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		<title>Conservation news</title>
		<atom:link href="https://news.mongabay.com/feed/?topic=extinction&#038;type=post" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" />
		<link>https://news.mongabay.com/list/extinction/</link>
		<description>Environmental science and conservation news</description>
		<lastBuildDate>Fri, 06 Nov 2026 17:21:37 +0000</lastBuildDate>
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	<url>https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2020/05/16160320/cropped-mongabay_icon-32x32.png</url>
	<title>News on Extinction</title>
	<link>https://news.mongabay.com/list/extinction/</link>
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				<item>
					<title>Sri Lanka mourns iconic tusker amid renewed calls to address human-elephant conflict</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/sri-lanka-mourns-iconic-tusker-amid-renewed-calls-to-address-human-elephant-conflict/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/sri-lanka-mourns-iconic-tusker-amid-renewed-calls-to-address-human-elephant-conflict/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>24 Oct 2026 14:59:46 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Malaka Rodrigo]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Dilrukshi Handunnetti]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/10/24140644/3-Sri-Lanka-Tusker-death-Kavantissa-c-Sahan-GUnarathne-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=333803</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, South Asia, and Sri Lanka]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Charismatic Animals, Conservation, Controversial, Development, Elephants, Encroachment, Endangered Species, Environment, Ex-situ Conservation, Extinction, Fences, Forest Destruction, Fragmentation, Habitat Degradation, Habitat Loss, Human-wildlife Conflict, Ivory, Land Use Change, Mammals, National Parks, Protected Areas, Protests, Wildlife, and Wildlife Rescues]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[COLOMBO – The death of Kavantissa, one of Sri Lanka’s most iconic wild tuskers (Elephas maximus maximus), following a gunshot injury triggered an extraordinary wave of public grief, political attention and criticism of wildlife authorities.The elephant’s final days brought together politicians, Buddhist monks, wildlife enthusiasts and veterinarians in a collective effort to save a giant [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[COLOMBO – The death of Kavantissa, one of Sri Lanka’s most iconic wild tuskers (Elephas maximus maximus), following a gunshot injury triggered an extraordinary wave of public grief, political attention and criticism of wildlife authorities.The elephant’s final days brought together politicians, Buddhist monks, wildlife enthusiasts and veterinarians in a collective effort to save a giant that had captured the hearts of many Sri Lankans. A photograph of Sri Lanka’s opposition leader Sajith Premadasa, an ardent elephant enthusiast kissing the elephant’s head went viral on social media as did the environment minister Dhammika Patabendi visiting the elephant amidst heavy rain. Buddhist monks chanted Pirith (traditional Buddhist verses to invoke blessings), while a prominent businessman Dudley Sirisena offered to fund treatment, including a foreign veterinary team being flown in. Former president Mahinda Rajapaksa was among those who paid tribute to the magnificent tusker as well. Kavantissa’s death sparked widespread public attention as shown in this Google Trends results, showing heightened interest among Sri Lankans searching the term ‘Kavantissa’ since the day the elephant’s critical condition became public knowledge. Graph via Google Trends. Despite the intensive efforts of wildlife veterinarians, Kavantissa suffered cardiac arrest on the evening of Oct. 16. Senior wildlife veterinary surgeons were present, and one reportedly climbed onto his chest in an attempt to administer cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR). Their efforts failed, and the tusker died at around 6:18 p.m. His death was followed by an outpouring of grief and anger, with many demanding accountability from the Department of Wildlife Conservation&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/sri-lanka-mourns-iconic-tusker-amid-renewed-calls-to-address-human-elephant-conflict/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/sri-lanka-mourns-iconic-tusker-amid-renewed-calls-to-address-human-elephant-conflict/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-333803</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>World Kangaroo Day: How climate change impacts Australia’s macropods</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/world-kangaroo-day-how-climate-change-impacts-australias-macropods/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/world-kangaroo-day-how-climate-change-impacts-australias-macropods/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>24 Oct 2026 01:00:01 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Cooper Williams]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Yenni Kwok]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/10/22124702/14582525532_c6239de35c_o-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=333569</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Australia and Oceania]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Climate, Climate Change, Conservation, Critically Endangered Species, Ecosystems, El Nino, Endangered Species, Environment, Extinction, Extreme Weather, Global Environmental Crisis, Governance, Habitat, Habitat Loss, Impact Of Climate Change, Mammals, Marsupials, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[CANBERRA — World Kangaroo Day, on Oct. 24, celebrates one of Australia’s national symbols and the macropod’s special place in the country’s environment and First Nations cultures. In 2026, as “super El Niño” wreaks havoc across the globe, it is an opportune time to reflect on how climate change has affected the country’s iconic animals. [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[CANBERRA — World Kangaroo Day, on Oct. 24, celebrates one of Australia’s national symbols and the macropod’s special place in the country’s environment and First Nations cultures. In 2026, as “super El Niño” wreaks havoc across the globe, it is an opportune time to reflect on how climate change has affected the country’s iconic animals. There are dozens of species — 59 to be exact — belonging to the macropodoidea (meaning large-footed) superfamily living in Australia. The four main species are the red kangaroo (Osphranter rufus), which is the largest in size; the western grey kangaroo (Macropus fuliginosus); the eastern grey kangaroo (Macropus giganteus); the antilopine kangaroo (Osphranter antilopinus). These kangaroo species are abundant in Australia, with a total population estimated to range between 30 million and 50 million, depending on drought and rainfall cycles. Their numbers have been considered so high that state-level governments have introduced controversial cull programs to reduce populations. Lesser-known varieties include the smallest macropod species in the world: the musky rat-kangaroo (Hypsiprymnodon moschatus), typically weighing around just 500 grams (1.1 pounds); the critically endangered Gilbert’s poteroo (Potorous gilbertii); and Australia’s only two species of tree-kangaroo, the Lumholtz’s tree-kangaroo (Dendrolagus lumholtzi) and the Bennett’s tree-kangaroo (D. bennettianus), which live in the forests of Far North Queensland. For the smaller species of kangaroo and wallaby, quokka, bettong and potoroo, which also belong to the macropod superfamily, the situation is dire. Six species of kangaroo have already gone extinct since the colonization of Australia, and 11 of the&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/world-kangaroo-day-how-climate-change-impacts-australias-macropods/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/world-kangaroo-day-how-climate-change-impacts-australias-macropods/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-333569</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Legal gaps allow rampant pet trade, poaching reptiles and amphibians towards extinction</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/legal-gaps-allow-rampant-pet-trade-poaching-reptiles-and-amphibians-towards-extinction/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/legal-gaps-allow-rampant-pet-trade-poaching-reptiles-and-amphibians-towards-extinction/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>16 Oct 2026 15:55:07 +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/20/2026/10/15152757/Lehmanns-poison-frog-Oophaga-lehmanni.-Credit_-%C2%A9%EF%B8%8FJonathan-Vanegas-WCS-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=332764</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Global]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Amphibians, Animals, Biodiversity, Crime, Environment, Environmental Law, Extinction, Global Environmental Crisis, Governance, Herps, Illegal Trade, Law, Law Enforcement, Pet Trade, Pets, Poaching, Reptiles, Trade, Wildlife, Wildlife Trade, and Wildlife Trafficking]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Spain’s law enforcement agency, the Civil Guard, announced on Sept. 25, 2026, that it seized 209 reptiles from breeding facilities in Jérica and Sot de Ferrer (Castellón), including critically endangered iguanas endemic to Fiji. Nearly half of the reptiles were protected under CITES, the global wildlife trade treaty. They also seized unlicensed handguns and nearly [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Spain’s law enforcement agency, the Civil Guard, announced on Sept. 25, 2026, that it seized 209 reptiles from breeding facilities in Jérica and Sot de Ferrer (Castellón), including critically endangered iguanas endemic to Fiji. Nearly half of the reptiles were protected under CITES, the global wildlife trade treaty. They also seized unlicensed handguns and nearly 200 rounds of ammunition. Authorities arrested three individuals — two men aged 48 and 51 and a 37-year-old woman — on a litany of charges: Belonging to a criminal organization, wildlife-related offenses, smuggling, money laundering and illegal weapons possession. The alleged traffickers reportedly smuggled reptiles from the wild in the Americas, Africa and Asia, and then bred them without permits, the authorities said. They added that these reptiles were then sold at European reptile and trade fairs, mixing smuggled animals with legally acquired animals — a practice called laundering that’s prevalent in wildlife trade. In this way, traffickers exploit the “legal gray area surrounding documentation that certifies the animals&#8217; origins,” the authorities said in a press release. The Spanish case is just one recent example among a slew of seizures and arrests involving rare tortoises, endangered turtles, poisonous frogs, endemic iguanas and many other protected reptiles and amphibians worldwide. The trade is lucrative — estimated to be worth some $2.5 billion — and comes with little risk. It’s often unregulated. Smugglers are rarely caught, and if they are, they get off by paying a small fine, which is absorbed as the cost of doing business.&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/legal-gaps-allow-rampant-pet-trade-poaching-reptiles-and-amphibians-towards-extinction/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/10/legal-gaps-allow-rampant-pet-trade-poaching-reptiles-and-amphibians-towards-extinction/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-332764</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>From seizure to sentence: Weak prosecution leaves tigers vulnerable to trafficking in Southeast Asia: Report</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/09/from-seizure-to-sentence-weak-prosecution-leaves-tigers-vulnerable-to-trafficking-in-southeast-asia-report/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/09/from-seizure-to-sentence-weak-prosecution-leaves-tigers-vulnerable-to-trafficking-in-southeast-asia-report/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>03 Sep 2026 13:13:42 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Sean Mowbray]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Sharon Guynup]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/08/28035444/1.-Sumatran-tiger-2-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=327188</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Cambodia, China, Global, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Southeast Asia, Thailand, Turkey, and Vietnam]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Big Cats, Biodiversity, Business, Cats, Conservation, Crime, Critically Endangered Species, Endangered Species, Environment, Extinction, Global Environmental Crisis, Governance, Habitat, Habitat Loss, Health, Law, Law Enforcement, Mammals, Medicine, Organized Crime, Poaching, Threatened species, Tigers, Trade, Traditional Medicine, trafficking, Wildlife, Wildlife Trade, and Wildlife Trafficking]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[When tiger poachers and traffickers are apprehended in Southeast Asia, they frequently get away without consequences: Fewer than half of arrests and seizures in the cat’s Southeast Asian range countries are backed up by penalties or convictions, according to a recently published report by Canadian conservation think tank the GuArdean Centre for Conservation Research, wildlife [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[When tiger poachers and traffickers are apprehended in Southeast Asia, they frequently get away without consequences: Fewer than half of arrests and seizures in the cat’s Southeast Asian range countries are backed up by penalties or convictions, according to a recently published report by Canadian conservation think tank the GuArdean Centre for Conservation Research, wildlife trade watchdog TRAFFIC, and WWF International. This means there’s little deterrent for a lucrative illegal industry that’s driving tigers toward extinction, experts say. Black market trade in their skins, bones, teeth and other body parts is an extremely lucrative business; most are headed to China, the top consumer. Researchers assessed publicly available records related to 259 tiger-related seizures in Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia, Cambodia, Myanmar and Laos between 2019 and 2024 — seven of the 10 countries where wild tigers still survive. Heather Sohl, the tiger trade lead at WWF and a co-author of the report, noted that these cases represent just a fraction of the trade, “only those which were intercepted and reported.” That level of wildlife crime could have a “massive impact” on wild tiger populations, she said. Based on their findings, the study’s authors are calling for a raft of measures to strengthen sentencing in an effort to fight the international criminal organizations that mastermind tiger trade and other wildlife crime in the region. A young Bengal tiger walks along a path through elephant grass in India’s Kaziranga National Park. Image by Steve Winter/Big Cat Voices. Little deterrent for tiger poachers and&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/09/from-seizure-to-sentence-weak-prosecution-leaves-tigers-vulnerable-to-trafficking-in-southeast-asia-report/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/09/from-seizure-to-sentence-weak-prosecution-leaves-tigers-vulnerable-to-trafficking-in-southeast-asia-report/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-327188</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Timor green pigeon nears extinction after decades of inaction, study warns</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/timor-green-pigeon-nears-extinction-after-decades-of-inaction-study-warns/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/timor-green-pigeon-nears-extinction-after-decades-of-inaction-study-warns/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>13 Aug 2026 16:31:20 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Timothy Mihocik]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Philip Jacobson]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/08/12120441/Timor-green-pigeon-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=326043</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, East Timor, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Birds, Conservation, Critically Endangered Species, Endangered Species, Environment, Extinction, Islands, Research, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[On April 20, Jafet Potenzo Lopes was surveying the south coast of Manatuto municipality, in Timor-Leste, when he recorded something he had not seen in years: three Timor green pigeons, alive, in a location where the species had never been documented before. Lopes is one of Timor-Leste&#8217;s few field ecologists. He was born and raised [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[On April 20, Jafet Potenzo Lopes was surveying the south coast of Manatuto municipality, in Timor-Leste, when he recorded something he had not seen in years: three Timor green pigeons, alive, in a location where the species had never been documented before. Lopes is one of Timor-Leste&#8217;s few field ecologists. He was born and raised in the village of Com, inside Nino Konis Santana National Park — the last place on Earth where a viable population of this species, Treron psittaceus, still survives. He has spent more than a decade walking through forests, coastal habitats and mountains across the country, documenting what remains. “Rediscovering the Timor green pigeon was one of the most emotional moments of my life,&#8221; he says. “I was almost crying when I saw them in the wild. In my heart and mind, I kept saying, ‘Yes, yes, they still exist.’” Researchers estimate that only 100-500 Timor green pigeons remain globally, and believe the true number is probably toward the lower end of that range. “Seeing them alive gave me hope,” Lopes says. But despite decades of concern for the endangered bird, the species still lacks a dedicated recovery program, regular population monitoring and sustained conservation investment. T. psittaceus inhabits the lowland forests of Timor, a Southeast Asian island divided between Timor-Leste and the Indonesian region of West Timor. Less than 10% of the island’s original forest cover remains. A recent survey of the species published in the journal Oryx, the most comprehensive ever conducted, compiled more&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/timor-green-pigeon-nears-extinction-after-decades-of-inaction-study-warns/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/timor-green-pigeon-nears-extinction-after-decades-of-inaction-study-warns/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-326043</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Bangladesh tests a return to the wild for extinct peafowl populations</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/bangladesh-tests-a-return-to-the-wild-for-extinct-peafowl-populations/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/bangladesh-tests-a-return-to-the-wild-for-extinct-peafowl-populations/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>26 Jun 2026 06:45:15 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Abu Siddique]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Abu Siddique]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/06/26063453/a-peacock-showing-off-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=321813</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Bangladesh, and South Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Birds, Conservation, Conservation Solutions, Environment, Extinction, Reintroductions, Rewilding, Solutions, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Conservation authorities in Bangladesh say they’re still on track to fully release peafowl back into the wild, under a program that began with a “soft” release of the birds last year. But experts warn against rushing the release, noting that because the species has long been extinct in the wild in Bangladesh, habituating captive-raised birds [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Conservation authorities in Bangladesh say they’re still on track to fully release peafowl back into the wild, under a program that began with a “soft” release of the birds last year. But experts warn against rushing the release, noting that because the species has long been extinct in the wild in Bangladesh, habituating captive-raised birds to life in the forest won’t be easy. The Bangladesh Forest Department, with the support of nongovernmental organization Creative Conservation Alliance, in May 2025 moved 20 captive-raised common Indian peafowls (Pavo cristatus) into a forest enclosure within Madhupur National Park, which falls under the jurisdiction of the forest department’s Tangail division. Since then, the five males and 15 females have produced a dozen eggs, with one wild-born chick successfully hatching, according to Abu Naser Mohsin Hossain, an officer with the Tangail Forest Division. “Now the chick is 6 months old. This year, we are expecting more from the group,” he said. “Our plan is to release only the chicks in the wild as they are growing up in a natural condition and making themselves adaptive for the wild.” Hossain said the 20 birds initially moved into the enclosure will not be part of that full release into the wild since they grew up in captivity. Instead, they will serve as parent stock. The peafowl chick being considered for release in the wild. Image by Md Mosharraf Hossain. The peafowl&#8217;s history in Bangladesh According to a 2024 study, peafowls are a common wild bird across South&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/bangladesh-tests-a-return-to-the-wild-for-extinct-peafowl-populations/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-321813</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Asia&#8217;s shark and ray hotspots remain poorly protected, study finds</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/asias-shark-and-ray-hotspots-remain-poorly-protected-study-finds/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/asias-shark-and-ray-hotspots-remain-poorly-protected-study-finds/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>26 Jun 2026 03:52:37 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Malaka Rodrigo]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Dilrukshi Handunnetti]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/06/25201215/1-A-famiky-of-Critically-Endangered-Winghead-Hammerhead-sharks-and-a-threatened-Eagle-ray-died-due-to-fisheries-in-Baththalangunduwa-ISRA-c-BRT-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=321855</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Global, and Sri Lanka]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Bycatch, Conservation Solutions, Environmental Policy, Extinction, Fish, Fisheries, Gillnets, Illegal Fishing, Marine Animals, Marine Protected Areas, Overfishing, Protected Areas, Rays, shark finning, Sharks, and Species]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[COLOMBO — The majority of 122 marine areas identified across Asia as critical for the survival of sharks, rays and chimaeras remain largely unprotected despite supporting some of the world’s most threatened marine species, according to a new study. Published in Biodiversity and Conservation, the study assessed the network of important shark and ray areas [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[COLOMBO — The majority of 122 marine areas identified across Asia as critical for the survival of sharks, rays and chimaeras remain largely unprotected despite supporting some of the world’s most threatened marine species, according to a new study. Published in Biodiversity and Conservation, the study assessed the network of important shark and ray areas (ISRAs) across 19 Asian countries and territories and found that only 5.4% of their total area overlaps with recognized marine protected areas (MPAs). Just 2.8% falls within fully protected no-take zones where extractive activities are strictly prohibited. Critically endangered sharpnose guitarfish landed from the Palk Bay ISRA are recorded in a fish market in the village of Mathagal, Sri Lanka&#8217;s Jaffna district. Fish markets and landing sites are valuable points for fisheries data collection and monitoring. Image courtesy of Blue Resources Trust. Together, these ISRAs cover more than 1 million square kilometers (approximately 386,102 square miles) of ocean and support sharks, rays and chimaeras, also known by the umbrella term elasmobranchs. Nearly three-quarters of these species are listed as threatened with extinction on the IUCN red list, highlighting the urgency of conserving these habitats, said study lead author Adriana Gonzalez-Pestana, a Ph.D. candidate at Charles Darwin University (CDU) in Australia and member of the IUCN SSC Shark Specialist Group ISRA project. IUCN is the global wildlife conservation authority. Critically endangered stripenose guitarfish caught within the Pasikuda &amp; Kalkuda ISRA in Sri Lanka&#8217;s east and being sold at a local fishery. Image courtesy of Blue Resources&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/asias-shark-and-ray-hotspots-remain-poorly-protected-study-finds/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/asias-shark-and-ray-hotspots-remain-poorly-protected-study-finds/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-321855</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>On the brink of extinction, the Javan green magpie gets a conservation lifeline</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/on-the-brink-of-extinction-the-javan-green-magpie-gets-a-conservation-lifeline/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/on-the-brink-of-extinction-the-javan-green-magpie-gets-a-conservation-lifeline/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>25 Jun 2026 07:48:30 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Sean Mowbray]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Philip Jacobson]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/06/24112135/critically-endangered-Javan-green-magpie-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=321758</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Indonesia, Southeast Asia, and West Java]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Birds, Community-based Conservation, Conservation, Conservation Solutions, Critically Endangered Species, Environment, Extinction, Habitat Loss, Saving Species From Extinction, Solutions, Wildlife, Wildlife Trade, and Wildlife Trafficking]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Teetering on the brink of extinction, Indonesia’s Javan green magpie may have a conservation lifeline after national and international conservation NGOs launched an action plan to preserve it in the wild. Javan green magpies (Cissa thalassina) are endemic to the upland forests of West Java province, but have been assessed as critically endangered, with as [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Teetering on the brink of extinction, Indonesia’s Javan green magpie may have a conservation lifeline after national and international conservation NGOs launched an action plan to preserve it in the wild. Javan green magpies (Cissa thalassina) are endemic to the upland forests of West Java province, but have been assessed as critically endangered, with as few as 50 of the birds remaining in the wild. Habitat loss and poaching for the songbird trade have greatly reduced their numbers and led to local extinctions in some areas. “Very few have ever been recorded in the wild,” says Andrew Owen, head of birds at Chester Zoo in the U.K. “The fact that the Javan green magpie is now so rare is also a reason why some people want to catch them and keep them.” In recent years, the Javan green magpie has barely appeared in markets, experts say, though that’s likely due to its increasing rarity in the wild. Surveys carried out between 2018 and 2021 across 12 previously inhabited sites recorded no birds, raising the alarm. “We must assume that excessive trade has pushed this once reasonably widespread but perhaps never common species to the very brink of extinction,” the authors wrote in a 2023 study. These birds, known locally as ekek geling for their unique call, are sought after as so-called master birds in the songbird trade. Master birds rarely compete and instead are used to “train” competition birds. Javan green magpies received official protected status in 2019. With the&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/on-the-brink-of-extinction-the-javan-green-magpie-gets-a-conservation-lifeline/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/on-the-brink-of-extinction-the-javan-green-magpie-gets-a-conservation-lifeline/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-321758</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Genetic study reveals extinction risk for unique mangrove-adapted pampas cat</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/genetic-study-reveals-extinction-risk-for-unique-mangrove-adapted-pampas-cat/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/genetic-study-reveals-extinction-risk-for-unique-mangrove-adapted-pampas-cat/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>05 Jun 2026 16:09:35 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Sean Mowbray]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Glenn Scherer]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/06/05134141/1-desert-pampas-cat-Leopardus-garleppi-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=320650</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Atlantic Forest, Latin America, Peru, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Cats, Conservation, Deserts, Dry Forests, Environment, Extinction, Genetics, Habitat, Mammals, Mangroves, Research, Science, Small Cats, Wildlife, Wildlife Corridors, and Zoonotic Diseases]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[More than a decade ago, conservationists began working to preserve a unique population of desert pampas cats that has adapted to the mangroves of Peru’s northern coast. This small, isolated population roams the San Pedro de Vice dry mangroves, a Ramsar Site and South America’s southernmost mangrove ecosystem. “This is a very unique population, because [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[More than a decade ago, conservationists began working to preserve a unique population of desert pampas cats that has adapted to the mangroves of Peru’s northern coast. This small, isolated population roams the San Pedro de Vice dry mangroves, a Ramsar Site and South America’s southernmost mangrove ecosystem. “This is a very unique population, because as far as we know, [it] is the only Pampas cat population that lives in a mangrove [habitat],” Alvaro Garcia, co-coordinator of the Pampas Cat Working Group and the Peruvian Desert Cat Project, told Mongabay in an email. The desert pampas cat (Leopardus garleppi), distinctive for its broad face, ranges along a relatively thin band snaking southward from Colombia through Peru and Bolivia, to northern Chile and Argentina. The species is acclimated to dry conditions, so inhabits deserts, grasslands and dry forests, and isn’t found living in mangroves anywhere else aside from this region of Peru. Dry mangrove forests, also called scrub or dwarf mangrove forests, grow in highly saline soils in upper intertidal zones, so lack regular daily flushing by ocean tides. At first, it was thought the dry mangrove-acclimated cats were faring well: “[I]n the mangrove [habitat], we put cameras out for a week, and we got tons of photos,” whereas in other parts of the felid’s range, conservationists barely capture one desert pampas cat image per month, said Cindy Hurtado, co-coordinator of the Pampas Cat Working Group and the Peruvian Desert Cat Project. Based on the photos, the research team assumed the&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/genetic-study-reveals-extinction-risk-for-unique-mangrove-adapted-pampas-cat/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/genetic-study-reveals-extinction-risk-for-unique-mangrove-adapted-pampas-cat/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-320650</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>The European wildcat hovers between recovery and local extinction</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/the-european-wildcat-hovers-between-recovery-and-local-extinction/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/the-european-wildcat-hovers-between-recovery-and-local-extinction/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>11 May 2026 13:12:52 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Sean Mowbray]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Sharon Guynup]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/05/07014556/Image_1-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=318902</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Czech Republic, Europe, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, Scotland, Spain, and Turkey]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Cats, Climate, Climate Change, Conservation, Critically Endangered Species, Diseases, Endangered Species, Environment, Extinction, Forests, Funding, Genetics, Habitat Loss, Happy-upbeat Environmental, Human-wildlife Conflict, Hunting, Mammals, Parasites, Population, Reintroductions, Saving Species From Extinction, Small Cats, Solutions, Species recovery, Wildlife, and Zoos]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[A quiet comeback story is unfolding for the European wildcat in the Czech Republic’s Lusatian Mountains. Conservationists tracking this elusive species there have spotted a male and female, named Jonáš and Tonka, the first to be found in the region in nearly a century. This small cat species lives in forests across Europe. It’s doing [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[A quiet comeback story is unfolding for the European wildcat in the Czech Republic’s Lusatian Mountains. Conservationists tracking this elusive species there have spotted a male and female, named Jonáš and Tonka, the first to be found in the region in nearly a century. This small cat species lives in forests across Europe. It’s doing relatively well in some places and is imperiled in others, like the Czech Republic, where it’s critically endangered. The European wildcat (Felis silvestris), which is around the size of a large housecat, was wiped out because of disappearing habitat — and persecution. They were considered vermin and killed because they preyed on poultry and they were hunted for sport. More recently, they’re sometimes hybridizing, breeding with domestic cats. Numbers are spotty across parts of their range, so overall population numbers and trends, whether they’re rebounding or declining, is currently unknown. That’s a challenge shared by many of the world’s 30-plus small wildcat species that are often overlooked by research and funding. But they are hanging on in the Czech Republic. Earlier this year, Tonka gave birth to at least three kittens, offering hope that a slow wildcat recovery may be underway. Conservationists set up “hair traps,” wooden posts smeared with a lure that attracts the wildcats, then analyzed DNA from fur they left behind when they rubbed on them to mark their territory, as cats do. Genetically confirmed records of wildcat births are “exceedingly rare” in the country, said Kristýna Chroboková, field coordinator with the&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/the-european-wildcat-hovers-between-recovery-and-local-extinction/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/the-european-wildcat-hovers-between-recovery-and-local-extinction/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-318902</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>US proposes endangered species protections for an imperiled Jamaican butterfly</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/us-proposes-endangered-species-protections-for-an-imperiled-jamaican-butterfly/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/us-proposes-endangered-species-protections-for-an-imperiled-jamaican-butterfly/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>07 May 2026 12:04:27 +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/20/2026/05/06171317/Protographium-marcellinus-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=318851</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Caribbean, Jamaica, North America, and United States]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Conservation, Critically Endangered Species, Deforestation, Endangered Species, Endangered Species Act, Environmental Law, Extinction, Habitat Degradation, Habitat Loss, Insects, Islands, Over-hunting, Saving Species From Extinction, Solutions, Wildlife, and Wildlife consumption]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) recently proposed listing Jamaica’s most imperiled butterfly, the Jamaican kite swallowtail, as endangered under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The species (Protographium marcellinus), a small, fast-flying butterfly, flutters through its limestone forest home. Its wings, painted in streaks of bright turquoise and black with a dash of red, [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) recently proposed listing Jamaica’s most imperiled butterfly, the Jamaican kite swallowtail, as endangered under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The species (Protographium marcellinus), a small, fast-flying butterfly, flutters through its limestone forest home. Its wings, painted in streaks of bright turquoise and black with a dash of red, sport long, narrow tails. These charismatic butterflies live on this island and nowhere else. In recent years, they’ve nearly disappeared. Back in the 1960s, scientists recorded about 750,000 individuals; that number has plummeted to between 50 and 250 today. In some years, they’ve seen none. It’s such an alarming decline that scientists say this swallowtail should jump two categories on the IUCN Red List, from vulnerable to critically endangered. “This listing would be a real turning point for this species,” said Dianne DuBois, senior scientist at the U.S.-based NGO Center for Biological Diversity, which has been fighting for ESA protections for the butterfly since 1994. After a few failed attempts, it sued USFWS in 2021, which resulted in the agency drawing up the current proposal. ESA listings prevent extinction in 99% of the species under the act, but the wait is often quite long, about 12 years on average. Time may not be on its side for the Jamaican kite swallowtail, which hangs on the brink of extinction. “We wish this proposal had come three decades ago,” DuBois said. “We really want to urge the Fish and Wildlife Service to work quickly to finalize these&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/us-proposes-endangered-species-protections-for-an-imperiled-jamaican-butterfly/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-318851</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Facebook is a hub for illegal wildlife trade, and that’s by design, report says</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/facebook-is-a-hub-for-illegal-wildlife-trade-and-thats-by-design-report-says/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/facebook-is-a-hub-for-illegal-wildlife-trade-and-thats-by-design-report-says/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>05 May 2026 11:04:39 +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/20/2026/05/01050735/Tiger-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=318531</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Global, North America, and United States]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Conservation, Crime, Critically Endangered Species, Endangered Species, Environment, Gibbons, Illegal Trade, Law, Leopards, Mass Extinction, Pangolins, Regulations, Sea Turtles, Social Media, Technology, Wildlife, Wildlife Trade, and Wildlife Trafficking]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[With just the click of a button or a swipe on a phone, it’s possible to buy almost anything online, including rare or endangered animals. From quirky shark trophies to exotic live birds, contraband rhino horns or ivory, buyers can flock to e-commerce platforms and find them all. Traffickers hide behind their screens while profiting [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[With just the click of a button or a swipe on a phone, it’s possible to buy almost anything online, including rare or endangered animals. From quirky shark trophies to exotic live birds, contraband rhino horns or ivory, buyers can flock to e-commerce platforms and find them all. Traffickers hide behind their screens while profiting from online sales of protected species as these animals dwindle in the wild. “It&#8217;s the largest wildlife market,” said wildlife trade researcher Chris Shepherd from the Center for Biological Diversity. “It&#8217;s easy, it&#8217;s convenient; you can operate anonymously from the comfort of your home. You don&#8217;t have the expenses of setting up a shop.” Online commerce in illicit wildlife products continues to grow, involving more species and wider geographies. It’s an illicit industry run by kingpins with well-connected networks, and it’s hard to prosecute. Catching online criminals is extremely challenging. “Wildlife markets have moved from physical locations into online locations, and that&#8217;s mirroring broader trends in the global economy,” said Simone Haysom, director of environmental crime programs at the Swiss-based organization Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime. In a recent report, Haysom and her colleague Russell Gray analyzed online wildlife trade data from April 2024 to March 2026. They focused on 10 countries across three continents, places where environmental crime and internet use are high, making them fertile grounds for online wildlife trafficking. They found some 266,535 wildlife products posted on 61 online marketplaces, worth about $66 million. About 75% of the nearly 22,000 ads&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/facebook-is-a-hub-for-illegal-wildlife-trade-and-thats-by-design-report-says/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-318531</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>World’s largest shark conference is set to begin in Sri Lanka next week</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/worlds-largest-shark-conference-is-set-to-begin-in-sri-lanka-next-week/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/worlds-largest-shark-conference-is-set-to-begin-in-sri-lanka-next-week/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>01 May 2026 08:17:58 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Malaka Rodrigo]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Dilrukshi Handunnetti]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/05/01074744/Hammerheads_Edited-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=318551</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Global, South Asia, and Sri Lanka]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Birds, Conservation, Deep Sea, Endangered Species, Environment, Extinction, Fish, Fisheries, Global Environmental Crisis, Governance, Mammals, Marine, Marine Animals, Marine Conservation, Marine Mammals, Oceans, Regulations, Research, Saving Species From Extinction, and Solutions]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[COLOMBO — The Sharks International 2026 conference (SI2026), known to be the world’s largest gathering dedicated to sharks and rays, is set to take place in Colombo, Sri Lanka, May 4-8. Held once every four years, it is the premier global scientific conference focused exclusively on elasmobranchs, or sharks and rays, bringing together researchers, policymakers, [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[COLOMBO — The Sharks International 2026 conference (SI2026), known to be the world’s largest gathering dedicated to sharks and rays, is set to take place in Colombo, Sri Lanka, May 4-8. Held once every four years, it is the premier global scientific conference focused exclusively on elasmobranchs, or sharks and rays, bringing together researchers, policymakers, fisheries managers and conservation practitioners from around the world. Sharks International has previously been held in Australia (2010), South Africa (2014), Brazil (2018) and Spain (2022). The 2026 edition in Sri Lanka marks the first time Sharks International will be held in Asia, reflecting the region’s growing importance in global marine biodiversity and fisheries governance. Locally hosted and organized by Blue Resources Trust (BRT) with support from several international organizations, the conference aims to strengthen global collaboration as more than one-third of shark and ray species are threatened with extinction due to overfishing, habitat loss and weak enforcement of conservation measures. Daniel Fernando, the co-founder and director of the fisheries and policy program of the Colombo-based Blue Resources Trust (BRT), is a main organizer of Sharks International 2026. Image courtesy of BRT. The Sri Lanka meeting is considered particularly significant because the Indian Ocean is both a biodiversity hotspot and one of the world’s most heavily exploited shark fishing regions, said Daniel Fernando, BRT’s co-founder and director of fisheries and policy program. SI2026 will focus more on the urgent global priorities for shark and ray conservation, including halting population decline, reducing bycatch in industrial and&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/worlds-largest-shark-conference-is-set-to-begin-in-sri-lanka-next-week/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-318551</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Peter Raven, botanist and advocate for biodiversity, has died, aged 89</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/peter-raven-botanist-and-advocate-for-biodiversity-has-died-aged-89/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/peter-raven-botanist-and-advocate-for-biodiversity-has-died-aged-89/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>27 Apr 2026 00:18:39 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Rhett Ayers Butler]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rhett Butler]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/04/27001539/peter_raven_mjacob-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=318166</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[United States]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Biodiversity, Botany, Conservation, Endangered Species, Environment, Extinction, Forests, Global Environmental Crisis, Mass Extinction, Obituary, and Plants]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Life on Earth is often described as a web, but for much of modern science it was catalogued as a ledger: names, specimens, distributions, relationships drawn in careful lines. Over the course of the 20th century, that ledger gave way to a more connected view. Plants and animals were no longer just entries in a [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Life on Earth is often described as a web, but for much of modern science it was catalogued as a ledger: names, specimens, distributions, relationships drawn in careful lines. Over the course of the 20th century, that ledger gave way to a more connected view. Plants and animals were no longer just entries in a system; they were participants in it, shaping one another across deep time. The implications of that shift were not merely scientific. They pointed, more directly than before, to the role of a single species—our own—in altering the terms of that participation. Few scientists did more to define that transition, or to explain its consequences, than Peter Raven. Peter Hamilton Raven, who died last night, aged 89, was among the most influential botanists of the past century. Over a career that spanned more than six decades, he combined taxonomy, evolutionary biology and conservation into a coherent body of work: to understand the diversity of life, and to argue for its preservation with a clarity that was unusual among scientists of his generation. Peter Raven. Courtesy of the Missouri Botanical Garden He began with curiosity rather than doctrine. Born in Shanghai in 1936 to American parents, he spent his childhood in California after his family returned in the late 1930s. As a boy in San Francisco, he collected insects and then plants, drawn to the order that botany seemed to offer. The ranges of species were mapped; their forms could be compared. It was, as he later&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/peter-raven-botanist-and-advocate-for-biodiversity-has-died-aged-89/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/peter-raven-botanist-and-advocate-for-biodiversity-has-died-aged-89/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-318166</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Brazil FOIA confirms Lula &#038; Macron talked before key CITES vote on endangered tree</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/brazil-foia-confirms-lula-macron-talked-before-key-cites-vote-on-endangered-tree/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/brazil-foia-confirms-lula-macron-talked-before-key-cites-vote-on-endangered-tree/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>23 Apr 2026 00:01:13 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Emmanuelle PicaudFernanda WenzelSpoorthy Raman]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Andy Lehren]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/04/22100823/c-lula-and-macron-in-a-boat-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=317918</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Brazil, Europe, France, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Conservation, Critically Endangered Species, Deforestation, Endangered Species, Environment, Environmental Law, Extinction, Forests, Governance, Mongabay investigation, Plants, Politics, Saving Species From Extinction, Solutions, Supply Chain, timber trade, Trees, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Early in 2026, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s office denied that he had a phone call with his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, about easing proposed trade restrictions on Brazil’s endangered national tree. The denial to Mongabay came during reporting for a story published in February about Brazil’s efforts to seek the highest trade [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Early in 2026, Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s office denied that he had a phone call with his French counterpart, Emmanuel Macron, about easing proposed trade restrictions on Brazil’s endangered national tree. The denial to Mongabay came during reporting for a story published in February about Brazil’s efforts to seek the highest trade protections for Brazilwood (Paubrasilia echinata) — safeguards that were diluted during a global summit of representatives to CITES, a wildlife trade treaty signed by 184 countries and the European Union. Now, following a response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by Mongabay, Lula’s office confirmed that he had, in fact, been in communication with Macron just before a key vote on the proposal at the CITES conference, held five months ago in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. The conversations between Lula and Macron were “regarding the negotiations then underway” as part of CITES deliberations, according to Brazil’s Special Advisory Office of the President of the Republic. The office responded to Mongabay’s FOIA request on April 6. It did not specify what was discussed and did not state if the talks happened over a phone call, text or other means. The FOIA response marks the first official confirmation that the two leaders were in communications at CITES over the issue. Native to the country’s Atlantic Forest and a national symbol, Brazilwood is coveted in the music industry to make high-quality violin bows, which sell for as high as 7,000 euros ($8,200) apiece. The demand has led the&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/brazil-foia-confirms-lula-macron-talked-before-key-cites-vote-on-endangered-tree/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/brazil-foia-confirms-lula-macron-talked-before-key-cites-vote-on-endangered-tree/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-317918</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Drones aid dugong conservation as threats mount across their range</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/drones-aid-dugong-conservation-as-threats-mount-across-their-range/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/drones-aid-dugong-conservation-as-threats-mount-across-their-range/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>16 Apr 2026 18:03:02 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Mark Hillsdon]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rebecca Kessler]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/04/16142053/BANNER-Dugong_Marsa_Alam-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=317639</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Indian Ocean and Pacific Ocean]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Conservation, Drones, Dugong, Ecosystems, Endangered Species, Environment, Extinction, Fishing, Habitat Degradation, Mammals, Marine, Marine Animals, Marine Mammals, Oceans, Research, Saving Species From Extinction, Seagrass, and Solutions]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Drone technology is providing important new insights into the lives of dugongs, while also revealing the vital role they play in managing seagrass meadows, one of the ocean’s most important carbon sinks. Often referred to as sea cows, dugongs (Dugong dugon) are marine herbivores that can grow up to 3 meters (10 feet) long and [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Drone technology is providing important new insights into the lives of dugongs, while also revealing the vital role they play in managing seagrass meadows, one of the ocean’s most important carbon sinks. Often referred to as sea cows, dugongs (Dugong dugon) are marine herbivores that can grow up to 3 meters (10 feet) long and weigh up to 420 kilograms (925 pounds). They feed almost exclusively on seagrass in shallow coastal waters across a wide range in the Indian and southeastern Pacific oceans. However, their population spread was revealed to be extremely uneven in an August 2025 report, published by the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS) and touted as “offering the most comprehensive global update on the status and conservation needs of dugongs in over two decades.” By far the largest concentration of dugongs is in Australia, where an estimated 166,000 live in the country’s coastal waters, the CMS report shows. Other hotspots include the Arabian Gulf, the Red Sea, and Indonesia, while around 300 dugongs live along the coast of Mozambique, their last stronghold in Africa. But elsewhere the picture is less healthy. The IUCN, the global wildlife conservation authority, has listed the dugong as globally vulnerable to extinction for more than 40 years now. Some jurisdictions, such as the French territory of New Caledonia and Japan’s Nasei Islands, have listed the dugong as endangered. In 2022, research declared the species extinct in China. According to Helene Marsh, a professor of environmental sciences&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/drones-aid-dugong-conservation-as-threats-mount-across-their-range/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/drones-aid-dugong-conservation-as-threats-mount-across-their-range/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-317639</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Loss of prey could drive Atlantic Forest jaguars to extinction</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/loss-of-prey-could-drive-atlantic-forest-jaguars-to-extinction/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/loss-of-prey-could-drive-atlantic-forest-jaguars-to-extinction/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>08 Apr 2026 18:27:23 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Sean Mowbray]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Sharon Guynup]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/04/06084548/Image_1-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=316990</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Atlantic Forest, Brazil, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Big Cats, Cats, Conservation, Critically Endangered Species, Environment, Extinction, Forests, Fragmentation, Habitat, Habitat Loss, Hunting, Jaguars, Mammals, Predators, Rewilding, Wildlife, and Wildlife Corridors]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Conserving the dwindling jaguar population in Brazil’s Atlantic Forest won’t be possible without protecting its prey. That’s the conclusion of a new study, which found that the absence of deer, peccaries and other animals that sustain these big cats is driving it toward local extinction. Jaguars (Panthera onca) once ranged from the southwestern U.S. to [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Conserving the dwindling jaguar population in Brazil’s Atlantic Forest won’t be possible without protecting its prey. That’s the conclusion of a new study, which found that the absence of deer, peccaries and other animals that sustain these big cats is driving it toward local extinction. Jaguars (Panthera onca) once ranged from the southwestern U.S. to Argentina and is the Western Hemisphere&#8217;s largest cat. Today it&#8217;s locally extinct or imperiled across much of its former territory, including the Atlantic Forest biome where it’s critically endangered. In this region, the study notes, some 85 % of jaguar habitat is gone and only small fragments remain within what’s considered one of the world’s most degraded tropical forests. As a result, jaguars have declined dramatically here, especially over the past two decades. The new study highlights one reason why: There’s not much for them to eat. Medium and large prey have diminished greatly, including white-lipped peccaries (Tayassu pecari), collared peccaries (Dicotyles tajacu), brocket deer (Mazama spp.) and tapirs (Tapirus terrestris). “We are facing a silent extinction of prey species in the Atlantic Forest,” says study lead author Katia Ferraz, a wildlife biologist at the University of São Paulo. “We talk a lot about jaguar extinction, but we talk little about the extinction of peccaries and deer, for example, that are important prey.” Ferraz and her colleagues assessed jaguar prey species in nine protected areas in the Atlantic Forest. To do so, they carried out the most extensive camera-trap survey ever conducted in this biome. They&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/loss-of-prey-could-drive-atlantic-forest-jaguars-to-extinction/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/loss-of-prey-could-drive-atlantic-forest-jaguars-to-extinction/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-316990</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Migratory species summit adopts new marine protections amid extinction warnings</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/migratory-species-summit-adopts-new-marine-protections-amid-extinction-warnings/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/migratory-species-summit-adopts-new-marine-protections-amid-extinction-warnings/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>08 Apr 2026 13:55:14 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Francesco De Augustinis]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Autumn Spanne]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/04/08015440/c.-BANNER-%C2%A9Andy-Murch-Great-Hammerhead-Shark-4761-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=317143</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Atlantic Ocean, Brazil, Global, Indian Ocean, Latin America, Pacific Ocean, South America, and Southern Ocean]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Biodiversity Hotspots, Birds, Coastal Ecosystems, Conservation, Deep Sea Mining, Ecosystems, Environment, Extinction, Fish, Fishing, Fragmentation, Freshwater Fish, Habitat Loss, Hunting, Marine, Marine Animals, Migration, Oceans, Overexploitation, Seabirds, and Sharks]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Dozens of migratory animals, including 33 marine species, gained new protections during the recent summit for the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals. The 15th Conference of the Parties (CMS COP15) took place March 23-29 in Campo Grande, Brazil, under the slogan “Connecting Nature to Sustain Life.” “It was a very [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Dozens of migratory animals, including 33 marine species, gained new protections during the recent summit for the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals. The 15th Conference of the Parties (CMS COP15) took place March 23-29 in Campo Grande, Brazil, under the slogan “Connecting Nature to Sustain Life.” “It was a very strong COP for marine species,” Amy Fraenkel, CMS executive secretary, told Mongabay after the meeting’s conclusion. The CMS is a United Nations convention ratified by 132 nations and the European Union that aims to build the international cooperation necessary to conserve migratory species on a global scale. Among the key outcomes at the latest meeting: Delegates agreed on new or enhanced treaty protections for 40 species and populations, including 26 seabirds, three shorebirds and four shark species. Furthermore, CMS COP15 took steps to reduce bycatch of protected species and to identify marine flyways and key marine areas for the conservation of migratory species. Delegates also called for greater protections for seamounts, recognizing the conservation needs of freshwater fish and guarding against the impacts of deep-sea mining. “There&#8217;s a real need to be looking at ocean systems, including our coasts and the shorebirds that rely on the ocean and coastal systems,” Fraenkel said. “I was happy to see that at this COP, we started to do that.” But while conservation advocates lauded the steps taken at COP15, the summit also issued stark warnings that extinction and species decline are accelerating. The U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP) World&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/migratory-species-summit-adopts-new-marine-protections-amid-extinction-warnings/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-317143</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Is the Galápagos damselfish extinct?</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/is-the-galapagos-damselfish-extinct/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/is-the-galapagos-damselfish-extinct/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>07 Apr 2026 01:06:25 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Rhett Ayers Butler]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rhett Butler]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/04/05013742/Galapagos_damselfish-Azurina_eupalama-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=316982</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Founder's briefs]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Ecuador, Galapagos, Latin America, Pacific Ocean, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Climate Change, El Nino, Endangered Species, Extinction, Fish, Islands, Marine, Marine Animals, and Oceans]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[&#160; A small, blue-gray fish that once gathered in loose schools along the rocky shores of the Galápagos Islands has become the subject of a more precise question: whether it is already gone. The Galápagos damselfish (Azurina eupalama) has not been recorded since 1983. Before that, it was regularly encountered. Specimens were collected by nearly [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[&nbsp; A small, blue-gray fish that once gathered in loose schools along the rocky shores of the Galápagos Islands has become the subject of a more precise question: whether it is already gone. The Galápagos damselfish (Azurina eupalama) has not been recorded since 1983. Before that, it was regularly encountered. Specimens were collected by nearly every major scientific expedition to the islands across the 20th century, and divers could expect to find it at multiple sites. Its disappearance has therefore drawn attention not only for its outcome, but for its abruptness. Azurina eupalama, engraving of type specimen from Heller &#038; Snodgrass (1903). A recent paper by Jack Stein Grove and Benjamin Victor revisits the evidence and concludes that the species is now likely extinct. The paper, published in the Journal of the Ocean Science Foundation, assembles historical records, ecological context, and decades of unsuccessful searches to argue that the absence is no longer plausibly explained by oversight. The timing points to a specific event. The last confirmed sighting came in the aftermath of the 1982–83 El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO), one of the most intense on record. During such episodes, the cold, nutrient-rich upwelling that sustains the Galápagos marine ecosystem weakens or stops. Warmer, less productive water spreads across the archipelago, reducing plankton availability and disrupting food webs. For a species like the Galápagos damselfish, this would have been consequential. It was an obligate planktivore, dependent on the steady supply of microscopic organisms that thrive under normal upwelling conditions. It&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/is-the-galapagos-damselfish-extinct/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-316982</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Once lost, now found: Five &#8220;missing&#8221; bird species rediscovered in 2025, offering hope</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/once-lost-now-found-five-missing-bird-species-rediscovered-in-2025-offering-hope/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/once-lost-now-found-five-missing-bird-species-rediscovered-in-2025-offering-hope/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>04 Apr 2026 14:36:08 +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/20/2026/04/03143057/R-Flycatcher-e1775244630783-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=316945</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Oceania, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Birds, Conservation, Critically Endangered Species, Environment, Extinction, Rediscovered Species, Research, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Five “missing” bird species — not seen, heard or documented in the wild for a decade or more — were “found” in 2025, according to the 2026 annual update to the Lost Birds List. It’s a tally of species that haven’t been photographed, recorded or their genetic footprint detected for more than a decade. Another [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Five “missing” bird species — not seen, heard or documented in the wild for a decade or more — were “found” in 2025, according to the 2026 annual update to the Lost Birds List. It’s a tally of species that haven’t been photographed, recorded or their genetic footprint detected for more than a decade. Another extraordinary rediscovery came earlier this year: A bird “missing” for 94 years was documented in Chad. With the new changes, the overall number of “lost” birds, as defined in a 2022 study, dropped to 120 from the 163 listed when the list was first published in 2022. The list is maintained by the Search for Lost Birds project, a global partnership between the NGOs American Bird Conservancy, Re:wild and BirdLife International. Six species considered lost since 2016 will be added to the list in 2026. Unlike the IUCN Red List, which tracks the extinction risk of species over time through extensive periodic assessments, the “lost species” list flags those that haven’t been documented in a long time — the first signs of trouble before they vanish forever. John Mittermeier, director of the Search for Lost Birds project, called the list an “early warning system” for birds not seen in a while. He said it helps “fill conservation data gaps” before rigorous assessments catch up and spur action to protect species that might “potentially slip between the cracks.” Every year, Mittermeier and his team scour through public birding platforms, such as eBird, iNaturalist, Xeno-Canto and others,&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/once-lost-now-found-five-missing-bird-species-rediscovered-in-2025-offering-hope/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/once-lost-now-found-five-missing-bird-species-rediscovered-in-2025-offering-hope/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-316945</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Decades after poaching drove them extinct, rhinos are back in the wild in Uganda</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/decades-after-poaching-drove-them-extinct-rhinos-are-back-in-the-wild-in-uganda/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/decades-after-poaching-drove-them-extinct-rhinos-are-back-in-the-wild-in-uganda/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>31 Mar 2026 07:15:50 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Benjamin Jumbe]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Terna Gyuse]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[africa]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/03/30123308/RhinoByCrate_ZiwaUganda_UWA-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=316524</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, East Africa, and Uganda]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Charismatic Animals, Conservation, Conservation Solutions, Endangered Species, Extinction, Happy-upbeat Environmental, Mammals, Poaching, Protected Areas, Rhinos, Saving Species From Extinction, Solutions, White Rhino, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Forty-three years after the last free-ranging rhinos were seen in the country, the Uganda Wildlife Authority has welcomed four southern white rhinos to Kidepo Valley National Park, in the country’s north, from a breeding sanctuary designed for the species’ reintroduction. “We are glad and privileged to be taking back rhinos much as it is a [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Forty-three years after the last free-ranging rhinos were seen in the country, the Uganda Wildlife Authority has welcomed four southern white rhinos to Kidepo Valley National Park, in the country’s north, from a breeding sanctuary designed for the species’ reintroduction. “We are glad and privileged to be taking back rhinos much as it is a different subspecies from that that used to exist, because the northern white rhino is the one which used to exist there but was hunted to extinction,” UWA executive director James Musinguzi said at the Ziwa sanctuary on Mar. 17. According to the wildlife authority, a total of eight rhinos will be released in the park by May this year, marking the beginning of a longer process aimed at establishing a viable free-ranging rhino population in Kidepo Valley National Park. Kidepo Valley National Park. Image by Rod Waddington via Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0). Uganda was once home to around 300 northern white rhinos (Ceratotherium simum cottoni) and 400 eastern black rhinos (Diceros bicornis michaeli). But these populations were devastated by intense poaching that flourished amid the civil war that began in the late 1970s. The last of the country’s wild rhinos was killed in 1983. In 2005, a breeding program for rhinos was established at Ziwa Rhino Sanctuary. Six southern white rhinos (Ceratotherium simum simum) — four from Kenya and two from a sanctuary in the U.S. — were introduced the following year, and by 2023, that herd had grown to 42, according to the sanctuary’s&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/decades-after-poaching-drove-them-extinct-rhinos-are-back-in-the-wild-in-uganda/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-316524</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Extinction—or just unseen? What Centinela reveals about biodiversity data gaps</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/extinction-or-just-unseen-what-centinela-reveals-about-biodiversity-data-gaps/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/extinction-or-just-unseen-what-centinela-reveals-about-biodiversity-data-gaps/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>30 Mar 2026 00:59:42 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Rhett Ayers Butler]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rhett Butler]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/03/27234141/Dracontium_croatii-168689532-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=316449</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Founder's briefs]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Ecuador, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Botany, Conservation, Endangered Species, Environment, Extinction, Fragmentation, Habitat Loss, and Plants]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[In 1991, botanists Calaway Dodson and Alwyn Gentry advanced a striking proposition. Surveying a rapidly deforested ridge in western Ecuador, they suggested that dozens of plant species known only from that site—Centinela—had likely vanished with the forest. The idea was later distilled into the “Centinelan extinction hypothesis”: that habitat clearing can trigger the immediate, global [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[In 1991, botanists Calaway Dodson and Alwyn Gentry advanced a striking proposition. Surveying a rapidly deforested ridge in western Ecuador, they suggested that dozens of plant species known only from that site—Centinela—had likely vanished with the forest. The idea was later distilled into the “Centinelan extinction hypothesis”: that habitat clearing can trigger the immediate, global extinction of narrowly distributed species. It was a powerful claim. It gave a concrete example of how biodiversity loss might unfold in tropical forests, where many species appear rare, localized, and poorly documented. It also rested on a deeper uncertainty. In such systems, what has not been recorded is often treated as if it does not exist. A 2024 reassessment, published in Nature Plants, returns to Centinela using decades of additional collections and records. Drawing on herbarium records, literature, expert input, and targeted field surveys, the authors reconstruct what is known about the site’s flora. Their conclusion is straightforward. Nearly all of the species once thought endemic to Centinela have been found elsewhere. Of 98 putative microendemics, 99% are now known from other locations. Landscape of Centinela, Ecuador, and five plant species once hypothesized to have gone extinct in the region but now confirmed as extant. a, A typical landscape dominated by pasture and agriculture, with small remnant patches of forest (Photo by J. Nicolás Zapata). b–d, Herbs Gasteranthus extinctus (b), Gasteranthus atratus (Gesneriaceae) (c) and Dracontium croatii (Araceae) (d). e,f, Trees Browneopsis macrofoliolata (Fabaceae) (e) and Amyris centinelensis (Rutaceae) (f). Photos b–f by John&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/extinction-or-just-unseen-what-centinela-reveals-about-biodiversity-data-gaps/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-316449</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Songbird trade threatens lesser-known ‘master birds’ with secondary extinctions: Study</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/songbird-trade-threatens-lesser-known-master-birds-with-secondary-extinctions-study/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/songbird-trade-threatens-lesser-known-master-birds-with-secondary-extinctions-study/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>23 Mar 2026 15:02:03 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Sean Mowbray]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Sharon Guynup]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/03/23124306/Image_6_Garrulax-bicolor-Sumatran-Laughingthrush-Bristol-zoo-Simon-Bruslund-1-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=316117</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Global, Indonesia, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Birds, Conservation, Crime, Critically Endangered Species, Endangered Species, Environment, Environmental Law, Extinction, Illegal Trade, Law Enforcement, Research, Wildlife, Wildlife Trade, and Wildlife Trafficking]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Increasing demand for songbirds is raising the risk of “secondary extinctions” of so-called “master birds” in Southeast Asia, conservationists warn. While these birds never enter the region’s songbird singing competitions, they have unique qualities to their songs. When caged near songbirds, elements of their calls can be learned, says Vincent Nijman, lead author of research [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Increasing demand for songbirds is raising the risk of “secondary extinctions” of so-called “master birds” in Southeast Asia, conservationists warn. While these birds never enter the region’s songbird singing competitions, they have unique qualities to their songs. When caged near songbirds, elements of their calls can be learned, says Vincent Nijman, lead author of research documenting their demise and director of EcoVerde Global Consulting. They almost act as vocal coaches: Proximity to master birds can improve the songs of contest competitors like the white-rumped shama (Copsychus malabaricus), a bird prized for its melodic voice, increasing their chances of success. Judges evaluate birds in these contests on the duration of their song, rhythm, showmanship and volume. Researchers surveyed markets across Indonesia from 2011 to 2025, looking for crested jayshrikes (Platylophus galericulatus), a popular master bird. They discovered that they were sold openly at markets in Sumatra, Borneo, Java, Bali, Lombok and Sulawesi. Their findings were published recently in the journal Integrative Conservation. An added driver of the demand for master birds is the energy these birds bring. There’s a belief that masters pass on parts of their song but also impart confidence to songbirds. That conclusion is based on conversations with trappers, traders and competitors, says Simon Bruslund, director of global development at the Copenhagen Zoo, who was not involved in this study. “It&#8217;s the energy transfer from the master bird to the recipient bird that’s important,” he says. He adds that that popularity of masters is reliant on fashions and&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/songbird-trade-threatens-lesser-known-master-birds-with-secondary-extinctions-study/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/songbird-trade-threatens-lesser-known-master-birds-with-secondary-extinctions-study/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
					<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/03/23125441/Bird-cage-video.mp4" length="0" type="video/mp4" />
					<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-316117</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Beetle known for ravaging mango trees now killing baobabs, study finds</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/beetle-known-for-ravaging-mango-trees-now-killing-baobabs-study-finds/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/beetle-known-for-ravaging-mango-trees-now-killing-baobabs-study-finds/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>05 Mar 2026 14:18:49 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Charles Mpaka]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Terna Gyuse]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/03/05133804/baobab-in-oman-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=315242</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Asia, Madagascar, Middle East, Oman, and Southern Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Climate Change, Conservation, Dry Forests, Ecology, Endangered Species, Environment, Extinction, Forestry, Forests, Plants, Research, Trees, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[A couple of years ago, Sarah Venter wrote an article gently picking apart alarm over the specter of Africa&#8217;s iconic baobabs dying off due to climate change. Her review found that while a number of famously large and ancient trees had indeed collapsed in worsening conditions, Adansonia digitata were generally proving resilient. When she heard [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[A couple of years ago, Sarah Venter wrote an article gently picking apart alarm over the specter of Africa&#8217;s iconic baobabs dying off due to climate change. Her review found that while a number of famously large and ancient trees had indeed collapsed in worsening conditions, Adansonia digitata were generally proving resilient. When she heard about fears that a new pest was killing worrying numbers of baobabs in Oman, she set off to investigate, at the invitation of Oman’s Environmental Authority. There are eight species of baobab, members of the genus Adansonia. A. digitata is widely distributed across East, West and Southern Africa; one species is restricted to northwestern Australia; and the other six are found only in Madagascar, believed to be the center of origin for this striking family of trees that stand majestically on barrel-like trunks and can live for well over a thousand years. Three of Madagascar’s baobab species are threatened — A. grandidieri and A. suarezensis are listed as endangered on the IUCN Red List, and A. perrieri is critically endangered — by logging, charcoal production, wildfires, and mining of the forests they’re found in. Historical records and genetic research suggest baobabs reached Oman, on the Arabian Peninsula, centuries ago as part of the circulation of valuable plants between northeastern Africa, the Persian Gulf and South Asia by nomadic and fishing communities on the Indian Ocean. Batocera rufomaculata adult (a) and larvae (b). Images courtesy of Sarah Venter. It was the health of about 100 baobabs&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/beetle-known-for-ravaging-mango-trees-now-killing-baobabs-study-finds/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-315242</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Brazil wanted more protections for its endangered national tree. Then France called</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/02/brazil-wanted-more-protections-for-its-endangered-national-tree-then-france-called/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/02/brazil-wanted-more-protections-for-its-endangered-national-tree-then-france-called/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>27 Feb 2026 08:30:05 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Emmanuelle PicaudFernanda WenzelSpoorthy Raman]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Andy Lehren]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/02/26124349/lula-macron-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=314859</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Brazil, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Business, Conservation, Critically Endangered Species, Deforestation, Endangered Species, Environment, Environmental Law, Extinction, Forests, Governance, Plants, Politics, Saving Species From Extinction, Solutions, Supply Chain, timber trade, Trees, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Just three months ago, Brazil seemed close to winning the highest level of international trade protections for the country’s symbol and namesake, the Brazilwood tree (Paubrasilia echinata). On Nov. 26, Brazil’s delegation was in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, for the summit of CITES, the global trade convention under which 184 countries plus the European Union have agreed [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Just three months ago, Brazil seemed close to winning the highest level of international trade protections for the country’s symbol and namesake, the Brazilwood tree (Paubrasilia echinata). On Nov. 26, Brazil’s delegation was in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, for the summit of CITES, the global trade convention under which 184 countries plus the European Union have agreed on rules to protect wildlife from unsustainable commerce. The Brazilians were confident that they would gain approval for their formal proposal to protect the endangered tree from all international commercial trade. “There was massive support,” said a Brazilian delegate attending the meeting, who requested anonymity for fear of retaliation. “There was a feeling that it would pass.” Found only in Brazil&#8217;s Atlantic Forest, P. echinata&#8217;s population declined by 84% over the last three generations, and is currently down to around 10,000 adult trees, according to Brazilian environmental officials. The species was exploited during colonial times to meet European demand for the red dye that comes from its wood and was used to color fabrics. Since the mid-18th century, the world’s music industry has prized the wood, also known as pernambuco, for its resonance, durability and flexibility for bows to play violins, cellos and other stringed instruments. Each bow can be worth up to 7,000 euros (more than $8,200), making the wood treasured not just by those in the music business, but also by smugglers. As the tree’s numbers dwindled, Brazil&#8217;s National Center for Flora Conservation (CNCFlora) escalated the species’ conservation status in 2024 from endangered&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/02/brazil-wanted-more-protections-for-its-endangered-national-tree-then-france-called/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-314859</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Study refutes claim that Indonesia’s legal turtle trade supports livelihoods</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/02/study-refutes-claim-that-indonesias-legal-turtle-trade-supports-livelihoods/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/02/study-refutes-claim-that-indonesias-legal-turtle-trade-supports-livelihoods/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>16 Feb 2026 18:03:38 +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/20/2026/02/11145513/Dogania_subplana_head_Kaeng_Krachan_National_Park-2-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=314130</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Indonesia, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Conservation, Crime, Endangered Species, Environment, Environmental Law, Extinction, Reptiles, Research, Turtles, Turtles And Tortoises, Wildlife, and Wildlife Trade]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[With an evolutionary history of more than 200 million years, turtles and tortoises have outlived dinosaurs and persisted on the planet despite mass extinction events. But around the turn of the 21st century, chelonian numbers in Southeast Asia dropped so dramatically that it sparked what biologists called the “Asian turtle crisis.” With a growing middle [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[With an evolutionary history of more than 200 million years, turtles and tortoises have outlived dinosaurs and persisted on the planet despite mass extinction events. But around the turn of the 21st century, chelonian numbers in Southeast Asia dropped so dramatically that it sparked what biologists called the “Asian turtle crisis.” With a growing middle class in China, turtle meat was no longer a delicacy savored on special occasions; it became a staple meal, and turtle numbers plummeted. Coupled with disappearing and polluted habitats, the demand for these aquatic reptiles threatens to wipe out more than half of the world’s tortoise and turtle species. Yet, harvest and trade continue in Southeast Asia. Indonesia is a prominent exporter, with four of its 39 species targeted for meat. The vulnerable Asiatic softshell turtle (Amyda cartilaginea), the endangered Southeast Asian box turtle (Cuora amboinensis), the Asian leaf turtle (Cyclemys dentata) and the Malayan softshell turtle (Dogania subplana) fill the country&#8217;s yearly harvest quota of nearly 50,000 turtles. This legal trade purportedly provides sustainable, reliable income for those who capture and sell them. However, wildlife trade researcher Vincent Nijman and his colleagues refute this claim in a study published in the journal Discover Animals. They compared turtle collectors’ estimated income from the legal meat trade with minimum wage work across different Indonesian provinces to see if it really provided adequate income — and to determine whether traders needed to illegally trade turtles to make it a profitable business. “We were looking for some support&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/02/study-refutes-claim-that-indonesias-legal-turtle-trade-supports-livelihoods/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-314130</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Division’s final journey</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/02/divisions-final-journey/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/02/divisions-final-journey/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>01 Feb 2026 04:22:44 +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/20/2026/02/01034428/division-00-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=313603</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Founder's briefs]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[North America and United States]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Cetaceans, Critically Endangered Species, Endangered Species, Environment, Extinction, Green, Human-wildlife Conflict, Mammals, Marine Conservation, Marine Mammals, Obituary, Oceans, and Whales]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[&#160; Division was four years old when he died, a young age even by the shortened standards now applied to North Atlantic right whales. His body was found in late January, adrift off the coast of North Carolina, partial and unrecoverable. The weather was too dangerous for anything more than confirmation. By then, the cause [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[&nbsp; Division was four years old when he died, a young age even by the shortened standards now applied to North Atlantic right whales. His body was found in late January, adrift off the coast of North Carolina, partial and unrecoverable. The weather was too dangerous for anything more than confirmation. By then, the cause was already understood. Division with his mother in January 2022. Photo credit: CMARI Division with his mother in January 2022. Photo credit: CMARI He was first seen entangled in early December, fishing line wrapped tightly around his head and mouth. It cut into his blowhole and lodged in his upper jaw. Some of the gear was removed. Enough remained to slow him, to feed infection, to drain energy from a body still meant to grow. Scientists who tracked him afterward saw what they had learned to recognize: weight loss, altered swimming, the steady signs of decline. They followed his movements as best they could. Distance and storms intervened. He was last sighted alive on January 21st, off Cape Hatteras. Six days later, he was dead. Division’s catalog number was 5217. His name came from the pale markings on his head, callosities arranged in a pattern that resembled a mathematical symbol. To those who knew him only through photographs and survey logs, he was one of many. Sixty-eight recorded sightings. Twenty-three photographs. A few notes about tooth decay in the bonnet. One image shows him leaping, much of his body briefly clear of the water. He&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/02/divisions-final-journey/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-313603</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Habitat destruction, illegal trade threaten Sri Lanka’s endangered agamid lizards</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/01/habitat-destruction-illegal-trade-threaten-sri-lankas-endangered-agamid-lizards/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/01/habitat-destruction-illegal-trade-threaten-sri-lankas-endangered-agamid-lizards/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>31 Jan 2026 07:23:37 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Kamanthi Wickramasinghe]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Dilrukshi Handunnetti]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/01/31071212/Image-1-1-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=313583</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, South Asia, and Sri Lanka]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Climate Change, Critically Endangered Species, Endangered Species, Extinction, forest degradation, Habitat, Habitat Loss, Lizards, Wildlife, Wildlife Trade, and Wildlife Trafficking]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[COLOMBO — In Sri Lanka, agamid lizard species are growing increasingly vulnerable due to three main factors: shrinking habitats, climate change and being traded as exotic pets. The Indian Ocean island is home to more than 20 species of agamid lizards and shows exceptionally high endemism with more than two-thirds of them found nowhere else [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[COLOMBO — In Sri Lanka, agamid lizard species are growing increasingly vulnerable due to three main factors: shrinking habitats, climate change and being traded as exotic pets. The Indian Ocean island is home to more than 20 species of agamid lizards and shows exceptionally high endemism with more than two-thirds of them found nowhere else on Earth. Sri Lanka’s wet zone forests and mountain ranges are their home, where they now face threats from extensive habitat loss. Add to this situation the increasing threat of being smuggled out of the island to be traded as exotic species, and the story of Sri Lankan agamids turn bleak. In March 2025, a study highlighted that more than 40% of agamids’ most critical habitats remain unprotected in the island country. The paper, published in Integrative Conservation, indicates that agamid hotspots are primarily concentrated in the island’s wet zone, especially Sinharaja Forest Reserve, the Peak Wilderness Sanctuary and the Dumbara (or Knuckles) Mountain Range. The research states that these unprotected areas are vital for species with tiny ranges, such as Cophotis lizards. Images suggested on Instagram with the search word ‘Cophotis dumbara’. Image via Instagram. Agamid lizards in Sri Lanka are both threatened and evolutionarily distinct, with 19 of 22 species endemic to the island, says the study, which assessed the distribution of 14 threatened agamid lizard species using species distribution modeling (SDM). The generated distribution maps have been used to identify highly diverse target areas for agamid conservation, both within and outside protected&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/01/habitat-destruction-illegal-trade-threaten-sri-lankas-endangered-agamid-lizards/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/01/habitat-destruction-illegal-trade-threaten-sri-lankas-endangered-agamid-lizards/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-313583</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>IUCN launches group to conserve at-risk microbes vital to life on Earth</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/01/iucn-launches-group-to-conserve-at-risk-microbes-vital-to-life-on-earth/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/01/iucn-launches-group-to-conserve-at-risk-microbes-vital-to-life-on-earth/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>21 Jan 2026 21:12:24 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Sean Mowbray]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Glenn Scherer]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/01/21192536/Image_1-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=313188</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Planetary Boundaries]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Global]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Climate, Climate Change, Conservation, Ecosystems, Endangered Species, Environment, Extinction, Global Environmental Crisis, Habitat Loss, Health, Land Use Change, Microorganisms, Oceans, Planetary Health, Plants, Pollution, Water, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Invisible in their trillions, microbes dwell in our bodies, grow in soils, live on trees and are integral to planetary health. Yet the huge oversized roles these teeming biodiverse microbial communities play as a foundation for life on Earth is often overlooked. And so, too, are the threats microorganisms face, especially from humanity’s actions. But [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Invisible in their trillions, microbes dwell in our bodies, grow in soils, live on trees and are integral to planetary health. Yet the huge oversized roles these teeming biodiverse microbial communities play as a foundation for life on Earth is often overlooked. And so, too, are the threats microorganisms face, especially from humanity’s actions. But this scientific inattention is about to end, as a newly launched International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) species survival commission focuses on microbiology and dire threats to microbial species. “I think this is a huge milestone for microbiologists, but also for conservation overall, because for the first time, we have an official recognition that microbes need to be included in the conservation agenda,” says Raquel Peixoto, co-chair of the IUCN specialist group and chair of the Marine Science Program at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Saudi Arabia. “We cannot talk about either climate change or biodiversity loss without talking about microbes, because we need them to keep the ecosystems healthy and working, and we need them to keep the organisms working,” she adds. All plants and animals host invisible communities of microbes. These vast unseen microbiomes are fundamental to life as we know it, but these invisible ecosystems are also threatened by numerous intensifying pressures, including pollution, climate change and land use change. Prochlorococcus microorganisms in the world’s oceans produce vast amounts of oxygen via photosynthesis. Increasing water temperatures could cause declines of this invaluable microbe. A recent study estimates that&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/01/iucn-launches-group-to-conserve-at-risk-microbes-vital-to-life-on-earth/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-313188</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>For two of the world’s most at-risk primates, threats abound and the future looks grim</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/01/for-two-of-the-worlds-most-at-risk-primates-threats-abound-and-the-future-looks-grim/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/01/for-two-of-the-worlds-most-at-risk-primates-threats-abound-and-the-future-looks-grim/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>20 Jan 2026 10:54:32 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Mino Rakotovao]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Terna Gyuse]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[africa]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[global forests]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/01/20142839/original-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=313105</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Asia, Cameroon, Central Africa, Indonesia, Nigeria, Southeast Asia, and West Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Conservation, Critically Endangered Species, Endangered Species, Extinction, Forests, Habitat Degradation, Habitat Loss, Hunting, Monkeys, Primates, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Between Nigeria’s Cross River and Cameroon’s Sanaga River lies one of West Africa’s largest remaining blocks of intact rainforest. Noisy groups of Preuss’s red colobus monkeys (Piliocolobus preussi) move through this forest’s canopy in bands 20-to-60-strong, feeding mainly on the young leaves of just a few tree species, including Lecomtedoxa klaineana (known locally as oguomo) [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Between Nigeria’s Cross River and Cameroon’s Sanaga River lies one of West Africa’s largest remaining blocks of intact rainforest. Noisy groups of Preuss’s red colobus monkeys (Piliocolobus preussi) move through this forest’s canopy in bands 20-to-60-strong, feeding mainly on the young leaves of just a few tree species, including Lecomtedoxa klaineana (known locally as oguomo) and Xylopia aethiopica (“grains of Selim”). The leaf-heavy diet of these social monkeys helps shape forest structure, and declines in their numbers often foreshadow wider losses of wildlife across the forest. Half a world away, a very different primate lurks in the trees on the small, relatively isolated Indonesian island of Bangka. Readily identified by its pale facial mask, the Bangka slow loris (Nycticebus bancanus) is arboreal, nocturnal, and venomous, with large eyes and deliberate movements. Not much formal scientific knowledge has been gathered about this species since it was first described in 1937, but local conservationists have rehabilitated and released several dozen of the animals over the past decade. Both species feature on the &#8220;Primates in Peril&#8221;, a roll call of the world’s 25 most endangered primates, a call  for careful, focused conservation action. The future prospects for either primate illustrates how a threatened species’ survival may depend on very specific conditions: the health and protection of a single small island, or a particular forest type, or a few key plant species within that forest can make the difference between persistence and disappearance. Korup National Park, Cameroon. Image by Pleauthon Pierre via Flickr (CC&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/01/for-two-of-the-worlds-most-at-risk-primates-threats-abound-and-the-future-looks-grim/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-313105</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>The conservation ledger: What we lost and what we gained in 2025</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/01/the-ledger-what-we-lost-and-what-we-gained-in-2025/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/01/the-ledger-what-we-lost-and-what-we-gained-in-2025/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>01 Jan 2026 13:18:25 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Rhett Ayers Butler]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rhett Butler]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/01/01023111/ca_purisma_251227_173850231z-header-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=312472</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Global]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Commentary, Conservation, Environment, Extinction, Green, Species Discovery, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Extinction is rarely a moment. It is a process that unfolds offstage, marked by missed sightings, thinning records, and the slow reassignment of hope to footnotes. Discovery, too, is rarely a moment. It is a process of comparison, argument, and waiting—years spent persuading other experts that what you are seeing is, in fact, new. A [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Extinction is rarely a moment. It is a process that unfolds offstage, marked by missed sightings, thinning records, and the slow reassignment of hope to footnotes. Discovery, too, is rarely a moment. It is a process of comparison, argument, and waiting—years spent persuading other experts that what you are seeing is, in fact, new. A year-end review of nature tends to move between those two tempos. One is the closing of accounts. The other is the opening of drawers. In 2025, a small group of species crossed a final bureaucratic threshold and were formally listed as extinct on the IUCN Red List. For science, the change was technical. For everyone else, it read like a set of obituaries that had been delayed for decades. At the same time, hundreds of organisms were described for the first time in the scientific literature—some collected in recent fieldwork, others hiding in plain sight in museum collections, misfiled by earlier assumptions. Between those bookends sits the human work: the people who tried to slow the losses, and the institutional decisions that made progress possible in some places and failure likely in others. In my own corner of this story, 2025 was a year of memorials. I wrote more than 80 short obituaries for people who spent their lives protecting parts of the Earth. The volume was not a badge of productivity. It was a measure of how many lives are spent holding the line—and how often the line keeps moving anyway. The losses that became official&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/01/the-ledger-what-we-lost-and-what-we-gained-in-2025/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-312472</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Photos: Top new species from 2025</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/photos-top-new-species-from-2025/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/photos-top-new-species-from-2025/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>29 Dec 2025 14:22:20 +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/20/2025/12/29141103/Screenshot-2025-12-28-at-5.12.22-PM-1-768x512.png" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=312133</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Andes, Angola, Atlantic Ocean, Brazil, Cerrado, Global, Himalayas, India, Peru, and Tanzania]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Acoustic, Amphibians, Animals, Biodiversity, Captive Breeding, Climate Change, Cloud Forests, Conservation, Deep Sea, Deforestation, DNA, Ecosystem Services, Endangered Species, Environment, Extinction, Farming, Forests, Fungi, Habitat Loss, Happy-upbeat Environmental, Indigenous Peoples, Invasive Species, Marine, Mining, Oceans, Old Growth Forests, Pollution, Protected Areas, Ranching, Research, Science, Snakes, Species, Species Discovery, Swamps, Threatened species, Traditional Knowledge, Traditional People, Trees, Tropical Forests, and Water]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The world still holds its secrets. Hidden under wet rocks, in the ocean&#8217;s twilight crevices, and in the minutiae of the genetic code are creatures unknown and unnamed by the human species. Every year, scientists find hundreds of new animals, insects, plants and fungi. This year, researchers described a tiny new marsupial, a new Himalayan [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The world still holds its secrets. Hidden under wet rocks, in the ocean&#8217;s twilight crevices, and in the minutiae of the genetic code are creatures unknown and unnamed by the human species. Every year, scientists find hundreds of new animals, insects, plants and fungi. This year, researchers described a tiny new marsupial, a new Himalayan bat, an ancient tree, a bright blue butterfly, a parrot snake, and a fairy lantern plant, among others. &#8220;I think most people believe that we know most species on Earth,&#8221; Mario Moura, a professor at the Federal University of Paraíba in Brazil, told Mongabay, &#8220;but in the best-case scenario, we know 20% of Earth&#8217;s species.&#8221; Some estimate that only 10% of all the species on the planet have been described. Unfortunately, many species may be threatened with extinction before they’re even formally named — victims of human activities like development and climate change. Some of these species could be food or medicine for humans, but each plays a unique role in Earth’s interconnected web of life. “We’re understanding more and more that every species on the planet has a role, and in one way or another, is linked to our well-being through the part they play in ecosystems,&#8221; said Boris Worm, a marine conservation biologist who co-authored a study that quantifies the number of undescribed species on land and in the ocean. “We can’t protect them … if we don’t know them.&#8221; Atlantic manta ray (Mobula yarae) with a diver off the coast of Mexico. Originally&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/photos-top-new-species-from-2025/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-312133</doi>				</item>
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