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		<title>Conservation news</title>
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		<link>https://news.mongabay.com/list/nature-based-climate-solutions/</link>
		<description>Environmental science and conservation news</description>
		<lastBuildDate>Mon, 31 Aug 2026 20:56:30 +0000</lastBuildDate>
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	<title>News on Nature-based climate solutions</title>
	<link>https://news.mongabay.com/list/nature-based-climate-solutions/</link>
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				<item>
					<title>Community programs linked to lower forest loss in Indonesia’s Borneo during COVID-19</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/community-programs-linked-to-lower-forest-loss-in-indonesias-borneo-during-covid-19/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/community-programs-linked-to-lower-forest-loss-in-indonesias-borneo-during-covid-19/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>28 Aug 2026 02:03:34 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Basten Gokkon]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Basten Gokkon]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2021/12/12215106/kalbar_drone_190946a_sungai_utik-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=327673</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Indonesia, Southeast Asia, and West Kalimantan]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Avoided Deforestation, Biodiversity, Community Development, Community Forests, Community-based Conservation, Conservation, Conservation Solutions, COVID-19, Deforestation, Environment, Forest Loss, Forestry, Forests, Governance, Happy-upbeat Environmental, Illegal Logging, Logging, NGOs, Pandemics, Protected Areas, Reduced Impact Logging, Research, Solutions, Tropical Deforestation, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Villages in Indonesia’s West Kalimantan saw less forest loss during the COVID-19 pandemic when conservation groups provided health and livelihood support, a new study has found, suggesting social safety nets can help protect forests during economic crises. The peer-reviewed study, published last month in Lancet Planetary Health, suggests forest loss in West Kalimantan province on [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Villages in Indonesia’s West Kalimantan saw less forest loss during the COVID-19 pandemic when conservation groups provided health and livelihood support, a new study has found, suggesting social safety nets can help protect forests during economic crises. The peer-reviewed study, published last month in Lancet Planetary Health, suggests forest loss in West Kalimantan province on the Indonesian part of Borneo fell sharply during the pandemic, as weak timber demand and travel restrictions made logging less profitable and harder to carry out. At the same time, villages with access to alternative livelihoods and other support were less reliant on forests for income, the paper adds. The researchers say their study is among the first to combine household surveys with detailed satellite data to examine how the pandemic affected rural livelihoods and forest loss in the same communities, offering a closer look at how economic shocks and social support can influence pressure on tropical forests. “As the pandemic started, we expected economic hardships to cause illegal logging to increase again,” Skylar Hopkins, an assistant professor at North Carolina State University and the lead author for the new study, said in a statement. Mapping deforestation trends Before the pandemic, average forest loss was 52% lower in NGO-affiliated villages than in unaffiliated villages, the study finds. Indonesia has the world’s third-largest tropical forest area, a major store of biodiversity and carbon, long threatened by logging, agricultural expansion and fires. The researchers surveyed 10 villages in West Kalimantan in late 2021: six communities supported by&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/community-programs-linked-to-lower-forest-loss-in-indonesias-borneo-during-covid-19/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/community-programs-linked-to-lower-forest-loss-in-indonesias-borneo-during-covid-19/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-327673</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>South Africa’s new gold rush: Big money, high stakes in emerging spekboom restoration sector</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/south-africas-new-gold-rush-big-money-high-stakes-in-emerging-spekboom-restoration-sector/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/south-africas-new-gold-rush-big-money-high-stakes-in-emerging-spekboom-restoration-sector/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>27 Aug 2026 21:34:06 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Leonie Joubert]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[John Cannon]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/08/27122503/b.-ToShowMongaBay_%C2%A9S-Reinders_01-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=327564</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, South Africa, and Southern Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Ecosystems, Environment, Funding, Landscape Restoration, Mongabay investigation, Nature-based climate solutions, Plants, Reforestation, Restoration, Trees, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[This is the first article in Mongabay&#8217;s three-part investigation of spekboom-led ecosystem restoration in South Africa. It is part of an award-winning collaboration between independent science writer Leonie Joubert, the Stellenbosch University School for Climate Studies, and the Henry Nxumalo Foundation which supports investigative journalism in Africa. GQEBERHA, South Africa — The spekboom is to [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[This is the first article in Mongabay&#8217;s three-part investigation of spekboom-led ecosystem restoration in South Africa. It is part of an award-winning collaboration between independent science writer Leonie Joubert, the Stellenbosch University School for Climate Studies, and the Henry Nxumalo Foundation which supports investigative journalism in Africa. GQEBERHA, South Africa — The spekboom is to goats what ice cream is to a toddler, say the locals in this little nook of South Africa&#8217;s Eastern Cape province. This explains why roughly 90% of the Albany thicket plant biome has been stripped by generations of livestock farming, mostly mohair-producing goats. Where there once was impenetrable bush, many farmlands now look like a desert. This particular plot of cultivated spekboom (Portulacaria afra) — literally, bacon tree in Afrikaans — carries the weight of expectation, though. “These are the old ones,” says Nick Hamp-Adams, gesturing to a dense line of bushes, each a spray of boughs that erupts from the ground like fireworks. After half a century, they stand a little higher than a tall person’s head. Their plush, water-laden leaves create a pointillist hedge that’s hard to see through. Where the lower branches dip to the ground, some send out roots, which allows the plant to spread and further carpet the soil. “The farmer planted them because mud [kept] flooding his barn,” says Hamp-Adams, an environmental policy graduate and general manager at Return to Thicket, a small restoration initiative in this emerging sector. From those humble beginnings in 1976 — a farmer needing&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/south-africas-new-gold-rush-big-money-high-stakes-in-emerging-spekboom-restoration-sector/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/south-africas-new-gold-rush-big-money-high-stakes-in-emerging-spekboom-restoration-sector/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-327564</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>As hay fever sufferers grow in Japan, the country is looking to plant no-pollen trees</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/as-hay-fever-sufferers-grow-in-japan-the-country-is-looking-to-plant-no-pollen-trees/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/as-hay-fever-sufferers-grow-in-japan-the-country-is-looking-to-plant-no-pollen-trees/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>26 Aug 2026 16:09:59 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Jonathan Vit]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Philip Jacobson]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/08/17115248/Japan-hay-fever-02-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=326395</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, East Asia, and Japan]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Biodiversity, Conservation, Diseases, Environment, Farming, Health, Plants, Reforestation, Solutions, Timber, Trees, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[TOKYO — For Mariko Aoki, the new year began with an itch. “Right after the New Year in January, my nose starts to get a little itchy,” Aoki said. “It peaks in March, and the sneezing, runny nose, itchy throat and itchy eyes are really bad. It lasts all the way until just before Golden [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[TOKYO — For Mariko Aoki, the new year began with an itch. “Right after the New Year in January, my nose starts to get a little itchy,” Aoki said. “It peaks in March, and the sneezing, runny nose, itchy throat and itchy eyes are really bad. It lasts all the way until just before Golden Week [April 29-May 5].” Aoki, like many in Japan, suffers from hay fever, or kafunsho, an annual affliction that affects more than 40% of the population — nearly double the rate in the U.S. The seasonal allergies leave many with red eyes, a stuffy nose, a sore throat and feelings of exhaustion. The combined lassitude annually costs Japan an estimated 245 billion yen ($1.5 billion) in economic losses per day during hay fever season, according to one survey. “My head feels so foggy that I can’t concentrate,” said Aoki, who works as a secretary at the National Diet — Japan’s legislature. “When it gets really bad, I go to the doctor.” In Japan, hay fever has been called a national disease. But it’s a man-made one. The majority of Japan’s hay fever sufferers are allergic to the pollen of two trees: sugi (Cryptomeria japonica) and hinoki (Chamaecyparis obtusa). Both trees were widely planted in the years following World War II as a much-needed source of timber. Sugi cones. Image by Plant Image Library via Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0). The trees helped fuel Japan’s post-war recovery. Now, decades later, they’re fuelling a national health crisis. “People&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/as-hay-fever-sufferers-grow-in-japan-the-country-is-looking-to-plant-no-pollen-trees/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/as-hay-fever-sufferers-grow-in-japan-the-country-is-looking-to-plant-no-pollen-trees/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-326395</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Indigenous water systems gain ground as climate pressures intensify in Bolivia</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/indigenous-water-systems-gain-ground-as-climate-pressures-intensify-in-bolivia/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/indigenous-water-systems-gain-ground-as-climate-pressures-intensify-in-bolivia/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>26 Aug 2026 10:00:57 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Anastasia Austin]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Alexandra Popescu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/08/25151101/restoring-pauros-credit-MAPEKO-768x512.jpeg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=327250</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Bolivia, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Adaptation To Climate Change, Climate Change, Community-based Conservation, Conservation, Conservation Solutions, Drinking Water, Ecosystems, Freshwater, Impact Of Climate Change, Indigenous Peoples, Landscape Restoration, Natural Resources, Nature-based climate solutions, Restoration, Solutions, Water, and Water Scarcity]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[SANTA CRUZ DE LA SIERRA, Bolivia — When Rolando Ágreda was 16, a severe drought hit his community of Ascensión de Guarayos in the Bolivian Amazon in 2022. Rumors spread that the municipality’s only water reservoir was dwindling. But it was the communal spring-fed pool, or paúro, that Ágreda had been visiting since childhood that [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[SANTA CRUZ DE LA SIERRA, Bolivia — When Rolando Ágreda was 16, a severe drought hit his community of Ascensión de Guarayos in the Bolivian Amazon in 2022. Rumors spread that the municipality’s only water reservoir was dwindling. But it was the communal spring-fed pool, or paúro, that Ágreda had been visiting since childhood that evaporated first. “Confusion was the strongest feeling,” Ágreda says in a video call. “But also sadness, because for everyone I know that place represents joy.” According to the Guarayú Indigenous People, who settled the area around Ágreda’s village of Ascensión de Guarayos in the 18th and 19th centuries, woodland spirits guard the paúros, and the community is responsible for maintaining them. But with urbanization, the arrival of non-indigenous Bolivians, and modern water infrastructure, this Indigenous knowledge had nearly disappeared. Ágreda says only three of his 28 classmates knew about paúros. “The others didn’t. It was easy not to know because [the paúros] had been neglected: The grass was so overgrown that they looked like abandoned lots. You would never imagine that there was a pool of water in the middle,” he says. A mural in Ascensión de Guarayos, where ranching is putting pressure on nature. Image by Douwe den Held. With help from his teachers, Ágreda launched a districtwide competition during the spring semester of 2022 to restore paúros across the municipality, which involved locating them, removing trash and clearing vegetation from the walls so water could filter through. By June 2022, they had restored&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/indigenous-water-systems-gain-ground-as-climate-pressures-intensify-in-bolivia/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/indigenous-water-systems-gain-ground-as-climate-pressures-intensify-in-bolivia/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-327250</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Can REDD+ deliver for Philippines’ Iraya Mangyan?</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/can-redd-deliver-for-philippines-iraya-mangyan/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/can-redd-deliver-for-philippines-iraya-mangyan/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>26 Aug 2026 02:01:54 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Keith Anthony Fabro]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Isabel Esterman]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/08/25201552/Pederico-Garcia-traditional-healer-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=327306</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Philippines, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Avoided Deforestation, Biodiversity, Community-based Conservation, Conservation, Conservation Finance, Conservation Solutions, Ecosystems, Forest Carbon, Forests, Indigenous Peoples, Nature-based climate solutions, Protected Areas, Rainforests, Redd, Saving Rainforests, Solutions, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[PUERTO GALERA, Philippines — Before sunrise, Bernito Pampilo shoulders a backpack carrying a mobile phone, flashlight and enough food — he hopes — for a day’s patrol through the forests of Puerto Galera in northern Mindoro, about 120 kilometers (75 miles) south of Manila. By around 6 a.m., the 56-year-old Iraya Mangyan patroller and two [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[PUERTO GALERA, Philippines — Before sunrise, Bernito Pampilo shoulders a backpack carrying a mobile phone, flashlight and enough food — he hopes — for a day’s patrol through the forests of Puerto Galera in northern Mindoro, about 120 kilometers (75 miles) south of Manila. By around 6 a.m., the 56-year-old Iraya Mangyan patroller and two companions leave their mountain outpost in Aninuan village after praying to Apo Iraya, the creator, for protection. Their route crosses rivers, steep ridges, dense vegetation and deep natural holes known locally as balahaw. “If you walk too quickly, sometimes you won’t see the hole,” Pampilo told Mongabay. “If you fall into it, you could die.” Some patrols continue into the night, forcing the team to cross rivers and climb ridges by flashlight. Mobile apps point them toward assigned coordinates, but not toward the safest path. The forest lies within the 14,661-hectare (36,228-acre) Puerto Galera Biosphere Reserve, designated by UNESCO in 1977. For Pampilo, the work is more than a job. It is part of an effort to protect forests his community has depended on for generations while testing whether an international climate mechanism can deliver lasting Indigenous benefits. Led by the Center for Conservation Innovations Philippines Inc. (CCIPH), the Mindoro Forest and Biodiversity Conservation Programme (MFBCP) aims to conserve more than 40,000 hectares (nearly 99,000 acres) of ancestral forest, while supporting about 2,500 Iraya Mangyan households. Running from 2020 to 2049, it combines ancestral-domain recognition, carbon monitoring, Indigenous patrols and livelihood projects under the United&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/can-redd-deliver-for-philippines-iraya-mangyan/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/can-redd-deliver-for-philippines-iraya-mangyan/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-327306</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>In Spain &#038; South Africa, communities use restoration to &#8216;grow&#8217; fire insurance (commentary)</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/in-spain-south-africa-communities-use-restoration-to-grow-fire-insurance-commentary/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/in-spain-south-africa-communities-use-restoration-to-grow-fire-insurance-commentary/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>24 Aug 2026 19:24:29 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Claire PattersonPenelope Choussat]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Erik Hoffner]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/08/24184231/Screenshot-2026-07-14-at-18.24.44-768x512.jpeg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=327163</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Europe, Global, South Africa, Southern Africa, and Spain]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Commentary, Conservation, Conservation Finance, Conservation Solutions, Ecosystem Services, Ecosystems, Environment, Finance, Fires, Forests, Landscape Restoration, Nature-based climate solutions, Restoration, Solutions, and Sustainable Forest Management]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Huddled shoulder to shoulder, a flicker of glowing orange illuminates the faces gathered around. The world quiets. The dark presses in from every side, and the cold with it. At the center of it all, a fire is roaring. Fire warmed us, fed us, and kept the dark at bay long after the sun went [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Huddled shoulder to shoulder, a flicker of glowing orange illuminates the faces gathered around. The world quiets. The dark presses in from every side, and the cold with it. At the center of it all, a fire is roaring. Fire warmed us, fed us, and kept the dark at bay long after the sun went down, allowing us to gather together when solitude was the alternative. But the same flames that draw people together can just as easily tear through a landscape, destroying livelihoods and communities. Whether they do depends on the condition of the land itself. In some cases, fires are a natural part of the ecosystem. But when forests are poorly managed they become fuel waiting for a spark. Invasive vegetation, in particular, can burn hotter and more explosively than the indigenous ecosystems it displaces, turning a landscape adapted to survive fire into one that is destroyed by it. Restore the landscape, and you don&#8217;t eliminate fire, but you can change how fire behaves. In that sense, healthy landscapes act as vital risk infrastructure, reducing the likelihood that a spark becomes a catastrophe. The landscapes of Spain&#8217;s Muga Valley and South Africa&#8217;s Langkloof share a history of poor management that has left them degraded and exposed to wildfire. Today, both areas are discovering that managing fire as a part of restoring ecosystems is vital to protecting both communities and economies from disaster. Two hours north of Barcelona, the Muga Valley is verdant but increasingly vulnerable to fire after&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/in-spain-south-africa-communities-use-restoration-to-grow-fire-insurance-commentary/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/in-spain-south-africa-communities-use-restoration-to-grow-fire-insurance-commentary/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-327163</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Indonesia integrates Indigenous data in bid to put customary lands on map</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/indonesia-integrates-indigenous-data-in-bid-to-put-customary-lands-on-map/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/indonesia-integrates-indigenous-data-in-bid-to-put-customary-lands-on-map/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>24 Aug 2026 11:27:46 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Hans Nicholas Jong]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Hans Nicholas Jong]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2024/01/25122554/dayak-women-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=327062</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Indonesia, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Conflict, Culture, Human Rights, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Rights, Land Conflict, Mapping, Nature-based climate solutions, Social Conflict, and Solutions]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[JAKARTA — Indigenous peoples in Indonesia have long faced a basic problem: Data on their communities, cultures and customary territories are scattered across government agencies and civil society organizations, making them less visible in spatial planning and permitting. The Indonesian government is trying to address that gap by integrating data from the Ministry of Culture, [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[JAKARTA — Indigenous peoples in Indonesia have long faced a basic problem: Data on their communities, cultures and customary territories are scattered across government agencies and civil society organizations, making them less visible in spatial planning and permitting. The Indonesian government is trying to address that gap by integrating data from the Ministry of Culture, the Ancestral Domain Registration Agency (BRWA) and the country’s largest Indigenous peoples’ alliance, AMAN, in a dataset covering 3,857 Indigenous communities. The government says the integrated data will strengthen policymaking and protection of Indigenous peoples. BRWA says the bigger significance could be spatial: Customary territory maps, which can show the ancestral lands, traditional territories, languages and more of Indigenous peoples, could eventually become part of the government’s geospatial data and potentially be visible in spatial planning and permitting. BRWA was established in 2010 by Indigenous and civil society organizations, including AMAN, to document and register customary territories amid the government’s slow progress in recognizing Indigenous peoples and their lands. The new integrated dataset was launched on Aug. 19 in Jakarta. Before the launch, data on Indigenous peoples had been scattered across various ministries, institutions and civil society organizations, according to Restu Gunawan, the Ministry of Culture’s director general of cultural and traditional protection. The differences matter, he said during the launch: Even a difference of one community in the datasets could translate into thousands of hectares of difference when it comes to customary territories. Didik Darmanto, director of religion, culture, youth and sports at the&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/indonesia-integrates-indigenous-data-in-bid-to-put-customary-lands-on-map/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/indonesia-integrates-indigenous-data-in-bid-to-put-customary-lands-on-map/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-327062</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Mariano Cenamo, advocate for a sustainable Amazon bioeconomy, has died, aged 46</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/mariano-cenamo-advocate-for-a-sustainable-amazon-bioeconomy-has-died-aged-46/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/mariano-cenamo-advocate-for-a-sustainable-amazon-bioeconomy-has-died-aged-46/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>10 Aug 2026 00:02:06 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Rhett Ayers Butler]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rhett Butler]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/08/09220720/Mariano_Cenamo_Renato-Stockler_FolhaPress-2-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=325742</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Founder's briefs]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Brazil, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Carbon Credits, Carbon Market, Conservation Finance, Environment, Environmental Services, Forest Carbon, Forests, Natural Capital, Nature-based climate solutions, Obituary, Payments For Ecosystem Services, Rainforests, Redd, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[For people trying to protect the Amazon, one problem has persisted for decades. A hectare of intact forest stores carbon, regulates water, supports wildlife, and provides food and materials for the people who live there. Much of that value does not appear in an economic ledger. Cattle, timber, soy, and gold do. For a farmer, [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[For people trying to protect the Amazon, one problem has persisted for decades. A hectare of intact forest stores carbon, regulates water, supports wildlife, and provides food and materials for the people who live there. Much of that value does not appear in an economic ledger. Cattle, timber, soy, and gold do. For a farmer, a company, or a local government, clearing forest can therefore produce income more readily than keeping it standing. The Amazon bioeconomy grew from efforts to change that calculation. It includes forest products, agroforestry, biotechnology, carbon markets, and other businesses that depend on maintaining living forests. The aim is to make such activities commercially viable at a scale that matters. Mariano Cenamo spent most of his career working on that problem. He was 23 when he moved from São Paulo to Manaus in 2003. Trained as a forestry engineer at the University of São Paulo, he had first come to the Amazon for an internship. He stayed at the encouragement of Virgílio Viana, a former professor who was then Amazonas state&#8217;s environment secretary. Cenamo was struck by the gap between conservation work and the economic realities of people living in the forest. Environmental groups were doing important work, he later recalled, but local livelihoods often sat outside the conservation discussion. In 2004 he helped establish what became Idesam, the Institute for the Conservation and Sustainable Development of the Amazon. At first there was barely an institution. Cenamo later described himself as an &#8220;ING&#8221;, an indivíduo não&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/mariano-cenamo-advocate-for-a-sustainable-amazon-bioeconomy-has-died-aged-46/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/mariano-cenamo-advocate-for-a-sustainable-amazon-bioeconomy-has-died-aged-46/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-325742</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>‘This is what’s working’: Indigenous leaders on environment solutions in their communities</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/this-is-whats-working-indigenous-leaders-on-environment-solutions-in-their-communities/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/this-is-whats-working-indigenous-leaders-on-environment-solutions-in-their-communities/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>09 Aug 2026 04:00:35 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Latoya Abulu]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Latoya Abulu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/08/08172408/Mongabay-final-indigenous-people-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=325687</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Indigenous Peoples and Conservation]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Global]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agroforestry, Biodiversity, Biodiversity Hotspots, Community Forests, Conservation, Conservation Solutions, Forestry, Indigenous Peoples, Nature-based climate solutions, Solutions, Sustainable Forest Management, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Eriberto throws his head back with a laugh and shakes it as he tills his plot of land in the Peruvian Amazon, near the Cordillera Azul National Park in central Peru. “That does not work here,” he says with a chuckle, responding to a question about why he doesn’t call his diverse forest garden “agroforestry”. [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Eriberto throws his head back with a laugh and shakes it as he tills his plot of land in the Peruvian Amazon, near the Cordillera Azul National Park in central Peru. “That does not work here,” he says with a chuckle, responding to a question about why he doesn’t call his diverse forest garden “agroforestry”. In the past, government officials promoted planting coffee or cacao in agroforestry systems near his community. But Eriberto Guerra and other Indigenous farmers in the town of Lamas say it hasn’t been effective enough and some have rejected the sustainable farming label. “They promoted growing just one or two other food crops with some trees,” Guerra tells Mongabay. “But you need to plant dozens of species along with traditional plants. When one crop fails or doesn’t perform well in the local market, you need to have others to make up for it. And those others need to be the right crops, planted the right way, near the right plants.” His forest garden attracts endemic bird species and wildlife researchers, and has sustained his family for a decade, he says. “This is what is working,” Eriberto says. To mark the International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples and better understand the subtleties in biodiversity conservation and climate solutions implemented by people living at the frontlines, Mongabay interviewed nine Indigenous representatives from around the world. Dami Tateburuk, Frengky Sabbattilat, Ismael Saumanuk and Vincent Tateburuk (left to right), part of Malinggai Uma Tradisional Mentawai, a grassroots, Indigenous-led organization&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/this-is-whats-working-indigenous-leaders-on-environment-solutions-in-their-communities/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/this-is-whats-working-indigenous-leaders-on-environment-solutions-in-their-communities/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-325687</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>In coastal Japan, one project is planting forests to stand against tsunamis</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/in-coastal-japan-one-project-is-planting-forests-to-stand-against-tsunamis/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/in-coastal-japan-one-project-is-planting-forests-to-stand-against-tsunamis/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>04 Aug 2026 06:23:38 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Jonathan Vit]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Latoya Abulu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/07/31170238/tsunami-forests-7-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=325096</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, East Asia, and Japan]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Conservation, Conservation Solutions, Culture, Disasters, Environment, Indigenous Peoples, Landscape Restoration, Reforestation, Solutions, Storms, Traditional Knowledge, and Traditional People]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[MINAMISOMA, Japan — Kazuo Monma stepped out onto the small stage and looked at the large crowd with a sense of relief. The weather report had called for rain all weekend, and the mayor of Minamisoma, a coastal city in Japan’s Fukushima prefecture, worried that few would show for what had become an annual event for [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[MINAMISOMA, Japan — Kazuo Monma stepped out onto the small stage and looked at the large crowd with a sense of relief. The weather report had called for rain all weekend, and the mayor of Minamisoma, a coastal city in Japan’s Fukushima prefecture, worried that few would show for what had become an annual event for volunteers from across the Tohoku region. Instead, Monma stood in front of more than 1,000 people. The assembled crowd, some from as far away as Kanagawa prefecture, more than 300 kilometers (about 200 miles) to the south, were there to plant more than 12,000 trees along the steep dunes that line Minamisoma’s sandy beaches. “I really do think we should be proud of this moment,” Monma said to the crowd. “This is a place where thousands of people have kept this up for so long.” Minamisoma, like more than a dozen other coastal communities across Japan, is the site of an innovative experiment in disaster resilience. While seawalls have become the dominant way of mitigating the impacts of tsunamis and typhoons, one organization is touting a mix of seawalls and a wall of trees — following a specific species and planting choice — could do a better job at protecting at-risk communities. Fifteen years ago, in March 2011, the northeastern Tohoku region was the site of one of the 21st century’s worst natural disasters. A magnitude 9 earthquake struck 72 km (45 mi) off the coast of Miyagi prefecture. What followed was a tsunami of monumental scale, a devastating&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/in-coastal-japan-one-project-is-planting-forests-to-stand-against-tsunamis/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-325096</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Researchers find &#8216;priority zones&#8217; for yellow fever vaccination of golden lion tamarins</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/researchers-find-priority-zones-for-yellow-fever-vaccination-of-golden-lion-tamarins/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/researchers-find-priority-zones-for-yellow-fever-vaccination-of-golden-lion-tamarins/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>30 Jul 2026 16:35:16 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Alex Megerle]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Sharon Guynup]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/07/29064450/2-B-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=324739</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Atlantic Forest, Brazil, Global, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Conservation, Diseases, Ecosystems, Endangered Species, Environment, Forest Fragmentation, Forests, Fragmentation, Habitat, Habitat Degradation, Health, Mammals, Monitoring, Monkeys, Nature-based climate solutions, Primates, Reforestation, Research, Solutions, Wildlife, and Zoonotic Diseases]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[After a two-hour drive from the airport in Rio de Janeiro, you reach a special park dedicated to a special animal in Brazil’s Atlantic Forest. There, you can take a guided tour through the green and perhaps catch a glimpse of vibrant orange: The pelage or furry coat of one of this region’s most famous [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[After a two-hour drive from the airport in Rio de Janeiro, you reach a special park dedicated to a special animal in Brazil’s Atlantic Forest. There, you can take a guided tour through the green and perhaps catch a glimpse of vibrant orange: The pelage or furry coat of one of this region’s most famous resident, the golden lion tamarin. Between 2017 and 2019, a yellow fever epidemic killed roughly 30% of the population, leaving only 2,500 alive. This small, endangered monkey, which nearly went extinct in the 1970s, is relegated to fragmented forests in the state of Rio de Janeiro, about 2% of their original territory, according to conservation nonprofit Save the Golden Lion Tamarin. But the tamarins (Leontopithecus rosalia) have made a significant recovery, rebounding to roughly 4,800 individuals according to a 2023 census. To better prepare for a possible outbreak in the future, a group of researchers wanted to find out how different environmental factors affected yellow fever transmission between tamarins. Their research identified high-risk areas, which could guide conservationists aiming to vaccinate the population against future epidemics. The golden lion tamarin, an endangered species, is found exclusively in Brazil&#8217;s Atlantic Forest, a seriously threatened biodiversity hotspot: only 7%-12% remains. Image by Themium via Wikimedia Commons (CC0 1.0). Mapping an outbreak Researchers compared mortality data from 2014-2016, before yellow fever struck, with more than 1,000 deaths that occurred during the outbreak in 2017-2019, information that was gathered by the nonprofit Golden Lion Tamarin Association (known in Brazil&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/researchers-find-priority-zones-for-yellow-fever-vaccination-of-golden-lion-tamarins/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-324739</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>How carbon markets can succeed &#038; also serve Global South communities (commentary)</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/how-carbon-markets-can-succeed-also-serve-global-south-communities-commentary/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/how-carbon-markets-can-succeed-also-serve-global-south-communities-commentary/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>27 Jul 2026 21:09:33 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Pati Ruiz Corzo]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Erik Hoffner]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/07/27182742/Encinos-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=324619</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Global, Mexico, and North America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Adaptation To Climate Change, Avoided Deforestation, Business, Carbon Dioxide, Carbon Emissions, Carbon Market, Carbon Sequestration, Certification, Climate, Climate Change, climate finance, Commentary, Conservation, Conservation Finance, Environment, Finance, Forest Carbon, forest degradation, Forests, Governance, Indigenous Peoples, Mitigation, Nature-based climate solutions, Rainforests, Solutions, Temperate Forests, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Carbon markets were designed around the compelling premise that private finance could flow where forests are most at risk, rewarding the communities and landowners who protect them while helping companies take responsibility for their emissions. For anyone working in climate or conservation, the underlying logic still holds. The world&#8217;s forests provide essential ecosystem services, capture [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Carbon markets were designed around the compelling premise that private finance could flow where forests are most at risk, rewarding the communities and landowners who protect them while helping companies take responsibility for their emissions. For anyone working in climate or conservation, the underlying logic still holds. The world&#8217;s forests provide essential ecosystem services, capture and store huge amounts of carbon dioxide, face enormous pressure, and need sustained economic incentives if they are to survive. So why has the voluntary carbon market so consistently fallen short of this promise? Over the past decade, the sector has faced mounting evidence that many carbon credits, particularly those issued for forest conservation in the Global South, have not delivered the climate outcomes they claimed. There have been well-documented cases of social harm to Indigenous and local communities, scientific analysis has repeatedly found that the methodologies used to calculate emissions reductions were prone to significant overestimation, and trust in the market, among both buyers and civil society, has been eroded. Military macaws (Ara militaris) flying over a forest in the Sierra Gorda. They are one of the many iconic and endangered species that call the forests of the Sierra Gorda home. Image courtesy of Roberto Pedraza Ruiz / Grupo Ecológico Sierra Gorda. However, this is not a reason to abandon the idea of climate finance for nature. It is a reason to understand what has gone wrong, and to ask what a more inclusive, just, and transparent model can look like. What hasn’t worked&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/how-carbon-markets-can-succeed-also-serve-global-south-communities-commentary/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-324619</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Renato Moraes de Jesus was a pioneer of Atlantic Forest restoration in Brazil</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/renato-moraes-de-jesus-obituary/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/renato-moraes-de-jesus-obituary/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>21 Jul 2026 00:41:39 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Rhett Ayers Butler]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rhett Butler]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/07/19024914/renato-moraes-de-jesus-bw-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=323955</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Founder's briefs]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Atlantic Forest, Brazil, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Environment, Forests, Landscape Restoration, Nature-based climate solutions, Obituary, Reforestation, Restoration, Tropical Forests, and Tropical hardwoods]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[In 1977 a young forest engineer arrived at a neglected tract of Atlantic Forest in northern Espírito Santo. A mining company had acquired the property as a source of hardwood for railway sleepers. Two hundred hectares had already been cut. Some specialists proposed harvesting more of the forest or replacing it with eucalyptus. The new [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[In 1977 a young forest engineer arrived at a neglected tract of Atlantic Forest in northern Espírito Santo. A mining company had acquired the property as a source of hardwood for railway sleepers. Two hundred hectares had already been cut. Some specialists proposed harvesting more of the forest or replacing it with eucalyptus. The new arrival found little infrastructure and no settled plan for the land. He moved alone into a deteriorating house inside the forest. At night he heard animals moving through the roof. The supposed ghosts proved to be opossums. One of his first ambitions was to obtain a working telephone. Renato Moraes de Jesus, who died on May 23rd, aged 74, stayed for more than three decades. The property at Linhares became the Vale Natural Reserve, a major center for Atlantic Forest research and restoration. He helped protect almost 23,000 hectares, established biological collections and laboratories, brought scientists into the reserve, and developed methods for returning native trees to land damaged by mines, roads, farms, and industry.  Vale gave him no precise instructions. He decided that the first tasks were to prevent fires and hunting, document the forest’s species, and apply what was learned there to damaged land elsewhere. He later joked that the company had forgotten him at Linhares. Its limited attention gave him considerable freedom.  The early years could be dangerous. The region was violent, and he dismissed many workers during a reorganization. He carried a revolver for a time and later recalled receiving death&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/renato-moraes-de-jesus-obituary/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-323955</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Conservationists urge caution over Bangladesh’s plan to plant 250 million trees</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/conservationists-urge-caution-over-bangladeshs-plan-to-plant-250-million-trees/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/conservationists-urge-caution-over-bangladeshs-plan-to-plant-250-million-trees/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>20 Jul 2026 07:10:07 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Abu Siddique]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Abu Siddique]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/07/20065257/planting-trees-bangladesh-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=323977</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Bangladesh, and South Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Afforestation, Biodiversity, Conservation Solutions, Environment, Governance, Landscape Restoration, Nature-based climate solutions, Plants, Reforestation, Restoration, Solutions, Trees, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[With an aim to increase the country’s green cover in line with the current government’s election manifesto, Bangladesh is preparing for a nationwide plantation of 250 million trees across the country in the next five years. “Currently, we are coordinating with various government agencies, including the Ministry of Agriculture; the Ministry of Local Government, Rural [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[With an aim to increase the country’s green cover in line with the current government’s election manifesto, Bangladesh is preparing for a nationwide plantation of 250 million trees across the country in the next five years. “Currently, we are coordinating with various government agencies, including the Ministry of Agriculture; the Ministry of Local Government, Rural Development and Co-operatives; the Road Transport and Highways Division; the Ministry of Education; and the Bangladesh Army to finalize the number of saplings that will be planted by each of them,” said Shaikh Faridul Islam, state minister of the Ministry of Environment, Forest and Climate Change (MoEFCC). “The plantation program is a coordinated approach,” he said. “Since the plantation does not require huge amount of funds, we will not spend extra money for the initiative, rather will allocate fund from the regular budget. Here, all government agencies will plant a set number of trees within their own annual budgets.” “At the same time, we are coordinating with different non-government development agencies working in the country and directing them to plant a specific number of trees at their own cost,” he added. The government has already formed a task force committee, led by the MoEFCC, to coordinate and monitor the program. The task force is now developing an internet-based application and dashboard where one can see the update of the activities, including the number of trees planted, their statuses, which agency planted them, the species of planted trees, and the area coverage. Islam said that the&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/conservationists-urge-caution-over-bangladeshs-plan-to-plant-250-million-trees/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/conservationists-urge-caution-over-bangladeshs-plan-to-plant-250-million-trees/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-323977</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Ancient rock structures help restore biodiversity on the US-Mexico border</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/ancient-rock-structures-help-restore-biodiversity-on-the-us-mexico-border/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/ancient-rock-structures-help-restore-biodiversity-on-the-us-mexico-border/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>17 Jul 2026 10:49:04 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Rose Shimberg]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Alexandra Popescu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/07/17103615/IMG_0265-1-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=323477</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Mexico, North America, and United States]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Adaptation To Climate Change, Agriculture, Climate Change, Community-based Conservation, Conservation, Conservation leadership, Drought, Extreme Weather, Flooding, Impact Of Climate Change, In-situ Conservation, Nature-based climate solutions, Ranching, and Solutions]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[CANANEA, Sonora — The day was windless. Long brown grasses speckled the landscape, and a stray tree erupted from the earth. The river channel was rusty, bone-dry. A pond that swells with summer rain glimmered on the horizon, but local rancher Eduardo Ríos Colores pointed toward the mountains, his finger tracing the route of a [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[CANANEA, Sonora — The day was windless. Long brown grasses speckled the landscape, and a stray tree erupted from the earth. The river channel was rusty, bone-dry. A pond that swells with summer rain glimmered on the horizon, but local rancher Eduardo Ríos Colores pointed toward the mountains, his finger tracing the route of a bone-dry streambed cutting through the landscape. “There was a time when this stream didn’t exist,” he said. “There used to be a lot of trees, and all the trees prevented erosion from the water. But … the trees have been drying up.” It was difficult to imagine the streambed swollen, rain-choked. But water in this region comes in all at once, in a deluge. As it races across the landscape, it forms deep channels like this one, creating sandy areas where new plants can’t grow. The land soon fails to support life, from the native grasses to migratory birds to the cattle that are the lifeline of ranchers like Ríos Colores. “Many people say that when water flows, it shouldn&#8217;t flow straight,” he continued. “Those serve to divert the water … so the current flows like a snake.” He was referring to his trincheras — hundreds of small rock structures peppering the streambed. The small, permeable barriers go on for more than a mile, spanning the channel, each small weir composed of dozens of fist-sized rocks. The trincheras, the Spanish word for “entrenchments,” were built in 2021 to slow down water, raising the water table&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/ancient-rock-structures-help-restore-biodiversity-on-the-us-mexico-border/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/ancient-rock-structures-help-restore-biodiversity-on-the-us-mexico-border/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-323477</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Ecuador’s Amazon coffee farmers get ahead of Europe&#8217;s deforestation rules</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/ecuadors-amazon-coffee-farmers-get-ahead-of-europes-deforestation-rules/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/ecuadors-amazon-coffee-farmers-get-ahead-of-europes-deforestation-rules/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>14 Jul 2026 11:37:38 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Sibélia Zanon]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Alexandra Popescu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/07/14111555/Fapecafes_local-production-3-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=322761</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Ecuador, Global, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Agroforestry, Avoided Deforestation, Business, Coffee, Conservation, Corporate Social Responsibility, Corporations, Crops, Drivers Of Deforestation, Environment, Environmental Law, EUDR, Farming, Governance, Natural Resources, Regenerative production landscapes, Sustainability, and Sustainable Forest Management]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[“What motivates us most is being able to say, ‘I take care of the environment, I don’t cut down trees, and my coffee will be valued more highly,’” said Victoria Alverca Peña, a farmer for 25 years and co-founder of APECAP, a small coffee and cacao producers’ association in Zamora Chinchipe, a province in the [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[“What motivates us most is being able to say, ‘I take care of the environment, I don’t cut down trees, and my coffee will be valued more highly,’” said Victoria Alverca Peña, a farmer for 25 years and co-founder of APECAP, a small coffee and cacao producers’ association in Zamora Chinchipe, a province in the Ecuadorian Amazon. “I’ll be able to sell it under better conditions, and my work will be much more valued. “In our farms, besides coffee, you&#8217;ll find cacao, timber trees, fruit trees and even short-cycle crops,” she added. “When the coffee plants are still young, we can grow crops like corn, cassava or plantains. This helps us a lot with food security.” At the end of this year, the European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) is set to go into force, prohibiting products linked to deforestation from entering the EU market. Coffee is among the target commodities, and here in southern Ecuador, a group of coffee growers has been ahead of the curve in preparing for the EUDR implementation. Since 2019, nearly 400 farmers here have adopted a model that combines forest conservation, traceability, and geospatial monitoring as part of the Deforestation-Free Coffee Initiative, at work in 23 areas across the region. Between 2019-2021, the project developed Ecuador&#8217;s first deforestation-free coffee production model. The effort relies on a national protocol developed by the Ecuadorian government and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), which uses satellite imagery, traceability systems, and independent verification to track where coffee is grown&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/ecuadors-amazon-coffee-farmers-get-ahead-of-europes-deforestation-rules/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/ecuadors-amazon-coffee-farmers-get-ahead-of-europes-deforestation-rules/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-322761</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Zambia’s bumper harvest masks likely food insecurity amid geopolitics and climate threats</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/zambias-bumper-harvest-masks-likely-food-insecurity-amid-geopolitics-and-climate-threats/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/zambias-bumper-harvest-masks-likely-food-insecurity-amid-geopolitics-and-climate-threats/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>03 Jul 2026 13:12:14 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Chisapi Kumbutso]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Terna Gyuse]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/07/03133435/5433664321_547a088000_k-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=322469</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Southern Africa, and Zambia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Climate, Climate Change Denial, Climate Science, El Nino, Environment, Fertilizers, Finance, Food, Food Industry, Food Prices, food security, Global Environmental Crisis, Governance, Impact Of Climate Change, Natural Resources, Nature-based climate solutions, Nutrition, and Solutions]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[LUSAKA, Zambia — The escalating conflict involving the US, Israel and Iran, has prompted warnings that disruptions to the supply of fuel and fertilizer shipped through the Strait of Hormuz could cause food insecurity in some African countries. While experts say it will take time for the effects of the conflict to be felt in [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[LUSAKA, Zambia — The escalating conflict involving the US, Israel and Iran, has prompted warnings that disruptions to the supply of fuel and fertilizer shipped through the Strait of Hormuz could cause food insecurity in some African countries. While experts say it will take time for the effects of the conflict to be felt in Zambia, they also point to vulnerabilities in the country&#8217;s food system and suggest greater resilience to possible stresses. Zambia&#8217;s food security is generally understood to rest on a single crop: maize. Zambia Statistics Agency reports that the price of a 25-kilogram bag of breakfast mealie meal declined slightly from April to May. In fact, the price of mealie meal is 15% lower than it was this time last year. The FAO&#8217;s April 2026 country briefing for Zambia said good rains since last October point to a second consecutive year of above-average harvests of maize. The rains are also expected to support a rebound of wheat harvest, as full reservoirs mean a steady supply of hydroelectric power that will allow the crop’s growers (primarily large-scale, industrial farmers) to irrigate their fields. The briefing reported that reference prices for maize were 25% lower year-on-year in March, thanks to plentiful domestic supply and a strengthening of the currency. Maize meal prices also declined by 15%, according to the Zambia Statistics Agency. Drawing on the IPC classification, the FAO said the number of Zambians facing &#8220;crisis&#8221; levels of acute food insecurity in the six months to March 2026 was&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/zambias-bumper-harvest-masks-likely-food-insecurity-amid-geopolitics-and-climate-threats/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/zambias-bumper-harvest-masks-likely-food-insecurity-amid-geopolitics-and-climate-threats/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-322469</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Can coastal infrastructure be engineered to harbor marine life instead of harming it?</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/can-coastal-infrastructure-be-engineered-to-harbor-marine-life-instead-of-harming-it/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/can-coastal-infrastructure-be-engineered-to-harbor-marine-life-instead-of-harming-it/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>01 Jul 2026 18:57:56 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Elizabeth Claire Alberts]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rebecca Kessler]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/07/01122705/IMG_6570-1-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=322179</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Global]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Adaptation To Climate Change, Biodiversity, Climate Change, Coastal Ecosystems, Development, Ecosystems, Environment, Impact Of Climate Change, Infrastructure, Marine, Marine Animals, Marine Conservation, Nature-based climate solutions, Oceans, Sea Levels, and Solutions]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[COBH, Ireland — On a bright, warm day in April in Cobh, Ireland, I step down a centuries-old cobbled slipway that descends into a harbor packed with fishing boats. Halfway down, something interrupts the weathered wall: an installation of 60 hexagonal concrete panels bolted into the stone. Some panels are ridged or textured; others are [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[COBH, Ireland — On a bright, warm day in April in Cobh, Ireland, I step down a centuries-old cobbled slipway that descends into a harbor packed with fishing boats. Halfway down, something interrupts the weathered wall: an installation of 60 hexagonal concrete panels bolted into the stone. Some panels are ridged or textured; others are pitted with holes and crevices that either trap water or let it filter through with the changing tide. Bright green algae drapes across many of the panels. When I look closer, I notice a few marine snails, including periwinkles (Littorina littorea) and dog whelks (Nucella lapillus), stuck to the tiles. These panels were installed at Kennedy Pier in Cobh, a seaport town in Ireland’s County Cork, in September 2025, as part of the Living Seawalls project. Spearheaded by the Sydney Institute of Marine Science and the company Reef Design Lab, both in Australia, the Living Seawalls project aims to create biodiversity-friendly panels, boulders and pilings that can be installed on seawalls, marinas, piers and other hard coastal infrastructure to make them more hospitable to marine wildlife. Living Seawalls principal investigator Louise Firth, right, with postdoctoral researcher Soli Levi at the Living Seawalls installation in Cobh, Ireland, in April 2026. Image by Elizabeth Claire Alberts/Mongabay. Louise Firth, a senior lecturer in environmental sustainability at Ireland’s University College Cork and one of the principal investigators of the Living Seawalls project, is on site to show me the Cobh installation, Ireland’s first. (Since my visit, a second Living&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/can-coastal-infrastructure-be-engineered-to-harbor-marine-life-instead-of-harming-it/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-322179</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Rewilding Rio: Conservationists restock an ‘empty forest,’ one species at a time</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/rewilding-rio-conservationists-restock-an-empty-forest-one-species-at-a-time/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/rewilding-rio-conservationists-restock-an-empty-forest-one-species-at-a-time/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>24 Jun 2026 22:48:01 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Suzana Camargo]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Xavier Bartaburu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/06/23204441/IMG-5-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=321702</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Brazil, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Biodiversity Hotspots, Birds, Conservation Solutions, Mammals, Nature-based climate solutions, Primates, Reforestation, Rewilding, Solutions, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[In 2008, biologist Alexandra Pires had just completed her doctoral thesis, which described how agoutis, a large guinea pig-like rodent, were important for the regeneration of plant species in Brazil’s Atlantic Forest. When she told this to Ivandy Castro‑Astor, a researcher at Tijuca National Park, in the hills outside Rio de Janeiro, she learned that the rodents [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[In 2008, biologist Alexandra Pires had just completed her doctoral thesis, which described how agoutis, a large guinea pig-like rodent, were important for the regeneration of plant species in Brazil’s Atlantic Forest. When she told this to Ivandy Castro‑Astor, a researcher at Tijuca National Park, in the hills outside Rio de Janeiro, she learned that the rodents no longer existed there. Proof of this were the abundance of seeds from a tree known in Brazil as cutieira or “agouti tree” (Joannesia princeps), which were rotting on the forest floor. “How can there be no agoutis in Tijuca National Park?” Pires recalls thinking at the time, to which Castro‑Astor replied: ‘I think you should release some agoutis there!’” Eighteen years later, visitors to Tijuca can now observe red-rumped agoutis (Dasyprocta leporina), along with brown howler monkeys (Alouatta guariba) and yellow‑footed tortoises (Chelonoidis denticulata). Their presence in the forest is the result of the reintroduction program carried out by Refauna, an initiative of which Pires is a member, with support from the Brazilian government’s Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation (ICMBio). In early January, it was the turn of blue‑and‑yellow macaws (Ara ararauna) to make a comeback. Extinct in Rio de Janeiro for 200 years, today they’re once again flying in the skies over the city. Refauna’s goal is to put an end to what’s known as empty forest syndrome, a concept identified by U.S. conservationist Kent Redford in 1992. In such forests, while the trees and other vegetation appear intact, the animals essential for&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/rewilding-rio-conservationists-restock-an-empty-forest-one-species-at-a-time/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/rewilding-rio-conservationists-restock-an-empty-forest-one-species-at-a-time/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-321702</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Deforestation is just a symptom. The disease is de-governance (commentary)</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/deforestation-is-just-a-symptom-the-disease-is-de-governance-commentary/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/deforestation-is-just-a-symptom-the-disease-is-de-governance-commentary/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>23 Jun 2026 15:38:13 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Ambrosius Ruwindrijarto]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Erik Hoffner]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2025/12/28002821/brunei_251114141317_0047z-16x9-1-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=321618</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Global, Indonesia, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Avoided Deforestation, Commentary, Conservation, Deforestation, Drivers Of Deforestation, Ecosystems, Environment, Forests, Governance, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Reserves, Indigenous Rights, Land Rights, and Tropical Deforestation]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[For decades, deforestation has been treated as the central problem. It’s measured in hectares lost, monitored through satellites, and addressed through conservation programs, carbon mechanisms, and development interventions. Yet despite billions of dollars invested, forests continue to decline. What if we have been diagnosing it wrong? Deforestation is not the disease. It is a symptom. [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[For decades, deforestation has been treated as the central problem. It’s measured in hectares lost, monitored through satellites, and addressed through conservation programs, carbon mechanisms, and development interventions. Yet despite billions of dollars invested, forests continue to decline. What if we have been diagnosing it wrong? Deforestation is not the disease. It is a symptom. The deeper problem is the erosion of governance over territory, over resources, and ultimately, over the future itself. To see this more clearly, it helps to begin not with global statistics, but with a people and place, like Namblong, in Indonesian Papua, an Indigenous territory spanning more than 52,000 hectares (128,500 acres) that’s governed by a tribe of 44 clans. Around 42,000 hectares (almost 104,000 acres) remain forested as a living landscape shaped by generations of customary governance. When oil palm concessions entered this territory with legal permits, a fundamental question emerged: Who decides the future of this forest? Is it the company holding the concession, the government that issued it, or the Indigenous community whose identity and survival are inseparable from the land? Deforestation outside of Manokwari, West Papua, Indonesia. Image by Rhett A. Butler/Mongabay. This question points to a broader reality. Across Indonesia, and much of the world, Indigenous territories have been systematically stripped of effective governance. They are treated as empty land available for extraction or intervention. Concessions are issued, projects are introduced, and external solutions are layered onto landscapes that already have their own systems of authority Even well-intentioned efforts often&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/deforestation-is-just-a-symptom-the-disease-is-de-governance-commentary/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/deforestation-is-just-a-symptom-the-disease-is-de-governance-commentary/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-321618</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>South America’s farms depend, in part, on a healthy Amazon</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/south-americas-farms-depend-in-part-on-a-healthy-amazon/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/south-americas-farms-depend-in-part-on-a-healthy-amazon/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>22 Jun 2026 08:30:41 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Rhett Ayers Butler]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rhett Butler]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/06/22052817/amazon_201362-26x-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=321533</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Founder's briefs]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Brazil, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Conservation, Drought, Ecosystem Services, El Nino, Environment, Environmental Policy, Environmental Services, Fires, forest degradation, Forests, Hydroelectric Power, Natural Capital, Nature-based climate solutions, Precipitation, Rainforests, Restoration, Saving Rainforests, Solutions, Soy, Threats To Rainforests, Tropical Deforestation, and Water]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[&#160; The Amazon is often described in terms of how much carbon it stores. It also moves vast amounts of water. Its trees draw moisture from the soil and return it to the air through transpiration. Some rain caught by the canopy also evaporates back into the atmosphere. That moisture falls again, some of it [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[&nbsp; The Amazon is often described in terms of how much carbon it stores. It also moves vast amounts of water. Its trees draw moisture from the soil and return it to the air through transpiration. Some rain caught by the canopy also evaporates back into the atmosphere. That moisture falls again, some of it inside the basin and some of it far downwind. For much of South America, the forest helps sustain rainfall, farming, hydropower, and urban water supplies. A recent paper in Nature, by Nico Wunderling and colleagues, gives this hydrological role greater weight in the climate case for the Amazon. The authors used a dynamical systems model and atmospheric moisture tracking to estimate how deforestation and warming interact across the basin. Without deforestation, their model finds a critical global warming threshold of about 3.7 to 4.0 degrees Celsius, beyond which up to a third of the Amazon forest risks losing stability. When deforestation is included, the risk becomes much larger at a lower level of warming. Under deforestation of 22% to 28% of the biome and warming of 1.5 to 1.9 degrees Celsius, the model finds a near system-wide transition affecting 62% to 77% of the forest. Rain over the Amazon. Photo by Rhett Ayers Butler Those numbers should be treated carefully. The Amazon is not a single ecological unit. Western forests, southern forests, flooded forests, upland forests, secondary forests, and fire-damaged edges differ in species composition, rainfall, soils, and drought tolerance. A model cannot capture every&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/south-americas-farms-depend-in-part-on-a-healthy-amazon/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-321533</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Côte d’Ivoire’s tree-climbing crocodile needs to be protected, scientist says</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/cote-divoires-tree-climbing-crocodile-needs-to-be-protected-scientist-says/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/cote-divoires-tree-climbing-crocodile-needs-to-be-protected-scientist-says/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>19 Jun 2026 08:00:12 +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/20/2026/06/18070451/CK_croc_arms-768x512.jpeg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=321414</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Cote D'Ivoire, and West Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agroforestry, Animals, Biodiversity, Conservation, Environment, Forestry, Governance, Mammals, Primates, Reforestation, Science, Wildlife, and Wildlife Corridors]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[TAI NATIONAL PARK, Côte d’Ivoire — Environmental scientist Christine Kouman says she has always had a passion to take care of things that are overlooked or neglected. The West African slender-snouted crocodile and its habitat in what remains of the Upper Guinean Forest qualify on both fronts. Kouman, co-founder of a conservation NGO called EBURCO [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[TAI NATIONAL PARK, Côte d’Ivoire — Environmental scientist Christine Kouman says she has always had a passion to take care of things that are overlooked or neglected. The West African slender-snouted crocodile and its habitat in what remains of the Upper Guinean Forest qualify on both fronts. Kouman, co-founder of a conservation NGO called EBURCO that is collaborating with authorities to protect and raise the profile of Taï National Park — a key stronghold of the slender-snouted crocodile (Mecistops cataphractus), — has studied this species in her native Côte d’Ivoire for more than a decade. Her work, which is supported by Project Mecistops, – has produced insights into this little-known species. The project is part of the Tropical Conservation Institute at Florida International University in the U.S. Mongabay recently accompanied Kouman on a night-time boat trip  in Taï National Park, up the Hana River, a place where she has undertaken many hours of grueling fieldwork. This interview has been lightly edited for clarity. The slender-snouted crocodile has adapted to its rainforest environment by basking on trees and rocks that protrude from the river. Image courtesy of Christine Kouman. Mongabay: Tell us something about the slender-snouted crocodile. Christine Kouman: I can say it&#8217;s a gentle crocodile, because it feeds mainly on fish, and I&#8217;ve never heard of the species attacking people. I&#8217;ve been working on them for more than 10 years now, and during those 10 years, I touched them, handled them, but I still have all my fingers and my&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/cote-divoires-tree-climbing-crocodile-needs-to-be-protected-scientist-says/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-321414</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>The quest to reconnect imperiled rainforest in West Africa</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/the-quest-to-reconnect-imperiled-rainforest-in-west-africa/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/the-quest-to-reconnect-imperiled-rainforest-in-west-africa/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>15 Jun 2026 10:22:04 +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/20/2026/06/15121758/Leopard.Panthera.pardus_TaiNPCoteDivoire2026_OIPREBURCO-CROP-768x512.jpeg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=321165</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, Cote D'Ivoire, and West Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Animals, Biodiversity, Community-based Conservation, Conservation, Conservation Solutions, Environment, forest degradation, Mammals, Plants, Primates, Reforestation, Restoration, Solutions, Trees, Wildlife, and Wildlife Corridors]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[NIGRE, Côte d’Ivoire — The village of Nigré in southwestern Côte d’Ivoire sits — like much of this part of West Africa — in a landscape of rice and cassava fields, oil palm plantations and stands of rubber trees that have replaced the forests that once clothed the landscape. Chief Djahi Bertin and his attendants [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[NIGRE, Côte d’Ivoire — The village of Nigré in southwestern Côte d’Ivoire sits — like much of this part of West Africa — in a landscape of rice and cassava fields, oil palm plantations and stands of rubber trees that have replaced the forests that once clothed the landscape. Chief Djahi Bertin and his attendants offer a traditional welcome to a group of scientists, conservationists and park rangers in an open-sided building in the chief’s yard. The guests are served slices of radish-red kola nut, together with a teaspoon of ginger-colored spices, and a choice of wine, beer, spirits or soda. Bertin takes a glass of wine, half full, and empties it on the concrete floor. The splash resembles the palm of a hand, fingers splayed out. Both the palm and the digits form a unified whole, he says. “We are of one mind.” Chief Djahi Bertin, left, and his advisers meet with conservationists and scientists at his residence in the village of Nigré to discuss the creation of an ecological corridor linking the nearby Taï National Park, with Grebo National Park just 4 kilometers away in neighboring Liberia. Image by Ryan Truscott for Mongabay. The village is not far from the western edge of Taï Forest. At 5,000 square kilometers (1,930 square miles), it’s the largest intact remnant of Upper Guinean Rainforest, which once stretched east from Liberia, across Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, to Togo. During a two-day road trip from the commercial hub of Abidjan to Taï, Mongabay&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/the-quest-to-reconnect-imperiled-rainforest-in-west-africa/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-321165</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>How small actions can become planetary forces</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/how-small-actions-can-become-planetary-forces/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/how-small-actions-can-become-planetary-forces/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>04 Jun 2026 00:16:28 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Rhett Ayers Butler]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rhett Butler]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/05/30183504/lombok_260514183849_0066z-16x9-1-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=320350</guid>

					
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Bioacoustics, Biodiversity, Books, Conservation, Conservation Solutions, Ecology, Ecosystems, Forests, Happy-upbeat Environmental, Rainforests, Reforestation, Restoration, Solutions, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Thomas Crowther begins his book with a snakebite that was not, in any conventional sense, dangerous. The danger came from interpretation. A misidentified species, a surge of fear, and a body that responded as if the threat were real: numbness spread, panic intensified, and the situation escalated until a second opinion dissolved it almost instantly. [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Thomas Crowther begins his book with a snakebite that was not, in any conventional sense, dangerous. The danger came from interpretation. A misidentified species, a surge of fear, and a body that responded as if the threat were real: numbness spread, panic intensified, and the situation escalated until a second opinion dissolved it almost instantly. The episode is more than an anecdote. It sets the terms of Nature’s Echo, a book that treats cause and effect not as linear sequences so much as loops that can amplify themselves in either direction. Thomas Crowther That idea—feedback loops as the underlying architecture of the natural world—is the organizing principle of the book. Crowther traces it from cosmology to ecology to human psychology, moving across scales with considerable ambition. The early chapters move outward from the origin of matter, suggesting that the same reinforcing processes that allowed stars to form also underpin biological evolution and social behavior. It is an ambitious framing. At its best, it brings a sense of coherence to subjects that are often treated separately. At times, the scope of the framework requires readers to travel across very different domains and scales of thought. The structure reflects that expansiveness. The table of contents alone signals the range: from “Cause and Effect” and “Feedback Loops” through “Resilience and Tipping Points” and into “The Story We Tell Ourselves.” The progression is deliberate. Crowther starts with physical systems, moves into ecological stability, and then into the social and psychological domains where perception begins&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/how-small-actions-can-become-planetary-forces/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/how-small-actions-can-become-planetary-forces/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-320350</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>It&#8217;s time to engage Mennonite communities in reducing deforestation across Latin America (analysis)</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/its-time-to-engage-mennonite-communities-to-reduce-deforestation-in-latin-america-analysis/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/its-time-to-engage-mennonite-communities-to-reduce-deforestation-in-latin-america-analysis/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>03 Jun 2026 21:16:10 +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/20/2022/12/08174714/CH_20220608_0015-Edit-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=320555</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Agrochemicals, Analysis, Avoided Deforestation, Commentary, Community Development, Deforestation, Development, Forests, Governance, Land Conflict, Land Grabbing, Land Rights, Rainforests, Religions, Tropical Deforestation, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[In the global debate over tropical deforestation, the usual cast of villains is well established: agribusiness, global supply chains, cattle ranchers, and governments granting land concessions for political support. One actor rarely appears in this narrative yet has played a consequential role in transforming the South American lowland frontier: The Mennonite agricultural colonist. For more [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[In the global debate over tropical deforestation, the usual cast of villains is well established: agribusiness, global supply chains, cattle ranchers, and governments granting land concessions for political support. One actor rarely appears in this narrative yet has played a consequential role in transforming the South American lowland frontier: The Mennonite agricultural colonist. For more than five decades, Mennonite communities have functioned as systematic agents of agricultural frontier expansion in the Gran Chaco and Andean Amazon, methodically clearing forests, draining wetlands, and catalyzing waves of deforestation that extend far beyond any individual colony. Mennonite communities operate within the law. They purchase land through formal channels, build permanent communities, and transfer agronomic knowledge to surrounding populations. Their values emphasize hard work, communal solidarity, and a theological relationship to land as stewardship. None of this changes the ecological outcome: Wherever a Mennonite colony is established, forests fall. Faith, mobility and colony formation Mennonites are an Anabaptist denomination rooted in the 16-century Reformation, distinguished by pacifism, communal life, and cultural separation from mainstream society. Conservative congregations — whose ancestors moved from Russia to Canada, then to Mexico, Belize and South America — are organized around a local congregation that functions simultaneously as a religious community, governance structure, credit cooperative and social welfare system. When a colony is established, it is an orderly community with collective decision-making, shared infrastructure, and a coherent plan for the future. Forest being cut, burned, and prepared by a Mennonite colony before planting crops. Image courtesy of Mario Silvero.&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/its-time-to-engage-mennonite-communities-to-reduce-deforestation-in-latin-america-analysis/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-320555</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>In Brazil, a project paying farmers for forests is looking to scale up</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/in-brazil-a-project-paying-farmers-for-forests-is-looking-to-scale-up/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/in-brazil-a-project-paying-farmers-for-forests-is-looking-to-scale-up/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>01 Jun 2026 11:01:21 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Constance Malleret]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Alexandra Popescu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/05/01104033/10895990-3d53-4c9b-99ef-0ed67f41bc96-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=320294</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Brazil, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Avoided Deforestation, Carbon Emissions, Conservation, Conservation Finance, Conservation Solutions, Deforestation, Farming, Happy-upbeat Environmental, Nature-based climate solutions, Payments For Ecosystem Services, and Solutions]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Landowner Carlos Roberto Simonetti gets three harvests per year from the corn, soy and cotton plantations on his 17,000-hectare (about 42,000 acres) farm called Fazenda Natureza Feliz, or Happy Nature, in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso. Over the course of four years, he would also get what he calls a fourth harvest, this time [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Landowner Carlos Roberto Simonetti gets three harvests per year from the corn, soy and cotton plantations on his 17,000-hectare (about 42,000 acres) farm called Fazenda Natureza Feliz, or Happy Nature, in the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso. Over the course of four years, he would also get what he calls a fourth harvest, this time from the forested areas of his property, located where the Cerrado savanna meets the Amazon Rainforest. That’s because Simonetti would receive regular payments for protecting native vegetation beyond what the law requires, as part of a pilot project for payment for ecosystem services (PES) run by the Amazon Environmental Research Institute (IPAM), an NGO, in the states of Mato Grosso and Pará. The program, called CONSERV, gives landowners financial incentives to keep the forest standing even in areas which they are legally allowed to clear. The pilot project, which initially ran between 2020 and 2024 on 23 different properties, protected 20,707 hectares (about 51,170 acres) of land in the Cerrado and Amazon biomes with funding from the governments of Norway and The Netherlands. Ongoing contracts funded by Soft Commodities Forum members – agribusiness companies committed to preserving the Cerrado – are protecting a further 7,000 hectares (about 17,300 acres) in the states of Mato Grosso and Maranhão. IPAM is now seeking to scale up the program without relying on donations. The risk of legal deforestation The idea for CONSERV goes back to 2016, when an internal IPAM report calculated that around 1.5 million hectares (3.7&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/in-brazil-a-project-paying-farmers-for-forests-is-looking-to-scale-up/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-320294</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>IMF lending programs linked with deforestation should be rethought (commentary)</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/imf-lending-programs-causing-deforestation-should-be-rethought-commentary/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/imf-lending-programs-causing-deforestation-should-be-rethought-commentary/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>29 May 2026 15:34:52 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Kevin P. GallagherRishikesh Ram BhandaryTimon Forster]]>
						</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=320324</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Global]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Avoided Deforestation, Community Development, Deforestation, Development, Environment, Environmental Policy, Finance, Forests, Governance, Poverty, Poverty Alleviation, Research, Trees, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The price of financial stability should not be environmental destruction. Yet when countries turn to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for help, their forests may quietly suffer. The IMF is currently reviewing the design of its lending programs, and it is time for change. Its recipe for getting economies back on track often features required [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The price of financial stability should not be environmental destruction. Yet when countries turn to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for help, their forests may quietly suffer. The IMF is currently reviewing the design of its lending programs, and it is time for change. Its recipe for getting economies back on track often features required reforms such as cutting government expenditure, increasing revenue collection through taxes or utility tariff increases, winding down public ownership of state-owned enterprises and encouraging the private sector to step up: austerity in other words. These policies are meant to restore stability in times of crisis, but growing evidence shows that IMF programs often fall short in helping countries break out of the cycle of economic and financial distress. Instead, they can trigger collateral damage in the form of negative health outcomes, worsened poverty and inequality and eroded social protection. Image by Forster et al., 2026 (CC BY 4.0). Our new research provides evidence that these programs also have an important and often overlooked environmental dimension, revealing that countries experience 9.2% higher annual tree cover loss during years in which they are under an IMF program. In a typical three-year IMF program, this amounts to forest loss the size of Barbados. This finding comes as no surprise as IMF programs are known to generally cut government spending, and environmental protections are often the first to go. These conditions that come in exchange for financial assistance are a major shortcoming when it comes to effects on forests,&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/imf-lending-programs-causing-deforestation-should-be-rethought-commentary/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-320324</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>For Honduran coffee growers, EUDR compliance means changing old habits</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/for-honduran-coffee-growers-eudr-compliance-means-changing-old-habits/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/for-honduran-coffee-growers-eudr-compliance-means-changing-old-habits/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>29 May 2026 12:22:15 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Sandra Weiss]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Alexandra Popescu]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[agroecology]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Food systems]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/05/29120927/9-1-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=320278</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Central America, European Union, Honduras, and Latin America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Agriculture, Avoided Deforestation, Coffee, Commodity agriculture, Deforestation, Drivers Of Deforestation, Environment, Environmental Law, EUDR, Farming, Forest Destruction, International Trade, Monitoring, Politics, Supply Chain, Technology, Transparency, and Tropical Deforestation]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[CONCEPCIÓN DE SOLUTECA, Honduras — In the 1970s, the Honduran government granted a piece of land in the mountains of Concepción de Soluteca to Roberto González’s parents. They duly grabbed a chainsaw and a machete to clear the forest. On the 12 hectares (30 acres) they received as part of a land reform, they planted [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[CONCEPCIÓN DE SOLUTECA, Honduras — In the 1970s, the Honduran government granted a piece of land in the mountains of Concepción de Soluteca to Roberto González’s parents. They duly grabbed a chainsaw and a machete to clear the forest. On the 12 hectares (30 acres) they received as part of a land reform, they planted corn, beans and bananas, the basic staple foods. It was a hard life up in the mountains, allowing the farmers and their families to just survive. There wasn’t much public infrastructure, and most children had to help with farmwork early on. This included González, who only attended elementary school for three years. When González inherited the land 20 years later, coffee cultivation was just taking off. Middlemen promised the farmers good money for the export crop, and the banks provided loans for cultivation. At first, this worked well, González, now 39, remembers. Coffee helped the farmers to generate income and improve living conditions. But it didn’t last long. They grew coffee much the same way they did other crops, without adequate soil or shade management. When harvests dwindled, they expanded their area, cutting the last standing forests and damaging water sources. Around 2012, they faced an outbreak of coffee rust, a fungal disease. It was a complete disaster: many farmers were thrown into poverty and forced to migrate. “We destroyed the foundations of our livelihoods, but it was out of ignorance; we just didn&#8217;t know better,” González tells Mongabay. Under the EUDR, coffee farmers step&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/for-honduran-coffee-growers-eudr-compliance-means-changing-old-habits/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-320278</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>On Southeast Asia’s largest lake, locals wield tech to defend the flooded forest</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/on-southeast-asias-largest-lake-locals-wield-tech-to-defend-the-flooded-forest/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/on-southeast-asias-largest-lake-locals-wield-tech-to-defend-the-flooded-forest/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>19 May 2026 18:04:59 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Claire Turrell]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Isabel Esterman]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/05/19170820/20231116_Local-guide-was-training-CFi-committees-on-camera-trap-set-up_Photo_Dong-Tangkor-2-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=319745</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Cambodia, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Community Forests, Community-based Conservation, Conservation, Conservation Technology, Environment, Fires, Forests, Lakes, Landscape Restoration, Nature-based climate solutions, Restoration, Solutions, Technology, Wetlands, and Wildtech]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[“When the forest [is] healthy, fish can breed and grow. But if the forest burns, the fish disappear — and that affects the livelihoods of our whole community,” says Luon Chanleng, a fisher from Tonle Sap. “I can’t imagine our life without the forest.” Tonle Sap in Cambodia is the largest freshwater lake in Southeast [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[“When the forest [is] healthy, fish can breed and grow. But if the forest burns, the fish disappear — and that affects the livelihoods of our whole community,” says Luon Chanleng, a fisher from Tonle Sap. “I can’t imagine our life without the forest.” Tonle Sap in Cambodia is the largest freshwater lake in Southeast Asia. Each year, when the dry season sets in from around January to June, the waters of the flooded forest recede, the mangrove roots poke out through the mud, and the flooded forest turns into a tinder box. More than a million people live around the lake and depend on it for their livelihoods, homes and nutrition. Yet, the freshwater mangroves or “flooded forest” that surround the lake are shrinking. A study by the Wonders of the Mekong project, led by the University of Nevada in the U.S., found that nearly a third of forests in flood plains like the Tonle Sap area were lost between 1993 and 2017. “It primarily seems to be driven by two activities: One is conversion of flooded forest for agriculture, and then the second is forest fires,” says Zeb Hogan, director of the Wonders of the Mekong project. Now, the Tonle Sap community is fighting back. Seventy-eight people, including Luon, have trained as community firefighters, and are now using satellite wildfire alerts to help them curb the devastation. According to records kept by U.S.-based NGO Conservation International, which receives the satellite alerts and forwards them to the patrol team,&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/on-southeast-asias-largest-lake-locals-wield-tech-to-defend-the-flooded-forest/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-319745</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Popular Miyawaki reforestation method lacks evidence, study finds</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/popular-miyawaki-reforestation-method-lacks-evidence-study-finds/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/popular-miyawaki-reforestation-method-lacks-evidence-study-finds/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>13 May 2026 20:57:01 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Annelise Giseburt]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Morgan Erickson-Davis]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/05/13122810/miyawaki-digging-2-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=319323</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Global]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Afforestation, Biodiversity, Conservation, Conservation Philosophy, Conservation Solutions, Ecosystems, Environment, Forestry, Forests, Landscape Restoration, Reforestation, Restoration, Solutions, and Trees]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The popular Miyawaki method of reforestation, often used to create “mini-forests” in urban areas, lacks empirical evidence to support its claimed benefits, according to a new study. Proponents of the method have claimed rapid growth is achieved by soil improvement and dense planting, the latter of which causes saplings to complete for sunlight. The Miyawaki [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The popular Miyawaki method of reforestation, often used to create “mini-forests” in urban areas, lacks empirical evidence to support its claimed benefits, according to a new study. Proponents of the method have claimed rapid growth is achieved by soil improvement and dense planting, the latter of which causes saplings to complete for sunlight. The Miyawaki method has also been claimed to accelerate succession, enhance biodiversity, boost carbon sequestration, and increase tree density. In the study, published in the Journal of Applied Ecology in December 2025, researchers reviewed 51 pieces of scientific literature on the Miyawaki method and found that only 41% provided quantitative assessments. Of these, only 33% included a control and a mere 14% included replication, key elements of the scientific method. The Miyawaki method was first developed in the 1970s. However, over the past decade or so it has seen a new wave in international popularity, likely due to society placing greater importance on urban greening and reforestation, say two of the paper’s authors, Narkis S. Morales, a forest ecology researcher at the Bioeconomy Science Institute in Aotearoa New Zealand, and Ignacio C. Fernández, an associate professor of ecology and sustainability at the Adolfo Ibáñez University in Chile. They see Miyawaki forests’ rapid growth rate as a major reason for the method’s popularity. People “don’t want to wait that much to have greener areas,” Fernández tells Mongabay. However, the researchers caution that there may be social and ecological consequences for choosing any reforestation method — Miyawaki included —&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/popular-miyawaki-reforestation-method-lacks-evidence-study-finds/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-319323</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Conservationists fear fires could erase years of orangutan habitat recovery</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/conservationists-fear-fires-could-erase-years-of-orangutan-habitat-recovery/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/conservationists-fear-fires-could-erase-years-of-orangutan-habitat-recovery/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>08 May 2026 10:34:30 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Hans Nicholas Jong]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Hans Nicholas Jong]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2017/01/02083516/sabah_3982-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=318990</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Indonesia, Kalimantan, Southeast Asia, and West Kalimantan]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Conservation, Ecosystems, El Nino, Fires, Forests, Great Apes, Landscape Restoration, Mammals, Orangutans, Peatlands, Rainforests, Reforestation, Rehabilitation, Restoration, Threats To Rainforests, Tropical Forests, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[JAKARTA — Fires have burned part of a decade-long orangutan habitat restoration site in Indonesian Borneo, raising fears among conservationists that another severe fire season could wipe out years of recovery efforts before the dry season has even fully begun. A decade ago, Yayasan IAR Indonesia (YIARI), the Indonesian affiliate of International Animal Rescue, began [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[JAKARTA — Fires have burned part of a decade-long orangutan habitat restoration site in Indonesian Borneo, raising fears among conservationists that another severe fire season could wipe out years of recovery efforts before the dry season has even fully begun. A decade ago, Yayasan IAR Indonesia (YIARI), the Indonesian affiliate of International Animal Rescue, began restoring degraded orangutan habitat in Pematang Gadung village in Ketapang district, West Kalimantan province, after villagers repeatedly reported orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus) entering farms and eating crops. The incursions were driven by habitat loss. Large parts of the surrounding forest had already been degraded, including during Indonesia’s catastrophic 2015 fire season, when more than 1,500 hectares (3,700 acres) of land in and around the village were burned. Since then, YIARI, together with the government and local communities, have worked to restore the damaged landscape by planting trees that provide food for orangutans, with the hope that if enough food is available in the forest, the critically endangered apes will stop venturing into farmland. As of early 2026, the group had restored around 300 hectares (740 acres) with 150,000 trees, including fruit-bearing species favored by orangutans. Local community members planting trees at the restoration site of orangutan habitat in Pematang Gadung village in Ketapang district, West Kalimantan. Image courtesy of YIARI. The work is especially important because the remaining orangutan habitat in the area has become increasingly fragmented. Illegal gold mining operations now surround much of the forest, leaving wildlife confined to shrinking patches of habitat. “Once&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/conservationists-fear-fires-could-erase-years-of-orangutan-habitat-recovery/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-318990</doi>				</item>
						<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>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-318792</doi>				</item>
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