<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><rss version="2.0" xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/" xmlns:wfw="http://wellformedweb.org/CommentAPI/" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom" xmlns:sy="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/syndication/" xmlns:slash="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/slash/" >

	<channel>
		<title>Conservation news</title>
		<atom:link href="https://news.mongabay.com/feed/?topic=grasslands&#038;type=post" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml" />
		<link>https://news.mongabay.com/list/grasslands/</link>
		<description>Environmental science and conservation news</description>
		<lastBuildDate>Sat, 15 Aug 2026 21:18:36 +0000</lastBuildDate>
		<language>en-US</language>
		<sy:updatePeriod>hourly</sy:updatePeriod>
		<sy:updateFrequency>1</sy:updateFrequency>
		<generator>https://wordpress.org/?v=7.0.4</generator>

<image>
	<url>https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2020/05/16160320/cropped-mongabay_icon-32x32.png</url>
	<title>News on Grasslands</title>
	<link>https://news.mongabay.com/list/grasslands/</link>
	<width>32</width>
	<height>32</height>
</image> 
				<item>
					<title>Cerrado’s hidden carbon highlights gaps in Brazil’s conservation policy</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/cerrados-hidden-carbon-highlights-gaps-in-brazils-conservation-policy/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/cerrados-hidden-carbon-highlights-gaps-in-brazils-conservation-policy/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>07 May 2026 09:47:40 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Daniel Shailer]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Alexandra Popescu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Amazon]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/05/07093915/Foto1_GuilhermeAlencar-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=318792</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Brazil, Cerrado, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Biodiversity, carbon, Carbon Emissions, Carbon Sequestration, Climate Change, Conservation, Deforestation, Governance, Grasslands, Planetary Boundaries, Protected Areas, Reforestation, Research, and Soil Carbon]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Fieldwork in the wet grasslands of the Brazilian Cerrado often means long trudges through head-high reeds, following tapir trails and watching for tick nests or boggy pitfalls. All this is made more difficult when your equipment is not waterproof. So in February 2024, when a thunderstorm broke over Chapada dos Veadeiros, a national park in [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Fieldwork in the wet grasslands of the Brazilian Cerrado often means long trudges through head-high reeds, following tapir trails and watching for tick nests or boggy pitfalls. All this is made more difficult when your equipment is not waterproof. So in February 2024, when a thunderstorm broke over Chapada dos Veadeiros, a national park in the northeast of Goiás state, ecologist Larissa Verona and her team sprinted for their truck. “The rain passed in about 10 minutes, but when we returned, we saw a fire had started right in the middle of the road,” presumably from a lightning strike, she tells Mongabay in a video call. “Oh my god, we need to go,” she recalls thinking. “We don’t want to be here when the fire chief arrives.” Wildfires have become increasingly more common in the Cerrado, Brazil’s second-biggest biome (after the Amazon), which sprawls across 2 million square kilometers (about 770,000 square miles) and hosts a mix of savannas, grasslands and forested corridors. In the past half-century, some 55% of the Cerrado’s native vegetation has been cleared — largely to support the expansion of industrial monocultures and often with the justification that this biome holds less environmental value than the Amazon Rainforest to the west or the Atlantic Forest to the southeast. This has resulted in degraded soils and dwindling groundwater. But draining and clearing vegetation from the Cerrado’s peaty, wet grasslands, known locally as veredas and campos úmidos, could also threaten a critical carbon stockpile, according to recent research.&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/cerrados-hidden-carbon-highlights-gaps-in-brazils-conservation-policy/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/cerrados-hidden-carbon-highlights-gaps-in-brazils-conservation-policy/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-318792</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>‘Sharing is off the table’ as drought reshapes the culture of Ethiopia’s pastoralists</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/sharing-is-off-the-table-as-drought-reshapes-the-lives-of-ethiopias-pastoralists/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/sharing-is-off-the-table-as-drought-reshapes-the-lives-of-ethiopias-pastoralists/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>01 Apr 2026 07:00:46 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Kaleab Girma]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Latoya Abulu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/03/31210152/a.-BANNER-UF146DY-00262634-768x512.jpeg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=316668</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, East Africa, and Ethiopia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Cattle, Climate, Climate Change, Culture, Drinking Water, Drought, Environment, Extreme Weather, Flooding, Food, food security, Global Environmental Crisis, Livestock, Pasture, Social Conflict, Subsistence Agriculture, Water, and Weather]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[JIJIGA, Ethiopia — The land here used to speak. At dawn in Kebribeyah district, Somali Regional State, eastern Ethiopia, the plains stretch wide beneath a pale sky, with dusty shades of brown and yellow broken by thorny acacia trees and the slow movement of livestock across the horizon. For generations, pastoralists learned to read the [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[JIJIGA, Ethiopia — The land here used to speak. At dawn in Kebribeyah district, Somali Regional State, eastern Ethiopia, the plains stretch wide beneath a pale sky, with dusty shades of brown and yellow broken by thorny acacia trees and the slow movement of livestock across the horizon. For generations, pastoralists learned to read the landscape. The arrival of seasonal winds, the timing of the rains, and the alignment of stars all carried meaning. Mohamoud Sulub, a 50-year-old livestock herder, grew up relying on these signs in Guuyow village. They told him when to move his herd and when to stay. He knew his neighbors would, in hard times, understand them, too — and help when needed. That knowledge is now failing him. This year, Mohamoud says, there is simply nowhere to go. “The land is all drought,” he tells Mongabay. The father of six has spent his entire life herding animals across this arid landscape, as his father did before him. Today he keeps 40 goats and sheep, five cows and six camels. “When the rains are good, the land is fine and there is no need to move,” he says. “But during drought, we migrate.” In this photo taken Sunday, Sept. 3, 2017, dust clouds blow across the parched landscape in the Danan district of the Somali region of Ethiopia, which hasn&#8217;t seen significant amounts of rain in the past three years. Image by AP Photo/Elias Meseret. For generations, pastoralists like Mohamoud relied on mobility and strong social&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/sharing-is-off-the-table-as-drought-reshapes-the-lives-of-ethiopias-pastoralists/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/04/sharing-is-off-the-table-as-drought-reshapes-the-lives-of-ethiopias-pastoralists/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-316668</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>A South African reserve shows how carbon can catalyze rewilding conservation</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/a-south-african-reserve-shows-how-carbon-can-catalyze-rewilding-conservation/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/a-south-african-reserve-shows-how-carbon-can-catalyze-rewilding-conservation/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>27 Mar 2026 17:06:59 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[John Cannon]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Terna Gyuse]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/03/27145726/gemsbok-Oryx-gazella-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=316455</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, South Africa, and Southern Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, carbon, Carbon Credits, Carbon Sequestration, Climate Change, Conservation, Environment, Forest Carbon, Payments For Ecosystem Services, Private Reserves, Rewilding, Savannas, Soil Carbon, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[TSWALU KALAHARI RESERVE, South Africa — From high on a promontory in the Korannaberg Mountains, a mountain zebra (Equus zebra hartmannae) peers down to the west across the green-dappled plain below, the sun rising behind. In the distance, wild dogs (Lycaon pictus) hunt in the veld, verdant after early rains. And nearby, white rhinos (Ceratotherium [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[TSWALU KALAHARI RESERVE, South Africa — From high on a promontory in the Korannaberg Mountains, a mountain zebra (Equus zebra hartmannae) peers down to the west across the green-dappled plain below, the sun rising behind. In the distance, wild dogs (Lycaon pictus) hunt in the veld, verdant after early rains. And nearby, white rhinos (Ceratotherium simum) graze among thorny thickets. These species, and dozens more, persist here thanks to a decades-long effort to rewild a sliver of Southern Africa’s great desert and dry savanna. The Tswalu Kalahari Reserve has become a sanctuary for rare and threatened animals, drawing in a steady stream of well-heeled tourists from around the globe. More recently, the reserve’s managers have embarked on a quest to increase the carbon stored in its soils — a quest that relies heavily on the reserve’s animals. At first glance, places like Tswalu might not seem suited for stockpiling carbon. The Tswana people call this part of the world Kgalagadi — “the waterless place.” Fickle precipitation in the Kalahari averages a scant 10-50 centimeters (4-20 inches) annually, and much less in some years. That means the comparative lushness here in late 2025 could evaporate if the rains don’t carry on throughout the austral summer of the Southern Hemisphere. To date, most nature-based carbon storage efforts have focused on fast-growing tropical forests, expanding native or plantation tree cover that draws carbon out of the atmosphere. Soil carbon, by contrast, is slower to accumulate, and it’s more laborious and expensive to monitor.&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/a-south-african-reserve-shows-how-carbon-can-catalyze-rewilding-conservation/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/a-south-african-reserve-shows-how-carbon-can-catalyze-rewilding-conservation/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-316455</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Climate change tests Nepal’s wild and domesticated yaks </title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/climate-change-tests-nepals-wild-and-domesticated-yaks/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/climate-change-tests-nepals-wild-and-domesticated-yaks/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>27 Mar 2026 09:11:51 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Sonam Lama Hyolmo]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Abhaya Raj Joshi]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/03/27070859/IMG_9939-e1774595484405-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=316414</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Nepal, and South Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Cattle, Climate Change, Conservation, Environment, Habitat Degradation, Indigenous Peoples, Pasture, Traditional Knowledge, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[KATHMANDU — In the rugged mountains of the Dolpo region in western Nepal, Youngdung Jhama Lama spent her childhood herding nagton (domesticated yaks) across the vast alpine pastures. Two decades on, mobile herding has greatly changed. “We only have four yaks left now,” said the 24-year-old resident of Vijer (Tra) village in Nepal’s largest and [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[KATHMANDU — In the rugged mountains of the Dolpo region in western Nepal, Youngdung Jhama Lama spent her childhood herding nagton (domesticated yaks) across the vast alpine pastures. Two decades on, mobile herding has greatly changed. “We only have four yaks left now,” said the 24-year-old resident of Vijer (Tra) village in Nepal’s largest and remotest district, Dolpa. For traditional herders such as Lama, rearing yaks (Bos grunniens), valued for transport, meat and wool, is becoming challenging due to rising costs, climate change, lack of local markets for yak produce, frequent spread of diseases and other socioeconomic pressures. This has not only increased challenges for domesticated yaks, but also for their wild cousins (Bos mutus). “My family sold dozens of them in the neighboring Mustang district last fall because it was more labor-intensive and costly to rear them, and we had limited kharka (pastureland/rangeland) to graze them,” Lama said. Many young people across the Himalayan rangelands are leaving for better opportunities in big cities or abroad, creating a shortage of labor. According to the National Population and Housing Census 2021 Internal Migration in Nepal report, in the country’s mountains, in-migration increased from 9,698 (2.2%) in 1971 to 75,542 (2.4%) in 2021, but excess out-migration resulted in a negative net migration of -543,966 by 2021. According to the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), climate change is affecting Himalayan high-altitude ecosystems used for grazing. It is altering how water circulates in these landscapes, changing the timing and availability of moisture.&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/climate-change-tests-nepals-wild-and-domesticated-yaks/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/climate-change-tests-nepals-wild-and-domesticated-yaks/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-316414</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Study finds livestock pushing lions away from shared rangeland in Kenya</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/study-finds-livestock-pushing-lions-away-from-shared-rangeland-in-kenya/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/study-finds-livestock-pushing-lions-away-from-shared-rangeland-in-kenya/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>12 Mar 2026 20:05:24 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Charles Mpaka]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Terna Gyuse]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[africa]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/03/12195736/Lions_Kenya_MaraPredatorConservationProgram-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=315684</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, East Africa, and Kenya]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Big Cats, Biodiversity, Cats, Cattle, Community-based Conservation, Conservation, Conservation Solutions, Endangered Species, Human-wildlife Conflict, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Rights, Land Conflict, Land Rights, Land Use Change, Lions, Mammals, National Parks, Pasture, Predators, Solutions, Top Predators, Tourism, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Lions, Africa’s largest predators, are a near-universal source of fear for the continent’s wildlife. But in Kenya, it’s the king of the jungle that’s now becoming fearful — of domestic livestock. In Kenya, most wildlife is found outside formally protected areas. The lions, zebras and elephants that attract tourists mostly live in pastoralist rangeland. For [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Lions, Africa’s largest predators, are a near-universal source of fear for the continent’s wildlife. But in Kenya, it’s the king of the jungle that’s now becoming fearful — of domestic livestock. In Kenya, most wildlife is found outside formally protected areas. The lions, zebras and elephants that attract tourists mostly live in pastoralist rangeland. For farmers and herders, this can be both a curse — coexistence is hard work where predators sometimes attack livestock and cattle compete with wild herbivores for grass — and a blessing — many community-owned conservancies profitably lease portions of their land to tourism operators for safaris and lodges, generating revenue for their members. In most conservancies’ grazing plans, herders can make use of the entire landscape. This allows grazing pressure to be more evenly distributed, but it also assumes that when herders and their livestock aren’t present in an area, other herbivores and the predators that hunt them make free use of the space. Niels Mogensen, a biologist with the Mara Predator Conservation Program, a Kenya Wildlife Trust initiative aimed at preserving large carnivores, says no one had actually checked to see if this was true before now. A lioness with cubs, Mara Conservancy, Kenya. Image by Ross Pollack via Flickr (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0).  Between 2015 and 2023, he and his colleagues carried out surveys at seven community-owned wildlife conservancies in the Mara ecosystem. They covered nearly 69,000 kilometers (43,000 miles) in total, collecting data about the presence of lions, and wild and domestic herbivores.&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/study-finds-livestock-pushing-lions-away-from-shared-rangeland-in-kenya/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/study-finds-livestock-pushing-lions-away-from-shared-rangeland-in-kenya/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-315684</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>The Cerrado is threatened but crucial for Brazil’s biodiversity &#038; water security (commentary)</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/the-cerrado-is-threatened-but-crucial-for-brazils-biodiversity-water-security-commentary/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/the-cerrado-is-threatened-but-crucial-for-brazils-biodiversity-water-security-commentary/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>09 Mar 2026 16:37:38 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Cássio Cardoso PereiraDomingos de Jesus RodriguesPhilip M. FearnsideRodolfo SalmWalisson Kenedy-Siqueira]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Erik Hoffner]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/04/17221415/Cerrado-Correntina-Bahia-Brazil-June-2023-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=315420</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Brazil, Cerrado, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[agribusiness, Agriculture, Biodiversity, Commentary, Conservation, Deforestation, Environment, Forests, Freshwater, Research, Savannas, Tropical Deforestation, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The Brazilian Cerrado, recognized as one of the world’s most species-diverse and threatened ecodomains on the planet, faces increasing pressure from large-scale agriculture and land conversion. “Ecodomains” are large areas where the predominant native vegetation is of a given general type, such as the Cerrado. These areas, officially termed “biomes” in Brazil since 2004 (a [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The Brazilian Cerrado, recognized as one of the world’s most species-diverse and threatened ecodomains on the planet, faces increasing pressure from large-scale agriculture and land conversion. “Ecodomains” are large areas where the predominant native vegetation is of a given general type, such as the Cerrado. These areas, officially termed “biomes” in Brazil since 2004 (a use of this term different from that in the ecological sciences), include both enclaves of native vegetation other than the predominant one and large areas that have been converted to agriculture and other uses. Although the Cerrado ecodomain sustains many of Brazil’s main river basins and occupies 24% of the national territory, our group’s review article in Nature Conservation shows that more than 55% of its native vegetation has already been lost, mostly over the last five decades. Often overshadowed by the Amazon in international debates, the Cerrado has lost more than 1 million square kilometers (more than 386,000 square miles) of its original vegetation, an area larger than France and Germany combined. Even when there are small fluctuations in annual rates of clearing, the historical trend continues to be one of increasing conversion driven by agricultural expansion, urban growth, mining and land speculation. The result is an increasingly fragmented and ecologically fragile landscape. Graphic showing carbon distribution in the Cerrado, revealing it as an “inverted forest” due to the predominance of biomass stored below ground, courtesy of Walisson Kenedy-Siqueira. The Cerrado’s inverted forest One of the most striking characteristics of the Cerrado is its&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/the-cerrado-is-threatened-but-crucial-for-brazils-biodiversity-water-security-commentary/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/the-cerrado-is-threatened-but-crucial-for-brazils-biodiversity-water-security-commentary/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-315420</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Agroforestry offers market-based way to boost Amazon rains &#038; farmer incomes (analysis)</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/02/agroforestry-offers-market-based-way-to-boost-amazon-rains-farmer-incomes-analysis/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/02/agroforestry-offers-market-based-way-to-boost-amazon-rains-farmer-incomes-analysis/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>25 Feb 2026 19:24:48 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Timothy J. Killeen]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Erik Hoffner]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2020/11/10131843/IMG_2580-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=314788</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Brazil, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[agribusiness, Agriculture, Agroecology, Agroforestry, Analysis, Biodiversity, Biofuels, Business, Cattle, climate finance, Commentary, Conservation Finance, Deforestation, Environment, Finance, Forests, Governance, Green, Livestock, Pasture, Rainforests, Ranching, Tropical Deforestation, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The Amazon Rainforest generates its own weather. Each day, the forest&#8217;s 390 billion trees release approximately 20 billion metric tons of water vapor into the atmosphere through evapotranspiration, creating what Brazilian scientists call rios voadores — flying rivers. These aerial currents of moisture flow westward from the Atlantic, recirculating water from the forest canopy before [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The Amazon Rainforest generates its own weather. Each day, the forest&#8217;s 390 billion trees release approximately 20 billion metric tons of water vapor into the atmosphere through evapotranspiration, creating what Brazilian scientists call rios voadores — flying rivers. These aerial currents of moisture flow westward from the Atlantic, recirculating water from the forest canopy before turning south to deliver rainfall across South America&#8217;s agricultural heartlands. But the mechanism is breaking down. Since the 1970s, Brazil has cleared 88 million hectares (217 million acres) of Amazon forest, most converted into low-productivity pastures, with around 45 million hectares (111 million acres) considered severely or moderately degraded. The consequences extend beyond biodiversity loss, carbon emissions and social disruption: deforestation threatens the continent&#8217;s productive capacity and the economic livelihoods of hundreds of millions of people. Droughts in 2023 and 2024 affected more than 50 million hectares (124 million acres) of forest, and scientists warn that continued deforestation could push the system past a tipping point where the Amazon can no longer sustain its rainfall regime. Yet hidden within this environmental crisis lies an economic opportunity. Brazil&#8217;s Forest Code, revised in 2012, requires private properties in the country’s Amazonian region to maintain native vegetation on 80% of their landholding as a “legal reserve” (reserva legal). Properties that clear forest beyond the 80% threshold carry a &#8220;forest debt&#8221; with a legal obligation to restore equivalent forest cover. Analysis using Brazil&#8217;s Rural Environmental Registry (CAR) indicates about 280,000 properties are noncompliant, with a collective deficit of 10&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/02/agroforestry-offers-market-based-way-to-boost-amazon-rains-farmer-incomes-analysis/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/02/agroforestry-offers-market-based-way-to-boost-amazon-rains-farmer-incomes-analysis/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-314788</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Citizen science rediscovers rare South African moth</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/02/citizen-science-rediscovers-rare-south-african-moth/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/02/citizen-science-rediscovers-rare-south-african-moth/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>11 Feb 2026 13:00:22 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Ryan Truscott]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Terna Gyuse]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/02/11114336/Drepanogynis-insciata-Cameron-Scott-768x512.jpeg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=314094</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, South Africa, and Southern Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Citizen Science, Conservation, Critically Endangered Species, Endangered Species, Environment, Grasslands, Happy-upbeat Environmental, Insects, Moths, Rediscovered Species, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[A strikingly handsome emerald-green moth, lost to science for nearly one-and-a-half centuries, has been rediscovered in South Africa by citizen scientists who posted photographs of it online. The moth, Drepanogynis insciata, whose body and wing margins look as though they’ve been stained with red wine, was thought to be extinct. The species hadn’t been recorded [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[A strikingly handsome emerald-green moth, lost to science for nearly one-and-a-half centuries, has been rediscovered in South Africa by citizen scientists who posted photographs of it online. The moth, Drepanogynis insciata, whose body and wing margins look as though they’ve been stained with red wine, was thought to be extinct. The species hadn’t been recorded since two male specimens were collected near the Western Cape town of Swellendam around 1875. Scientists only knew of the moth from those two faded specimens, which are kept in London’s Natural History Museum. However, according to a recent article in ZooKeys, a dozen separate sightings were recorded in four different locations between 2020 and 2023 and uploaded onto iNaturalist, the citizen science website. They were the first photographs ever taken of live specimens. Male specimens of Drepanogynis insciata have now been observed in the Gondwana Private Nature Reserve on four occasions. Image courtesy of Mikael Englund. Screenshot of iNaturalist page showing pictures of D. insciata. When the first of those photographs, taken by Cameron Scott in the Gondwana Private Game Reserve, around 160 kilometers (100 miles) west of Swellendam, was uploaded to the site in September 2020, South African lepidopterist Hermann Staude got a tip-off about his intriguing picture. “I looked, and there it was — insciata — [a] living animal,” Staude told Mongabay. “That was quite an incredible feeling, to all of a sudden see something that you thought might have been extinct.” Staude asked Scott to catch a moth if he saw&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/02/citizen-science-rediscovers-rare-south-african-moth/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/02/citizen-science-rediscovers-rare-south-african-moth/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-314094</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Too many African plants fall into the IUCN’s ‘not evaluated’ trap (commentary)</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/01/too-many-african-plants-fall-into-the-iucns-not-evaluated-trap-commentary/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/01/too-many-african-plants-fall-into-the-iucns-not-evaluated-trap-commentary/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>20 Jan 2026 16:41:05 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Victor Nsereko Wantate]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Erik Hoffner]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/01/20161805/Khaya_anthotheca_Big_Tree_Chirinda_Forest_Zimbabwe_04-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=313117</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Botany, Conservation, Dry Forests, Endangered Species, Environment, Forests, Plants, Rainforests, Research, Savannas, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Many African conservation decisions such as funding, policy, species prioritization and nursery propagation implicitly treat the IUCN Red List as a complete map of extinction risk. It is not. For plants including trees, the biggest risk is not only that we mis-rank species, it’s that we overlook vast numbers of species that have never been [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Many African conservation decisions such as funding, policy, species prioritization and nursery propagation implicitly treat the IUCN Red List as a complete map of extinction risk. It is not. For plants including trees, the biggest risk is not only that we mis-rank species, it’s that we overlook vast numbers of species that have never been globally assessed or have assessments that are decades old. So, how much plant diversity is assessed? Globally, one widely cited synthesis notes that of about 350,000 vascular plant species, the IUCN Red List documents about 62,666 species, or roughly 18%. That means most vascular plant species worldwide have no global Red List category to guide action. Africa illustrates the gap even more starkly. A comprehensive checklist of Mozambique’s vascular flora (compiled in July 2021) reported that although 1,667 taxa in the national checklist were registered on the IUCN Red List, the global extinction risk status for 76.5% of Mozambique’s vascular flora was not evaluated (including taxa explicitly categorized as not evaluated (NE) and taxa not listed on the IUCN Red List). At a broader (tropical Africa) scale, one peer-reviewed analysis of 22,036 green plant species found that only 2,856 had full IUCN assessments available (about 13%), and only 2,009 (9.1%) had assessments published after 2001. In other words, 87% of species had their assessments published a quarter century, or longer, ago. Flower and leaves of mgambo tree (Majidea zangueberica), which is also known as black pearl tree or velvet seed tree. Image courtesy of Lukango&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/01/too-many-african-plants-fall-into-the-iucns-not-evaluated-trap-commentary/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/01/too-many-african-plants-fall-into-the-iucns-not-evaluated-trap-commentary/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-313117</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>In the race for DRC’s critical minerals, community forests are on the frontline</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/01/in-the-race-for-drcs-critical-minerals-community-forests-stand-on-the-frontline/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/01/in-the-race-for-drcs-critical-minerals-community-forests-stand-on-the-frontline/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>16 Jan 2026 08:00:37 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Didier MakalLatoya Abulu]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Latoya Abulu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://news.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/01/927W7CV-768x512.jpeg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=312862</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Cobalt Capital, Global Forests, and Land rights and extractives]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Central Africa, and Democratic Republic Of Congo]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Clean Energy, Conservation, Critical Minerals, Environment, Environmental Policy, extractives, Forests, Illegal Mining, Industry, Land Conflict, Land Rights, Military, Mining, Politics, Savannas, and Technology]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[LIKASI, Democratic Republic of Congo — North of the limits of the Lukutwe community forest concession, two armed soldiers stepped in front of Valery Kyembo and his visitors. Wearing a bright orange vest with the logo of a reforestation project, Kyembo was guiding our journalists through a heavily deforested area in the copper-cobalt belt of [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[LIKASI, Democratic Republic of Congo — North of the limits of the Lukutwe community forest concession, two armed soldiers stepped in front of Valery Kyembo and his visitors. Wearing a bright orange vest with the logo of a reforestation project, Kyembo was guiding our journalists through a heavily deforested area in the copper-cobalt belt of the Democratic Republic of Congo, stepping around newly planted seedlings, when he was stopped by members of the FARDC, the national armed forces. Behind them stood a barrier to control access to a semi-industrial mine. &#8220;We are visiting the boundaries of our community’s property,&#8221; Kyembo tried to explain, before one of the soldiers brandished his automatic weapon to make him turn back. The land in question is the Lukutwe community forest concession (CFCL), 70 kilometers (43 miles) from Lubumbashi, the second-largest city in the DRC. The concession is a titled property created in the mineral-rich area of southeastern DRC by village leaders who sought to protect their land rights and miombo forests against a growing wave of mining companies taking up lands. Valery Kyembo walking in the Lukutwe forest concession in Likasi on November 26, 2025. Image by Glody MURHABAZI / AFP. Ten years ago, the displacement of nearby famers from the villages of Bungubungu and Shilasimba by Société d&#8217;Exploitation de Kipoi (SEK), a company owned by Australia-based Tiger Resources in search of copper and cobalt, sparked worry in Lukutwe village that their village could be next. &#8220;That’s why when the environmental project came to&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/01/in-the-race-for-drcs-critical-minerals-community-forests-stand-on-the-frontline/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/01/in-the-race-for-drcs-critical-minerals-community-forests-stand-on-the-frontline/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-312862</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Silvopasture gains momentum in the Amazon, but can it shrink beef’s footprint?</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/01/silvopasture-gains-momentum-in-the-amazon-but-can-it-shrink-beefs-footprint/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/01/silvopasture-gains-momentum-in-the-amazon-but-can-it-shrink-beefs-footprint/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>12 Jan 2026 12:26:56 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Charlie Espinosa]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Alexandra Popescu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Amazon]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/01/07120648/PHOTO-2025-12-06-10-21-49-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=312670</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Bolivia, Brazil, and Peru]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Agroecology, Agroforestry, Beef, Biodiversity, Carbon Emissions, Cattle, Conservation, Emission Reduction, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Pasture, Ranching, Threats To Rainforests, and Trees]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[In the rolling hills of Iñapari, a remote town in the Peruvian Amazon on the tri-border with Bolivia and Brazil, cattle ranchers are ditching grass monocultures, which have been shown to harm biodiversity, in favor of forested pastures. For Antonio Cardozo, a local rancher who has planted hundreds of native trees, the switch has improved [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[In the rolling hills of Iñapari, a remote town in the Peruvian Amazon on the tri-border with Bolivia and Brazil, cattle ranchers are ditching grass monocultures, which have been shown to harm biodiversity, in favor of forested pastures. For Antonio Cardozo, a local rancher who has planted hundreds of native trees, the switch has improved his cattle’s diet and health, while also providing him with additional sources of food and income. “Learning has a cost, but in a few years you start to see a difference,” says Cardozo, who has been combining trees with rotational grazing, a practice that keeps the soil intact and allows grass to regrow. In less than a year, this practice allowed him to more than double the number of cows he grazes per hectare Livestock farming is responsible for roughly 80% of the deforestation in the Amazon Basin and 14.5% of greenhouse gas emissions globally. Yet agricultural solutions receive just 7% of global climate funding and were absent from the recent COP30 climate summit agreement. According to some researchers, planting trees in pastures, an agroforestry technique known as silvopasture, represents one of the most effective yet neglected opportunities to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. Under ideal conditions, silvopasture sequesters carbon in trees and soils while providing better forage and shade to heat-stressed cows, leading to healthier animals that emit less methane and occupy less land. It can also help small farmers adapt to climate-related disasters — responsible for $2.9 trillion in losses over the last&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/01/silvopasture-gains-momentum-in-the-amazon-but-can-it-shrink-beefs-footprint/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/01/silvopasture-gains-momentum-in-the-amazon-but-can-it-shrink-beefs-footprint/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-312670</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Deforestation climbs in Central America’s largest biosphere reserve</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/deforestation-climbs-in-central-americas-largest-biosphere-reserve/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/deforestation-climbs-in-central-americas-largest-biosphere-reserve/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>31 Dec 2025 20:09:53 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Morgan Erickson-Davis]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Morgan Erickson-Davis]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/12/31195758/2048px-Bairds_Tapir_Tapirus_bairdii_captive_specimen-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=312462</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Central America, Latin America, and Nicaragua]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Amphibians, Cattle, Critically Endangered Species, Endangered Species, Environment, Fires, Forest Loss, Forests, Green, Herps, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Rights, Mammals, Pasture, Primary Forests, Rainforests, Ranching, Salamanders, Tropical Forests, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Encompassing some 7,400 square kilometers, or 2,860 square miles, along the Honduran border, Nicaragua’s Bosawás Biosphere Reserve is the largest biosphere reserve in Central America. It’s home to the Miskito and Mayanga Indigenous groups as well as countless species; endangered Geoffrey&#8217;s spider monkeys (Ateles geoffroyi) and Baird&#8217;s tapirs (Tapirus bairdii) inhabit Bosawas, as do critically [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Encompassing some 7,400 square kilometers, or 2,860 square miles, along the Honduran border, Nicaragua’s Bosawás Biosphere Reserve is the largest biosphere reserve in Central America. It’s home to the Miskito and Mayanga Indigenous groups as well as countless species; endangered Geoffrey&#8217;s spider monkeys (Ateles geoffroyi) and Baird&#8217;s tapirs (Tapirus bairdii) inhabit Bosawas, as do critically endangered Saslaya moss salamanders (Nototriton saslaya), that are found nowhere else in the world. But, increasingly over the past several decades, Bosawás has also become host to cattle ranches and gold mines, at the cost of its rainforest. Despite its designation as a UNESCO site, Bosawás Biosphere Reserve has lost more than 30% of its primary forest cover since the turn of the century, according to satellite data from the University of Maryland’s Global Land Analysis and Discovery lab and visualized on the monitoring platform Global Forest Watch. Deforestation surged to a record high in 2024, with 740 km2 (286 mi2) — 10% of the reserve’s land area — cleared in a single year. A satellite image captured April 2025 by Sentinel 2b shows recently deforested areas in Bosawás Biosphere Reserve. The data show fire activity in Bosawás also rose in 2024, with 35% of annual tree cover loss caused by fire, representing a 700% jump from 2023. Preliminary data for 2025 indicate forest loss has continued this year, with satellite imagery showing telltale patches of brown spreading ever deeper into Bosawás’s remaining old-growth rainforest. Cattle ranching is one of the main drivers of forest&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/deforestation-climbs-in-central-americas-largest-biosphere-reserve/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/deforestation-climbs-in-central-americas-largest-biosphere-reserve/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-312462</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Satellite data show forest loss persists in Brazilian Amazon’s most deforested reserve</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/satellite-data-show-forest-loss-persists-in-brazilian-amazons-most-deforested-reserve/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/satellite-data-show-forest-loss-persists-in-brazilian-amazons-most-deforested-reserve/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>30 Dec 2025 21:51:05 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Morgan Erickson-Davis]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Morgan Erickson-Davis]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/12/30212511/AP20236730024384-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=312370</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Brazil, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Cattle, Environment, Fires, Forests, Green, Habitat Loss, Old Growth Forests, Pasture, Primary Forests, Protected Areas, Rainforests, Ranching, Slash-and-burn, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Brazil’s Triunfo do Xingu Environmental Protection Area encompasses an area of Amazon Rainforest more than half the size of Belgium. Or at least it used to. The embattled reserve has lost around half of its primary forest cover since it was created in 2006, according to satellite data from the University of Maryland’s Global Land [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Brazil’s Triunfo do Xingu Environmental Protection Area encompasses an area of Amazon Rainforest more than half the size of Belgium. Or at least it used to. The embattled reserve has lost around half of its primary forest cover since it was created in 2006, according to satellite data from the University of Maryland’s Global Land Analysis and Discovery (GLAD) lab and visualized on monitoring platform Global Forest Watch. The data show 2024 had the highest rate of forest loss, rocketing 400% over 2023. Preliminary data show forest loss continued in 2025, concentrated in the northern portion of the 1.7-million-hectare (4.2-million-acre) reserve, where most of the largest tracts of forest remain. Satellite data from the University of Maryland show primary forest loss jumped 400% between 2023 and 2024. Image by Mongabay. Google Timelapse shows forest loss advancing rapidly through Triunfo do Xingu. This has given Triunfo do Xingu the dubious distinction of being the protected area with the highest rate of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. The main cause? Cattle. Triunfo do Xingu lies in the heart of Brazil’s cattle country, where cows outnumber people 38 to one. To feed this legion of cattle, ranchers carve pasture from forest, often using slash-and-burn techniques to clear areas and renew degraded soil. During a visit in 2023, Mongabay reporters observed the charred remains of sawed-down trees, and were told by local small-scale famers and officials that fires set by ranchers can spread out of control, consuming crops, homes and forest alike. “They set&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/satellite-data-show-forest-loss-persists-in-brazilian-amazons-most-deforested-reserve/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/satellite-data-show-forest-loss-persists-in-brazilian-amazons-most-deforested-reserve/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-312370</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>William Bond, grasslands researcher who reminded conservation that context matters, has died</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/william-bond-grasslands-researcher-who-reminded-conservation-that-context-matters-has-died/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/william-bond-grasslands-researcher-who-reminded-conservation-that-context-matters-has-died/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>24 Dec 2025 08:03:39 +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/20/2025/12/21223350/william-bond-header-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=311831</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Founder's briefs]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa and South Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Ecosystems, Fires, Grasslands, Landscape Restoration, Obituary, Restoration, and Savannas]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Founder&#8217;s Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries. In recent years, one of the loudest ideas in environmental policy has been that trees are the planet’s universal remedy. Plant enough of them, in enough places, and carbon will be soaked up, water will return, and biodiversity [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Founder&#8217;s Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries. In recent years, one of the loudest ideas in environmental policy has been that trees are the planet’s universal remedy. Plant enough of them, in enough places, and carbon will be soaked up, water will return, and biodiversity will rebound. The proposition is tidy, optimistic, and easily communicated. It is also, in many landscapes, wrong. The resistance to this way of thinking did not come from campaigners or contrarians, but from ecology. Over decades, evidence accumulated that vast parts of the world long assumed to be degraded forests were neither degraded nor forests at all. They were ancient grasslands and savannas, shaped by fire, herbivores, and time. Treating them as failed woodlands, and covering them with trees, risked destroying the very systems being “restored.” Few scientists did more to clarify this than William Bond. Bond spent much of his career insisting on an unfashionable idea: that openness mattered. Sunlit systems, he argued, were not empty spaces awaiting trees, but complex ecosystems with their own histories, rules, assemblages, and riches. Grasslands and savannas were not provisional stages on the way to forests. They were alternative outcomes, maintained by processes as fundamental as rainfall or soil. This view ran against powerful currents. International agencies, governments, philanthropists, and corporations were eager for simple climate solutions, and trees were visible, plantable, and symbolic. Bond did not object to forests. He objected to careless generalization. Where forests were&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/william-bond-grasslands-researcher-who-reminded-conservation-that-context-matters-has-died/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/william-bond-grasslands-researcher-who-reminded-conservation-that-context-matters-has-died/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-311831</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>In Brazil, a new label gives more visibility to deforestation-free beef</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/in-brazil-a-new-label-gives-more-visibility-to-deforestation-free-beef/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/in-brazil-a-new-label-gives-more-visibility-to-deforestation-free-beef/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>18 Dec 2025 14:22:42 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Constance Malleret]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Alexandra Popescu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Amazon]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/01/17151530/Beyond-Fire_Cattle_12_DSC_2938-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=311607</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Brazil, European Union, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Beef, Cattle, Deforestation, Drivers Of Deforestation, EUDR, Forest Destruction, Forest Loss, International Trade, Monitoring, Pasture, Rainforests, Ranching, Supply Chain, Threats To Rainforests, and Tropical Deforestation]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Amid growing pressure for beef supply chains to be deforestation-free, a new certification system in Brazil will allow meatpackers, importers and retailers to guarantee that the meat cuts they sell are not associated with deforestation. Down the line, this could also help companies become compliant with the European Union’s regulation on deforestation-free products (EUDR). The [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Amid growing pressure for beef supply chains to be deforestation-free, a new certification system in Brazil will allow meatpackers, importers and retailers to guarantee that the meat cuts they sell are not associated with deforestation. Down the line, this could also help companies become compliant with the European Union’s regulation on deforestation-free products (EUDR). The voluntary Beef on Track (BoT) label, launched by the Institute of Forest and Agricultural Management and Certification (Imaflora) in October and due to come into effect in 2026, is the first certification of its kind to guarantee deforestation-free beef. It will do so by building on existing monitoring, reporting and verification protocols adopted by the meat industry, rather than by designing new systems. “We’re not reinventing the wheel; we’re giving visibility to processes that already exist,” said Marina Guyot, Imaflora’s executive manager for climate, land use and public policy. Imaflora was involved in creating two initiatives that encourage best practices in the beef industry through monitoring, reporting and verification in recent years: the Beef on Track program (Boi na Linha in Portuguese) for beef produced in the Amazon, set up in 2019, and the Cerrado Protocol, launched in 2024. Companies that are already 95% compliant with these protocols are automatically eligible for BoT’s lowest certification level. Imaflora plans to develop similar frameworks for other Brazilian biomes in the future. The BoT certification will also rely on criteria from the Working Group of Indirect Suppliers (GTFI in Portuguese), a cross-sector body working to uproot deforestation from&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/in-brazil-a-new-label-gives-more-visibility-to-deforestation-free-beef/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/in-brazil-a-new-label-gives-more-visibility-to-deforestation-free-beef/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-311607</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Tanzanian community-led innovation wins global award for boosting conservation</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/tanzanian-community-led-innovation-wins-global-award-for-boosting-conservation/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/tanzanian-community-led-innovation-wins-global-award-for-boosting-conservation/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>16 Dec 2025 11:08:43 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Joyce Bazira]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Lemae Mortimer]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/12/16110753/e53b6d28-ab83-4ff2-990f-e72d14cabe24-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=310815</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, East Africa, and Tanzania]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Conservation Technology, data, Grasslands, Technology, and Wildtech]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Pastoralists in rural Tanzania have been recognized globally for applying a blend of local knowledge and new technology in efforts to restore degraded land and provide pasture. The community-led project dubbed Sustainable Rangelands Initiative, developed by African People &#38; Wildlife (APW), won in the NatureTech Stewards category at the inaugural IUCN Tech4Nature Awards, held during [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Pastoralists in rural Tanzania have been recognized globally for applying a blend of local knowledge and new technology in efforts to restore degraded land and provide pasture. The community-led project dubbed Sustainable Rangelands Initiative, developed by African People &amp; Wildlife (APW), won in the NatureTech Stewards category at the inaugural IUCN Tech4Nature Awards, held during the IUCN World Conservation Congress in Abu Dhabi last October. The Sustainable Rangelands Initiative (SRI) has been implemented in Northern and Central Tanzania, in Simanjiro, Babati, Longido, Same, Monduli, Ngorogoro, and Mwanga districts. APW’s Director of Community Conservation and Environment Neovitus Sianga says this was because the areas are crucial for livestock and wildlife activities. Under this initiative by APW and the local community, local grazing committees and trained community grassland monitors use mobile phones to collect information about water sources, vegetation cover, grass growth rates, soil health and invasive species. Nasma Mustafa, a Rangeland Monitor from Engaluka Village, describes the key steps: “We use a measuring tape, a rope and a phone. The rope is stretched over 100 meters on the ground, at the same level with a measuring tape with five marks. We then observe which of the five marks touches vegetation and which ones touch bare ground. The information collected is transferred to a form through phones. This is repeated until a targeted area is covered. The collected data is transmitted to the community grazing committee for further steps.” The data is channeled to central village level technology centers and used to&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/tanzanian-community-led-innovation-wins-global-award-for-boosting-conservation/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/tanzanian-community-led-innovation-wins-global-award-for-boosting-conservation/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-310815</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Scientists chart a new source, and length, for Africa&#8217;s famous Zambezi River</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/scientists-chart-a-new-source-and-length-for-africas-famous-zambezi-river/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/scientists-chart-a-new-source-and-length-for-africas-famous-zambezi-river/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>03 Dec 2025 20:26:42 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Ryan Truscott]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Terna Gyuse]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/12/03150506/Adobe-Express-file-37-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=310534</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Angola, Southern Africa, and Zambia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Biodiversity, Conservation, Degraded Lands, Dry Forests, Ecosystems, Environment, Environmental Policy, forest degradation, Freshwater, Grasslands, Monitoring, Research, Rivers, Trees, Tropics, Water, and Wetlands]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[A new study suggests that the Zambezi River, Africa’s fourth-longest, is 11% longer than previously thought, with its most distant source lying in Angola, not Zambia. While the finding leaves the Zambezi as Africa’s fourth-longest river — after the Nile, the Congo and the Niger — the redefinition of its most distant source underscores Angola’s [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[A new study suggests that the Zambezi River, Africa’s fourth-longest, is 11% longer than previously thought, with its most distant source lying in Angola, not Zambia. While the finding leaves the Zambezi as Africa’s fourth-longest river — after the Nile, the Congo and the Niger — the redefinition of its most distant source underscores Angola’s enormous contribution to sustaining the river best known for Victoria Falls. This newly identified source in Angola’s southern highlands sits 3,421 kilometers (2,126 miles) from the Zambezi’s mouth at the Indian Ocean — 342 km (213 mi) farther than its original source, a spring bubbling out of the ground in a marshy patch of woodland near the Zambian town of Mwinilunga. The source of the Lungwebungu River in Angola: Spanning a total of 1,032 km (640 miles), the river is an essential water source, contributing significantly to the flow of the upper Zambezi River. Image courtesy Rainer von Brandis /The Wilderness Project/NGOWP. The geographic definition of a river’s source is the farthest point from its mouth, and based on that criterion, the team behind the study published in the journal Hydrology and Earth System Sciences has identified the source of the Zambezi as a small trickle oozing from a peatland bog in southern Angola, which is also the source of a river known as the Lungwebungu. Lead author Rainer von Brandis of The Wilderness Project (TWP), a group of scientists and explorers that conducted the study, says the findings highlight the critical importance of the&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/scientists-chart-a-new-source-and-length-for-africas-famous-zambezi-river/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/scientists-chart-a-new-source-and-length-for-africas-famous-zambezi-river/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-310534</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Deforestation for soy continues in Brazilian Cerrado despite EUDR looming</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/10/deforestation-for-soy-continues-in-brazilian-cerrado-despite-eudr-looming/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/10/deforestation-for-soy-continues-in-brazilian-cerrado-despite-eudr-looming/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>17 Oct 2025 09:41:07 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Constance Malleret]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Alexandra Popescu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Food systems]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2022/11/04155433/Soy_production_Cerrado-2-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=307887</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Brazil, Cerrado, European Union, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[agribusiness, Agriculture, Biodiversity, Conservation, Corporate Environmental Transgressors, Deforestation, Drivers Of Deforestation, Environmental Law, Governance, Indigenous Peoples, Industrial Agriculture, International Trade, Law, Law Enforcement, Plantations, Savannas, Soy, Supply Chain, and Transparency]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Agricultural producers in Brazil’s Cerrado savanna continue to clear land for soy, which puts them in breach of the European Union’s upcoming antideforestation law, or EUDR, a new investigation shows. In September 2024, investigative nonprofit Earthsight published its “Secret Ingredient” report, which established links between chicken sold by McDonald’s and at supermarkets in Europe, and [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Agricultural producers in Brazil’s Cerrado savanna continue to clear land for soy, which puts them in breach of the European Union’s upcoming antideforestation law, or EUDR, a new investigation shows. In September 2024, investigative nonprofit Earthsight published its “Secret Ingredient” report, which established links between chicken sold by McDonald’s and at supermarkets in Europe, and soy produced on deforested land in the Cerrado. In a recent update to the report, Earthsight found that two of the three producers identified in “Secret Ingredient” continued to clear land for soy in the year since. This makes their product noncompliant with the EUDR, which, at the time of Earthsight’s research, was due to come into force on Dec. 30 this year. The European Commission has since proposed delaying the application of the law for another year. “The threat that soy production and agricultural expansion pose to the Cerrado … is still ongoing,” said Lara Shirra White, Latin America researcher at Earthsight and lead author of “Secret Ingredient: A year of inaction,” the update to the 2024 investigation. “And so the chance of soy and other commodities that are linked to the conversion and deforestation of the Cerrado entering international supply chains … is still a very real threat,” she told Mongabay. Spanning about 200 million hectares (500 million acres) across central Brazil, or more than double the size of California, the Cerrado is the world’s most biodiverse tropical savanna. It’s a vital carbon sink and a home to traditional Indigenous and Afro-descendent quilombola&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/10/deforestation-for-soy-continues-in-brazilian-cerrado-despite-eudr-looming/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/10/deforestation-for-soy-continues-in-brazilian-cerrado-despite-eudr-looming/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-307887</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Biodiversity loss due to land use change could be highly underestimated: Study</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/10/biodiversity-loss-due-to-land-use-change-could-be-highly-underestimated-study/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/10/biodiversity-loss-due-to-land-use-change-could-be-highly-underestimated-study/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>14 Oct 2025 10:00:30 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Mark Hillsdon]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Alexandra Popescu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Amazon]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2022/04/04160611/5-plate-billed-mountain-toucan-is-native-to-Ecuador-and-a-portion-of-Colombia-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=307580</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Colombia, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Birds, Cattle, Deforestation, Drivers Of Deforestation, Endangered Species, Forest Destruction, Forest Loss, Habitat Loss, Land Use Change, Pasture, Planetary Boundaries, Ranching, and Research]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[A survey of Colombian birdlife, which evolved over more than a decade into the world’s largest-ever ornithological study, has found that clearing forests to create new pastures is causing as much as 60% more damage to biodiversity than previously thought. Until now, research into the impact on biodiversity of land use change has generally involved [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[A survey of Colombian birdlife, which evolved over more than a decade into the world’s largest-ever ornithological study, has found that clearing forests to create new pastures is causing as much as 60% more damage to biodiversity than previously thought. Until now, research into the impact on biodiversity of land use change has generally involved small-scale, local surveys. But this approach does not accurately represent the larger-scale damage caused to nature, says study co-author David Edwards, a professor of plant ecology at the University of Cambridge. When forests are converted to pasture, some species win and others lose, he explains, and measuring the biodiversity loss at a local scale does not capture the larger-scale effect of these land clearances, which are occurring across the ranges of many different species. “When people want to understand the wider impact of deforestation on biodiversity, they tend to do a local survey and extrapolate the results,” Edwards tells Mongabay in a phone interview. “But the problem is that tree clearance is occurring at massive spatial scales, across all sorts of different habitats and elevations.” By focusing on isolated sites, researchers were missing how these effects accumulate across regions, he says. Large areas of Tinigua National Natural Park have been razed for illegal livestock ranching. Image by María Jimena Neira Niño. In 2024, Colombia lost 113,608 hectares (about 280,700 acres) of forest, a 43% increase compared with 2023, when deforestation had dropped to its lowest level in more than two decades. But while organized crime,&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/10/biodiversity-loss-due-to-land-use-change-could-be-highly-underestimated-study/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/10/biodiversity-loss-due-to-land-use-change-could-be-highly-underestimated-study/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-307580</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>The Indigenous tradition sustaining Nepal’s alpine pastures amid climate change</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/the-indigenous-tradition-sustaining-nepals-alpine-pastures-amid-climate-change/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/the-indigenous-tradition-sustaining-nepals-alpine-pastures-amid-climate-change/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>30 Sep 2025 13:42:08 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Mukesh Pokhrel]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Abhaya Raj Joshi]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/09/30132719/upscalemedia-transformed-2-1-768x512.jpeg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=306800</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Himalayas, Nepal, and South Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Climate Change, Community Forests, Community-based Conservation, Conservation, Culture, Grasslands, Indigenous Peoples, Mountains, Snow Leopards, Sustainable Forest Management, and Traditional Knowledge]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[As the monsoon clouds recede in Nepal in late September, herders Karma Gurung and Dhana Raj Ghale, who have spent three summer months at an elevation of 4,044 meters (13,270 feet) above sea level, are returning to lower lands with their cattle herds. In Nepal’s rugged Himalayan mountains, life follows the rhythm of the seasons. [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[As the monsoon clouds recede in Nepal in late September, herders Karma Gurung and Dhana Raj Ghale, who have spent three summer months at an elevation of 4,044 meters (13,270 feet) above sea level, are returning to lower lands with their cattle herds. In Nepal’s rugged Himalayan mountains, life follows the rhythm of the seasons. During the short summers, pastoralists move their livestock to high-elevation pastures where melted snow reveals fresh, nutritious grass and herbs, while in winter, they descend to lower valleys to escape the bitter cold. “We have descended to an elevation of 3,100 meters [10,170 ft], and we will reach our village in Ghermu at 1,140 meters [3,740 ft] elevation by November 1,” Gurung tells Mongabay over the phone. Their journey was planned in March, when around 300 households from Ghermu village in Marsyangdi Rural Municipality, Lamjung district, gathered on the edge of their alpine pastures. They were there for an annual age-old tradition: deciding how and where to allow livestock to graze for the year under the guidance of thiti, a Gurung community institution passed down through generations. Sheep herd moving to lower altitudes with the end of summer. Image courtesy of Sita Ram Guragain. “This system has guided our community for generations,” says Ghanashyam Ghale, an elected ward chair of the municipality. “It allows us to live in this harsh environment while conserving our natural resources.” As climate change threatens alpine grasslands, conservationists are pointing to the centuries-old thiti system, which combines rotational grazing, collective&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/the-indigenous-tradition-sustaining-nepals-alpine-pastures-amid-climate-change/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/the-indigenous-tradition-sustaining-nepals-alpine-pastures-amid-climate-change/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-306800</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Permaculture promises peace, food, increased equality in Kenyan county</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/permaculture-promises-peace-food-increased-equality-in-kenyan-county/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/permaculture-promises-peace-food-increased-equality-in-kenyan-county/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>24 Sep 2025 10:09:45 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Gilbert Nakweya]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Terna Gyuse]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/09/23091848/SalinaChepsatTomatoes_BaringoKenya_GilbertNakweya-237-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=306390</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, East Africa, and Kenya]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Agroecology, Agroforestry, Biodiversity, Cattle, Climate Change, Community Development, Community-based Conservation, Conservation, Conservation Solutions, Drought, Environment, Governance, Grasslands, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Rights, and Solutions]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[BARINGO, Kenya — Salina Chepsat and a neighbor are loading tomatoes into a vehicle in the scorching midday heat. Chepsat picked the produce earlier that morning from her farm in the remote village of Loboi, a stone’s throw from west-central Kenya’s Lake Bogoria. From there, it’s headed to the market in the town of Marigat, [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[BARINGO, Kenya — Salina Chepsat and a neighbor are loading tomatoes into a vehicle in the scorching midday heat. Chepsat picked the produce earlier that morning from her farm in the remote village of Loboi, a stone’s throw from west-central Kenya’s Lake Bogoria. From there, it’s headed to the market in the town of Marigat, 30 kilometers (19 miles) away. Amid the overlapping challenges facing her community in largely semiarid Baringo county — repeated droughts, badly degraded land, and conflict between and among ethnic communities — this tall, 49-year-old widow and mother of three is prospering as a farmer. This season’s bumper harvest is special to her, Chepsat tells Mongabay, because she plans to use the proceeds of her labor to pay to roof and plaster a new house she’s been building for the past two years. “When I settled here, I was mainly planting maize, beans and millet. Although I was earning income to sustain me and my children, I wasn’t making enough to construct a good house like the one I am building,” she says. “Unpredictable rainfall has been a limiting factor, especially for maize.” Making compost on a farm in Baringo County: the Indigenous Women and Girls Initiative&#8217;s is training women — and some men — to make organic fertilizer and pesticides. Image by Gilbert Nakweya for Mongabay. Farming on the rise Chepsat learned to farm from her parents and grandparents. But for those older generations of Indigenous Endorois, agriculture was usually a sideline to herding livestock.&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/permaculture-promises-peace-food-increased-equality-in-kenyan-county/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/permaculture-promises-peace-food-increased-equality-in-kenyan-county/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-306390</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Marfrig&#8217;s bonds funded beef from illegally deforested areas in Brazil</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/marfrigs-bonds-funded-beef-from-illegally-deforested-areas-in-brazil/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/marfrigs-bonds-funded-beef-from-illegally-deforested-areas-in-brazil/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>23 Sep 2025 13:47:58 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Bruna BronoskiO Joio e o Trigo]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Alexandre de Santi]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Food systems]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/09/22101956/header-marfrig-v1-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=306344</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Brazil, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Beef, Cattle, Corporate Environmental Transgressors, Corporate Social Responsibility, Deforestation, Drivers Of Deforestation, Illegal Logging, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Rights, Pasture, Rainforests, Ranching, Supply Chain, Threats To Rainforests, and Tropical Deforestation]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Tied to clearing in Amazon and Cerrado, shipments from 'world's largest hamburger producer’ reach Europe and Asia.]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Leia em português. Brazilian meatpacking giant Marfrig spent $1 billion from bonds it issued to buy cattle from a ranch linked to its board chair — with some of that cattle originating from illegally deforested areas of the Amazon and Cerrado, an investigation has found. Marfrig Global Foods SA, which bills itself as the world’s largest hamburger producer, has raised 11 billion reais ($2 billion) since 2019 from issuing a type of corporate bond known in Brazil as an agribusiness receivables certificate (CRA). Half of that amount — 5.5 billion reais, or $1 billion — was used exclusively to purchase cattle from feedlots run by MFG Agropecuária, whose managing partner is Marfrig&#8217;s board chairman, Marcos Antonio Molina dos Santos. Bondholders include individual investors, buying through brokerage apps or indirectly via financial operators. Part of the money went toward buying cattle originating from illegally deforested areas of the Amazon Rainforest and Cerrado savanna, according to an investigation by Joio e o Trigo (republished by Mongabay), in partnership with the Center for Climate Crime Analysis (CCCA), a nonprofit organization that supports global climate action. MFG, indicated in CRA documents as the rural producer receiving the proceeds of the bond issuance, purchases cattle from other suppliers, known as indirect suppliers. The last of these bonds matures in 2032. According to a 2024 public document Marfrig shared with investors, 100% of cattle purchased by the six MFG feedlots are sold to Marfrig slaughterhouses. MFG has been a wholly owned Marfrig subsidiary since 2014. The&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/marfrigs-bonds-funded-beef-from-illegally-deforested-areas-in-brazil/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/marfrigs-bonds-funded-beef-from-illegally-deforested-areas-in-brazil/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-306344</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Nepal’s Himalayan biodiversity struggles with new herds and highways (commentary)</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/nepals-himalayan-biodiversity-struggles-with-new-herds-and-highways-commentary/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/nepals-himalayan-biodiversity-struggles-with-new-herds-and-highways-commentary/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>17 Sep 2025 13:57:18 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Geraldine WerhahnNaresh Kusi]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Erik Hoffner]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/09/17143059/Blue_sheep_Pseudois_nayaur_Male-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=306135</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Himalayas, Nepal, and South Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Commentary, Conflict, Conservation, Habitat, Habitat Degradation, Habitat Loss, Human-wildlife Conflict, Mountains, Pasture, Wildlife, and Wildlife Corridors]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[A journey into Nepal’s Limi Valley is always profound. We at the Himalayan Wolves Project first visited the area more than a decade ago and were immediately struck by its high-altitude, wind-sculpted landscapes, and the extraordinary diversity of wildlife inhabiting them: Himalayan wolf (Canis lupus chanco), snow leopard (Panthera uncia), wild yak (Bos mutus), kiang [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[A journey into Nepal’s Limi Valley is always profound. We at the Himalayan Wolves Project first visited the area more than a decade ago and were immediately struck by its high-altitude, wind-sculpted landscapes, and the extraordinary diversity of wildlife inhabiting them: Himalayan wolf (Canis lupus chanco), snow leopard (Panthera uncia), wild yak (Bos mutus), kiang (Equus kiang), Tibetan fox (Vulpes ferrilata), Tibetan gazelle (Procapra picticaudata), Tibetan argali (Ovis ammon hodgsoni), blue sheep (Pseudois nayaur), steppe polecat (Mustela eversmanii), Pallas’s cat (Otocolobus manul), Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx), Tibetan brown bear (Ursus arctos pruinosus), black-necked crane (Grus nigricollis), Himalayan marmot (Marmota himalayana), various species of pika (Ochotona spp.), and many more. During 12 years of research expeditions, the valley has revealed to us not only the intimate lives of its wildlife but also the shifting ways in which people use this land. During our most recent fieldwork in July 2025, however, we observed changes that raise serious concern. Large numbers of goats and sheep were being grazed in areas once dominated by yak herds, directly overlapping with the habitats of the valley’s key carnivores: Himalayan wolf, snow leopard, lynx and brown bear. Goats and sheep are highly vulnerable to predation, and so the potential for escalating conflict between humans and these carnivores is evident. A Himalayan marmot. Image courtesy of Christopher J. Fynn / Wikimedia Commons / CC BY-SA 3.0 &amp; GFDL. Shifts in summer pastures Since our first journey, the high summer pastures of Limi beyond Pigung Lagna — Tibetan for&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/nepals-himalayan-biodiversity-struggles-with-new-herds-and-highways-commentary/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/nepals-himalayan-biodiversity-struggles-with-new-herds-and-highways-commentary/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-306135</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>More than half the world’s forests fragmented in 20 years — but protection works: Study</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/more-than-half-the-worlds-forests-fragmented-in-20-years-but-protection-works-study/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/more-than-half-the-worlds-forests-fragmented-in-20-years-but-protection-works-study/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>11 Sep 2025 18:19:10 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Ruth Kamnitzer]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Morgan Erickson-Davis]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/09/11182803/AP18330696503362-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=305801</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Global]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Biodiversity, Cattle, Environment, Fires, Forest Fragmentation, Forest Loss, Forests, Fragmentation, Green, Habitat Loss, Logging, Mining, Pasture, Rainforests, Ranching, Slash-and-burn, Temperate Forests, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[“If you can imagine walking into a huge, 1,000-kilometer square [386-square-mile] tropical forest … it&#8217;s moist and damp [with] rich soil and an overstory. You imagine walking into a 10-meter [33-foot] patch of forest and it&#8217;s just a totally different thing. It&#8217;s drier, it&#8217;s more open, it&#8217;s more harsh, and there&#8217;ll be far fewer species,” [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[“If you can imagine walking into a huge, 1,000-kilometer square [386-square-mile] tropical forest … it&#8217;s moist and damp [with] rich soil and an overstory. You imagine walking into a 10-meter [33-foot] patch of forest and it&#8217;s just a totally different thing. It&#8217;s drier, it&#8217;s more open, it&#8217;s more harsh, and there&#8217;ll be far fewer species,” says Thomas Crowther, ecology professor at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH Zurich). Fragmentation, the process by which large areas of intact forest become broken up into smaller pieces, is increasing in most of the world’s forests, according to a new Science study authored by Crowther and other researchers at institutions in Switzerland, Australia, China, the U.S. and the UK.   The study finds that more than 50% of the world’s forests became more fragmented between 2000 and 2020. Tropical forests fared the worst, with the findings indicating that up to 80% were fragmented over 20 years. This has profound implications for global biodiversity and ecosystem health, Crowther says. “[T]he scary thing is, even if we kept the same amount of forest area on the planet, if we&#8217;re turning those big intact ones into all the tiny fragments, we&#8217;re losing a lot of the ecological functionality.” Fragmentation can happen in different ways and for different reasons. Shifting cultivation can pockmark intact forests with clearings. New roads into previously intact areas can bring miners or loggers, creating a dendritic pattern of forest loss. Development can eat away at a forest’s perimeter. Stands of trees&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/more-than-half-the-worlds-forests-fragmented-in-20-years-but-protection-works-study/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/more-than-half-the-worlds-forests-fragmented-in-20-years-but-protection-works-study/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-305801</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>EUDR implementation comes laden with potential unintended consequences</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/eudr-implementation-comes-laden-with-potential-unintended-consequences/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/eudr-implementation-comes-laden-with-potential-unintended-consequences/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>04 Sep 2025 19:05:51 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Sean Mowbray]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Glenn Scherer]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/09/04150701/Image_7-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=305415</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Amazon, Asia, Brazil, Cerrado, East Africa, Ethiopia, Ghana, Global, Indonesia, South America, Southeast Asia, and West Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Agroforestry, Cacao, Coffee, Conservation, Crops, Deforestation, Ecosystems, Environment, Environmental Law, Environmental Policy, Farming, Forest Destruction, Forest Loss, Forests, Globalization, International Trade, Land Use Change, Palm Oil, Pasture, Politics, Regulations, Supply Chain, Timber, Timber Laws, timber trade, Trade, and Tropical Deforestation]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Set to enter into force Dec. 30, 2025, the European Union’s deforestation-free products regulation (EUDR) aims to halt the bloc’s contribution to global forest loss. Experts Mongabay spoke to agree the EUDR promises to become a landmark legislative tool for curbing commodities supply chain-related deforestation at the international level. But those analysts also warn of [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Set to enter into force Dec. 30, 2025, the European Union’s deforestation-free products regulation (EUDR) aims to halt the bloc’s contribution to global forest loss. Experts Mongabay spoke to agree the EUDR promises to become a landmark legislative tool for curbing commodities supply chain-related deforestation at the international level. But those analysts also warn of “unintended consequences” built into the law that could imperil the initiative’s objectives and effectiveness and in some cases raise the risk of further deforestation or land use change spreading to other ecosystems. Once it is implemented, the EUDR requires producers of a wide range of commodities — including cattle, cocoa, coffee, palm oil, rubber, soy and wood — prove their products are not being sourced from land deforested after Dec. 31, 2020. EUDR implementation was delayed in 2024 when transnational companies and commodity producing nations complained to the EU of being unprepared for the law. That hiatus raised widespread concerns the delay might be used for “watering down” the statute. But the postponement could also allow time for potential EUDR defects to be addressed. The Rainforest Alliance, for example, which has supported the law from its inception, “definitely saw the unintended consequences from the start,” says Fanny Gauttier, the NGO’s European public affairs lead. Prime among those unintended consequences, she says, is the possibility of the EUDR accidentally excluding many of the world’s smallholder farmers. Other experts point to the potential “leakage” of commodities once destined for EUDR nations being shipped to unregulated markets. Add&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/eudr-implementation-comes-laden-with-potential-unintended-consequences/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/eudr-implementation-comes-laden-with-potential-unintended-consequences/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-305415</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Discovery of dazzling blue butterfly underscores peril facing Angola&#8217;s forests </title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/discovery-of-dazzling-blue-butterfly-underscores-peril-facing-angolas-forests/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/discovery-of-dazzling-blue-butterfly-underscores-peril-facing-angolas-forests/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>03 Sep 2025 06:27:59 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Ryan Truscott]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Terna Gyuse]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[africa]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/09/02145151/e0f3ff0a-b3b3-4107-9183-9be85255d203-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=305307</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Angola, and Southern Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Biodiversity Hotspots, Birds, Community Development, Community-based Conservation, Conservation, Deforestation, Drinking Water, Environment, Fires, forest degradation, Forests, Governance, Grasslands, Habitat, Habitat Degradation, Habitat Loss, Montane Forests, Mountains, New Discovery, Protected Areas, Rainforests, Reforestation, Research, Species Discovery, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Francis’s gorgeous sapphire — a new-to-science species of butterfly — has just been described in the high-altitude evergreen forests of western Angola. The identification of Iolaus francisi, with its shimmering blue upper wings bordered with black, and silvery underwings patterned with orange and brown lines highlights once more the rich biodiversity of the country&#8217;s most [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Francis’s gorgeous sapphire — a new-to-science species of butterfly — has just been described in the high-altitude evergreen forests of western Angola. The identification of Iolaus francisi, with its shimmering blue upper wings bordered with black, and silvery underwings patterned with orange and brown lines highlights once more the rich biodiversity of the country&#8217;s most threatened habitat. Ecologist Alan Gardiner recalls the exciting moment he and Zimbabwean lepidopterists (butterfly experts) Jonathan Francis and Shabani Ndarama first saw a male sapphire shining in a forest patch during an expedition to the Namba Mountains in Cuanza Sul province in May 2023. “It&#8217;s always special when you see something like that,&#8221; says Gardiner, head of applied research at the South African Wildlife College. &#8220;It’s so much more vivid than you can get in a picture.” &nbsp; Described recently in the journal Zootaxa, Francis’s gorgeous sapphire is now one of 13 unique butterflies known only from this region. Its caterpillars feed on the leaves of Phragmanthera mistletoes and mimic the hairy buds growing on the stems. Francis had collected two caterpillars of the butterfly in the Namba Mountains during an earlier trip in October 2022. He reared them back home in Zimbabwe, feeding them on the leaves of mistletoe plants he had cultivated in his Harare garden years earlier. “If I didn’t have the [mistletoe] leaves, I would have lost them.” The butterflies that emerged were both females, with distinctive undersides bearing an extra stripe that no other Iolaus butterflies have, he says. But&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/discovery-of-dazzling-blue-butterfly-underscores-peril-facing-angolas-forests/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/discovery-of-dazzling-blue-butterfly-underscores-peril-facing-angolas-forests/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-305307</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Nepal looks to Cambodia’s breeding model as Bengal florican numbers plunge</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/nepal-looks-to-cambodias-breeding-model-as-bengal-florican-numbers-plunge/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/nepal-looks-to-cambodias-breeding-model-as-bengal-florican-numbers-plunge/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>01 Sep 2025 10:26:38 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Abhaya Raj Joshi]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Abhaya Raj Joshi]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/09/01101130/2048px-Bengal_florican_in_its_natural_habitat-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=305242</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, India, Nepal, and South Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Birds, Captive Breeding, Conservation, Critically Endangered Species, Endangered Species, Ex-situ Conservation, Extinction, and Grasslands]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[KATHMANDU — Debate is growing in Nepal over moves to start breeding the Bengal florican, a critically endangered bird, in captivity. A 2024 government plan that proposes captive breeding in zoos and aviaries has been held up as key to boosting the bird’s population in the wild, but conservationists say long-term protection of the species’ [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[KATHMANDU — Debate is growing in Nepal over moves to start breeding the Bengal florican, a critically endangered bird, in captivity. A 2024 government plan that proposes captive breeding in zoos and aviaries has been held up as key to boosting the bird’s population in the wild, but conservationists say long-term protection of the species’ nesting sites and grassland habitat is crucial. “If the population trend of the Bengal florican continues, we might lose them completely in the next few years,” Rajendra Suwal, a veteran ornithologist, told a recent gathering of researchers organized by the Nepalese Ornithological Union in Kathmandu. “Captive breeding could be one of the short-term measures to boost their population.” The Bengal florican (Houbaropsis bengalensis), also known as the Bengal bustard, is best known for the male’s signature mating display of flapping its wings and throwing itself into the air as though jumping on a trampoline. According to estimates by the IUCN, the global wildlife conservation authority, the Bengal florican’s population may have declined rapidly over the last three decades. The IUCN assessment cites “the widespread and on-going modification of its grassland habitat” for farmland as a key driver of the bird’s decline. Bengal floricans seen in a grassland in Nepal. Image courtesy of Aditya Pal. The Nepali floricans are part of a wider subpopulation that extends into northern India and, historically, into Bangladesh — although that latter group is now thought to have gone extinct. A second subpopulation exists in Cambodia and possibly Vietnam, putting the&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/nepal-looks-to-cambodias-breeding-model-as-bengal-florican-numbers-plunge/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/09/nepal-looks-to-cambodias-breeding-model-as-bengal-florican-numbers-plunge/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-305242</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Reversing deforestation relies on resource ownership (commentary)</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/08/reversing-deforestation-relies-on-resource-ownership-commentary/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/08/reversing-deforestation-relies-on-resource-ownership-commentary/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>05 Aug 2025 18:44:18 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Brent SohngenDouglas Southgate]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Erik Hoffner]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/07/23151222/kalbar_drone_190742-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=303773</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Asia, Brazil, Cerrado, Global, Latin America, Nepal, South America, and South Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Avoided Deforestation, climate finance, Commentary, Commodity agriculture, Conservation, Deforestation, Environment, Forests, International Trade, Land Rights, Payments For Ecosystem Services, Rainforests, Reforestation, Savannas, Soy, Trade, Tropical Deforestation, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Having receded by 350 million hectares (almost 865 million acres) since 1850, trends in Latin American forests are now inflecting away from further losses of tree-covered habitats and toward their recovery. As we explain in our book Reversing Deforestation, published by Stanford University Press in December 2024, this change stems from reduced population growth and [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Having receded by 350 million hectares (almost 865 million acres) since 1850, trends in Latin American forests are now inflecting away from further losses of tree-covered habitats and toward their recovery. As we explain in our book Reversing Deforestation, published by Stanford University Press in December 2024, this change stems from reduced population growth and the continuing improvement of agricultural yields. But as we also point out, the transition from deforestation to reforestation will hinge during the years to come on local resource ownership, not least because this ownership is an unavoidable prerequisite for the financing of carbon sequestration and other ecosystem services provided by forests. Mainly because it causes the demand for food to go up, demographic expansion adds to the displacement of natural habitats by farms and ranches. Forest loss in Latin America during the last 175 years, when human numbers in the region rose from 30 million to 650 million or more, is a clear example. However, human fertility has plunged in the region, from 5.9 births per woman in 1960 to 1.9 births per woman today, so annual natural increase (equal to the birth rate minus the death rate) has declined from nearly 3% to less than 1%. Human fertility has fallen more in Latin America than in sub-Saharan Africa, where women still bear more than four children, on average, and natural increase remains above 2% a year. This difference in demographic trajectories is a major reason why annual forest losses in the two regions are&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/08/reversing-deforestation-relies-on-resource-ownership-commentary/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/08/reversing-deforestation-relies-on-resource-ownership-commentary/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-303773</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Scientists &#038; communities rush to save rare, diverse Brazilian grassland ecosystem</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/07/scientists-communities-rush-to-save-rare-diverse-brazilian-grassland-ecosystem/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/07/scientists-communities-rush-to-save-rare-diverse-brazilian-grassland-ecosystem/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>29 Jul 2025 14:51:17 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Letícia Klein]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Xavier Bartaburu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/07/29144226/IMG_7625-1-e1751556028412-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=303364</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Brazil, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Community-based Conservation, Conservation, Ecosystems, Environment, Grasslands, Mining, Plants, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[“When I first saw this vegetation, I thought I was on another planet. It was all so different. … Not just the architecture of the plants, but the entire place. It seemed like a nanoforest.” Geraldo Fernandes was hooked by the spectacular landscape of rupestrian grasslands in 1980 during his studies to become a biologist. [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[“When I first saw this vegetation, I thought I was on another planet. It was all so different. … Not just the architecture of the plants, but the entire place. It seemed like a nanoforest.” Geraldo Fernandes was hooked by the spectacular landscape of rupestrian grasslands in 1980 during his studies to become a biologist. Since then, he has been working within the ecosystem, which is largely unknown to Brazilians. A pioneer of rupestrian grassland studies, Fernandes is a professor of ecology at Minas Gerais Federal University and a member of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences. His interest in insects led him to investigate the interactions between the flora and fauna here. His first field study was on cancer in plants. Just like humans and animals, plants develop cancerous cells due to causes like high temperatures, lack of water or nutrients, pollution and also a variety of organisms — mostly insects like flies and wasps — that genetically manipulate the plant so it will produce the cancer upon which they feed. These tumors, called galls, don’t all kill the plant. Some are even beautiful, looking like ornaments or flowers, but “inevitably, 90% of the plants found in rupestrian grasslands have some sort of cancer or other,” Fernandes says. This is due to the fact that most of them grow at the tops of mountains; the strong UV exposure and lack of resources create stress for these plants and, with their defense mechanisms debilitated, they are more susceptible to developing tumors.&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/07/scientists-communities-rush-to-save-rare-diverse-brazilian-grassland-ecosystem/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/07/scientists-communities-rush-to-save-rare-diverse-brazilian-grassland-ecosystem/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-303364</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Meat giant profits from carbon market without halting deforestation</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/07/meat-giant-profits-from-carbon-market-without-halting-deforestation/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/07/meat-giant-profits-from-carbon-market-without-halting-deforestation/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>04 Jul 2025 15:48:43 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Bruna Bronoskifrom O Joio e O Trigo]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Xavier Bartaburu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/06/30142531/Flickr_-_Rainbirder_-_Cooking_the_Planet-e1751644363567-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=301666</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Brazil and Saudi Arabia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Carbon Credits, Carbon Dioxide, Carbon Emissions, Carbon Market, Cattle, Deforestation, Drivers Of Deforestation, Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Greenwashing, Meat, Oil, Oil Drilling, Pasture, Rainforests, and Tropical Deforestation]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Since the first scientific critiques of fossil fuels, oil companies have gone from being the &#8220;wealth of nations&#8221; to &#8220;destroyers of the planet.&#8221; In financial market terms, they have become environmental liabilities. It cannot be said, however, that they have also become economic liabilities. The global carbon credit market is heating up — quite like [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Since the first scientific critiques of fossil fuels, oil companies have gone from being the &#8220;wealth of nations&#8221; to &#8220;destroyers of the planet.&#8221; In financial market terms, they have become environmental liabilities. It cannot be said, however, that they have also become economic liabilities. The global carbon credit market is heating up — quite like the planet — and oil companies are among the main players interested in leveraging this business. Among the world&#8217;s largest oil producers, countries on the Arabian Peninsula, such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, have partnered with Brazil’s Minerva Foods. It is the country’s second-largest meatpacker by net revenue, trailing only JBS — a giant firm whose supply chain has been linked to deforestation. In 2021, Minerva’s subsidiary MyCarbon 3 Ltda was created for a single purpose: to generate and sell carbon credits. However, the company’s projects are far from transparent. Currently under validation by Verra, the world’s leading carbon credits certifier, these initiatives aim to restore degraded pasturelands in the Cerrado. This biodiverse savanna ecosystem, which comprises around 20% of Brazil’s territory, is home to part of Minerva’s cattle supply chain and has already lost half of its native vegetation. The main cause of deforestation in the Cerrado is the activity that feeds Minerva&#8217;s meatpacking plants, farming. Partnerships between oil companies and carbon credit companies are emerging as a global trend. In 2022, Shell invested 200 million reais (roughly $40 million) in Carbonext, a developer of REDD+ projects (carbon projects in forests).&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/07/meat-giant-profits-from-carbon-market-without-halting-deforestation/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/07/meat-giant-profits-from-carbon-market-without-halting-deforestation/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-301666</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Report links meat giant JBS to massive destruction of jaguar habitat</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/05/report-links-meat-giant-jbs-to-massive-destruction-of-jaguar-habitat/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/05/report-links-meat-giant-jbs-to-massive-destruction-of-jaguar-habitat/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>22 May 2025 12:46:21 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Constance Malleret]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Alexandra Popescu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Amazon]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2023/01/20084337/Jaguar_Female_Nina-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=299502</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Brazil, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Beef, Big Cats, Biodiversity, Cattle, Corporate Environmental Transgressors, Corporate Social Responsibility, Deforestation, Drivers Of Deforestation, Endangered Species, Forest Destruction, Forest Loss, Illegal Logging, Jaguars, Pasture, Rainforests, Ranching, Supply Chain, Threats To Rainforests, and Tropical Deforestation]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Agricultural expansion in two Brazilian states has cleared a U.K -sized area of jaguar habitat, nearly a fifth of which occurred in the last decade alone, a new report shows. About 27 million hectares (67 million acres) of wild jaguar habitat have been lost as of 2023 in the Amazonian states of Pará and Mato [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Agricultural expansion in two Brazilian states has cleared a U.K -sized area of jaguar habitat, nearly a fifth of which occurred in the last decade alone, a new report shows. About 27 million hectares (67 million acres) of wild jaguar habitat have been lost as of 2023 in the Amazonian states of Pará and Mato Grosso, with 5 million hectares (12 million acres) deforested just in the period from 2014-2023, according to the report by environmental and human rights advocacy group Global Witness. It attributes part of this loss to ranches indirectly supplying cattle to meatpacking giant JBS, with nearly all of the deforestation since 2013 being illegal.  The report comes amid pushback against environmental enforcement efforts at the state level in Brazil, and as the country prepares to host the U.N.’s annual climate summit, COP30, in November. Jaguars (Panthera onca) need intact forests to live and hunt in, and are a keystone species, which means that any change to their territories affects the entire ecosystem they inhabit. The Amazon Rainforest remains the last major stronghold for the species listed as near-threatened on the IUCN Red List. Cattle grazing in deforested land in Pará, one of the states with jaguar territory analyzed by Global Witness. Image courtesy of Global Witness. “We wanted to show not just that deforestation is a huge climate threat, because it destroys forests on which we rely for all the ecosystem services, but also the impact it has on iconic species and all types of biodiversity,”&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/05/report-links-meat-giant-jbs-to-massive-destruction-of-jaguar-habitat/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/05/report-links-meat-giant-jbs-to-massive-destruction-of-jaguar-habitat/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-299502</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>New forest loss data beef up Amazon deforestation case against Casino Group</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/05/new-forest-loss-data-beef-up-amazon-deforestation-case-against-casino-group/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/05/new-forest-loss-data-beef-up-amazon-deforestation-case-against-casino-group/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>20 May 2025 08:51:18 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Carla Ruas]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Alexandra Popescu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Amazon]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/05/20083849/4.Illegal-cattle-farm-inside-the-Indigenous-territory-Uru-Eu-Wau-Wau-in-Burareiro-Rondonia-Brazil-in-2021.-Credit_-Casino-Case-coalition-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=299278</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Brazil, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Beef, Cattle, Corporate Environmental Transgressors, Corporate Social Responsibility, Deforestation, Drivers Of Deforestation, Forest Destruction, Forest Loss, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Rights, Land Conflict, Land Rights, Pasture, Rainforests, Ranching, Supply Chain, and Tropical Deforestation]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[A recent report by the nonprofit Instituto Centro de Vida (ICV) found that the operations of French retailer Casino Group in Brazil could be linked to more than half a million hectares of deforestation between 2018 and 2023. According to ICV, 526,459 hectares (approximately 1.3 million acres) of native vegetation — an area about 50 [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[A recent report by the nonprofit Instituto Centro de Vida (ICV) found that the operations of French retailer Casino Group in Brazil could be linked to more than half a million hectares of deforestation between 2018 and 2023. According to ICV, 526,459 hectares (approximately 1.3 million acres) of native vegetation — an area about 50 times the size of Paris — was cleared largely in the Amazon Rainforest to raise cattle for the company’s beef supply chain. The findings are the latest in a series of deforestation allegations against the French retailer in Latin America, where it operated more than 3,000 grocery stores until recently. In 2021, a coalition of 11 Colombian and Brazilian environmental and Indigenous organizations sued Casino Group in France for environmental damage and human rights violations. The case remains ongoing in the Paris courts. Raquel Carvalho, author of the ICV report, told Mongabay that it took a year to uncover the new data. “There’s great difficulty in measuring the deforestation caused by beef sold in grocery stores,” she said. “The main challenge is the lack of traceability between cattle suppliers and these stores. We have animal transport documents that track cattle from ranches to slaughterhouses, but the paper trail ends there.” In the Brazilian Amazon and Cerrado savanna, clearing forests for pastureland remains widespread. Image courtesy of the Casino Case coalition. Researchers worked around this challenge by calculating the total beef traded by two Casino-owned retail chains in Brazil and estimating the amount of new pasture&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2025/05/new-forest-loss-data-beef-up-amazon-deforestation-case-against-casino-group/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2025/05/new-forest-loss-data-beef-up-amazon-deforestation-case-against-casino-group/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-299278</doi>				</item>
			</channel>
</rss>