indigenous-communities-test-a-new-way-to-fund-conservation/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/09/in-panamas-darien-indigenous-communities-test-a-new-way-to-fund-conservation/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>07 Sep 2026 15:10:14 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[María Paula Rubiano A.]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Alexandra Popescu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/01/15163740/panama_240512162306_0722-e1768495168974-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=328986</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Central America, North America, and Panama]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Biodiversity credits, Community Forests, Community-based Conservation, Conservation, Conservation Finance, Ecosystems, Finance, In-situ Conservation, Indigenous Peoples, Jaguars, Monitoring, Tropical Forests, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[When Elsa Quiroz saw the spotted body of a jaguar appear on her son’s computer screen, she couldn’t believe her eyes. “I’d only seen them in books,” she said. In late 2025, a camera captured the animal crossing a semi-abandoned path in Puerto Lara, a an Indigenous Wounaan village north of Panama’s Darien forest, close [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[When Elsa Quiroz saw the spotted body of a jaguar appear on her son’s computer screen, she couldn’t believe her eyes. “I’d only seen them in books,” she said. In late 2025, a camera captured the animal crossing a semi-abandoned path in Puerto Lara, a an Indigenous Wounaan village north of Panama’s Darien forest, close to the Pan-American Highway, an area known for its rich biodiversity. The community was aware of how many birds lived around them, but not of the jaguars. Samuel Cheucarama, Quiroz’s son, reviews each photo taken by the two cameras installed in Puerto Lara every two weeks. He was as astonished as his mom when he first saw the extent of the biodiversity concealed within Puerto Lara’s forest, which covers an area less than twice the size of New York City’s Central Park. He reels off the list: agoutis, spotted rabbits, turkeys, margays, white-headed monkeys, among others, all found within this wilderness of just 600 hectares, or less than 1,500 acres. Cheucarama’s work is a small part of a wider project promoting nature-based economic alternatives in four communities managing a combined 18,000 hectares (about 44,500 acres) of tropical forest in eastern Panama. Although the Panamanian government has made efforts to reduce deforestation in Darién National Park, deforestation from illegal logging and agricultural expansion has increasingly been putting communities under pressure, with little to no support from local and national authorities. As a result, communities have been exploring alternatives to make their conservation efforts economically viable. In&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/09/in-panamas-darien-indigenous-communities-test-a-new-way-to-fund-conservation/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/09/in-panamas-darien-indigenous-communities-test-a-new-way-to-fund-conservation/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-328986</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>UN fund for sharing biodiversity benefits struggles for attention — and money</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/09/un-fund-for-sharing-biodiversity-benefits-struggles-for-attention-and-money/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/09/un-fund-for-sharing-biodiversity-benefits-struggles-for-attention-and-money/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>01 Sep 2026 07:17:33 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Mactilda Mbenywe]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Malavika Vyawhare]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/09/01021940/31248760644_5d0887d57d_k-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=328108</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, East Africa, and Kenya]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, climate finance, Conservation Finance, data, Economics, Genetics, Governance, Research, Science, Technology, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[NAIROBI — On Nov. 19, 2025, a small U.K.-based artificial intelligence startup called TierraViva AI transferred $1,000 to a United Nations trust account. It was the first payment ever received by the Cali Fund, a mechanism created at the U.N. biodiversity summit a year earlier in Cali, Colombia. The fund’s objective appears straightforward: to get [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[NAIROBI — On Nov. 19, 2025, a small U.K.-based artificial intelligence startup called TierraViva AI transferred $1,000 to a United Nations trust account. It was the first payment ever received by the Cali Fund, a mechanism created at the U.N. biodiversity summit a year earlier in Cali, Colombia. The fund’s objective appears straightforward: to get companies that benefit from “digital sequence information” — the policy term for digitized genetic information from biodiversity from around the world — to share some of those benefits with the countries that host that biodiversity and the Indigenous peoples and local communities who protect it. The Cali Fund formally opened for contributions on Feb. 25, 2025. As of August, this year, it had two confirmed contributions totaling $6,000. That’s far short of the $1 billion a year that the fund was expected to mobilize. TierraViva’s chief executive told Carbon Brief that the payment was an “ice-breaker,” intended to encourage other companies “who may be hesitating.” A second company, U.S. biotech firm Ginkgo Bioworks, had announced its intention to contribute earlier in the year but had not yet transferred any money. In July, another U,K-based company, biotech firm Prozomix, contributed $5,000 to the fund (though per current rules, it did not have to). “Nobody knows about the fund,” Astrid Schomaker, executive secretary of the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), told Mongabay in an interview at the U.N. Environment Programme headquarters in Nairobi, where negotiators gathered in late July and August for preparatory meetings ahead of&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/09/un-fund-for-sharing-biodiversity-benefits-struggles-for-attention-and-money/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/09/un-fund-for-sharing-biodiversity-benefits-struggles-for-attention-and-money/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-328108</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Can REDD+ deliver for Philippines’ Iraya Mangyan?</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/can-redd-deliver-for-philippines-iraya-mangyan/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/can-redd-deliver-for-philippines-iraya-mangyan/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>26 Aug 2026 02:01:54 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Keith Anthony Fabro]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Isabel Esterman]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/08/25201552/Pederico-Garcia-traditional-healer-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=327306</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Philippines, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Avoided Deforestation, Biodiversity, Community-based Conservation, Conservation, Conservation Finance, Conservation Solutions, Ecosystems, Forest Carbon, Forests, Indigenous Peoples, Nature-based climate solutions, Protected Areas, Rainforests, Redd, Saving Rainforests, Solutions, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[PUERTO GALERA, Philippines — Before sunrise, Bernito Pampilo shoulders a backpack carrying a mobile phone, flashlight and enough food — he hopes — for a day’s patrol through the forests of Puerto Galera in northern Mindoro, about 120 kilometers (75 miles) south of Manila. By around 6 a.m., the 56-year-old Iraya Mangyan patroller and two [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[PUERTO GALERA, Philippines — Before sunrise, Bernito Pampilo shoulders a backpack carrying a mobile phone, flashlight and enough food — he hopes — for a day’s patrol through the forests of Puerto Galera in northern Mindoro, about 120 kilometers (75 miles) south of Manila. By around 6 a.m., the 56-year-old Iraya Mangyan patroller and two companions leave their mountain outpost in Aninuan village after praying to Apo Iraya, the creator, for protection. Their route crosses rivers, steep ridges, dense vegetation and deep natural holes known locally as balahaw. “If you walk too quickly, sometimes you won’t see the hole,” Pampilo told Mongabay. “If you fall into it, you could die.” Some patrols continue into the night, forcing the team to cross rivers and climb ridges by flashlight. Mobile apps point them toward assigned coordinates, but not toward the safest path. The forest lies within the 14,661-hectare (36,228-acre) Puerto Galera Biosphere Reserve, designated by UNESCO in 1977. For Pampilo, the work is more than a job. It is part of an effort to protect forests his community has depended on for generations while testing whether an international climate mechanism can deliver lasting Indigenous benefits. Led by the Center for Conservation Innovations Philippines Inc. (CCIPH), the Mindoro Forest and Biodiversity Conservation Programme (MFBCP) aims to conserve more than 40,000 hectares (nearly 99,000 acres) of ancestral forest, while supporting about 2,500 Iraya Mangyan households. Running from 2020 to 2049, it combines ancestral-domain recognition, carbon monitoring, Indigenous patrols and livelihood projects under the United&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/can-redd-deliver-for-philippines-iraya-mangyan/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/can-redd-deliver-for-philippines-iraya-mangyan/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-327306</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>In Spain &#038; South Africa, communities use restoration to &#8216;grow&#8217; fire insurance (commentary)</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/in-spain-south-africa-communities-use-restoration-to-grow-fire-insurance-commentary/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/in-spain-south-africa-communities-use-restoration-to-grow-fire-insurance-commentary/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>24 Aug 2026 19:24:29 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Claire PattersonPenelope Choussat]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Erik Hoffner]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/08/24184231/Screenshot-2026-07-14-at-18.24.44-768x512.jpeg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=327163</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Europe, Global, South Africa, Southern Africa, and Spain]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Commentary, Conservation, Conservation Finance, Conservation Solutions, Ecosystem Services, Ecosystems, Environment, Finance, Fires, Forests, Landscape Restoration, Nature-based climate solutions, Restoration, Solutions, and Sustainable Forest Management]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Huddled shoulder to shoulder, a flicker of glowing orange illuminates the faces gathered around. The world quiets. The dark presses in from every side, and the cold with it. At the center of it all, a fire is roaring. Fire warmed us, fed us, and kept the dark at bay long after the sun went [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Huddled shoulder to shoulder, a flicker of glowing orange illuminates the faces gathered around. The world quiets. The dark presses in from every side, and the cold with it. At the center of it all, a fire is roaring. Fire warmed us, fed us, and kept the dark at bay long after the sun went down, allowing us to gather together when solitude was the alternative. But the same flames that draw people together can just as easily tear through a landscape, destroying livelihoods and communities. Whether they do depends on the condition of the land itself. In some cases, fires are a natural part of the ecosystem. But when forests are poorly managed they become fuel waiting for a spark. Invasive vegetation, in particular, can burn hotter and more explosively than the indigenous ecosystems it displaces, turning a landscape adapted to survive fire into one that is destroyed by it. Restore the landscape, and you don&#8217;t eliminate fire, but you can change how fire behaves. In that sense, healthy landscapes act as vital risk infrastructure, reducing the likelihood that a spark becomes a catastrophe. The landscapes of Spain&#8217;s Muga Valley and South Africa&#8217;s Langkloof share a history of poor management that has left them degraded and exposed to wildfire. Today, both areas are discovering that managing fire as a part of restoring ecosystems is vital to protecting both communities and economies from disaster. Two hours north of Barcelona, the Muga Valley is verdant but increasingly vulnerable to fire after&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/in-spain-south-africa-communities-use-restoration-to-grow-fire-insurance-commentary/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/in-spain-south-africa-communities-use-restoration-to-grow-fire-insurance-commentary/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-327163</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Mariano Cenamo, advocate for a sustainable Amazon bioeconomy, has died, aged 46</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/mariano-cenamo-advocate-for-a-sustainable-amazon-bioeconomy-has-died-aged-46/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/mariano-cenamo-advocate-for-a-sustainable-amazon-bioeconomy-has-died-aged-46/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>10 Aug 2026 00:02:06 +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/20/2026/08/09220720/Mariano_Cenamo_Renato-Stockler_FolhaPress-2-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=325742</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Founder's briefs]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Brazil, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Carbon Credits, Carbon Market, Conservation Finance, Environment, Environmental Services, Forest Carbon, Forests, Natural Capital, Nature-based climate solutions, Obituary, Payments For Ecosystem Services, Rainforests, Redd, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[For people trying to protect the Amazon, one problem has persisted for decades. A hectare of intact forest stores carbon, regulates water, supports wildlife, and provides food and materials for the people who live there. Much of that value does not appear in an economic ledger. Cattle, timber, soy, and gold do. For a farmer, [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[For people trying to protect the Amazon, one problem has persisted for decades. A hectare of intact forest stores carbon, regulates water, supports wildlife, and provides food and materials for the people who live there. Much of that value does not appear in an economic ledger. Cattle, timber, soy, and gold do. For a farmer, a company, or a local government, clearing forest can therefore produce income more readily than keeping it standing. The Amazon bioeconomy grew from efforts to change that calculation. It includes forest products, agroforestry, biotechnology, carbon markets, and other businesses that depend on maintaining living forests. The aim is to make such activities commercially viable at a scale that matters. Mariano Cenamo spent most of his career working on that problem. He was 23 when he moved from São Paulo to Manaus in 2003. Trained as a forestry engineer at the University of São Paulo, he had first come to the Amazon for an internship. He stayed at the encouragement of Virgílio Viana, a former professor who was then Amazonas state&#8217;s environment secretary. Cenamo was struck by the gap between conservation work and the economic realities of people living in the forest. Environmental groups were doing important work, he later recalled, but local livelihoods often sat outside the conservation discussion. In 2004 he helped establish what became Idesam, the Institute for the Conservation and Sustainable Development of the Amazon. At first there was barely an institution. Cenamo later described himself as an &#8220;ING&#8221;, an indivíduo não&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/mariano-cenamo-advocate-for-a-sustainable-amazon-bioeconomy-has-died-aged-46/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/mariano-cenamo-advocate-for-a-sustainable-amazon-bioeconomy-has-died-aged-46/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-325742</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Carbon markets alone won’t keep Southeast Asia’s forests standing, study says</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/carbon-markets-alone-wont-keep-southeast-asias-forests-standing-study-says/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/carbon-markets-alone-wont-keep-southeast-asias-forests-standing-study-says/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>04 Aug 2026 02:00:36 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Carolyn Cowan]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Isabel Esterman]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/08/02095503/Banner_Pied-hornbill_RAB-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=325137</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[agribusiness, Biodiversity, Business, Carbon Credits, Carbon Dioxide, Carbon Market, Carbon Sequestration, Conservation, Conservation Finance, Deforestation, Ecosystems, Finance, Forest Carbon, Forestry, Forests, Funding, Mitigation, Rainforests, Research, Secondary Forests, Solutions, Sustainable Forest Management, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Lush, leafy and luxuriantly diverse, tropical forests are home to an immense array of plants, animals and fungi. They also provide humanity with water, clean air and flood protection, and lock vast amounts of carbon in their tree trunks, roots and soils. Yet, forest conservation often loses out to extractive industries and agribusiness when valued [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Lush, leafy and luxuriantly diverse, tropical forests are home to an immense array of plants, animals and fungi. They also provide humanity with water, clean air and flood protection, and lock vast amounts of carbon in their tree trunks, roots and soils. Yet, forest conservation often loses out to extractive industries and agribusiness when valued through a purely economic lens. As a result, forests across the planet continue to be cleared in pursuit of financial profits. Across Southeast Asia alone, nearly 68 million hectares (168 million acres) of forest was lost between 2001 and 2023, much of it cleared to make way for logging, plantations and agriculture, according to researchers. However, new research indicates “massive and untapped” conservation potential remains within commercial concessions across the region. The study, published in Nature Communications, analyzed satellite data from 3,754 logging, oil palm, timber and rubber plantation concessions across four countries: Cambodia, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar. Roughly 42 million hectares (104 million acres) of intact forest was identified inside these concessions — an area larger than the entire country of Malaysia. Losing these forests could lead to emissions in the range of 1.2 gigatons of carbon dioxide over the next three decades, the study says, equivalent to 20% of all industrial carbon dioxide emissions across all 11 ASEAN countries between 2000 and 2023. Protection of forests inside production landscapes, therefore, presents a significant opportunity for conservation, the study authors say, if concession holders could be incentivized to switch from converting land to protecting it.&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/carbon-markets-alone-wont-keep-southeast-asias-forests-standing-study-says/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/carbon-markets-alone-wont-keep-southeast-asias-forests-standing-study-says/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-325137</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>How carbon markets can succeed &#038; also serve Global South communities (commentary)</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/how-carbon-markets-can-succeed-also-serve-global-south-communities-commentary/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/how-carbon-markets-can-succeed-also-serve-global-south-communities-commentary/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>27 Jul 2026 21:09:33 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Pati Ruiz Corzo]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Erik Hoffner]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/07/27182742/Encinos-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=324619</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Global, Mexico, and North America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Adaptation To Climate Change, Avoided Deforestation, Business, Carbon Dioxide, Carbon Emissions, Carbon Market, Carbon Sequestration, Certification, Climate, Climate Change, climate finance, Commentary, Conservation, Conservation Finance, Environment, Finance, Forest Carbon, forest degradation, Forests, Governance, Indigenous Peoples, Mitigation, Nature-based climate solutions, Rainforests, Solutions, Temperate Forests, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Carbon markets were designed around the compelling premise that private finance could flow where forests are most at risk, rewarding the communities and landowners who protect them while helping companies take responsibility for their emissions. For anyone working in climate or conservation, the underlying logic still holds. The world&#8217;s forests provide essential ecosystem services, capture [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Carbon markets were designed around the compelling premise that private finance could flow where forests are most at risk, rewarding the communities and landowners who protect them while helping companies take responsibility for their emissions. For anyone working in climate or conservation, the underlying logic still holds. The world&#8217;s forests provide essential ecosystem services, capture and store huge amounts of carbon dioxide, face enormous pressure, and need sustained economic incentives if they are to survive. So why has the voluntary carbon market so consistently fallen short of this promise? Over the past decade, the sector has faced mounting evidence that many carbon credits, particularly those issued for forest conservation in the Global South, have not delivered the climate outcomes they claimed. There have been well-documented cases of social harm to Indigenous and local communities, scientific analysis has repeatedly found that the methodologies used to calculate emissions reductions were prone to significant overestimation, and trust in the market, among both buyers and civil society, has been eroded. Military macaws (Ara militaris) flying over a forest in the Sierra Gorda. They are one of the many iconic and endangered species that call the forests of the Sierra Gorda home. Image courtesy of Roberto Pedraza Ruiz / Grupo Ecológico Sierra Gorda. However, this is not a reason to abandon the idea of climate finance for nature. It is a reason to understand what has gone wrong, and to ask what a more inclusive, just, and transparent model can look like. What hasn’t worked&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/how-carbon-markets-can-succeed-also-serve-global-south-communities-commentary/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/how-carbon-markets-can-succeed-also-serve-global-south-communities-commentary/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-324619</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>How Brazil’s federal fiscal policy hinders Amazon Rainforest conservation (commentary)</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/how-brazils-federal-fiscal-policy-hinders-amazon-rainforest-conservation-commentary/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/how-brazils-federal-fiscal-policy-hinders-amazon-rainforest-conservation-commentary/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>15 Jul 2026 14:05:47 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[João Gabriel de Araujo Oliveira]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Erik Hoffner]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2020/04/10170753/amazon_200509-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=323538</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Brazil, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Commentary, Conservation, Conservation Finance, Economics, Ecosystems, Environment, Finance, Forests, Governance, Rainforests, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The forests of the Brazilian Amazon are, by any measure, among the most important ecosystems on Earth. They absorb carbon on a planetary scale, regulate rainfall across South America, and shelter biodiversity that science is still cataloging. International negotiations, carbon markets, and diplomatic agreements all rest on the assumption that these forests will remain standing. [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The forests of the Brazilian Amazon are, by any measure, among the most important ecosystems on Earth. They absorb carbon on a planetary scale, regulate rainfall across South America, and shelter biodiversity that science is still cataloging. International negotiations, carbon markets, and diplomatic agreements all rest on the assumption that these forests will remain standing. Yet while the Amazon spans nine Brazilian states, the three whose territory is most overwhelmingly forest — and which therefore carry the heaviest share of the conservation burden — are among the poorest and most fiscally dependent in the country. The states of Amapá, Acre, and Amazonas operate on budgets so dependent on federal transfers that they have almost no fiscal room to act on their own. That is not a coincidence. It is a design flaw in Brazil&#8217;s fiscal constitution, and it is getting worse. The argument here is simple: Brazil cannot credibly lead global climate diplomacy while its Amazonian states remain fiscally trapped. The forest will not protect itself. And the states responsible for protecting it do not have the money to do so. Tropical forest near Atalaia do Norte, Amazonas, Brazil. Image by Gloria Pallares for Mongabay. What the budgets show Amapá is larger than Ecuador. Nearly three-quarters of its territory is classified as federally protected land — national parks, Indigenous reserves, and conservation units — that the state is legally obligated to maintain but receives no specific compensation for. In 2025, more than 60% of its entire state budget came from&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/how-brazils-federal-fiscal-policy-hinders-amazon-rainforest-conservation-commentary/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/how-brazils-federal-fiscal-policy-hinders-amazon-rainforest-conservation-commentary/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-323538</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Our Ocean Conference in Kenya ends with $6.4 billion in pledges, review of past promises</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/our-ocean-conference-in-kenya-ends-with-6-4-billion-in-pledges-review-of-past-promises/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/our-ocean-conference-in-kenya-ends-with-6-4-billion-in-pledges-review-of-past-promises/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>26 Jun 2026 07:11:38 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Malavika Vyawahare]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rebecca Kessler]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/06/25121317/Mangroves-Kwale-Kenya-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=321802</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, East Africa, and Kenya]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Conservation Finance, Ecosystems, Finance, Fish, Freshwater Fish, Marine, Ocean Warming, Oceans, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[MOMBASA — Africa was front and center at the Our Ocean Conference in Kenya, the first time the annual gathering was held on the continent. The conference is built around voluntary commitments from a range of actors including governments, nonprofits, institutions and the private sector. The meeting in Mombasa, a port city on Kenya’s Indian [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[MOMBASA — Africa was front and center at the Our Ocean Conference in Kenya, the first time the annual gathering was held on the continent. The conference is built around voluntary commitments from a range of actors including governments, nonprofits, institutions and the private sector. The meeting in Mombasa, a port city on Kenya’s Indian Ocean coast, brought 6,000 delegates together under the theme &#8220;Our Ocean, Our Heritage, Our Future.” The focus was on expanding protections, strengthening marine security, developing sustainable blue economies and fisheries, and addressing problems such as marine pollution and climate change. A preliminary roundup showed that more than 104 players came forward to announce commitments that would mobilize $6.4 billion. “When we launched this conference in 2014, we wanted more than speeches, we wanted people to come to the table with an announcement of specifically what they will do and when and how much it will cost,” John Kerry, the former U.S. secretary of state who founded the conference, said at the opening ceremony on June 17. Turning ambition into action was a recurring theme across the three-day conference. “We did not come to Mombasa to add our names to a longer list of promises. We came to turn the tide,” Kenya’s President William Ruto said at the closing ceremony on June 18. “Let the measure of this conference not be what we pledged on the shore, but what we deliver in the waters.” The East African nation laid out more than 40 commitments backed by&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/our-ocean-conference-in-kenya-ends-with-6-4-billion-in-pledges-review-of-past-promises/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/our-ocean-conference-in-kenya-ends-with-6-4-billion-in-pledges-review-of-past-promises/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-321802</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Africa’s community-led marine organizations on which 30&#215;30 depends</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/africas-community-led-marine-organizations-on-which-30x30-depends/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/africas-community-led-marine-organizations-on-which-30x30-depends/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>17 Jun 2026 10:45:16 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[David Akana]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Malavika Vyawhare]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/06/17102647/486611801_1125966072908240_4237381363299060798_n-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=321349</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[30x30 conservation target, Activism, Animals, Biodiversity, Climate Change, climate finance, Conservation, Conservation Finance, Economics, Environment, Finance, Fish, Freshwater Fish, Mangroves, Marine Animals, Marine Mammals, Ocean Warming, Oceans, Plants, Research, Science, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[This week, thousands of delegates are gathered in Mombasa, Kenya, for the first Our Ocean Conference to be hosted on African soil. As expected, much of the conversation will focus on the global &#8220;30&#215;30&#8221; target — protecting 30% of the world&#8217;s land, freshwater and oceans by 2030. Yet, far from the conference halls, the big [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[This week, thousands of delegates are gathered in Mombasa, Kenya, for the first Our Ocean Conference to be hosted on African soil. As expected, much of the conversation will focus on the global &#8220;30&#215;30&#8221; target — protecting 30% of the world&#8217;s land, freshwater and oceans by 2030. Yet, far from the conference halls, the big pledges and state commitments, many of the people doing the daily work of marine conservation are community organizations operating on modest budgets along Africa’s coastlines. They often do so far from the spotlight, but their contribution is vital for the global ambition to conserve ocean spaces. The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), under whose Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework the 2030 targets were adopted, highlights that success hinges heavily on community involvement. Across Kenya, Tanzania and Namibia, four such groups — Coastal and Marine Resource Development (COMRED), Action for Ocean, Mwambao Coastal Community Network and the Namibia Nature Foundation (NNF) — offer a window into what community-led marine conservation looks like in practice. Their work might be underfunded, uneven and sometimes slow, but are increasingly central to how marine protection is imagined on the continent. Marine ecosystems in Africa support fisheries, tourism, transport, carbon storage and coastal protection while sustaining millions of livelihoods from the Western Indian Ocean to Africa’s Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts. In East Africa in particular, mangroves, coral reefs, seagrass meadows and nearshore fisheries underpin food systems and local economies even as they face pressure from overfishing, habitat degradation, climate change and pollution.&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/africas-community-led-marine-organizations-on-which-30x30-depends/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/africas-community-led-marine-organizations-on-which-30x30-depends/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-321349</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Fisheries and climate research would be hit hard in Trump’s proposed budget</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/fisheries-and-climate-research-would-be-hit-hard-in-trumps-proposed-budget/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/fisheries-and-climate-research-would-be-hit-hard-in-trumps-proposed-budget/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>02 Jun 2026 12:58:33 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Elizabeth Claire Alberts]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Autumn Spanne]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/06/01110627/o.-Julie-Larsen_3784-Harbor-Seals-and-Gulls-Maine-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=320392</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[North America and United States]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Climate, Climate Change, climate finance, Conservation, Conservation Finance, Environment, Environmental Policy, Finance, Fish, Fisheries, Fishing, Governance, Industry, Oceans, Politics, and Research]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Physicist Stephen Volz had been working with colleagues at the U.S.’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for nearly 10 years to produce a new generation of geostationary satellites — instruments that would provide critical observations about atmospheric conditions, climate patterns and weather. But when Donald Trump returned to office in January 2025, this long-term project [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Physicist Stephen Volz had been working with colleagues at the U.S.’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for nearly 10 years to produce a new generation of geostationary satellites — instruments that would provide critical observations about atmospheric conditions, climate patterns and weather. But when Donald Trump returned to office in January 2025, this long-term project was thrown into disarray. “This administration canceled three of the five instruments on that program,” Volz, the assistant administrator for NOAA’s National Environmental Satellite, Data, and Information Service, who has been on administrative leave since July 2025, told Mongabay. The cancellations applied to instruments that measured air pollutants, tracked lightning to forecast hurricanes and tornadoes, and monitored ocean color to detect events such as algal blooms, sargassum seaweed surges and salinity changes, according to Volz. “They said, ‘those are all wasted money, they&#8217;re climate alarmist, I don&#8217;t need air quality, I don&#8217;t need ocean color,’” Volz said about the administration’s decision. The axing of this project is just one example of what experts describe as a broad, long-term effort by the Trump administration to weaken NOAA. The long-standing scientific and regulatory agency within the U.S. Department of Commerce has historically been responsible for everything from forecasting the weather and monitoring the climate to managing fisheries and protecting marine mammals. The White House did not respond to Mongabay’s request for comment. NOAA’s GOES-19 satellite, which tracks hurricanes and tropical storms in the Atlantic Ocean basin, as well as monitor severe weather, atmospheric rivers, wildfires, volcanic eruptions&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/fisheries-and-climate-research-would-be-hit-hard-in-trumps-proposed-budget/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-320392</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>In Brazil, a project paying farmers for forests is looking to scale up</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/in-brazil-a-project-paying-farmers-for-forests-is-looking-to-scale-up/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/in-brazil-a-project-paying-farmers-for-forests-is-looking-to-scale-up/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>01 Jun 2026 11:01:21 +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/20/2026/05/01104033/10895990-3d53-4c9b-99ef-0ed67f41bc96-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=320294</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Brazil, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Avoided Deforestation, Carbon Emissions, Conservation, Conservation Finance, Conservation Solutions, Deforestation, Farming, Happy-upbeat Environmental, Nature-based climate solutions, Payments For Ecosystem Services, and Solutions]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Landowner Carlos Roberto Simonetti gets three harvests per year from the corn, soy and cotton plantations on his 17,000-hectare (about 42,000 acres) farm called Fazenda Natureza Feliz, or Happy Nature, in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso. Over the course of four years, he would also get what he calls a fourth harvest, this time [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Landowner Carlos Roberto Simonetti gets three harvests per year from the corn, soy and cotton plantations on his 17,000-hectare (about 42,000 acres) farm called Fazenda Natureza Feliz, or Happy Nature, in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso. Over the course of four years, he would also get what he calls a fourth harvest, this time from the forested areas of his property, located where the Cerrado savanna meets the Amazon Rainforest. That’s because Simonetti would receive regular payments for protecting native vegetation beyond what the law requires, as part of a pilot project for payment for ecosystem services (PES) run by the Amazon Environmental Research Institute (IPAM), an NGO, in the states of Mato Grosso and Pará. The program, called CONSERV, gives landowners financial incentives to keep the forest standing even in areas which they are legally allowed to clear. The pilot project, which initially ran between 2020 and 2024 on 23 different properties, protected 20,707 hectares (about 51,170 acres) of land in the Cerrado and Amazon biomes with funding from the governments of Norway and The Netherlands. Ongoing contracts funded by Soft Commodities Forum members – agribusiness companies committed to preserving the Cerrado – are protecting a further 7,000 hectares (about 17,300 acres) in the states of Mato Grosso and Maranhão. IPAM is now seeking to scale up the program without relying on donations. The risk of legal deforestation The idea for CONSERV goes back to 2016, when an internal IPAM report calculated that around 1.5 million hectares (3.7&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/in-brazil-a-project-paying-farmers-for-forests-is-looking-to-scale-up/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-320294</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>The Amazon’s path from crisis to durability</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/the-amazons-path-from-crisis-to-durability/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/the-amazons-path-from-crisis-to-durability/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>28 May 2026 23:05:41 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Rhett Ayers Butler]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rhett Butler]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/05/28225126/amazon_201628_26-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=320267</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Founder's briefs]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Brazil, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Bioeconomy, Conservation Finance, Environment, Environmental Law, Forests, Governance, Indigenous Rights, Land Use Change, Law Enforcement, Protected Areas, Rainforests, Remote Sensing, Saving Rainforests, Solutions, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[In the Amazon, a forest can remain on the map while losing much of what makes it function. The Amazon rainforest is often discussed through a few familiar measures: deforestation, carbon, protected areas, and tipping points. Each is useful. But they do not fully explain why biodiversity continues to decline even where maps still show [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[In the Amazon, a forest can remain on the map while losing much of what makes it function. The Amazon rainforest is often discussed through a few familiar measures: deforestation, carbon, protected areas, and tipping points. Each is useful. But they do not fully explain why biodiversity continues to decline even where maps still show forest, laws exist, and international pledges sound ambitious. A territory can be recognized and still be invaded. A satellite can detect illegal clearing and still fail to trigger a penalty. A story can describe crisis and still leave readers unsure what can be done. Six gaps help explain the problem: finance and forest economy, governance, enforcement, forest function, Indigenous rights, and narrative. They overlap in ways that make each harder to close. The finance and forest-economy gap Protecting forests costs money every year. It requires staff, transport, monitoring, community work, legal support, fire control, restoration, and the ability to respond when illegal actors arrive. Yet the money available for those tasks remains far below the scale of the problem. Globally, UNEP estimates that forest investments need to reach about $300 billion a year by 2030 to meet climate, biodiversity, and land-degradation targets. The report also notes that this figure excludes some enabling conditions, including governance and law enforcement, which means the true need is probably higher. The Brazilian Amazon shows the imbalance more clearly. WWF and Conservation Strategy Fund estimate that Brazil needs about $12.8 billion a year to meet forest policy goals. Current positive&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/the-amazons-path-from-crisis-to-durability/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-320267</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Brazil has protected much of the Amazon. It now has to pay for it.</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/brazil-has-protected-much-of-the-amazon-it-now-has-to-pay-for-it/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/brazil-has-protected-much-of-the-amazon-it-now-has-to-pay-for-it/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>26 May 2026 00:35:10 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Rhett Ayers Butler]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rhett Butler]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/05/25225357/amazon_200260-16x9-1-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=320088</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Founder's briefs]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Brazil, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Conservation, Conservation Finance, Environment, Forests, Funding, Parks, Protected Areas, Rainforests, Saving Rainforests, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[For protected areas in the Brazilian Amazon, one of the most basic questions is not where the boundary lies. It is whether anyone has the money to manage what sits inside it. A reserve may exist in law. It may appear on maps, in international pledges, and in official counts of how much of Brazil [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[For protected areas in the Brazilian Amazon, one of the most basic questions is not where the boundary lies. It is whether anyone has the money to manage what sits inside it. A reserve may exist in law. It may appear on maps, in international pledges, and in official counts of how much of Brazil is under protection. On the ground, though, management depends on less visible things: staff, fuel, boats, radios, boundary markers, fire brigades, monitoring, community work, and the ability to respond when illegal miners, loggers, poachers, or land-grabbers arrive. A protected area without these things is still protected, but only in a narrow administrative sense. A gap measured in money A new paper in Environmental Conservation puts numbers to this gap. The study, by Helenilza Ferreira Albuquerque Cunha and colleagues, examined funding deficits in 300 federal protected areas in Brazil between 2014 and 2023. Together, those areas cover nearly 750,000 square kilometers, representing most of the protected areas managed by ICMBio, Brazil’s federal biodiversity agency. The researchers compared actual spending with evidence-based estimates of the minimum cost of managing each site. In 2023, 72% of the protected areas they studied were underfunded. The combined shortfall was equivalent to about $958 million in purchasing-power terms. The gap was largest in the Amazon. According to the paper, Amazonian protected areas had an average funding deficit of 79.2% in 2023. In practical terms, they received about one-fifth of what they needed. In the Atlantic Forest, the average deficit was 27.6%.&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/brazil-has-protected-much-of-the-amazon-it-now-has-to-pay-for-it/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-320088</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Carbon cowboys and unpaid pledges: Ex-Gabon environment minister Lee White on conservation in Africa</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/carbon-cowboys-and-unpaid-pledges-ex-gabon-environment-minister-lee-white-on-conservation-in-africa/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/carbon-cowboys-and-unpaid-pledges-ex-gabon-environment-minister-lee-white-on-conservation-in-africa/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>25 May 2026 10:22:40 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Elodie Toto]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Malavika Vyawhare]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/05/22132543/515214292_24384176691218875_2892785947593807379_n-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=319983</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Central Africa, and Congo Basin]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Climate, Climate Change, climate finance, Conservation, Conservation Finance, Energy, Environment, Forests, Governance, and Politics]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[On May 11 and 12, 2026, the Africa Forward Summit took place in Nairobi, with several heads of state from across the continent and beyond attending. Thousands of political, economic and civil society actors also gathered in the Kenyan capital to discuss potential investments, particularly in the fields of energy transition and international financial assistance. [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[On May 11 and 12, 2026, the Africa Forward Summit took place in Nairobi, with several heads of state from across the continent and beyond attending. Thousands of political, economic and civil society actors also gathered in the Kenyan capital to discuss potential investments, particularly in the fields of energy transition and international financial assistance. Lee White, Gabon’s former minister of water, forests, marine and environment, was in Nairobi on the sidelines of the summit to discuss carbon markets and Africa’s development. Originally from the United Kingdom, White is a naturalized Gabonese citizen. A scientist and zoology Ph.D., he took over the reins of Gabon’s National Parks Agency (ANPN) in 2009, and 10 years later was appointed environment minister under the controversial presidency of Ali Bongo Ondimba. Following the 2023 coup d’état that ousted Bongo from power, White left Gabon and his ministerial position, but did not leave Central Africa behind. During the COP30 U.N. climate summit in Belém, Brazil, he served as a special envoy for the Congo Basin. Mongabay spoke to White over video call about the challenges facing the Congo Basin and the paths African countries should take to address them. The following interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity. Mongabay: During the Africa Forward Summit, France announced that it would sign agreements with several African countries generating up to 23 billion euros ($26.7 billion) in investments. These investments will target climate and energy transition sectors, among others. What do you think about this? Lee&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/carbon-cowboys-and-unpaid-pledges-ex-gabon-environment-minister-lee-white-on-conservation-in-africa/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-319983</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Ocean philanthropy: small sums for a vast domain</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/ocean-philanthropy-small-sums-for-a-vast-domain/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/ocean-philanthropy-small-sums-for-a-vast-domain/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>11 May 2026 00:35:40 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Rhett Ayers Butler]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rhett Butler]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/05/07014337/OceanImageBank_EllenCuylaerts_01-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=318899</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Founder's briefs]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Global]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Conservation, Conservation Finance, Ecosystems, Marine, Marine Conservation, Marine Protected Areas, Oceans, philanthropy, and Shipping]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[For a realm that covers most of the planet, the ocean attracts a modest share of charitable attention. In philanthropic terms, it remains a niche cause: widely discussed, but thinly financed. That gap has narrowed in recent years, though only slightly and from a low base. Estimates suggest that ocean-focused philanthropy accounts for well under [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[For a realm that covers most of the planet, the ocean attracts a modest share of charitable attention. In philanthropic terms, it remains a niche cause: widely discussed, but thinly financed. That gap has narrowed in recent years, though only slightly and from a low base. Estimates suggest that ocean-focused philanthropy accounts for well under 1% of global charitable giving, despite the ocean’s role in climate regulation, food production, and trade. In absolute terms, funding has grown. Annual contributions rose from roughly $430 million in 2010 to about $1 billion by 2022, with foundation funding reaching around $1.2 billion in recent years, according to a report published last November by CEA Consulting. Total Foundation Ocean Funding (2015–2024). Graphic from &#8220;Funding Trends 2025: Tracking the State of Global Ocean Funding&#8221;. Ocean Philanthropic Funding from Legacy Funders and New Entrants (2015–2024). Legacy funders include grants data from any funders who began grantmaking in 2015 or earlier. New entrants include grants data from any funders who began grantmaking in the ocean space after 2015. Graphic from &#8220;Funding Trends 2025: Tracking the State of Global Ocean Funding&#8221;. Funding Trends 2025: Tracking the State of Global Ocean Funding estimates that foundation funding grew from roughly $633 million in 2015 before flattening over the past two years. Growth has come from larger commitments by established donors and the entry of new ones, though spending now appears to have leveled off. The field is concentrated. Very concentrated. A small group of foundations accounts for a large share&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/ocean-philanthropy-small-sums-for-a-vast-domain/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-318899</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Indonesia should avoid controversial programs to fund conservation (commentary)</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/indonesia-should-avoid-controversial-programs-to-fund-conservation-commentary/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/indonesia-should-avoid-controversial-programs-to-fund-conservation-commentary/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>08 May 2026 17:57:48 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Mohammad Yunus]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Erik Hoffner]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2022/08/08145329/sumatran-elephants-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=319016</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Indonesia, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Carbon Credits, climate finance, Commentary, Conservation, Conservation Finance, Ecotourism, Environment, Finance, and Funding]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Protecting nature is still a struggle due to funding gaps that governments across developing countries are struggling to close. Indonesia is no exception. For instance, its national parks are chronically underfunded, receiving only about $5 per hectare ($2 per acre) per year, far below the estimated needs of around $18/hectare ($7.30/acre) per year. This long-standing [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Protecting nature is still a struggle due to funding gaps that governments across developing countries are struggling to close. Indonesia is no exception. For instance, its national parks are chronically underfunded, receiving only about $5 per hectare ($2 per acre) per year, far below the estimated needs of around $18/hectare ($7.30/acre) per year. This long-standing shortfall has contributed to ongoing risks of degradation. While various financing innovations are being explored, no long-lasting solution has yet fully closed the gap, and searching for effective approaches is increasingly urgent. The Indonesian government has begun exploring ways to address this funding crisis, with officials arguing that national parks should become more financially self-sustaining rather than rely entirely on state budgets. To this end, the government will initiate programs such as carbon credits and premium tourism within national parks. One frequently cited pilot project is Way Kambas National Park (WKNP), one of the critical habitats for critically endangered species such as the Sumatran elephant, Sumatran tiger and Sumatran rhino. The government hopes these initiatives will strengthen conservation and provide economic benefits to surrounding communities. However, these programs are not without controversy. While the government presents them as innovative solutions, concerns appear about governance, transparency, and whose interests they ultimately serve. An investigative report by Tempo highlights the influence of politically connected actors and commercial interests, raising concerns that profit motives could outweigh stated goals such as strengthening conservation and benefiting local communities. Additionally, critics report that the planning process has lacked transparency, with some&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/indonesia-should-avoid-controversial-programs-to-fund-conservation-commentary/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-319016</doi>				</item>
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