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		<title>Conservation news</title>
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		<link>https://news.mongabay.com/list/conservation-leadership/</link>
		<description>Environmental science and conservation news</description>
		<lastBuildDate>Fri, 07 Aug 2026 18:21:57 +0000</lastBuildDate>
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	<title>News on Conservation leadership</title>
	<link>https://news.mongabay.com/list/conservation-leadership/</link>
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				<item>
					<title>Fighting new oil blocks in the Congo Basin: Interview with activist Pascal Mirindi</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/fighting-new-oil-blocks-in-the-congo-basin-interview-with-activist-pascal-mirindi/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/fighting-new-oil-blocks-in-the-congo-basin-interview-with-activist-pascal-mirindi/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>17 Jul 2026 15:49:54 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Dan Yessa]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Karen Coates]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/07/16122152/oil-in-drc-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=323702</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Central Africa, Congo Basin, and Democratic Republic Of Congo]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Activism, Community Development, Community-based Conservation, Conservation, Conservation leadership, Energy, Environment, Fellows, Forests, Fossil Fuels, Governance, Interviews, Interviews with conservation players, Mongabay.org, Oil, Oil Drilling, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Pascal Mirindi is a young environmental activist based in the Democratic Republic of Congo, born in Goma. He was a member of a nonviolent movement, La LUCHA, fighting for democracy in the DRC. La LUCHA initiated him into nonviolent activism, but he used that opportunity to fight for Congolese ecosystems. Since 2024, Mirindi has been [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Pascal Mirindi is a young environmental activist based in the Democratic Republic of Congo, born in Goma. He was a member of a nonviolent movement, La LUCHA, fighting for democracy in the DRC. La LUCHA initiated him into nonviolent activism, but he used that opportunity to fight for Congolese ecosystems. Since 2024, Mirindi has been one of the main resistance forces against mineral, oil and gas exploitation inside the Congo Basin. Through campaigns and community awareness, he and his colleagues have successfully driven out oil exploration inside Virunga National Park. Now, Mirindi is fighting against the exploitation of 30 new oil blocks that cover 72% of the Congo Green Corridor, the country’s most emblematic conservation project, which spans a large part of the Congo Basin, home to thousands of animals and a lifeline for many communities in the DRC. Mirindi spoke with Mongabay in June, discussing what it means to resist from the inside and make a difference on a global scale, protecting the homes of endangered species such as mountain gorillas (Gorilla beringei beringei) and okapis (Okapia johnstoni), endemic to the region. Pascal Mirindi&#8217;s first visit with the director of Virunga National Park, Emmanuel de Merode, in 2022. Image courtesy of Pascal Mirindi. This interview has been translated from French and edited for length and clarity. Mongabay: Who is Pascal Mirindi? Pascal Mirindi: I am Congolese; I was born in Goma in 1999. I have been an activist since I was 15 years old. I started in the citizen&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/fighting-new-oil-blocks-in-the-congo-basin-interview-with-activist-pascal-mirindi/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/fighting-new-oil-blocks-in-the-congo-basin-interview-with-activist-pascal-mirindi/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-323702</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Rivers are not just water bodies: Interview with the Waterman of Odisha</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/rivers-are-not-just-water-bodies-interview-with-the-waterman-of-odisha/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/rivers-are-not-just-water-bodies-interview-with-the-waterman-of-odisha/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>17 Jul 2026 15:07:24 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Stephin Thomas]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Karen Coates]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/07/17095646/Fishing_In_Orissa-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=323831</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, India, and South Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Conservation, Conservation leadership, Environment, Fellows, Freshwater, Interviews, Interviews with conservation players, Mongabay.org, Natural Resources, Rivers, Water, and Water Scarcity]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Rivers are not just seen as water bodies in India, they are considered religious. From taking holy dips (a sacred act of faith in Hinduism, also called snan) for spiritual purification to scattering ashes after one&#8217;s death, it all starts and ends with rivers. While some see them as  religious spaces, others consider them recreational [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Rivers are not just seen as water bodies in India, they are considered religious. From taking holy dips (a sacred act of faith in Hinduism, also called snan) for spiritual purification to scattering ashes after one&#8217;s death, it all starts and ends with rivers. While some see them as  religious spaces, others consider them recreational spaces. For some, there is no life without rivers. But others have forgotten to see how deeply connected rivers are to everyday lives. With rivers like the Ganga (considered the holiest river in the country) drying up and urban Indian cities like Bengaluru facing water crises, Ranjan Panda, popularly known as the Waterman of Odisha, has spent more than three decades working on water conservation and climate advocacy closely with communities in Odisha, eastern India. “I want to be a living Earth citizen and not a dead Earth citizen,&#8221; Panda says. Panda&#8217;s work is especially important at a time when rural India faces groundwater depletion. India&#8217;s share of the world&#8217;s population is roughly 18%, while its share of renewable freshwater resources is only about 4%, a gap that increases the consequences of river degradation. Panda, a trained sociologist, has written widely on water, disasters and climate change-related mental health challenges affecting coastal communities in Odisha. He shares his insights on issues like coastal cities, displacement and the effects of climate change on communities. He is not just a researcher but has also been a journalist for a decade of his early life. He has been&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/rivers-are-not-just-water-bodies-interview-with-the-waterman-of-odisha/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/rivers-are-not-just-water-bodies-interview-with-the-waterman-of-odisha/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-323831</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Ancient rock structures help restore biodiversity on the US-Mexico border</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/ancient-rock-structures-help-restore-biodiversity-on-the-us-mexico-border/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/ancient-rock-structures-help-restore-biodiversity-on-the-us-mexico-border/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>17 Jul 2026 10:49:04 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Rose Shimberg]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Alexandra Popescu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/07/17103615/IMG_0265-1-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=323477</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Mexico, North America, and United States]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Adaptation To Climate Change, Agriculture, Climate Change, Community-based Conservation, Conservation, Conservation leadership, Drought, Extreme Weather, Flooding, Impact Of Climate Change, In-situ Conservation, Nature-based climate solutions, Ranching, and Solutions]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[CANANEA, Sonora — The day was windless. Long brown grasses speckled the landscape, and a stray tree erupted from the earth. The river channel was rusty, bone-dry. A pond that swells with summer rain glimmered on the horizon, but local rancher Eduardo Ríos Colores pointed toward the mountains, his finger tracing the route of a [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[CANANEA, Sonora — The day was windless. Long brown grasses speckled the landscape, and a stray tree erupted from the earth. The river channel was rusty, bone-dry. A pond that swells with summer rain glimmered on the horizon, but local rancher Eduardo Ríos Colores pointed toward the mountains, his finger tracing the route of a bone-dry streambed cutting through the landscape. “There was a time when this stream didn’t exist,” he said. “There used to be a lot of trees, and all the trees prevented erosion from the water. But … the trees have been drying up.” It was difficult to imagine the streambed swollen, rain-choked. But water in this region comes in all at once, in a deluge. As it races across the landscape, it forms deep channels like this one, creating sandy areas where new plants can’t grow. The land soon fails to support life, from the native grasses to migratory birds to the cattle that are the lifeline of ranchers like Ríos Colores. “Many people say that when water flows, it shouldn&#8217;t flow straight,” he continued. “Those serve to divert the water … so the current flows like a snake.” He was referring to his trincheras — hundreds of small rock structures peppering the streambed. The small, permeable barriers go on for more than a mile, spanning the channel, each small weir composed of dozens of fist-sized rocks. The trincheras, the Spanish word for “entrenchments,” were built in 2021 to slow down water, raising the water table&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/ancient-rock-structures-help-restore-biodiversity-on-the-us-mexico-border/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/ancient-rock-structures-help-restore-biodiversity-on-the-us-mexico-border/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-323477</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Like ‘climbing Kilimanjaro’ without help: Interview with a Limpopo conservationist</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/like-climbing-kilimanjaro-without-help-interview-with-a-limpopo-conservationist/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/like-climbing-kilimanjaro-without-help-interview-with-a-limpopo-conservationist/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>15 Jul 2026 19:34:18 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Bernard Chiguvare]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Karen Coates]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/07/15161815/Baobab-Adansonia-digitata-limpopo-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=323589</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, South Africa, and Southern Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Community-based Conservation, Conservation, Conservation leadership, Conservation Solutions, Environment, Fellows, Forestry, Interviews, Interviews with conservation players, Landscape Restoration, Logging, Mongabay.org, Plants, Restoration, Trees, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[In Limpopo province, in the far north of South Africa, where much of the population lives in rural areas, environmental conservation is often not considered very often. Instead, the residents spend much of their time trying to make a living either from the forestry around them or from fishing in the Mutale and Limpopo rivers. [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[In Limpopo province, in the far north of South Africa, where much of the population lives in rural areas, environmental conservation is often not considered very often. Instead, the residents spend much of their time trying to make a living either from the forestry around them or from fishing in the Mutale and Limpopo rivers. But for Mutale resident Tshilidzi Mulugana, degradation of the local environment is a concern, as it will affect the community and endanger biodiversity. Mulugana is the founder of the Niani Youth Development organization whose mission is to educate local youth. He wants to make a change in the community, to help residents conserve the environment. Mulugana is afraid the next generation may not live to know indigenous tree species — yet these trees serve as traditional medicine. He noted several threats to indigenous species such as baobab (Adansonia genus), leadwood (Combretum imberbe), mopani (Colophospermum mopane) and marula (Sclerocarya birrea): recurring floods, the movement of elephant herds from neighboring Zimbabwe or Mozambique through the area, and traders who cut the trees to sell as firewood. In 2019, Mulugana began a grassroots conservation initiative focused on planting indigenous trees. One day, an official from Kruger National Park (KNP) — a walkable distance from where he lives — came across Mulugana, attracted to his project. The official later invited a representative from the forestry and fisheries department, and in 2024, the two groups funded the project. Mulugana also hoped to recruit community members to help with the work,&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/like-climbing-kilimanjaro-without-help-interview-with-a-limpopo-conservationist/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/like-climbing-kilimanjaro-without-help-interview-with-a-limpopo-conservationist/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-323589</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>No corporation can buy the ‘right to destroy’: Interview with activist Raja Waseem Ahmed</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/no-corporation-can-buy-the-right-to-destroy-interview-with-activist-raja-waseem-ahmed/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/no-corporation-can-buy-the-right-to-destroy-interview-with-activist-raja-waseem-ahmed/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>15 Jul 2026 19:09:17 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Muhammad Talal]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Karen Coates]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/07/15144500/Katas_Raj_Temples_Near_Katas_Village_Punjab_Pakistan_10-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=323388</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Pakistan, and South Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Activism, Business, Conservation, Conservation leadership, Corporate Environmental Transgressors, Corporations, Culture, Development, Environment, Environmental Law, extractives, Fellows, Governance, Interviews, Interviews with conservation players, and Mongabay.org]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[For generations, the Kahoon Valley in Pakistan’s Chakwal district in northwestern Punjab has thrived as a rich ecological haven. Its fertile soil has yielded lush, historical loquat orchards, while the surrounding scrub forests have provided vital refuge to diverse wildlife, including local peacock populations and rare mountain deer species. At the center of this landscape [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[For generations, the Kahoon Valley in Pakistan’s Chakwal district in northwestern Punjab has thrived as a rich ecological haven. Its fertile soil has yielded lush, historical loquat orchards, while the surrounding scrub forests have provided vital refuge to diverse wildlife, including local peacock populations and rare mountain deer species. At the center of this landscape sit the Katas Raj Temples, an ancient Hindu pilgrimage site anchoring the region’s profound spiritual heritage. However, the unchecked expansion of mega cement factories in the early 2000s transformed this natural sanctuary into a toxic industrial zone. Relentless industrial pumping reportedly caused the water table to crash from 36 meters (120 feet) to 122 m (402 ft). This extreme depletion withered the famous loquat trees and displaced native birds, also draining the sacred Katas Raj pond. Determined to save his homeland from erasure, Raja Waseem Ahmed, an environmental activist, brought together residents from neighboring villages to establish the Kahoon Protection Committee to defend the Kahoon Valley against the extreme ecological and social damages caused by heavy industrialization. Waseem utilized environmental legislation and led a forensic legal campaign that exposed the manipulated environmental approval documents eventually driving the Supreme Court of Pakistan to intervene on its own accord, resulting in a historic verdict that banned factories from draining local groundwater and slapped the industry with huge fines. In retaliation for his activism, Waseem was struck by unjustified anti-terrorism lawsuits, temporarily exiled from his native district by local authorities, and subjected to stress so harsh that it&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/no-corporation-can-buy-the-right-to-destroy-interview-with-activist-raja-waseem-ahmed/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-323388</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Waste, women &#038; environmental justice: Interview with Nubian activist Malasen Hamida</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/waste-women-environmental-justice-interview-with-nubian-activist-malasen-hamida/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/waste-women-environmental-justice-interview-with-nubian-activist-malasen-hamida/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>14 Jul 2026 18:30:10 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Ouma Elvine Tina]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Karen Coates]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/07/14131540/img5-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=323283</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, East Africa, and Kenya]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Conservation leadership, Culture, Environment, Fellows, Gender, Interviews, Mongabay.org, NGOs, Social Justice, and Waste]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Malasen Hamida, a Nubian Muslim woman from Kibera, in Nairobi, is an aspiring politician and an environmental activist with more than 25 years of advocacy behind her. Kibera, which was named by Nubians, meaning “land of forests,” is Kenya’s largest informal settlement and sits on land that the British colonial government allocated to the Nubian [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Malasen Hamida, a Nubian Muslim woman from Kibera, in Nairobi, is an aspiring politician and an environmental activist with more than 25 years of advocacy behind her. Kibera, which was named by Nubians, meaning “land of forests,” is Kenya’s largest informal settlement and sits on land that the British colonial government allocated to the Nubian community after their forebears served as soldiers in the King’s African Rifles. That allocation once covered 1,698 hectares (4,197 acres). Today, due to urbanization, forced evictions, land-grabbing and successive government projects, only 116 hectares (288 acres) remain under Nubian ownership, with no compensation ever offered. Through the Mazingira Women Initiative, Hamida has spent those years organizing around waste management, smart farming, land rights and women’s leadership. (“Mazingira” is a Swahili word for environment or nature.) She is also a three-time parliamentary candidate for the Kibera constituency and intends to run again in 2027. Hamida spoke with Mongabay on a cold Saturday afternoon, just as she was leaving the largest mosque in Kibera constituency. Her offices are a short walk away. As we moved toward them, several people stopped to greet her. She responded to each, “salaam aleikum,” paused to chat, and cupped a small girl’s face in her hands. She led me through a corrugated iron gate into a quiet compound of mud-walled, iron-roofed houses. The area was noticeably clean, with no stagnant water or litter in sight, unlike the typical sight in Kibera. We settled on the veranda of her home. Malasen Hamida addresses&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/waste-women-environmental-justice-interview-with-nubian-activist-malasen-hamida/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-323283</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>In Southeast Asia, peer-support network boosts women’s well-being in conservation</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/in-southeast-asia-peer-support-network-boosts-womens-well-being-in-conservation/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/in-southeast-asia-peer-support-network-boosts-womens-well-being-in-conservation/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>06 Jul 2026 08:21:45 +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/20/2026/07/06075921/Banner_Group-sharing-at-a-women-support-network-meeting.-Image-courtesy-of-ASAP-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=322529</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Indonesia, Laos, Philippines, Southeast Asia, and Vietnam]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Conservation, Conservation leadership, Culture, Environment, Gender, Health, Solutions, and Women In Science]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[When Jessa Cabaay began working in marine conservation in the Philippines, she frequently found she was the only woman in the room. Her isolation meant she often felt anxious while presenting at stakeholder meetings, sensing her audience questioned her credibility. “Most of the fishing communities I was working with were older and male,” Cabaay says, [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[When Jessa Cabaay began working in marine conservation in the Philippines, she frequently found she was the only woman in the room. Her isolation meant she often felt anxious while presenting at stakeholder meetings, sensing her audience questioned her credibility. “Most of the fishing communities I was working with were older and male,” Cabaay says, describing her experience of discussions on planning out marine protected areas (MPAs). “They didn’t listen the first few times I tried to talk to them.” Cabaay says she observed that her male colleagues were rarely under the same pressure to prove their competence. Now the technical manager of Community Centered Conservation (C3), a Philippine-based nonprofit, she says the fishers’ skepticism likely reflected cultural beliefs held in many Philippine coastal communities that place women in domestic roles rather than professional ones. “There are expectations that as a woman, you follow; you cannot lead,” she says. Lacking female colleagues to turn to for support and advice, Cabaay persevered largely alone through her early-career struggles. Now, however, she finds strength and encouragement through a peer-support network that links female conservation professionals across Southeast Asia. Connecting with other women facing similar challenges has been a game changer, she says: “I realized I’m not struggling alone. We all feel the same.” The initiative, the Network of Women (NOW), is led by the Asian Species Action Partnership (ASAP), a Singapore-based interagency coalition that focuses on critically endangered species of land and freshwater vertebrates. Launched in 2021, the program combines in-person leadership&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/in-southeast-asia-peer-support-network-boosts-womens-well-being-in-conservation/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/in-southeast-asia-peer-support-network-boosts-womens-well-being-in-conservation/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-322529</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>The long and winding road to safe highways: Inside the global movement to reconnect habitat</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/the-long-and-winding-road-to-safe-highways-inside-the-global-movement-to-reconnect-habitat/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/the-long-and-winding-road-to-safe-highways-inside-the-global-movement-to-reconnect-habitat/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>10 Jun 2026 12:03:34 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Ben Goldfarb]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Sharon Guynup]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/06/09164404/1.-BANNER-IMG_2277-3-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=320842</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Global]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animal Behavior, Animals, Biodiversity, Community-based Conservation, Conservation, Conservation leadership, Conservation Solutions, Conservation Technology, Ecosystems, Endangered Species, Environment, Environmental Policy, Forest Fragmentation, Fragmentation, Habitat, Habitat Degradation, Happy-upbeat Environmental, Infrastructure, Innovation, Land Use Change, Landscape Restoration, Mitigation, Regulations, Restoration, Roadkill, Roads, Solutions, Sustainability, Sustainable Development, Threatened species, Transportation, Wildlife, and Wildlife Corridors]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[One of the busiest highways in the western U.S. is I-25, a concrete artery that runs north to south across the state of Colorado, funneling roughly 100,000 cars per day through the fast-growing exurbs south of the capital, Denver. While I-25 facilitates human journeys, it disastrously truncates the movements of another set of commuters. For [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[One of the busiest highways in the western U.S. is I-25, a concrete artery that runs north to south across the state of Colorado, funneling roughly 100,000 cars per day through the fast-growing exurbs south of the capital, Denver. While I-25 facilitates human journeys, it disastrously truncates the movements of another set of commuters. For decades, mule deer, elk, black bears and other species have wandered onto the highway — with fatal consequences. Over a two-year period, from 2018 to 2020, the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) tallied collisions with 76 deer, 15 bears and 10 pumas along a 14-mile (22.5-kilometer) stretch of asphalt. Moreover, the interstate’s walls of traffic deter many animals from even attempting to cross, preventing them from roaming between alpine forests and Colorado’s eastern prairies. Lately, however, this once-dangerous barrier has become far more accommodating to four-legged travelers. In 2021, Colorado completed the construction of five capacious, dirt-floored underpasses, flanked by more than 25 mi (40 km) of roadside fencing, to allow wildlife to meander safely and freely beneath I-25. A black bear approaches a vehicle on the Alcan (Alaska-Canada) Highway, possibly indicating how habituating animals to human food can lead to road conflicts. Image by Ben Goldfarb. And in December 2025, CDOT finished construction of an overpass, 200 feet wide by 209 long (61 by 64 meters), that arcs over six lanes of traffic near the town of Greenland. That makes it one of the largest human-made wildlife crossings on Earth. All told, CDOT says&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/the-long-and-winding-road-to-safe-highways-inside-the-global-movement-to-reconnect-habitat/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-320842</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>In Indonesia, a schoolboy moves mountains on waste as government targets reform</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/in-indonesia-a-schoolboy-moves-mountains-on-waste-as-government-targets-reform/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/in-indonesia-a-schoolboy-moves-mountains-on-waste-as-government-targets-reform/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>30 Apr 2026 14:34:27 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Gafur Abdullah]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Mongabay Editor]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/04/30142106/WhatsApp-Image-2026-02-13-at-17.46.13-1-1200x800-1-768x512.jpeg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=318477</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Indonesia, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Conservation, Conservation leadership, Environment, Environmental Law, Governance, Recycling, and Waste]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[JEMBER, Indonesia — Syazwan Luftan Riady traces his environmental campaigning to school holidays spent at his grandmother’s riverside home in a rural part of Indonesia’s East Java province. “Throw that trash in the river, the basket’s full!” Luftan said, mimicking the levity with which his grandmother, like millions of others on the world’s most populous [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[JEMBER, Indonesia — Syazwan Luftan Riady traces his environmental campaigning to school holidays spent at his grandmother’s riverside home in a rural part of Indonesia’s East Java province. “Throw that trash in the river, the basket’s full!” Luftan said, mimicking the levity with which his grandmother, like millions of others on the world’s most populous island, handled household waste in the absence of government services. While still a schoolboy in Jember, East Java, Luftan learned from his parents and developed his interest in the environment further after joining Sekolah Alam Raya. At just 12 years old, Luftan went on to co-found an organization of his own, Wiskomunalian, a grassroots association of youngsters working on achievable measures to effect environmental change. “It was about making friends aware about the environment, especially the issue of waste,” said Luftan, now in his second year of an undergraduate degree at Brawijaya University in Malang, a four-hour drive from Jember. Some of the Wiskomunalian youth in January 2026. Image by Gafur Abdullah/Mongabay Indonesia Child star A goal of Luftan and his colleagues is that “every child must be supported with adequate knowledge and experience grounded in their local realities,” Wiskomunalian wrote last year. But converting that vision into cleaner rivers and streets is a tall order, amid population growth and limited fiscal space with which to build waste treatment facilities. The United Nations Environment Programme records Indonesia as generating around 3.2 million metric tons of plastic waste every year, making it the world’s second-largest plastic&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/in-indonesia-a-schoolboy-moves-mountains-on-waste-as-government-targets-reform/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-318477</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Young conservationists are building hope &#038; optimism despite challenging times (commentary)</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/young-conservationists-are-building-hope-optimism-despite-challenging-times-commentary/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/young-conservationists-are-building-hope-optimism-despite-challenging-times-commentary/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>28 Apr 2026 16:49:19 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Erfan FirouziMaria HashmiQazi Hammad MueenTaras Bains]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Erik Hoffner]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/04/28160642/IMG-20240919-WA0013-e1777392643191-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=318238</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Global]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Activism, Commentary, Conservation, Conservation leadership, Endangered Environmentalists, Environment, Green, Happy-upbeat Environmental, and Health]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Several recent articles at Mongabay regarding mental health in the conservation sector provide a much-needed overview of an issue not talked about enough: that conservationists face a mental health crisis, an “epidemic of suffering” that is nestled within a complex biodiversity crisis. We are in a profession in which loss is a normal, everyday occurrence. [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Several recent articles at Mongabay regarding mental health in the conservation sector provide a much-needed overview of an issue not talked about enough: that conservationists face a mental health crisis, an “epidemic of suffering” that is nestled within a complex biodiversity crisis. We are in a profession in which loss is a normal, everyday occurrence. The foundation of this sector lies in the passion of conservationists working tirelessly to understand, document and mitigate biodiversity and its loss. With that passion comes a job profile that is marked by exploitative practices, low wages and a general lack of support for dealing with mental well-being. Coupled with few benefits and a front-row seat to biodiversity loss and de-prioritization of conservation actions, a pertinent question arises: Is there a reason for hope? As young conservationists starting out in the field, following “conservation optimism” as a philosophy, we think so! Sometimes conservation work can make one feel like a lone tree on a mountain, but young conservationists say there&#8217;s a lot of room for hope and optimism amid the challenges. Image courtesy of Qazi Hammad Mueen. Language matters Conservation is marred by a language of crisis. This might not be the root of the mental health crisis in the field, but it is a major contributor. Hope is a delicate word to use in a field riddled with anxiety and despair. Its power, nonetheless, can be an enabling force for rebalancing the discourse around conservation and what it can achieve. How then do we&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/young-conservationists-are-building-hope-optimism-despite-challenging-times-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-318238</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>We can navigate conservation’s ‘epidemic of suffering’ by building a culture of care (commentary)</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/we-can-navigate-conservations-epidemic-of-suffering-by-building-a-culture-of-care-commentary/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/we-can-navigate-conservations-epidemic-of-suffering-by-building-a-culture-of-care-commentary/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>21 Apr 2026 14:03:06 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Jen MillerKelly Guilbeau]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Erik Hoffner]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/04/21133102/redwoods_YosemiteUSA_creditJenMiller-e1776778567738-768x512.jpeg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=317870</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Global]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Activism, Commentary, Conservation, Conservation leadership, Endangered Environmentalists, Environment, Green, Happy-upbeat Environmental, and Health]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Recent Mongabay articles by Jeremy Hance, Vik Mohan and Nerissa Chao, and Rhett Butler have laid bare a painful reality in conservation: the emotional price of witnessing biodiversity loss, the “epidemic of suffering” and burnout, and the psychological stresses assailing professionals on the frontlines. These articles document eco-grief, compassion fatigue, isolation, and moral injury with [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Recent Mongabay articles by Jeremy Hance, Vik Mohan and Nerissa Chao, and Rhett Butler have laid bare a painful reality in conservation: the emotional price of witnessing biodiversity loss, the “epidemic of suffering” and burnout, and the psychological stresses assailing professionals on the frontlines. These articles document eco-grief, compassion fatigue, isolation, and moral injury with clarity and urgency, giving voice to struggles that many conservationists have carried in silence. What these pieces don&#8217;t fully highlight is that conservationists are not standing idly by. Just as we dedicate ourselves to protecting ecosystems and species under pressure, we are simultaneously advocating for our own well-being by stepping up to support one another by building practical solutions from within the field itself. In early 2025, amid growing global instability for conservationists — job losses, funding shortfalls, and relentless ecological decline — we founded Revive, a global working group of the Society for Conservation Biology. Revive is a community of practice created by conservationists, for conservationists. Our approach is simple yet potent, and informed by more than 100 working group members in 30 countries as well as peer-reviewed evidence: equip individuals, teams, and organizations with evidence-based resilience tools to reshape the norms of our workforce. Together, we are building a culture of care that supports an inspired, emotionally resilient conservation community where well-being is valued and nourished as a foundational part of our work. Co-author Kelly Guilbeau with a graphic facilitator’s depiction of a keynote address on creating a culture of care for a&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/we-can-navigate-conservations-epidemic-of-suffering-by-building-a-culture-of-care-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-317870</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Meet the 2026 Goldman Environmental Prize Winners</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/meet-the-2026-goldman-environmental-prize-winners/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/meet-the-2026-goldman-environmental-prize-winners/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>20 Apr 2026 08:00:55 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Liz Kimbrough]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Liz Kimbrough]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/04/20070038/Goldman-Environmental-Prize-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=317746</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Global]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Activism, Climate Change, Conservation, Conservation leadership, Environment, Forests, Governance, and Happy-upbeat Environmental]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Six environmental activists from around the world will be awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize on April 20. Known as the &#8220;Green Nobel Prize,&#8221; the Goldman Prize honors activists from the six inhabited continental regions. In a historic first, all six winners are women. This year&#8217;s winners fought to protect a rare bat in Nigeria by [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Six environmental activists from around the world will be awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize on April 20. Known as the &#8220;Green Nobel Prize,&#8221; the Goldman Prize honors activists from the six inhabited continental regions. In a historic first, all six winners are women. This year&#8217;s winners fought to protect a rare bat in Nigeria by training community members to prevent wildfires; won a court ruling in South Korea forcing the government to set stronger climate targets; stopped an oil drilling project in the U.K. after a decade of legal battles; pressured a global mining giant to clean up a toxic abandoned mine in Papua New Guinea; blocked the largest proposed open-pit mine in North American history in Alaska; and helped prevent commercial fracking from taking hold in Colombia. &#8220;While we continue to fight uphill to protect the environment and implement lifesaving climate policies — in the US and globally — it is clear that true leaders can be found all around us,&#8221; said John Goldman, vice president of the Goldman Environmental Foundation. &#8220;I am especially thrilled to honor our first-ever cohort of six women, as this is a powerful reflection of the absolutely central role that women play in the environmental community globally.&#8221; The winners will be honored at a ceremony in San Francisco, in the U.S., on April 20, hosted by Telemundo anchor Vanessa Hauc, with musical guest Caminos Flamencos. The event will be livestreamed at 5:30 p.m. local time (00:30 a.m. UTC on April 21) on the Goldman&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/meet-the-2026-goldman-environmental-prize-winners/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-317746</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Conservation efforts help an endangered dipterocarp spread roots in Bangladesh</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/conservation-efforts-help-an-endangered-dipterocarp-spread-roots-in-bangladesh/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/conservation-efforts-help-an-endangered-dipterocarp-spread-roots-in-bangladesh/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>14 Apr 2026 07:53:11 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Sadiqur Rahman]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Abu Siddique]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/04/14075155/boilam-in-bangladesh-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=317462</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Bangladesh, and South Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Conservation, Conservation leadership, Endangered Species, Environment, Forestry, Forests, Happy-upbeat Environmental, Saving Species From Extinction, Solutions, Trees, Tropical Forests, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[On Jan. 23, 2026, Mahbubul Islam Polash, a 34-year-old man from Bangladesh’s northern district of Sirajganj, traveled to Teknaf area in the southeastern coastal district of Cox’s Bazar, around 600 kilometers (373 miles) south of his hometown. Here, he planted a sapling of Anisoptera scaphula, a dipterocarp tree commonly known as boilam in Bangladesh. That [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[On Jan. 23, 2026, Mahbubul Islam Polash, a 34-year-old man from Bangladesh’s northern district of Sirajganj, traveled to Teknaf area in the southeastern coastal district of Cox’s Bazar, around 600 kilometers (373 miles) south of his hometown. Here, he planted a sapling of Anisoptera scaphula, a dipterocarp tree commonly known as boilam in Bangladesh. That day marked the 64th planting of the endangered tree species, completing the plantation campaign in all the districts of the country. The campaign was launched on June 5, 2024, coinciding with World Environment Day, in the northwestern Rajshahi district. When Polash learned that the towering tree species was on the verge of extinction and birds like kites and vultures were losing nesting habitats, he pinned his focus on planting boilams. “Even if it was just one species, I wanted to spread it countrywide,” Polash tells Mongabay. In 2019, he says, he planned to collect its seeds or saplings from the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) and distribute them across the country. But his initial attempts to germinate boilam seeds failed. Undeterred he continued to try and, in 2023, he succeeded in the germination of 74 seeds from the 2,000 sourced from mother trees in the hilly Bandarban and Khagrachhari districts. The saplings were nurtured on a piece of land adjacent to Polash’s home in Sirajganj for a year until they reached a height of about 30-45 centimeters (12-18 inches). Finally, the boilam saplings were planted in 64 districts of Bangladesh. Polash spent 597 days and self-financed&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/conservation-efforts-help-an-endangered-dipterocarp-spread-roots-in-bangladesh/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-317462</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Creating the North Atlantic’s largest MPA network: Interview with Azores President José Manuel Bolieiro</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/creating-the-north-atlantics-largest-mpa-network-interview-with-azores-president-jose-manuel-bolieiro/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/creating-the-north-atlantics-largest-mpa-network-interview-with-azores-president-jose-manuel-bolieiro/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>09 Apr 2026 15:27:39 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Maria José Mendes]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Autumn Spanne]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/04/08153215/a.-BANNER-%C2%A9gianfrs-iNaturalist-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=317158</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Atlantic Ocean, Europe, European Union, and Portugal]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Conservation, Conservation leadership, Environment, Environmental Law, Fish, Interviews, Interviews with conservation players, Marine, Marine Conservation, Marine Protected Areas, Oceans, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[José Manuel Bolieiro says he’s been an environmentalist for as long as he can remember. He recalls captivating encounters with marine life as a teenager while diving in the North Atlantic waters of his native São Miguel, one of the nine islands that make up the Portuguese-administered Azores archipelago. The gaze of the moray eel [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[José Manuel Bolieiro says he’s been an environmentalist for as long as he can remember. He recalls captivating encounters with marine life as a teenager while diving in the North Atlantic waters of his native São Miguel, one of the nine islands that make up the Portuguese-administered Azores archipelago. The gaze of the moray eel remains etched in his memory: “It&#8217;s impressive because it watches us vigilantly, without aggression,” he tells Mongabay. Bolieiro’s early interactions with the ocean proved formative. A member of the Social Democratic Party, Bolieiro is a former mayor of Ponta Delgada, the largest city in the Azores, and has served as president of the regional government of the Azores since 2020, championing the establishment of a remarkable network of marine protected areas (MPAs) in the biodiverse waters around the archipelago. The region is home to numerous species of dolphins and whales, sharks and turtles, and rich in corals, hydrothermal vent ecosystems and seamounts. The previous government of the Azores, which is run as an autonomous region of Portugal, had set a goal of protecting 15% of the archipelago’s waters. But Bolieiro dreamed bigger: He sought marine protection covering 30% by 2030. In 2024, the regional parliament approved legislation for the new Azores Marine Protected Areas Network, and it came into force on Jan. 1 of this year. At 287,000 square kilometers (110,800 square miles) — more than three times the land area of Portugal — it’s now the largest MPA network in the North Atlantic Ocean.&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/creating-the-north-atlantics-largest-mpa-network-interview-with-azores-president-jose-manuel-bolieiro/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/creating-the-north-atlantics-largest-mpa-network-interview-with-azores-president-jose-manuel-bolieiro/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-317158</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>How an engineer brought degraded wetlands back to life in drought-hit Bangladesh</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/how-an-engineer-brought-degraded-wetlands-back-to-life-in-drought-hit-bangladesh/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/how-an-engineer-brought-degraded-wetlands-back-to-life-in-drought-hit-bangladesh/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>03 Apr 2026 13:44:20 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Sadiqur Rahman]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Abu Siddique]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/04/03133606/4-Bharardaho-Beel-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=316931</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Bangladesh, and South Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Conservation, Conservation leadership, Drought, Environment, Environmental Law, Governance, and Wetlands]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The moment A.K.M. Fazlul Haque learnt that the government had declared two wetlands —Bharardaho Beel and Patuakamri Beel — located in Bangladesh’s northern district of Rangpur as the Special Biodiversity Conservation Area, he smiled with relief, he said. “Our years-long conservation efforts have paid off,” was his immediate response. In Bangladesh, a beel is defined [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The moment A.K.M. Fazlul Haque learnt that the government had declared two wetlands —Bharardaho Beel and Patuakamri Beel — located in Bangladesh’s northern district of Rangpur as the Special Biodiversity Conservation Area, he smiled with relief, he said. “Our years-long conservation efforts have paid off,” was his immediate response. In Bangladesh, a beel is defined as a large topographically low area that accumulates surface runoff water. As a senior deputy-assistant engineer at the Barind Multipurpose Development Authority (BMDA), the state-run agency responsible for restoring surface water sources, Fazlul, in 2021 and 2023, led the excavation of the two beels that had almost disappeared from the landscape, having been transformed as silted crop field. After excavating the 4.7 hectares (11.6 acres) of Bharardaho Beel, Fazlul and his peers volunteered the plantation of rare indigenous tree species along the ridges. When the BMDA team approached to excavate the nearby Patuakamtri Beel, illegal occupants attacked Fazlul physically and damaged his high-end photography camera, he said. Despite such obstacles, BMDA finally succeeded in the excavation of the 4.5 hectares (11.3 acres) of Patuakamri Beel. Today, both water bodies shelter hundreds of water birds, some of them migratory, and other wildlife around the year. Such conservation efforts are crucial to be replicated in such drought-prone northern regions of Bangladesh where wetlands are depleting fast, experts say. A study published in November 2022 reveals that Bangladesh’s northwest region lost more than 57% of its total wetland area between 1989 and 2020. Md Shafiqul Bari, a professor&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/how-an-engineer-brought-degraded-wetlands-back-to-life-in-drought-hit-bangladesh/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/how-an-engineer-brought-degraded-wetlands-back-to-life-in-drought-hit-bangladesh/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-316931</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>A profession built on hope, strained by loss</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/the-emotional-price-of-conservation-work/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/the-emotional-price-of-conservation-work/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>26 Mar 2026 22:50:49 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Rhett Ayers Butler]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rhett Butler]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/03/26143802/the-cost-of-caring-in-a-dying-world-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=316338</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Founder's briefs]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Global]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Conservation, Conservation leadership, Endangered Environmentalists, Environment, Gender, and Health]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Earlier this month, Jeremy Hance’s “‘An epidemic of suffering’: Why are conservationists breaking down?” and the follow-up commentary “Emotional and psychological stresses beleaguer conservation professionals” by Vik Mohan and Nerissa Chao gave fresh urgency—and language—to a crisis many in conservation have been naming quietly for years. This piece builds on their reporting and reflections, and [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Earlier this month, Jeremy Hance’s “‘An epidemic of suffering’: Why are conservationists breaking down?” and the follow-up commentary “Emotional and psychological stresses beleaguer conservation professionals” by Vik Mohan and Nerissa Chao gave fresh urgency—and language—to a crisis many in conservation have been naming quietly for years. This piece builds on their reporting and reflections, and draws as well on my own earlier work, including “Conservation’s silent strain: Nature’s protectors face a mental health crisis,” along with other writing I’ve done on loss, grief, and endurance in the field. It also sits alongside the Nature Obituaries Project, a series of tributes to fallen conservationists, scientists, and environmental defenders, rooted in the belief that the people who protect life on Earth are not expendable. I’m not writing as a clinician here. I’m writing as someone listening to what conservationists keep describing, across roles and regions. There is a particular kind of exhaustion that does not come from long hours alone. It comes from paying attention. Conservationists are trained to notice what most people do not see: a reef that has lost its vibrancy and color, a forest that no longer holds the same birds, a river that carries less life each season. They are trained to count, to measure, to document change with discipline. But they are also people who entered the work because they love something outside themselves. A species. A place. A living world that felt worth protecting. That love is not a weakness. It is the fuel. And lately, it&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/the-emotional-price-of-conservation-work/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-316338</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>How foreign investor lawsuits stymie environmental protection</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/how-foreign-investor-lawsuits-stymie-environmental-protection/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/how-foreign-investor-lawsuits-stymie-environmental-protection/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>19 Mar 2026 10:59:56 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Aimee Gabay]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Alexandra Popescu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2022/09/30133937/Jacob-Balzani_Mayuriaga-Oil-Spill-2016-WampisNation_3500px_Extra_0073-1-768x512.png" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=315928</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Caribbean, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Conservation, Conservation leadership, Crime, Energy, Energy Transition, Environment, Environmental Law, Governance, Indigenous Peoples, Land Conflict, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Protected Areas, and Social Justice]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[New data by the Transnational Institute reveal how an increase in lawsuits by foreign investors is undermining government efforts to protect natural resources and human rights in Latin America and the Caribbean. Countries in the region are facing a total of $36.6 billion in lawsuits from corporations, all through investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) claims, which [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[New data by the Transnational Institute reveal how an increase in lawsuits by foreign investors is undermining government efforts to protect natural resources and human rights in Latin America and the Caribbean. Countries in the region are facing a total of $36.6 billion in lawsuits from corporations, all through investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) claims, which often constrain governments’ ability to implement reforms due to fear of costly punishments. The data identified 419 ISDS claims against countries in the region filed as of mid-October 2025, with Venezuela, Argentina, Mexico, Peru and Ecuador shouldering the highest costs. Together, they face almost two-thirds of all lawsuits, with 257 claims. Between 2014 and 2024, 212 lawsuits were registered across the region, a 133% increase from previous decades. “We are talking about close to 40 billion dollars LAC [Latin American and Caribbean] states have been ordered to pay already, and there are many cases we don’t know the amount they were asked to pay, so the number is actually higher,” Bettina Müller, an associate researcher at the Transnational Institute and author of the report, told Mongabay over email. “Imagine what could have been done with 40 billion dollars in the region and specifically in the countries which have been ordered to pay the most, like Venezuela and Argentina.” ISDS is a mechanism in international trade agreements that allows foreign investors to sue states before international tribunals when they think that national laws, regulations, legal decisions or other public measures violate their treaty protections. The mechanism&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/how-foreign-investor-lawsuits-stymie-environmental-protection/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-315928</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Conservation’s unfinished business</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/01/conservations-unfinished-business/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/01/conservations-unfinished-business/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>12 Jan 2026 00:31:18 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Rhett Ayers Butler]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rhett Butler]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2021/08/25184643/header-Felipe-Rodriguez-105-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=312841</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Founder's briefs]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa and Global]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[30x30 conservation target, Colonialism, Community-based Conservation, Conservation, Conservation leadership, Conservation Philosophy, Environment, Governance, Green, Human Rights, Human-wildlife Conflict, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Rights, Protected Areas, Social Justice, Traditional Knowledge, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Conservation often presents itself as a technical enterprise: how much land to protect, which species to prioritize, what policies deliver results. A recent paper in Nature argues that this framing misses something fundamental. Many of the field’s most persistent failures, the authors contend, cannot be understood without confronting how race, power, and historical exclusion continue [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Conservation often presents itself as a technical enterprise: how much land to protect, which species to prioritize, what policies deliver results. A recent paper in Nature argues that this framing misses something fundamental. Many of the field’s most persistent failures, the authors contend, cannot be understood without confronting how race, power, and historical exclusion continue to shape conservation practice today. The paper, A Framework for Addressing Racial and Related Inequities in Conservation, does not claim that conservation is uniquely flawed, nor that injustice is universal across all projects. Its argument is narrower and more pointed. Modern conservation, it says, emerged from a colonial context that treated land as empty and people as obstacles. Those assumptions were never fully dismantled. They survive in subtler forms, influencing whose knowledge counts, who bears the costs of protection, and who decides what success looks like. A Purko elder collecting medicinal plants in the Loita Hills Forest, Kenya. Photo credit: Rhett A. Butler. The authors, led by Moreangels Mbizah of Wildlife Conservation Action in Zimbabwe, trace conservation’s institutional roots to the late nineteenth century, when protected areas were established across colonized landscapes through forced removals and restrictions on customary land use. Indigenous peoples and rural communities were often excluded in the name of preserving “pristine” nature. Although conservation has evolved since then, the paper argues that these early patterns still shape present-day practice through what it calls “path dependencies”: inherited norms that continue to privilege outside expertise and centralized control. One consequence, according to the&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/01/conservations-unfinished-business/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-312841</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Iain Douglas-Hamilton, elephant protector, has died at 83</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/iain-douglas-hamilton-elephant-protector-has-died-at-83/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/iain-douglas-hamilton-elephant-protector-has-died-at-83/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>09 Dec 2025 13:46:43 +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/20/2025/12/09134315/IainDouglas-HamiltonPortrait_SaveTheElephants-header-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=310868</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, East Africa, and Kenya]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Conservation, Conservation leadership, Elephants, Environment, Green, Illegal Trade, Ivory, Obituary, Wildlife, and Wildlife Trade]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[For nearly six decades, Iain Douglas-Hamilton worked across the savannas of Africa, his scientific focus fixed on its largest inhabitants — the elephants. It was said he could identify an elephant by the pattern of its ears or the wrinkles in its skin. He liked to note that elephants were like people — capable of [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[For nearly six decades, Iain Douglas-Hamilton worked across the savannas of Africa, his scientific focus fixed on its largest inhabitants — the elephants. It was said he could identify an elephant by the pattern of its ears or the wrinkles in its skin. He liked to note that elephants were like people — capable of deep social bonds and flashes of temper. Douglas-Hamilton, who passed away on December 8th, 2025, at the age of 83, devoted his life to ensuring that they had a future. Born in Dorset, England, Iain was the younger son of Lord David Douglas-Hamilton, a decorated Royal Air Force (RAF) officer, and Prunella Stack, a pioneer of women’s fitness. From an early age, he was drawn toward Africa. After studying zoology at Oxford, he followed that pull. At 23, he arrived in Tanzania’s Lake Manyara National Park, where he began the first scientific study of elephant behavior in the wild. It was there that a professional interest became a lifelong responsibility. Douglas-Hamilton’s connection to elephants was not only intellectual. He spent long hours simply observing them — the quiet moments as important as the dramatic ones. He recalled a particular elephant that would approach his vehicle regularly, until a point that he could walk alongside her, feeding her wild gardenia fruits. “She was very special,” he said. “One day, she brought her babies to meet me.” But as he traveled across Africa during the 1970s and 1980s, he saw how the ivory trade was emptying landscapes&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/iain-douglas-hamilton-elephant-protector-has-died-at-83/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-310868</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Small grants are key to a successful next generation of conservationists (commentary)</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/11/small-grants-are-key-to-a-successful-next-generation-of-conservationists-commentary/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/11/small-grants-are-key-to-a-successful-next-generation-of-conservationists-commentary/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>14 Nov 2025 02:00:47 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Paul Barnes]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Erik Hoffner]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/11/13221742/EDGE-CTC-c-Dr-Paul-Barnes-768x512.png" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=309537</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[England, Global, and United Kingdom]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Commentary, Conservation, Conservation Finance, Conservation leadership, Conservation Solutions, Environment, Finance, Funding, philanthropy, and Solutions]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[In a meeting room in a head office in London, a handful of early-career conservationists from around the world sat in a circle on the floor to share their challenges of working in conservation. The conversation was sobering. From affording everyday bills, juggling multiple unsecured jobs and dealing with burnout to harassment in the field, [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[In a meeting room in a head office in London, a handful of early-career conservationists from around the world sat in a circle on the floor to share their challenges of working in conservation. The conversation was sobering. From affording everyday bills, juggling multiple unsecured jobs and dealing with burnout to harassment in the field, threats by extractive industries and abduction by narcotic gangs, the breadth of burdens on these young emerging leaders was astonishing. After three more similar workshops hosted by the project I lead — the Zoological Society of London’s (ZSL) EDGE of Existence program — and fast-forward a year, my inbox holds 1,700 applications for our annual fellowship call, a bewildering demand for perhaps 10 places and all for roles that encounter the burdens described in the workshops. This kind of demand is not unusual; I’ve heard similar ratios for other fellowships and small grant schemes. In the same month, numerous blows to funding pipelines for organizations, both large and small, worldwide, have surfaced. Now, like many others, we find ourselves facing a sharp juxtaposition: an overwhelming demand from talented, dedicated teams working on urgent conservation projects that are ready for implementation, contrasted with decreasing, fragile and unpredictable upstream funding. Many young conservationists like Lucero Vaca, shown here conducting a jaguar study, have struggled to make a career in the sector, yet as she told Mongabay in 2017, &#8220;If we stop underestimating people based on their age and [help] young conservationists [carry] out their innovative ideas, we&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/11/small-grants-are-key-to-a-successful-next-generation-of-conservationists-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-309537</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Indonesia retiree rewilds world’s largest volcano lake as church demands plantation closures</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/10/indonesia-retiree-rewilds-worlds-largest-volcano-lake-as-church-demands-plantation-closures/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/10/indonesia-retiree-rewilds-worlds-largest-volcano-lake-as-church-demands-plantation-closures/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>17 Oct 2025 03:54:06 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Sri Wahyuni]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Mongabay Editor]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/10/24190725/Wilmar-Eliaser-Simandjorang-head-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=307777</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Indonesia, North Sumatra, Southeast Asia, and Sumatra]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Conservation, Conservation leadership, Ecosystems, Environment, Governance, Islands, Lakes, Landscape Restoration, Restoration, Rewilding, and Volcanoes]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[SAMOSIR, Indonesia — On retirement from public life, Wilmar Eliaser Simandjorang found a quiet place on a hillside overlooking Lake Toba, on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, to write about this landscape sacred to the region’s Batak people. “If we don&#8217;t pay attention to this, Lake Toba will be just a memory,” Wilmar told Mongabay [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[SAMOSIR, Indonesia — On retirement from public life, Wilmar Eliaser Simandjorang found a quiet place on a hillside overlooking Lake Toba, on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, to write about this landscape sacred to the region’s Batak people. “If we don&#8217;t pay attention to this, Lake Toba will be just a memory,” Wilmar told Mongabay Indonesia at his home near the lake, the site of a volcanic eruption 74,000 years ago that plunged the world into global winter and famine. More recently, North Sumatra province’s environment department has warned of a burgeoning pollution problem from the waste dumped into Toba, the largest volcanic lake in the world. Many here in this subdued lakeside region today, which is home to Sumatra’s ethnic Batak people (and the center of seven districts in North Sumatra province), say a complex array of changes taking place around the Toba landscape are reaching a tipping point. “The forest is being cut down, both legally and illegally — biodiversity is being burned,” Wilmar said. “Rainwater is just running off; it carries ash, trash and pesticides into the lake.” A study of 60 water samples published in the journal Advances in Oceanography and Limnology in 2024 confirms worrying local testimony. The research, conducted in 2020-2021 by scientists from the Bogor Institute of Agriculture, Indonesia’s premier forestry university, indicated intensive ecological distress. Researchers revealed nitrogen levels greater than the safe threshold set by Indonesia’s environment ministry, threatening both fish and water quality. Civil society organizations, church groups and community&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/10/indonesia-retiree-rewilds-worlds-largest-volcano-lake-as-church-demands-plantation-closures/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-307777</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Navigating conservation’s crisis (commentary)</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/navigating-conservations-crisis/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/navigating-conservations-crisis/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>21 Sep 2025 13:23:16 +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/20/2025/09/18204309/indonesia_160271-25-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=306225</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Founder's briefs and Navigating conservation's crisis]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Global]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Commentary, Community-based Conservation, Conservation, Conservation Finance, Conservation leadership, Conservation Solutions, Economics, Environment, philanthropy, and Solutions]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Call it a crossroads. Ecological decline is accelerating in too many places at once; institutions that once limited the damage are wobbling; the information channels we rely on to coordinate action are clogged. In tropical forests alone, annual primary forest loss has climbed by 50% in the 2020s relative to the 2000s. Fires, drought and fragmentation have [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[An invitation The conservation field is facing a radical new reality: accelerating ecological decline, shrinking civic space, and shifting political and financial landscapes. At Mongabay, we believe this moment demands not only reporting, but reflection. We are inviting voices from across the sector to contribute commentaries that ask hard questions and explore how crisis can also be opportunity. If you work in conservation, what lessons, pivots, or strategies do you see emerging? Where is adaptation already happening—and what should come next? We welcome your reflections as part of a broader discourse on how conservation can meet this era with creativity, courage, and clarity. To submit a commentary for consideration, please see the guidance under Commentaries/editorials on our submissions page. Call it a crossroads. Ecological decline is accelerating in too many places at once; institutions that once limited the damage are wobbling; the information channels we rely on to coordinate action are clogged. In tropical forests alone, annual primary forest loss has climbed by 50% in the 2020s relative to the 2000s. Fires, drought and fragmentation have amplified each other, turning routine burns into regional infernos and pushing ecosystems toward limits toward limits scientists once thought hypothetical. The numbers are not abstract; they are acreage, species and livelihoods. Politics has not been neutral. Aid budgets have been cut or frozen; in the United States, the dismantling or suspension of major funding streams left conservation programs scrambling, with knock-on effects across ranger salaries, monitoring and community incentives from the Congo Basin to Indonesia. Meanwhile, some philanthropies have stepped up, yet the&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/navigating-conservations-crisis/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/navigating-conservations-crisis/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-306225</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>US proposes zero new protections for traded wildlife at upcoming CITES CoP</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/08/us-proposes-zero-new-protections-for-traded-wildlife-at-upcoming-cites-cop/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/08/us-proposes-zero-new-protections-for-traded-wildlife-at-upcoming-cites-cop/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>18 Aug 2025 15:09:58 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Spoorthy Raman]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Sharon Guynup]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/08/15082624/india_165187-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=304329</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Central Asia, Global, North America, United States, and Uzbekistan]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Conservation, Conservation leadership, Crime, Endangered Species, Endangered Species Act, Environment, Environmental Policy, Governance, Illegal Trade, International Trade, Politics, Saving Species From Extinction, Solutions, Sustainability, Wildlife, Wildlife Trade, and Wildlife Trafficking]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[At the end of 2025, representatives from 185 countries will convene in Uzbekistan to discuss the fate of sharks, African hornbills, hyenas, vultures, palm trees and other threatened species. The group’s decisions will, in part, decide the survival and the future of widely traded fauna and flora as they vote whether to set limits on or [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[At the end of 2025, representatives from 185 countries will convene in Uzbekistan to discuss the fate of sharks, African hornbills, hyenas, vultures, palm trees and other threatened species. The group’s decisions will, in part, decide the survival and the future of widely traded fauna and flora as they vote whether to set limits on or bar the international trade of these species and their parts, including fins, heads and skins. This will be the 20th meeting of signatories to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Flora and Fauna (CITES), one of the world’s oldest conservation treaties. These “Conference of the Parties” (CoP) discussions, held once every three years, will convene from Nov. 24 to Dec. 5 in Samarkand. They offer an opportunity for the world to rein in the unsustainable, multibillion-dollar wildlife trade, both legal and illegal. For species like the elephants, rhinos, tigers and numerous others, trade is the greatest threat to their long-term survival. The United States has traditionally been a leader in conservation, affording and securing protections to species at risk, including those exploited by trade. But this year, the country&#8217;s role seems to have weakened as a leader at CITES: It has sponsored only four proposals for consideration at the upcoming CoP, the lowest in the last 10 CoPs — 25 years. In total, 51 proposals are up for discussion to regulate or ban the international commercial trade of wildlife and its products. For the first time, none of the U.S.-backed proposals support&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/08/us-proposes-zero-new-protections-for-traded-wildlife-at-upcoming-cites-cop/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/08/us-proposes-zero-new-protections-for-traded-wildlife-at-upcoming-cites-cop/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-304329</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>First congress of forest basin leaders results in call for direct financing</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/06/first-conference-of-forest-basin-leaders-results-in-call-for-direct-financing/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/06/first-conference-of-forest-basin-leaders-results-in-call-for-direct-financing/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>24 Jun 2025 15:06:40 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Sonam Lama Hyolmo]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Latoya Abulu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/06/24063744/Maribel-Arango-768x512.jpeg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=301259</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon and Central Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[30x30 conservation target, Climate, climate finance, Climate Justice, Community Forests, Community-based Conservation, Conservation, Conservation Finance, Conservation leadership, Conservation Solutions, Forests, Gender, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Rights, Redd, Solutions, Tropical Forests, and Zero Deforestation Commitments]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[At the world’s first global congress of Indigenous peoples and local communities from forest basins, representatives began preparations to increase direct finance to community forest conservation — especially in the run-up to the upcoming U.N. climate conference, COP30. The participants, from the Amazon, Congo, Mesoamerica, and Borneo-Mekong basins, gathered May 26-30 in Brazzaville, Republic of [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[At the world’s first global congress of Indigenous peoples and local communities from forest basins, representatives began preparations to increase direct finance to community forest conservation — especially in the run-up to the upcoming U.N. climate conference, COP30. The participants, from the Amazon, Congo, Mesoamerica, and Borneo-Mekong basins, gathered May 26-30 in Brazzaville, Republic of Congo, and proposed that new financing pledges at the global climate conference should direct at least 40% of funds directly to Indigenous and local community organizations. This, they said, should go through their own funding mechanisms — instruments that organizations are currently in the works of scaling up. An estimated 80% of the world’s tropical forests and two-thirds of its biodiversity lie within the Amazon, Congo and Borneo-Mekong-Southeast Asia basins, with about 36% of the world’s intact forests on Indigenous lands. Countries within these basins are experiencing record-high rates of forest loss, and some estimate the management and restoration of forests could cost $203 billion per year by 2050. “As we [Indigenous leaders] looked into the minimum funds that went directly to Indigenous peoples and local communities, this congress needed to initiate talks on advancing mechanisms that could channel direct funds to community organizations,” said Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim, president of the Association for Indigenous Women and Peoples of Chad. Ivindo River in the Congo Basin in Gabon. Image by Rhett A. Butler/Mongabay. Pathways to direct funding While the congress focused on the roles of Indigenous peoples and local communities in forest conservation, improved access to direct funds&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/06/first-conference-of-forest-basin-leaders-results-in-call-for-direct-financing/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/06/first-conference-of-forest-basin-leaders-results-in-call-for-direct-financing/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-301259</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Uniting plantations to save Bornean elephants: Interview with Farina Othman</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/06/uniting-plantations-to-save-bornean-elephants-interview-with-farina-othman/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/06/uniting-plantations-to-save-bornean-elephants-interview-with-farina-othman/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>10 Jun 2025 14:34:58 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Lee Kwai Han]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Karen Coates]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/06/09170118/borneo-elephants-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=300428</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Borneo, Malaysia, Sabah, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Animals, Biodiversity, Community-based Conservation, Conservation, Conservation leadership, Deforestation, Elephants, Endangered Species, Environment, Fellows, Forests, Happy-upbeat Environmental, Human-wildlife Conflict, Interviews, Interviews with conservation players, Palm Oil, Plantations, Rainforests, Tropical Forests, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[In 2006, Farina Othman heard a loud boom when she was observing a group of Bornean elephants in a forest in the Lower Kinabatangan area, one of the largest floodplains in Malaysia. She recognized that it was the sound from a bamboo cannon. It’s a type of homemade firecracker locals use to chase elephants away. [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[In 2006, Farina Othman heard a loud boom when she was observing a group of Bornean elephants in a forest in the Lower Kinabatangan area, one of the largest floodplains in Malaysia. She recognized that it was the sound from a bamboo cannon. It’s a type of homemade firecracker locals use to chase elephants away. At that time, she had just started her master’s studies, focusing on Bornean elephants (Elephas maximus borneensis). She felt humans were being unfair to the elephants. Determined to help, she decided to step in to be their voice. Today, only about 1,000 Bornean elephants remain in the wild, mainly in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo. In 2024, the species was listed as endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. The plight of the Bornean elephants began in the 1970s. Between 1973 and 2010, Sabah lost more than 52% of its lowland forest (below 500 meters, or 1,640 feet, above sea level) to logging. Many of these lands were later converted into oil palm plantations. For the Bornean elephants, more than half of their ideal habitat is gone. Othman, now in her early 40s, has become a Bornean elephant conservationist and teaches at Universiti Malaysia Sabah. She told Mongabay that habitat loss and fragmentation fuel human-elephant conflict. “They don&#8217;t want to live or share the landscape with the elephants,” Othman said of some local communities. Despite being protected by law, the elephants face retaliatory killings by gun or poison. Farina Othman, a Bornean elephant conservationist who&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/06/uniting-plantations-to-save-bornean-elephants-interview-with-farina-othman/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-300428</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Silvery lining for Java’s endangered gibbon as Rahayu Oktaviani wins Whitley prize</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/05/silvery-lining-for-javas-endangered-gibbon-as-rahayu-oktaviani-wins-whitley-prize/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/05/silvery-lining-for-javas-endangered-gibbon-as-rahayu-oktaviani-wins-whitley-prize/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>27 May 2025 03:11:33 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Nuswantoro]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Philip Jacobson]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/05/26051403/Owa_Jawa_Hylobates_moloch-2-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=299626</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Indonesia, Java, Southeast Asia, and West Java]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Apes, Biodiversity, Conservation, Conservation leadership, Deforestation, Endangered Species, Environment, Forestry, Forests, Gibbons, Habitat Loss, Happy-upbeat Environmental, Hunting, Mammals, Primates, Rainforests, Tropical Forests, Wildlife, and Women In Science]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[YOGYAKARTA, Indonesia — Rahayu Oktaviani revered the work of Canadian primatologist Biruté Galdikas while a student in the mid-2000s, aspiring to join her hero in protecting the Bornean orangutan, which would be classified several years later as a critically endangered species. In the end, a lack of research funding kept the Borneo forest canopy out [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[YOGYAKARTA, Indonesia — Rahayu Oktaviani revered the work of Canadian primatologist Biruté Galdikas while a student in the mid-2000s, aspiring to join her hero in protecting the Bornean orangutan, which would be classified several years later as a critically endangered species. In the end, a lack of research funding kept the Borneo forest canopy out of reach for Ayu, as she’s better known, upon graduation. “So, I turned to the Javan gibbon,” Ayu told Mongabay Indonesia. An hour west of the Bogor Institute of Agriculture (IPB), her alma mater and Indonesia’s top forestry university, Ayu was instead drawn by the distinctive call of the silvery gibbon from Gunung Halimun-Salak National Park, named after the twin active volcanoes at its heart. “I heard that voice every time I went into the forest,” Ayu said. Last month, Ayu won the prestigious Whitley Award, which recognizes achievements in grassroots conservation, to advance her work on protection of Java’s silvery gibbon. Ayu follows past winners like Amanda Vincent, today a world expert on seahorses, who won the inaugural Whitley Award in 1994 to study seahorses in the Philippines. “Drawing on a decade of research into gibbon behaviour and habitat needs, Ayu and her team at Kiara (Konservasi Ekosistem Alam Nusantara) will work with community members, park rangers and managers to build capacity, monitor biodiversity and guide conservation strategies toward a shared vision,” the U.K.-based Whitley Fund for Nature wrote in a release. Rahayu Oktaviani has dedicated 17 years of her life to saving the&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/05/silvery-lining-for-javas-endangered-gibbon-as-rahayu-oktaviani-wins-whitley-prize/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/05/silvery-lining-for-javas-endangered-gibbon-as-rahayu-oktaviani-wins-whitley-prize/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-299626</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>‘It has been worth it’: The local women saving Yucatán’s mangroves</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/04/it-has-been-worth-it-the-local-women-saving-yucatans-mangroves/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/04/it-has-been-worth-it-the-local-women-saving-yucatans-mangroves/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>25 Apr 2025 16:00:59 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Astrid Arellano]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Morgan Erickson-Davis]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/04/25145530/Las-Chelemeras-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=298181</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Latin America, Mexico, and North America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Coastal Ecosystems, Community Forests, Community-based Conservation, Conservation, Conservation leadership, Ecosystems, Environment, Forestry, Forests, Gender, Interviews, Interviews with conservation players, Landscape Restoration, Mangroves, Oceans, Reforestation, Restoration, Trees, and Women In Science]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The women of Chelem, a fishing community on the northern coast of the Mexican state of Yucatán, hadn’t planned to work in mangrove restoration. At first, it was simply an opportunity to make money to support their families, so they signed up for the project. It was 2010, and the initiative, led by the Center [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The women of Chelem, a fishing community on the northern coast of the Mexican state of Yucatán, hadn’t planned to work in mangrove restoration. At first, it was simply an opportunity to make money to support their families, so they signed up for the project. It was 2010, and the initiative, led by the Center for Research and Advanced Studies (CINVESTA) at the National Polytechnic Institute, aimed to restore a mangrove forest that had been devastated by the construction of a port in the late 1960s. The group has since come to be known as Las Chelemeras (“the women of Chelem”), who have learned to restore and defend mangroves and who, 15 years later, continue to do so. Keila Vázquez, coordinator of Las Chelemeras, remembers this place, known as the Yucalpetén bend, as barren. “It was caused by dredging for a nearby port,” Vázquez says. “All the gravel from the port was dumped there: the topography changed, the salinity increased and the water stopped flowing.” That’s where Las Chelemeras came in. The 14 women in the group, ranging in age from 30 to 85, learned about the different mangrove tree species of the area and what they needed to survive and grow, Vázquez says. “Despite being from the coast, we didn’t know why the mangroves were important,” Vázquez says. “For example, they protect against cyclones and act as nurseries for commercial marine species such as prawns. Now we understand how much they benefit us.” She adds, “We know that each&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/04/it-has-been-worth-it-the-local-women-saving-yucatans-mangroves/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-298181</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Pope Francis’ uncompromising defense of nature may be his greatest legacy</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/04/pope-francis-uncompromising-defense-of-nature-may-be-his-greatest-legacy/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/04/pope-francis-uncompromising-defense-of-nature-may-be-his-greatest-legacy/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>24 Apr 2025 15:59:57 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Justin Catanoso]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Glenn Scherer]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/04/24141523/pope-francis-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=298107</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Conservation and Religion]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Global]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Climate Change, Climate Justice, Conservation, Conservation leadership, Environment, Environmental Law, Governance, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Rights, Politics, Pope, Religions, and Social Justice]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Pope Francis, the first Latin American pontiff, was as much a tireless advocate for nature as he was the poor and marginalized the world over. While his death leaves a vacuum of moral environmental leadership within the globe’s largest religion, the words of Francis still echo through tropical rainforests and grasslands, across rivers and oceans. [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Pope Francis, the first Latin American pontiff, was as much a tireless advocate for nature as he was the poor and marginalized the world over. While his death leaves a vacuum of moral environmental leadership within the globe’s largest religion, the words of Francis still echo through tropical rainforests and grasslands, across rivers and oceans. The pope, who died April 21 in Rome at age 88, never attended a United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity. But in this astute observation in Laudato Si’, the pioneering Catholic teaching document released in the summer of 2015 in defense of the natural world, Francis eloquently voices the biennial meeting’s defining spirit: “It is not enough … to think of different species merely as potential ‘resources’ to be exploited, while overlooking the fact that they have value in themselves. Each year sees the disappearance of thousands of plant and animal species which we will never know, which our children will never see, because they have been lost forever,” Francis wrote with both biological accuracy and spiritual authority. “The great majority become extinct for reasons related to human activity. Because of us, thousands of species will no longer give glory to God by their very existence, nor convey their message to us. We have no such right.” When it was released, the uncompromising message of Laudato Si’ reverberated round the world and it is reflected throughout the preamble of the historic Paris Agreement on climate change of 2015. Its essence also reverberates in the 2022&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/04/pope-francis-uncompromising-defense-of-nature-may-be-his-greatest-legacy/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-298107</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Meet the 2025 Goldman Environmental Prize Winners</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/04/meet-the-2025-goldman-environmental-prize-winners/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/04/meet-the-2025-goldman-environmental-prize-winners/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>21 Apr 2025 16:56:35 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Mongabay.com]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Erik Hoffner]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/04/21163449/Besjana-Guri-and-Olsi-Nika-014-Credit-Goldman-Environmental-Prize-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=297905</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Asia, East Asia, Europe, European Union, Mongolia, North Africa, Peru, and United States]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Activism, Conservation, Conservation leadership, Environment, and Happy-upbeat Environmental]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Seven environmental activists from around the world will be awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize on April 21. Known as the “Green Nobel Prize,” the Goldman Prize honors activists from the six inhabited continental regions. This year’s winners include a scientist and educator who fought illegal trafficking of Italian household waste to Tunisia; an electrical engineer [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
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							<![CDATA[Seven environmental activists from around the world will be awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize on April 21. Known as the “Green Nobel Prize,” the Goldman Prize honors activists from the six inhabited continental regions. This year’s winners include a scientist and educator who fought illegal trafficking of Italian household waste to Tunisia; an electrical engineer who campaigned to protect a region in the Gobi Desert from mining for copper and other minerals; a social worker and an ecologist from Albania who together campaigned to protect the Vjosa River from hydroelectric dam construction; an activist who pressured a polluting plastics company in New England to shut down; a former civil engineer who campaigned to protect a marine protected area in the Canary Islands from port construction; and an activist who won legal personhood for Peru&#8217;s Marañón River in a landmark court case. “It’s been a tough year for both people and the planet,” Jennifer Goldman Wallis, vice president of the Goldman Environmental Foundation, said in a press release. “There’s so much that worries us, stresses us, outrages us, and keeps us divided. However, for me, these environmental leaders and teachers — and the global environmental community that supports them — are the antidote.&#8221; The winners will be honored at a ceremony in San Francisco on April 21, at 5:30 p.m. local time, hosted by Rue Mapp, founder of environmental education nonprofit Outdoor Afro, and musical guest Rueda con Ritmo featuring Son Chévere. The event will be livestreamed on the Goldman Prize YouTube channel. The&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/04/meet-the-2025-goldman-environmental-prize-winners/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-297905</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Where war once raged in Iraq, Yezidi women plant hope</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/04/where-war-once-raged-in-iraq-yezidi-women-plant-hope/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/04/where-war-once-raged-in-iraq-yezidi-women-plant-hope/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>14 Apr 2025 15:25:09 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Robert Bociaga]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Jeremy Hance]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/04/14123702/Yezidi-women-3-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=297536</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Iraq, and Middle East]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Community Forests, Community-based Conservation, Conservation, Conservation leadership, Desertification, Ecosystems, Education, Environment, Forestry, Gender, Happy-upbeat Environmental, Landscape Restoration, Restoration, Sustainable Development, Trees, War, and Women In Science]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[KHANKE, Iraq — In the wind-swept town of Khanke in northern Iraq, a fragile tree stands as a quiet symbol of resilience. Its slender trunk bends slightly in the dry breeze, its roots gripping soil once strewn with plastic waste. Beneath its shade, a group of women gathers: survivors of war, displacement, and unimaginable loss. [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
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							<![CDATA[KHANKE, Iraq — In the wind-swept town of Khanke in northern Iraq, a fragile tree stands as a quiet symbol of resilience. Its slender trunk bends slightly in the dry breeze, its roots gripping soil once strewn with plastic waste. Beneath its shade, a group of women gathers: survivors of war, displacement, and unimaginable loss. Yet here, they are not victims — they are custodians of renewal. These women, many of them ethnic Yezidis who escaped the 2014 ISIS genocide in Sinjar district, are rebuilding not just their lives, but the landscape around them. Armed with shovels and buckets, they have turned barren spaces into green sanctuaries, planting more than 2,000 trees and nurturing hope in a place where despair once took root. Their efforts are part of Clean Green, a grassroots environmental initiative founded by Yezidi women determined to restore their surroundings. The project began with just five volunteers in 2023 but has since grown into a network of more than 40 members who plant trees, recycle, and teach children about environmental stewardship. For Suzan Haskani, a Yezidi woman who fled ISIS at the age of 14, joining Clean Green brought purpose. “When I first arrived in Khanke, I wasn’t thinking about trees or cleaning,” she says. “I was thinking about safety, like everyone else.” That sense of safety, however, feels fragile. Even as some displaced families now mull returning to Sinjar, they say their homeland has changed. “Even if Sinjar was safe, people can’t farm like before,” says&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/04/where-war-once-raged-in-iraq-yezidi-women-plant-hope/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-297536</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>How one researcher walked thousands of miles along India’s shores to conserve sea turtles</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/03/a-curious-conservationist-who-walked-along-indias-coastlines-to-learn-about-sea-turtles/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/03/a-curious-conservationist-who-walked-along-indias-coastlines-to-learn-about-sea-turtles/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>20 Mar 2025 11:41:59 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Priyanka Shankar]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Mongabay Editor]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/03/20113731/Umeed-Mistry-1200x798-1-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=296169</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Beyond the screen: DCEFF]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, India, and South Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Conservation, Conservation leadership, Endangered Species, Environment, Film, Herps, Marine, Marine Animals, Marine Conservation, Reptiles, Sea Turtles, Turtles, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Satish Bhaskar was a curious man. From a very young age he was fascinated with the sea and the diverse marine creatures, especially turtles. When he learnt that sea turtles were being exploited in India for their eggs, shells and flesh, he understood the importance of documenting and protecting nesting turtle beaches. In the late [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
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							<![CDATA[Satish Bhaskar was a curious man. From a very young age he was fascinated with the sea and the diverse marine creatures, especially turtles. When he learnt that sea turtles were being exploited in India for their eggs, shells and flesh, he understood the importance of documenting and protecting nesting turtle beaches. In the late 1970s, he decided to cover every single beach and island in India, by foot. Over 19 years, Bhaskar surveyed more than 4,000 kilometers (2,485 miles) of the country’s coastline and published several important reports, filling huge gaps of knowledge about sea turtle distribution. He even chose to maroon himself on an uninhabited island in Lakshadweep for months, equipped with only basic essentials and a transistor, to study turtles. In a documentary about his life and career, titled Turtle Walker, the late conservationist described being with turtles as some of the happiest days in his life. “I am glad I did the things I did,” he said. Produced by Emaho Films and backed by Tiger Baby, HHMI Tangled Bank Studios and Ceres, the 75-minute documentary is already winning international recognition and is set to be screened at the DC Environmental Film Festival 2025 (DCEFF 2025). Mongabay is a media partner for DCEFF 2025 and has interviewed some filmmakers as part of this collaboration. In this interview with Mongabay India, Taira Malaney, the director of Turtle Walker talked about why she chose Satish Bhaskar as the subject of her documentary, the challenges of filming with turtles, the&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/03/a-curious-conservationist-who-walked-along-indias-coastlines-to-learn-about-sea-turtles/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-296169</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Ugandan researcher wins ‘Emerging Conservationist’ award for work on golden cats</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/03/ugandan-researcher-wins-emerging-conservationist-award-for-work-on-golden-cats/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/03/ugandan-researcher-wins-emerging-conservationist-award-for-work-on-golden-cats/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>06 Mar 2025 11:47:14 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Abhishyant Kidangoor]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Abhishyantkidangoor]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[africa]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2023/05/04170704/2-African-golden-cat-caught-in-a-snare-540x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=295373</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Central Africa, and Uganda]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Cats, Community-based Conservation, Conservation, Conservation leadership, Conservation Technology, Environment, Poaching, Research, Small Cats, Technology, Wildlife, and Wildtech]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The Indianapolis Prize, a prestigious award that recognizes leaders in wildlife conservation, has awarded its second Emerging Conservationist Award to Mwezi Badru Mugerwa. A Ugandan researcher and conservationist who combines community work with technology, Mugerwa has been working to stop the poaching of the little-known African golden cat (Caracal aurata) and bolster efforts to ramp [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The Indianapolis Prize, a prestigious award that recognizes leaders in wildlife conservation, has awarded its second Emerging Conservationist Award to Mwezi Badru Mugerwa. A Ugandan researcher and conservationist who combines community work with technology, Mugerwa has been working to stop the poaching of the little-known African golden cat (Caracal aurata) and bolster efforts to ramp up conservation of the species. In an email interview with Mongabay, Mugerwa called the recognition “surreal.” The Indianapolis Prize, awarded by Indianapolis Zoo, has long recognized individuals who have spearheaded successful conservation efforts around the world. The Emerging Conservationist Award, a new category which comes with prize money of $50,000, was established only in 2022 to recognize people under the age of 40 who have worked for the conservation of a species or a group of species. The main Indianapolis Prize will be announced in May, and both winners will be honored at a gala in Indianapolis in September. “Mwezi’s passion for involving the local community in conservation efforts is what makes him so worthy of receiving this award,” Rob Shumaker, president and CEO of the Indianapolis Zoological Society, said in a press statement. Over the past 15 years, Mugerwa has worked with local communities to stop the poaching of the African golden cat. Image courtesy of Embaka. Mugerwa, whom  Mongabay profiled last year, founded the community-driven conservation organization Embaka to monitor and protect the African golden cat, which is endemic to West and Central Africa. Over the past 15 years, Mugerwa and his team&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/03/ugandan-researcher-wins-emerging-conservationist-award-for-work-on-golden-cats/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-295373</doi>				</item>
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