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		<title>Conservation news</title>
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		<link>https://news.mongabay.com/list/obituary/</link>
		<description>Environmental science and conservation news</description>
		<lastBuildDate>Wed, 02 Sep 2026 22:17:51 +0000</lastBuildDate>
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	<title>News on Obituary</title>
	<link>https://news.mongabay.com/list/obituary/</link>
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				<item>
					<title>Michael Painter put Indigenous land rights at the center of conservation</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/09/michael-painter-put-indigenous-land-rights-at-the-center-of-conservation/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/09/michael-painter-put-indigenous-land-rights-at-the-center-of-conservation/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>02 Sep 2026 22:12:56 +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/20/2026/09/02214752/michael-painter-16x9-header-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=328252</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Founder's briefs]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Bolivia, Chaco, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Community-based Conservation, Conservation, Dry Forests, Ethics, Forests, Indigenous Rights, Land Rights, Obituary, and Protected Areas]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[In the Bolivian Chaco, the Isoceño Guaraní did not need conservationists to tell them that their land was under pressure. Agricultural settlement was pushing into the region, and their organization, the Capitanía de Alto y Bajo Izozog (CABI), had its own territorial aims. What outsiders could provide was scientific expertise, legal support, money, and access [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[In the Bolivian Chaco, the Isoceño Guaraní did not need conservationists to tell them that their land was under pressure. Agricultural settlement was pushing into the region, and their organization, the Capitanía de Alto y Bajo Izozog (CABI), had its own territorial aims. What outsiders could provide was scientific expertise, legal support, money, and access to institutions that could help turn those claims into recognized rights. Working with the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), CABI developed the proposal for Kaa-Iya del Gran Chaco National Park, which Bolivia created in 1995. At 3.4 million hectares, it was enormous even by the standards of South American protected areas. CABI became its co-administrator. The partnership also helped develop a mechanism for securing Indigenous land under Bolivia’s agrarian reform law. It was used to title 273,000 hectares for the Ayoreode and 560,000 hectares for the Isoceño Guaraní, as well as land for 43 Chiquitano communities. WCS says the process helped establish precedents for Indigenous land titling elsewhere in Bolivia. Michael Painter arrived at WCS in 1997 to direct the Kaa-Iya project. For an ecological anthropologist, its implications were hard to miss. Conservation did not have to mean setting land aside and then persuading the people living around it to cooperate. Indigenous organizations could be conservation partners in their own right, with territorial goals, political interests, and knowledge of their own. A useful role for an organization such as WCS was sometimes to strengthen their ability to deal with governments, companies, donors, and conservationists themselves. Painter,&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/09/michael-painter-put-indigenous-land-rights-at-the-center-of-conservation/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/09/michael-painter-put-indigenous-land-rights-at-the-center-of-conservation/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-328252</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Tiago Karaí and Laudiceia Benites helped reclaim Guarani land. They died with their children in an accident last month.</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/09/tiago-karai-and-laudiceia-benites-helped-reclaim-guarani-land-they-died-with-their-children-in-an-accident-last-month/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/09/tiago-karai-and-laudiceia-benites-helped-reclaim-guarani-land-they-died-with-their-children-in-an-accident-last-month/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>01 Sep 2026 17:45:37 +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/20/2026/09/01165317/20220223_fellipeabreu_guarani_122061-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=328206</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Atlantic Forest, Brazil, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Indigenous Peoples and Obituary]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[On August 14th, seven people from Tekoa Kalipety were traveling between Guarani communities with seeds. They had spent the week checking in on relatives, praying at Porto Lindo, and sharing traditional seeds harvested back home in southern São Paulo. They were on their way to another Indigenous territory when, on that evening, a semitrailer carrying [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[On August 14th, seven people from Tekoa Kalipety were traveling between Guarani communities with seeds. They had spent the week checking in on relatives, praying at Porto Lindo, and sharing traditional seeds harvested back home in southern São Paulo. They were on their way to another Indigenous territory when, on that evening, a semitrailer carrying maize detached from a truck and struck their car. Tiago Honório dos Santos, known as Tiago Karaí, 34, died with his wife, Kerexu Laudiceia Benites, 31; their children, Tadeu, 14, and Luna, seven; Tiago’s sister, Kerexu Cleonice Honório dos Santos; and two other members of Kalipety, Ileo Benites and Genilson Euzébio Karay Mirim. The truck driver fled the scene. Karaí Tiago speaks at an event about community-based tourism based on his experience at TI Tenondé Porã, in 2019. Photo by Rafael Hupsel/ISA Tiago was born in a Guarani village near the coast of São Paulo state. His parents moved to the Tenondé Porã Indigenous Territory before he was two. At the Guarani Gwyra Pepó school, he wondered why children were taught so little about Guarani life. After finishing secondary school at 19, he returned to the school as a teacher. Known then as Karaí Tataendy, he taught Guarani language and culture to primary-school children. He believed they needed to know both Guarani and non-Indigenous ways of life. Teaching their own language gave them something he had found missing when he sat in the same classrooms. In 2013, Guarani families began reclaiming ancestral sections of Tenondé&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/09/tiago-karai-and-laudiceia-benites-helped-reclaim-guarani-land-they-died-with-their-children-in-an-accident-last-month/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-328206</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Steve Smit, South Africa’s “Monkey Man,” has died</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/steve-smit-south-africas-monkey-man-has-died/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/steve-smit-south-africas-monkey-man-has-died/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>15 Aug 2026 21:18:30 +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/20/2026/08/15211254/steve-smit-header-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=326312</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Founder's briefs]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, South Africa, and Southern Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Monkeys, Obituary, Primates, Wildlife Rehabilitation, and Wildlife Rescues]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[In 2015 Steve Smit badly injured his right eye while trying to round up rescued chickens in his garden in Westville, near Durban. A branch struck him and almost cost him his sight. Doctors told him to rest. Within weeks he had gone on more than 20 wildlife rescues, wearing an eye patch. For three [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[In 2015 Steve Smit badly injured his right eye while trying to round up rescued chickens in his garden in Westville, near Durban. A branch struck him and almost cost him his sight. Doctors told him to rest. Within weeks he had gone on more than 20 wildlife rescues, wearing an eye patch. For three decades Smit climbed trees, crossed roofs, crawled under buildings, and entered gardens to retrieve vervet monkeys that had been shot, shocked on power lines, hit by cars, bitten by dogs, or caught in wire. Around KwaZulu-Natal he became known simply as the “Monkey Man.” He died on August 12th after a battle with cancer. He was 70. Before rescuing monkeys became his full-time occupation, Smit spent roughly 25 years in South Africa’s intelligence services. He had first joined the police after objecting to military conscription, and later moved through the Bureau of State Security and National Intelligence Service. In an oral-history interview in 2007, he recalled being troubled by the conduct and culture of some of the institutions in which he worked. His involvement with animals began while he was still in government service. In 1985 he founded FALCON, the Front for Animal Liberation and Conservation of Nature, described as South Africa’s first animal-rights organization. It later became Justice for Animals. Smit campaigned against vivisection, recreational hunting, circuses, wildlife trade, and other uses of animals that he regarded as exploitation. His position often put him at odds with conservationists. Smit was concerned not only with&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/steve-smit-south-africas-monkey-man-has-died/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-326312</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>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-325742</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Vinod Rishi helped give India’s elephants room to roam</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/vinod-rishi-helped-give-indias-elephants-room-to-roam/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/vinod-rishi-helped-give-indias-elephants-room-to-roam/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>06 Aug 2026 00:22:34 +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/20/2026/08/04002522/Vinod_Rishi_bw-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=325259</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Founder's briefs]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, India, and South Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Conservation, Elephants, and Obituary]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[A tiger once put its head beside a passenger in Vinod Rishi’s jeep. Its face, he wrote years later, wore a “quizzical expression.” Then it moved away, leaving the men unharmed. Rishi called it “a King with a big heart.” Decades after the encounter, he could still recall the position of the tiger’s head and [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[A tiger once put its head beside a passenger in Vinod Rishi’s jeep. Its face, he wrote years later, wore a “quizzical expression.” Then it moved away, leaving the men unharmed. Rishi called it “a King with a big heart.” Decades after the encounter, he could still recall the position of the tiger’s head and the look on its face. Rishi, who died in Dehradun on July 29, held some of the highest positions in Indian wildlife administration. He was the first director of Project Elephant, additional director general of forests for wildlife, and director of the Indira Gandhi National Forest Academy. During 38 years in the Indian Forest Service, he worked in the Sundarbans and Buxa tiger reserves, Jaldapara Wildlife Sanctuary, and the national parks of Singalila and Neora Valley. Born in Jalandhar, Punjab, he trained as an engineer at the Indian Institute of Technology Delhi and graduated in 1968. He joined the forest service the following year. His engineering background clearly influenced the way he approached conservation. He paid close attention to methods, evidence, and whether a plan would work in the field.  His early career in West Bengal brought him into contact with tigers, rhinos, elephants, and the administrative problems surrounding each of them. At Darjeeling Zoo, he studied animal biology at close range. The experience later contributed to work on captive breeding for snow leopards and the conservation of red pandas in Singalila. In the Sundarbans, he worked on conflict between people and tigers. When newspapers&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/vinod-rishi-helped-give-indias-elephants-room-to-roam/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-325259</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Doña Oscarina, master ceramicist, documented Indigenous knowledge along the Tiquié River</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/dona-oscarina-master-ceramicist-documented-the-knowledge-of-the-tiquie/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/dona-oscarina-master-ceramicist-documented-the-knowledge-of-the-tiquie/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>04 Aug 2026 08:41:11 +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/20/2026/07/28234156/Oscarina-Caldas-Azevedo-16x9-1-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=324719</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Founder's briefs]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Brazil, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Activism, Culture, Gender, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Rights, and Obituary]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[&#160; Before clay could be taken from the earth, permission had to be sought. “Grandmother, are you there?” the potter would ask. “I am your granddaughter. I have come to find you.” The words were addressed to Di’i Mahso, Grandmother Clay, who taught women how to find the right material and craft the first cooking [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
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							<![CDATA[&nbsp; Before clay could be taken from the earth, permission had to be sought. “Grandmother, are you there?” the potter would ask. “I am your granddaughter. I have come to find you.” The words were addressed to Di’i Mahso, Grandmother Clay, who taught women how to find the right material and craft the first cooking vessels. Oscarina Caldas Azevedo knew these words and the deep ecological obligations behind them. A master ceramicist of the Desana people, farmer, and pioneering Indigenous environmental researcher, Azevedo died on July 4th in her home community of Cunuri, in the Brazilian Amazon. Known as Doña Oscarina, her life’s work proved that traditional Amazonian cosmology, women&#8217;s agricultural knowledge, and modern climate science were inseparable. Born in 1967 in Santa Ana do Médio Tiquié, in the upper Rio Negro region of Amazonas state, she grew up in Cunuri beside the Tiquié River—a landscape where communities are linked by waterways, family ties, and shared languages. She entered the local school at five. At 13, she moved to the Salesian mission school in Pari Cachoeira. During a holiday two years later, she met Rafael Azevedo. They were advised to marry and spent more than four decades together. Their home became a place of farming, research, ceremony, and instruction. Oscarina cultivated cassava, medicinal plants, and other crops. She made ceramics and taught younger women how to find and prepare clay, shape vessels, and fire them. Rafael carried knowledge of ritual practice. Their work was closely shared. Oscarina’s skill as a&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/dona-oscarina-master-ceramicist-documented-the-knowledge-of-the-tiquie/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-324719</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>David Page wrote about the mountains and worked to protect them</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/david-page-wrote-about-the-mountains-and-worked-to-protect-them/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/david-page-wrote-about-the-mountains-and-worked-to-protect-them/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>01 Aug 2026 15:59:20 +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/20/2026/08/01155019/david-page-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=325133</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[North America and United States]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Environmental Policy, Mountains, and Obituary]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[A backcountry ski run can depend on decisions made years before the snow falls. Forest plans determine where motorized vehicles may travel. Congressional appropriations affect whether trails are maintained and land-management agencies can enforce their rules. Public meetings give skiers, snowmobilers, conservationists, and local residents a chance to argue over how mountains should be used. [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
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							<![CDATA[A backcountry ski run can depend on decisions made years before the snow falls. Forest plans determine where motorized vehicles may travel. Congressional appropriations affect whether trails are maintained and land-management agencies can enforce their rules. Public meetings give skiers, snowmobilers, conservationists, and local residents a chance to argue over how mountains should be used. David Page knew this work in detail. He also knew how to describe what it felt like to move through those mountains. Page, the executive director of Winter Wildlands Alliance, died on July 7th in a multi-vehicle crash on Teton Pass in Wyoming. He was 57. Rio, the family dog who often accompanied him outdoors, died in the accident as well. He had come to conservation advocacy through writing. Raised in Denver, he studied history and Spanish literature at Dartmouth, comparative literature at Berkeley, and creative writing at the University of California, Irvine. He wrote for the New York Times, Men’s Journal, Skiing, and other publications, and became a senior correspondent for POWDER. His guide to Yosemite and the southern Sierra Nevada went through three editions. His articles were closely reported and attentive to the people in them. “The Human Factor,” an examination of the decisions that lead experienced skiers into avalanche danger, was a finalist for a National Magazine Award in 2015. It was later used in avalanche courses. Another article described the immigrant workers whose labor sustains many ski towns. He also wrote about major descents, disappearing whitebark pines, solitary skiers, remote slopes,&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/08/david-page-wrote-about-the-mountains-and-worked-to-protect-them/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-325133</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>David Johnson, the owl man of Umatilla</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/david-johnson-the-owl-man-of-umatilla/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/david-johnson-the-owl-man-of-umatilla/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>30 Jul 2026 00:21:27 +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/20/2026/07/27202647/david-johnson-dj-owls-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=324549</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Founder's briefs]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[North America, Oregon, and United States]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Biology, Birds, Conservation, Ex-situ Conservation, Obituary, Owls, Raptors, Species recovery, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[At the former Umatilla Chemical Depot in eastern Oregon, the weapons were gone, though their presence had shaped the land. Concrete bunkers stood among sagebrush and dry grass. Pronghorn moved through the open country. Badgers, once common there, had largely disappeared. Their absence mattered to the small owls that lived close to the ground. Burrowing [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[At the former Umatilla Chemical Depot in eastern Oregon, the weapons were gone, though their presence had shaped the land. Concrete bunkers stood among sagebrush and dry grass. Pronghorn moved through the open country. Badgers, once common there, had largely disappeared. Their absence mattered to the small owls that lived close to the ground. Burrowing owls do not usually dig their own homes. They occupy tunnels made by mammals, especially badgers and prairie dogs. At Umatilla, the decline of those animals had removed much of the owls’ shelter. By the late 2000s, only a few breeding pairs remained. David H. Johnson, who died on June 15th, aged 69, decided that the shortage of burrows could be addressed. He and his collaborators buried plastic barrels and connected them to the surface with lengths of pipe. The structures were crude substitutes for badger burrows, intended to keep the population breeding while the recovery of its habitat remained a longer-term task. The owls accepted them. Within a year, the number of breeding pairs had risen. Over the following decade, the depot became home to one of the region’s most closely studied burrowing-owl populations. Researchers banded chicks, recorded calls, tested nest designs, and tracked the birds’ movements. By 2024, they were monitoring more than 100 nesting attempts and had banded nearly 500 chicks that season. Johnson had been interested in owls since childhood. At 11, while camping alone, he heard an eastern screech owl calling outside his tent. The bird landed close enough for&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/david-johnson-the-owl-man-of-umatilla/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-324549</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Pat Lowe spent decades describing and defending the Kimberley</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/pat-lowe-spent-decades-describing-and-defending-the-kimberley/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/pat-lowe-spent-decades-describing-and-defending-the-kimberley/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>28 Jul 2026 00:02:55 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Rhett Ayers Butler]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rhett Butler]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/07/27123449/pat-lowe-2560px-full-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=324544</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Founder's briefs]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Australia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Biodiversity, Culture, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Rights, and Obituary]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[&#160; The termites had built their towers long before roads crossed the Kimberley or companies proposed industrial projects along its rivers and coasts. Their colonies worked beneath the red earth, altering the soil and supporting other forms of life. Pat Lowe studied them closely. She asked Aboriginal knowledge-holders what they knew, spoke with scientists, read [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[&nbsp; The termites had built their towers long before roads crossed the Kimberley or companies proposed industrial projects along its rivers and coasts. Their colonies worked beneath the red earth, altering the soil and supporting other forms of life. Pat Lowe studied them closely. She asked Aboriginal knowledge-holders what they knew, spoke with scientists, read widely, and eventually wrote a book about them. She was drawn to subjects that were common and easily overlooked. The same attention led her to boabs, mammals, desert plants, and the pindan woodlands around Broome, where red soil lies beneath pale grasses and scattered trees. Her interest in conservation grew from long observation of how these landscapes worked. Pat Lowe, who died on July 2nd, 2026, aged 84, spent much of her life studying the Kimberley and helping others understand it. She was a psychologist, writer, editor, naturalist, and environmental campaigner. Her path to northern Western Australia began far away. Born in England in 1942, she trained as a teacher, worked in East Africa, and later moved to Australia, where she became a psychologist in the prison system. At Fremantle Prison, she met Jimmy Pike, a Walmajarri man who had grown up in the Great Sandy Desert and became one of Australia’s best-known Indigenous artists. After Pike’s release, they lived for three years at Kurlku, a remote desert camp. Water, weather, distance, and food governed daily life. Pike taught her about his Country: its routes, seasons, foods, history, and obligations. She learned Walmajarri words, listened&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/pat-lowe-spent-decades-describing-and-defending-the-kimberley/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-324544</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Father Robert Athickal asked children to protect the living world</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/father-robert-athickal-asked-children-to-protect-the-living-world/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/father-robert-athickal-asked-children-to-protect-the-living-world/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>27 Jul 2026 12:32:24 +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/20/2026/07/27002049/Father-Robert-Athickal-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=324535</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Conservation and Religion and Founder's briefs]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, India, and South Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Activism, Culture, Education, Obituary, and Religions]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[&#160; The first members had no office, no money, and little authority. They were schoolchildren in Patna, a crowded city on the Ganges, worried about the trees being cut around them. They met after class, visited other schools, planted saplings, and spoke to anyone willing to listen. Some traveled by bicycle to carry their message [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[&nbsp; The first members had no office, no money, and little authority. They were schoolchildren in Patna, a crowded city on the Ganges, worried about the trees being cut around them. They met after class, visited other schools, planted saplings, and spoke to anyone willing to listen. Some traveled by bicycle to carry their message farther. Their organization had a name, Tarumitra, meaning “Friends of Trees,” though for a time it consisted mainly of students and a small circle of adults helping them. Among those adults was a Jesuit priest who believed that children could be trusted with serious work. Father Robert Athickal, who died on July 19th, aged 73, spent nearly four decades developing that idea. From its beginnings in Patna in 1988, Tarumitra grew into one of India’s largest student environmental movements. It established groups in schools and colleges across the country, trained generations of young campaigners, and created a reserve for threatened plants from the Gangetic plain. &nbsp; Athickal had few of the resources usually available to someone building a national organization. There was no large funder behind the project and no government mandate. He relied on his position as a Jesuit teacher, the cooperation of schools, and his ability to persuade students and adults that local environmental problems deserved their attention. Tarumitra’s early campaigns were designed to be practical and easy to reproduce. Students cleaned neglected plots, planted roadside gardens, and turned former garbage dumps into what they called “Oxygen Belts.” Other school groups could follow&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/father-robert-athickal-asked-children-to-protect-the-living-world/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-324535</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Khuiusi Khisêtjê helped his people recover their land and future in the Xingu</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/khuiusi-khisetje-helped-his-people-recover-their-land-and-future-in-the-xingu/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/khuiusi-khisetje-helped-his-people-recover-their-land-and-future-in-the-xingu/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>24 Jul 2026 17:37:36 +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/20/2026/07/24173326/Khuiusi-Khisetje-Christian-Braga-ISA-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=324519</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Founder's briefs]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Brazil, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Forests, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Reserves, Indigenous Rights, Land Rights, Obituary, Rainforests, and Soy]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The plane sprayed the soy fields beside the forest. Residents of Khikatxi said the single-engine aircraft appeared several times during each harvest and passed over Wawi Indigenous Territory. They worried about pesticides reaching their water, gardens, animals, and homes. For years, Khuiusi Khisêtjê watched the farms advance around his people’s land. In 2018 he made [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The plane sprayed the soy fields beside the forest. Residents of Khikatxi said the single-engine aircraft appeared several times during each harvest and passed over Wawi Indigenous Territory. They worried about pesticides reaching their water, gardens, animals, and homes. For years, Khuiusi Khisêtjê watched the farms advance around his people’s land. In 2018 he made a decision.. The community would rebuild its village ten kilometers deeper in the forest. Leaving a village is difficult. Houses must be rebuilt, paths cleared, gardens planted, and daily routines restored. The old place contained years of work and memory. Khuiusi Khisêtjê had already lived through several such upheavals. He knew what was lost when people were forced from their land. He also knew when it had become unsafe to remain. The move took the Khisêtjê farther from the expanding agricultural frontier. It was one more decision in a life devoted to the survival of his people. Khuiusi, who died in Goiânia on July 3rd, at about 80, belonged to a generation that saw the Khisêtjê come close to extinction. He was born when his people still lived beyond the settled frontiers of central Brazil. Their villages lay among rivers, forest, and savanna in a region that would later form part of the Xingu Indigenous Territory and the adjoining Wawi Indigenous Territory in Mato Grosso. Contact with outsiders brought disease, violence, and displacement. Epidemics killed older people who held knowledge of the land, ceremonies, songs, and family histories. Khuiusi lost his father and many of&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/khuiusi-khisetje-helped-his-people-recover-their-land-and-future-in-the-xingu/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-324519</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Smithsonian ornithologist John Rappole reconsidered why birds migrate</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/smithsonian-ornithologist-john-rappole-reconsidered-why-birds-migrate/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/smithsonian-ornithologist-john-rappole-reconsidered-why-birds-migrate/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>22 Jul 2026 16:31:19 +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/20/2026/07/20163455/john-hilton-rappole-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=324116</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Founder's briefs]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Mexico, Myanmar, North America, Texas, and United States]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animal Behavior, Animals, Biodiversity, Biology, Birds, Migration, Obituary, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[For much of the year, migratory songbirds were treated as temporary visitors to the tropics. They arrived from the north, spent the winter, and departed again. Ornithologists paid more attention to their journeys and breeding grounds than to the months they passed farther south. The birds were often described as transients, moving through tropical forests [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[For much of the year, migratory songbirds were treated as temporary visitors to the tropics. They arrived from the north, spent the winter, and departed again. Ornithologists paid more attention to their journeys and breeding grounds than to the months they passed farther south. The birds were often described as transients, moving through tropical forests without becoming part of them. What they did there, and how firmly they occupied those places, remained poorly understood. Years of catching, banding, and watching them suggested a different account. In the forests of southern Mexico, individual birds returned to familiar patches and defended feeding territories. They were regular members of tropical bird communities for months at a time. A bird that appeared to be a passing visitor might return to the same small area year after year. Its life in the tropics was structured, local, and essential to its survival. Migration could not be explained only as an escape from northern winters. Its origins might instead lie in dispersal from warmer regions, as birds gradually extended their ranges toward seasonal food and breeding opportunities. John Hilton Rappole, who died on June 30th, aged 79, pursued this argument for much of his career. It became known as the dispersal theory of bird migration. The theory challenged a long-standing explanation for why birds crossed continents. His commitment to it reflected his approach to science. He relied on sustained field observation, questioned established assumptions, and was prepared to defend an idea over many years. He was less&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/smithsonian-ornithologist-john-rappole-reconsidered-why-birds-migrate/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-324116</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>Ronald Sanabria sought to make tourism more sustainable</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/ronald-sanabria-sought-to-make-tourism-more-sustainable/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/ronald-sanabria-sought-to-make-tourism-more-sustainable/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>17 Jul 2026 00:13:35 +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/20/2026/07/14125659/Ronald-Sanabria-wall-facebook-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=323354</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Founder's briefs]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Central America, Costa Rica, and Mesoamerica]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Certification, Ecotourism, Obituary, and Tourism]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[Tourism often reaches small places with large promises. It can bring money to forests, beaches, villages, parks, and old towns. A family guesthouse may become viable. A young person may have a reason to stay. It can help persuade a government that a forest has value if left standing. The same industry can also strain [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[Tourism often reaches small places with large promises. It can bring money to forests, beaches, villages, parks, and old towns. A family guesthouse may become viable. A young person may have a reason to stay. It can help persuade a government that a forest has value if left standing. The same industry can also strain the places it sells. In many places, roads arrive before rules. Hotels take the best land. Water and waste are handled after the money has begun to flow. Wildlife, wages, and culture are folded into the business later, if they are dealt with at all. The traveler leaves with photographs. The community is left with the consequences. Ronald Sanabria spent much of his career between what tourism said it could do and what it actually did. For him, sustainable tourism meant work: credible standards, training, certification, purchasing decisions, local capacity, and steady persuasion. Tourism, he knew, was too fragmented for simple answers. The same trip might involve a hotel, a guide, a tour operator, a booking platform, a transport company, and a village association. The work had to reach those relationships, or sustainability would remain a claim. Sanabria, who died on July 1st, aged 57, was a Costa Rican engineer who became a central figure in sustainable tourism in Latin America and beyond. He joined the Rainforest Alliance in 1998, first in sustainable agriculture. Two years later, he began building its sustainable-tourism program. Over the next two decades, he worked with hotels, tour operators, community&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/ronald-sanabria-sought-to-make-tourism-more-sustainable/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-323354</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Sitesh Ranjan Deb turned a hunter’s knowledge to saving wildlife</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/sitesh-ranjan-deb-turned-a-hunters-knowledge-to-saving-wildlife/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/sitesh-ranjan-deb-turned-a-hunters-knowledge-to-saving-wildlife/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>15 Jul 2026 18:06:17 +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/20/2026/07/15180210/Sitesh-Ranjan-Deb-header-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=323630</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Founder's briefs]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Bangladesh]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Conservation, Obituary, Wildlife, Wildlife Rehabilitation, and Wildlife Rescues]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The bear came out of the forest with enough force to kill him. It mauled the hunter badly and cost him an eye. He spent three months in a hospital recovering. There, he began asking himself questions that had not troubled him much before. Why was he hunting? Why was he killing? Hunting had come [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
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							<![CDATA[The bear came out of the forest with enough force to kill him. It mauled the hunter badly and cost him an eye. He spent three months in a hospital recovering. There, he began asking himself questions that had not troubled him much before. Why was he hunting? Why was he killing? Hunting had come to him through his family. His father and grandfather were known around Sreemangal, in northeastern Bangladesh, for killing leopards, wild boars, and other animals that threatened people or crops. As a boy, he accompanied his father into the forest. After his father died, he continued hunting. He became a gunsmith and a guide, familiar with animal tracks, forest paths, and the habits of creatures that most people encountered only by accident. Sitesh Ranjon Deb holds a pair of jungle cats in his house in Sreemangol, Bangladesh. Image via Agence France-Presse (AFP) After the bear attack, Sitesh Ranjan Deb, who died on July 14th, gave up hunting. He began capturing injured animals, removing snakes from houses, treating wildlife recovered from traffickers, and returning animals to the forest. The grounds of his home became a treatment center. It eventually developed into the Bangladesh Wildlife Service Foundation, one of the country’s best-known privately established wildlife-rescue institutions. The center remained closely tied to his household. Its patients occupied bedrooms, courtyards, cages, and improvised treatment spaces. Jungle-cat cubs, pythons, slow lorises, monkeys, birds, and other animals passed through. Those requiring constant attention stayed close to the family. Deb kept photographs&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/sitesh-ranjan-deb-turned-a-hunters-knowledge-to-saving-wildlife/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-323630</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Bill Montevecchi showed what seabirds could tell us about the sea</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/bill-montevecchi-showed-what-seabirds-could-tell-us-about-the-sea/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/bill-montevecchi-showed-what-seabirds-could-tell-us-about-the-sea/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>15 Jul 2026 02:50:00 +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/20/2026/07/14175948/bill-montevecchi-psg-16x9-1-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=323420</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Founder's briefs]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Canada and North America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animal Behavior, Animals, Birds, Obituary, Oceans, Seabirds, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The North Atlantic can look empty until someone begins paying attention. A stretch of gray water off Newfoundland may hold only a few white specks at first glance. Through binoculars those specks become murres riding the swell, puffins carrying fish crosswise in their bills, or fulmars riding the wind above the waves. To Bill Montevecchi, [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
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							<![CDATA[The North Atlantic can look empty until someone begins paying attention. A stretch of gray water off Newfoundland may hold only a few white specks at first glance. Through binoculars those specks become murres riding the swell, puffins carrying fish crosswise in their bills, or fulmars riding the wind above the waves. To Bill Montevecchi, these birds were never simply inhabitants of the ocean. They were observers of it. Their breeding success, feeding trips, and unexplained absences offered evidence about fish stocks, changing currents, pollution, and the state of an ecosystem that people could not otherwise see. For more than five decades, William A. “Bill” Montevecchi, who died on July 11th, aged 80, treated seabirds as the ocean’s most reliable witnesses. His work helped establish them as indicators of environmental change long before the idea became commonplace. At the same time, he became one of Canada’s best-known public interpreters of marine science, moving comfortably between academic journals, government advisory panels, newspaper columns, and radio interviews. He approached each with much the same purpose: to understand what the birds were saying and to explain why others should listen. Bill Montevechi shows a small injured storm petrel in Bay De Verde, Newfoundland. Photo © Mary Lynk/CBC Born in New York, he developed an interest in birds at an early age and trained as an ornithologist before moving to Newfoundland, where he spent most of his career at Memorial University. Newfoundland offered what he sought: immense seabird colonies, productive seas, and unanswered questions.&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/bill-montevecchi-showed-what-seabirds-could-tell-us-about-the-sea/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-323420</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Gus Mills, hyena expert and &#8216;the cheerful pessimist of the Kalahari&#8217;, has died</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/gus-mills-spent-a-lifetime-studying-africas-carnivores/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/gus-mills-spent-a-lifetime-studying-africas-carnivores/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>14 Jul 2026 16:24:17 +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/20/2026/07/14161941/gus-mills-header-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=323402</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Founder's briefs]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Africa, South Africa, and Southern Africa]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Carnivores, Cats, Cheetahs, Mammals, Obituary, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[His nephew recalled that the children were taught to chant, “Hyenas are beautiful!” as often as possible. On visits to Kruger National Park, he got them out of bed at midnight to look for bushbabies and again at five in the morning to search for big cats. Wildlife was often most active at inconvenient hours, [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[His nephew recalled that the children were taught to chant, “Hyenas are beautiful!” as often as possible. On visits to Kruger National Park, he got them out of bed at midnight to look for bushbabies and again at five in the morning to search for big cats. Wildlife was often most active at inconvenient hours, and he expected anyone accompanying him to adjust. Michael “Gus” Mills, who died on July 13th, spent more than 40 years studying Africa’s large carnivores, especially hyenas, wild dogs, and cheetahs. He published more than 150 scientific papers, chapters, and reports, advised conservation bodies, and trained younger researchers. Much of his working life was spent in a vehicle on a sandy track, waiting beside an animal that might sleep for most of the day. Gus and Margie Mills. Sourced via the Endangered Wildlife Trust At school he had seemed an unlikely future scientist. He described himself as a “very bad student,” failed South Africa’s high-school leaving examination, and was told that science was beyond him. After passing the examination on a second attempt, he joked that he had earned an MA: “Matric Again.” Three years of psychology persuaded him that he did not want to be a psychologist. Zoology held his attention. A visit to Kruger in 1954, when he was eight, had already pointed him toward field biology. “It did something to me,” he said. From then on he wanted to work in the bush. After studying at the University of Cape Town and&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/gus-mills-spent-a-lifetime-studying-africas-carnivores/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-323402</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Kent Carpenter spent half a century counting the life of Philippine reefs</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/kent-carpenter-spent-half-a-century-counting-the-life-of-philippine-reefs/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/kent-carpenter-spent-half-a-century-counting-the-life-of-philippine-reefs/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>14 Jul 2026 13:28:51 +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/20/2026/07/14132528/kent-carpenter-bw-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=323372</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Philippines, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Coral Reefs, Fish, Freshwater Fish, Obituary, Oceans, Saltwater Fish, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[By some accounts, in the Philippine reefs of the 1970s, large groupers appeared every 50 feet or so. Some seemed as large as Volkswagen Beetles. Around them were snappers, fusiliers, wrasses, turtles, and corals, along with fish whose identities were still uncertain. A young biologist could spend his days diving and still feel he had [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[By some accounts, in the Philippine reefs of the 1970s, large groupers appeared every 50 feet or so. Some seemed as large as Volkswagen Beetles. Around them were snappers, fusiliers, wrasses, turtles, and corals, along with fish whose identities were still uncertain. A young biologist could spend his days diving and still feel he had only begun to understand what was there. Kent E. Carpenter arrived in the Philippines at 22, soon after graduating from the Florida Institute of Technology. The Peace Corps assigned him to the Philippine Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources and put him in charge of coral-reef research. He later called it “the best job there ever was or ever will be in the Peace Corps.” It gave him access to reefs across the archipelago and set the direction of his career. Carpenter was shot dead at his home in Sibulan, Negros Oriental, on July 12th. He was 73. According to police, three men entered the house late at night. A special task group was formed to investigate, and no motive had been established when his death was announced. Kent Carpenter. Image via Old Dominion University Pollution and destructive fishing were already damaging Philippine reefs during his early years there. The large predators he had seen so often became harder to find. He spent much of the next half-century recording marine life in increasing detail: which species lived where, how they were related, how populations changed, and what made them vulnerable. After completing a doctorate in&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/kent-carpenter-spent-half-a-century-counting-the-life-of-philippine-reefs/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-323372</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Lydia Möcklinghoff, champion of the giant anteater, has died in a plane crash. She was 45</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/lydia-mocklinghoff-champion-of-the-giant-anteater-has-died-in-a-plane-crash-in-brazil-she-was-45/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/lydia-mocklinghoff-champion-of-the-giant-anteater-has-died-in-a-plane-crash-in-brazil-she-was-45/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>11 Jul 2026 05:02:26 +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/20/2026/07/11044335/Lydia-Mocklinghoff-header-bw-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=323146</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Founder's briefs]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Brazil, Latin America, Pantanal, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Biodiversity, Mammals, Obituary, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The giant anteater is easy to turn into a curiosity. Its head narrows into a long tube. It sees poorly. It opens termite mounds with strong claws and gathers insects with a tongue that can reach far beyond its mouth. Its life can appear simple until someone tries to study it. Then it becomes a [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The giant anteater is easy to turn into a curiosity. Its head narrows into a long tube. It sees poorly. It opens termite mounds with strong claws and gathers insects with a tongue that can reach far beyond its mouth. Its life can appear simple until someone tries to study it. Then it becomes a set of hard questions: where it feeds, how far it ranges, what cover it needs, and how roads, fire, drought, and ranching change its chances of survival. These were the questions that drew Lydia Möcklinghoff into the Pantanal, the vast wetland in western Brazil and neighboring countries. She died on July 3rd in a plane crash near Campo Grande, Brazil, during a flight connected to Pantanal fieldwork. The cause of the crash was still under investigation. For her colleagues, students, readers, listeners, and the many children who knew her through radio reports from Brazil, the news carried a particular cruelty. She had made a difficult, overlooked animal visible. She had done so with humor, discipline, and a rare gift for explanation. Lydia Möcklinghoff in the Pantanal. From her social media. She did not begin with anteaters. Born in Wilhelmshaven, Germany, she studied biology in Giessen and Würzburg, with an interest in tropical ecology and animal behavior. Earlier, she had imagined becoming a wildlife filmmaker. Work experience in film companies changed her direction. The image mattered less to her than the animal in front of the camera. What was it doing? Why was it doing that?&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/lydia-mocklinghoff-champion-of-the-giant-anteater-has-died-in-a-plane-crash-in-brazil-she-was-45/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-323146</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>María Laura Tolmos, 37, turned a childhood in the Amazon into her life’s work</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/maria-laura-tolmos-37-turned-a-childhood-in-the-amazon-into-her-lifes-work/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/maria-laura-tolmos-37-turned-a-childhood-in-the-amazon-into-her-lifes-work/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>06 Jul 2026 19:45:35 +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/20/2026/07/06193543/Marie_Rainer-banner-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=322527</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Founder's briefs]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Amazon, Latin America, Peru, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Conservation and Obituary]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[&#160; Maria Laura Tolmos Coquelet grew up in the Peruvian Amazon. As a child, she explored rivers by kayak and looked for animals along the banks. Nature was not a distant idea to her. It was home, and it shaped the course of her life. Tolmos, who died of breast cancer on June 21st in [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[&nbsp; Maria Laura Tolmos Coquelet grew up in the Peruvian Amazon. As a child, she explored rivers by kayak and looked for animals along the banks. Nature was not a distant idea to her. It was home, and it shaped the course of her life. Tolmos, who died of breast cancer on June 21st in Barcelona, aged 37, became a forest scientist because the forest had never been remote to her. She studied forest sciences in Peru, then went to Germany for a master’s degree and a Ph.D. in forest sciences and forest ecology at the University of Göttingen, which she completed in 2024. Her research examined patterns of plant and tree diversity across islands, island-like ecosystems, mountains, and tropical landscapes. She studied different dimensions of biodiversity, from taxonomy to evolutionary history to function, and the environmental gradients that shape them. Her science was exacting because its source was personal. Deforestation, pollution, and the overuse of natural resources were pressures she had seen in places she knew. At Wilderness International, where she served as co-director of science and sat on the board of Wilderness International Perú, she helped turn concern into method: field knowledge, ecological assessment, institutional trust, and long-term protection. Alongside her husband, Fabian Mühlberger, and others, she helped create the team that founded Wilderness International Perú in 2019. María Laura Tolmos. From her social media. She was, colleagues said, a stickler for detail in the best sense. She wanted clean data, robust methods, and answers that could withstand&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/07/maria-laura-tolmos-37-turned-a-childhood-in-the-amazon-into-her-lifes-work/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-322527</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Mel Sunquist, field biologist and mentor to generations of conservationists</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/mel-sunquist-field-biologist-and-mentor-to-generations-of-conservationists/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/mel-sunquist-field-biologist-and-mentor-to-generations-of-conservationists/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>28 Jun 2026 23:37:16 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Rhett Ayers Butler]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rhett Butler]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/06/28082636/MelSunquist_2000px-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=321928</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Founder's briefs]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[India and United States]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Animals, Big Cats, Biodiversity, Carnivores, Cats, Mammals, Obituary, Sloths, Tigers, and Wildlife]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[In the 1970s, studying wild tigers still involved more nerve than equipment. A biologist could not rely on camera traps, GPS collars, or satellite-linked data. To understand where a tiger went, what it killed, how far it ranged, and how its territory overlapped with others, someone had to follow it through forests and grasslands with [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
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							<![CDATA[In the 1970s, studying wild tigers still involved more nerve than equipment. A biologist could not rely on camera traps, GPS collars, or satellite-linked data. To understand where a tiger went, what it killed, how far it ranged, and how its territory overlapped with others, someone had to follow it through forests and grasslands with a receiver, a notebook, and enough judgment to stay useful without getting in the way. Radio collars began to change what was possible. They made the movements of secretive carnivores traceable in a new way. For tigers, jaguars, pumas, ocelots, and other animals that were rarely seen directly, they allowed field biologists to replace guesses with records. The work still depended on patience, careful handling, and a capacity to keep thinking when weather, roads, animals, or people refused to cooperate. Mel Sunquist in India. Courtesy of Ullas Karanth Melvin Eugene Sunquist, who died on May 9th at the age of 85, belonged to that generation of field scientists. Born in Morris, Minnesota, in 1941, he became one of the leading biologists of wild cats and large carnivores. He worked in Asia, Latin America, Panama, and Florida, and spent much of his academic life at the University of Florida, where he taught wildlife ecology and conservation from 1987 until his retirement in 2014. To students and colleagues he was “Mel,” a name that suited his manner: steady, spare with words, dry in humor, and difficult to unsettle. Following tigers His best-known early work was on tigers&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/mel-sunquist-field-biologist-and-mentor-to-generations-of-conservationists/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-321928</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Mona Khalil, who left safety in Europe to protect sea turtles in Lebanon, was killed by an Israeli airstrike</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/mona-khalil-left-safety-in-europe-to-protect-sea-turtles-in-southern-lebanon/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/mona-khalil-left-safety-in-europe-to-protect-sea-turtles-in-southern-lebanon/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>21 Jun 2026 07:59:53 +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/20/2026/06/21074513/Mona-Khalil-header-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=321527</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Founder's briefs]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Lebanon and Middle East]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Conservation, Herps, In-situ Conservation, Murdered Activists, Obituary, Reptiles, and Sea Turtles]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[At night on Mansouri beach, the first evidence was often a track in the sand. The beach lies south of Tyre, near the border with Israel, where checkpoints, shelling, and evacuation orders have long shaped daily life. It is also one of Lebanon’s important nesting grounds for loggerhead and green sea turtles. The turtles come [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[At night on Mansouri beach, the first evidence was often a track in the sand. The beach lies south of Tyre, near the border with Israel, where checkpoints, shelling, and evacuation orders have long shaped daily life. It is also one of Lebanon’s important nesting grounds for loggerhead and green sea turtles. The turtles come ashore after dark. They dig, lay, cover, and return to the water. For the hatchlings, the distance from nest to sea is only a few yards. It is still dangerous. Dogs and foxes dig up eggs. Crabs and birds take the young. Lights from roads and resorts pull them away from the water. Plastic drifts offshore. Fishing nets catch adults that have survived for decades. Even a footprint can trap a turtle no bigger than a child’s palm. Mona Khalil gave much of her life to that narrow strip of beach. She was 76 when she died on June 19 from wounds sustained after an Israeli airstrike struck her home at Mansouri beach earlier that month. Her assistant was also injured, suffering severe burns. The house, known to visitors and volunteers as the Orange House, had been the base of her conservation work for more than 25 years. Mona Khalil in 2004 in Lebanon. Photo by Joseph Barrak/AFP/Getty Images She had not set out to become a conservationist. Born in Lagos to Lebanese parents, she later left Lebanon during the civil war. In the Netherlands she worked as a porcelain restorer, a trade that required&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/mona-khalil-left-safety-in-europe-to-protect-sea-turtles-in-southern-lebanon/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/mona-khalil-left-safety-in-europe-to-protect-sea-turtles-in-southern-lebanon/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-321527</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Monika Silva Koniuszek, 41, defended the everyday things corruption corrodes</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/monika-silva-koniuszek-41-defended-the-everyday-things-corruption-corrodes/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/monika-silva-koniuszek-41-defended-the-everyday-things-corruption-corrodes/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>18 Jun 2026 15:23:49 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Rhett Ayers Butler]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rhett Butler]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/06/18151921/Monika-Silva-helping-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=321441</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Founder's briefs]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Ecuador, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Corruption, Endangered Environmentalists, Obituary, and Violence]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[&#160; Montañita is a place many people intend to pass through. They come for surf, sun, music, and a stretch of Ecuador’s coast known for surf, music, and its free-spirited nature. Some stay longer. They open small businesses, learn the workings of the communes, put children into local schools, and begin to notice what visitors [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[&nbsp; Montañita is a place many people intend to pass through. They come for surf, sun, music, and a stretch of Ecuador’s coast known for surf, music, and its free-spirited nature. Some stay longer. They open small businesses, learn the workings of the communes, put children into local schools, and begin to notice what visitors often do not see: the sewage that is not properly treated, the public works that arrive without answers, the land whose ownership becomes uncertain, and the turtles whose nesting beaches are treated as available ground. For a woman from northern Poland, the change of country became something beyond expatriate life. Ecuador was where she made a home, ran a hostel, raised two daughters, and became part of Santa Elena’s disputes and loyalties. Monika Silva Koniuszek, who was found dead on June 8th at her home in Montañita, was 41. The circumstances of her death remain under investigation. In the weeks before she died, she had spoken publicly of warnings that there was a plan to kill her. She had alerted authorities and sought protection. After her death, Polish diplomats, the European Union, human-rights groups, and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights called for a thorough and independent inquiry. Her public work began with local problems. Montañita’s inadequate sewage system troubled her. So did the way decisions about beaches, mangroves, public land, and services seemed to benefit the same networks of power. She came to see poverty, malnutrition, poor infrastructure, and environmental damage as linked by&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/monika-silva-koniuszek-41-defended-the-everyday-things-corruption-corrodes/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-321441</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Peter Klopfer, the scientist whose civil-rights case helped bring lemurs to Duke</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/peter-klopfer-the-scientist-whose-civil-rights-case-helped-bring-lemurs-to-duke/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/peter-klopfer-the-scientist-whose-civil-rights-case-helped-bring-lemurs-to-duke/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>16 Jun 2026 00:04:01 +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/20/2026/06/16000122/Peter-Klopfer-16x9-bw-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=321263</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[United States]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Ethics, Human Rights, Lemurs, Obituary, and Protests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[In the American South of the late 1950s, segregation was part of the daily architecture. Airports had separate facilities. Restaurants barred Black customers or served them apart. Schools, buses, waiting rooms, and lunch counters carried the same instructions. The system depended on law, custom, and the expectation that most white people would accommodate it. Resistance [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[In the American South of the late 1950s, segregation was part of the daily architecture. Airports had separate facilities. Restaurants barred Black customers or served them apart. Schools, buses, waiting rooms, and lunch counters carried the same instructions. The system depended on law, custom, and the expectation that most white people would accommodate it. Resistance often began with small acts that carried real costs. A professor might drive arrested students back to campus. A family might refuse to send its children to segregated schools. A group of faculty members might walk toward a restaurant door together and be met in the parking lot by men who intended to stop them. The work required patience, and it also required a willingness to be arrested, disliked, and misunderstood. Peter Klopfer, who died on June 5 at 95, spent nearly seven decades at Duke University as a zoologist, teacher, and builder of institutions. He helped develop behavioral ecology, studied mother-offspring bonding, and co-founded the Duke Lemur Center, which became the world’s largest collection of lemurs outside Madagascar. He was also the named plaintiff in a Supreme Court case that extended the Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial to state courts. The civil-rights defendant and the lemur scientist were the same man, formed by the same habits of attention and conscience. He was born in Berlin in 1930 and raised in a German immigrant family in the United States. He attended Friends schools and later studied at UCLA and Yale. At UCLA he&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/peter-klopfer-the-scientist-whose-civil-rights-case-helped-bring-lemurs-to-duke/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-321263</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Tony Parkes, the banker who replanted a rainforest</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/tony-parkes-the-banker-who-replanted-a-rainforest/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/tony-parkes-the-banker-who-replanted-a-rainforest/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>14 Jun 2026 15:30:10 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Rhett Ayers Butler]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rhett Butler]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/06/14144153/tony-parkes-header-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=321143</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Founder's briefs]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Australia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Forest Recovery, Forest Regeneration, Landscape Restoration, Obituary, and Tropical Forests]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[On the far north coast of New South Wales, the old rainforest had mostly disappeared. The Big Scrub once covered about 75,000 hectares of rich basalt country, a lowland subtropical forest of figs, vines, palms and fruit doves. By the time modern conservationists took stock of it, little more than one percent remained, divided among [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[On the far north coast of New South Wales, the old rainforest had mostly disappeared. The Big Scrub once covered about 75,000 hectares of rich basalt country, a lowland subtropical forest of figs, vines, palms and fruit doves. By the time modern conservationists took stock of it, little more than one percent remained, divided among small patches on farms, roadsides and reserves. Weeds pressed in from the edges. Cattle and clearing had done the rest. What remained needed legal protection, science, money, landholders, seedlings and years of follow-through. It also needed someone who could make committees matter. Rainforest restoration can sound gentle, a matter of saplings and goodwill. In the Big Scrub it required persistence of a less decorative kind. Private landholders had to be brought in. Government agencies had to be pressed. Botanists, bush regenerators, nursery owners, donors and volunteers had to keep working together after the first enthusiasm had passed. The work was local, technical and repetitive. It suited Tony Parkes. Tony Parkes. Photo by Kim Honan / ABC North Coast He came to it late. Born in Hobart, he grew up close to bush and estuary. Later came science, business management and investment banking. He retired at 56 after a successful career in Sydney, and might have chosen a comfortable retirement. Instead he and his wife, Rowena, bought land in the Northern Rivers, learned the history of the Big Scrub and began planting rainforest on their own property. A private restoration project became a second public life.&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/tony-parkes-the-banker-who-replanted-a-rainforest/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-321143</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Robert Ricklefs, ecologist who helped generations understand nature, has died at 83</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/robert-ricklefs-ecologist-who-helped-generations-understand-nature-has-died-at-83/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/robert-ricklefs-ecologist-who-helped-generations-understand-nature-has-died-at-83/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>13 Jun 2026 00:42:47 +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/20/2026/06/13004208/Robert_Eric_Ricklefs_v2-16x9-1-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=321120</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Global]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Birds, Ecology, Environment, Evolution, and Obituary]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[At the mouth of the Carmel River, a teacher set up a spotting scope and let a boy look through it. The birds were the first thing he saw. The habit of looking came next. He saw that the world could be understood, though not quickly, and that its order did not reveal itself to [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[At the mouth of the Carmel River, a teacher set up a spotting scope and let a boy look through it. The birds were the first thing he saw. The habit of looking came next. He saw that the world could be understood, though not quickly, and that its order did not reveal itself to those in a hurry. Later he would say he never recovered from that experience. The remark was light, but also true. A childhood near Monterey, with woods behind the house and the Pacific within walking distance, gave him the subject of his life. Robert “Bob” Ricklefs, who died on June 7, a day after his 83rd birthday, spent that life asking how living things came to be where they are, and why they lived as they did. He became one of the most influential ecologists of his generation: an ornithologist, biogeographer, theorist, teacher, author and member of the National Academy of Sciences. His textbooks, Ecology and The Economy of Nature, shaped how thousands of students first encountered the field. Their authority came from clarity. He could take a tangled subject and find a usable path through it. Birds were his beginning. As a boy he joined weekend outings with the local Audubon Society and gained the status, modest but real, of a child with a serious interest. At Stanford he briefly followed the spirit of the space age into engineering, then returned to biology. At the University of Pennsylvania he entered the circle of Robert&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/robert-ricklefs-ecologist-who-helped-generations-understand-nature-has-died-at-83/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-321120</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Brooklyn Rivera, defender of Nicaragua’s Indigenous lands, dies in detention</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/brooklyn-rivera-defender-of-nicaraguas-indigenous-lands-dies-in-detention/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/brooklyn-rivera-defender-of-nicaraguas-indigenous-lands-dies-in-detention/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>01 Jun 2026 16:19:43 +0000</pubDate>
											<dc:creator>
							<![CDATA[Rhett Ayers Butler]]>
						</dc:creator>
										<author>
						<![CDATA[Rhett Butler]]>
					</author>
							<category><![CDATA[Uncategorized]]></category>
										<enclosure url="https://imgs.mongabay.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/20/2026/06/01190642/Brooklyn-Rivera-La-Prensa-1600x900-1-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=320434</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Founder's briefs]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Central America, Latin America, Mesoamerica, and Nicaragua]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Deforestation, Endangered Environmentalists, Human Rights, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Rights, Land Conflict, Land Grabbing, Land Rights, and Obituary]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[La Moskitia, on Nicaragua’s Caribbean coast, is often treated in Managua as a frontier: timber, gold, cattle, rivers, votes, and military concern. To the Miskitu, Sumu-Mayangna, Rama, Garífuna, and Creole peoples who live there, it is older than the Nicaraguan state. Its forests, savannas, rivers, and marine life are part of a political claim as [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[La Moskitia, on Nicaragua’s Caribbean coast, is often treated in Managua as a frontier: timber, gold, cattle, rivers, votes, and military concern. To the Miskitu, Sumu-Mayangna, Rama, Garífuna, and Creole peoples who live there, it is older than the Nicaraguan state. Its forests, savannas, rivers, and marine life are part of a political claim as well as a homeland. The demand has long been plain enough: land, autonomy, and a say over what happens there. Brooklyn Rivera Bryan spent most of his life carrying that demand into war, negotiation, electoral politics, exile, and prison. Known in Miskitu communities as Taupla Brooklyn, he died on May 30th, aged 73, in the custody of Daniel Ortega’s government. He had been detained since September 2023. For months the government denied holding him. It later acknowledged his imprisonment. No public trial was held. His family was denied visits. His public life began after the Sandinista revolution of 1979, when the new government sought to draw the Atlantic Coast into a national project directed from the Pacific. The Miskitu experience of that project was marked by surveillance, arrests, violence, and forced displacement. In 1981 Rivera was arrested while leading Misurasata, an Indigenous organization whose name linked the Miskitu, Sumu, Rama, and Sandinistas. By 1982, thousands of Miskitu had been moved from villages along the Río Coco. Many fled to Honduras. Rivera’s cause was narrower and more durable than the Cold War frame around him: an autonomous Indigenous territory in Yapti Tasba, the aboriginal homeland. That&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/06/brooklyn-rivera-defender-of-nicaraguas-indigenous-lands-dies-in-detention/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-320434</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Davis “Yellowash” Washines, Yakama elder who spoke for the river and salmon</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/davis-yellowash-washines-yakama-elder-who-spoke-for-the-river-and-salmon/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/davis-yellowash-washines-yakama-elder-who-spoke-for-the-river-and-salmon/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>30 May 2026 14:35:52 +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/20/2026/05/30143156/Davis-Yellowash-Washines-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=320347</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[North America, United States, and Washington]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Culture, Environment, Fish, Fishing, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Rights, Obituary, Rivers, and Water Pollution]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[At Bradford Island, near Bonneville Dam, the river carried more than water. Beneath the surface of the Columbia were toxic sediments, dumped near a place where Yakama people had fished since time immemorial. To officials, it was a cleanup site. To the Yakama Nation, it was a usual and accustomed fishing place, protected by treaty. [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[At Bradford Island, near Bonneville Dam, the river carried more than water. Beneath the surface of the Columbia were toxic sediments, dumped near a place where Yakama people had fished since time immemorial. To officials, it was a cleanup site. To the Yakama Nation, it was a usual and accustomed fishing place, protected by treaty. To Davis Washines, known to many as Yellowash, it was also a crime scene. The victims, he said, were first the water, then the salmon and other life that depended on it, and then the people who depended on them. He did not speak that way for emphasis. He spoke from a life spent moving between law enforcement, ceremony, public service, and the river. Evidence mattered to him. So did harm, responsibility, and the obligations carried through Yakama law, culture, and memory. Yellowash died on May 1st, at his home in White Swan, Washington. He was 74. By then he had held many titles: Yakama Tribal Police chief, Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission police chief, member of the Yakama Tribal Council, chairman of the Yakama Nation General Council, government relations liaison in the Yakama Nation Department of Natural Resources, trustee, board chair, counselor, teacher, and ceremonial leader. The titles marked a long public life. They did not fully describe it. He began that life in public service in 1973 with the Yakama Tribal Police Department and rose to chief in 1986. He later returned to that role, and then became chief of police for the&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/davis-yellowash-washines-yakama-elder-who-spoke-for-the-river-and-salmon/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-320347</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Mike Salisbury, wildlife filmmaker who made plants behave like characters, has died, aged 84</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/mike-salisbury-wildlife-filmmaker-who-made-plants-behave-like-characters-has-died-aged-84/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/mike-salisbury-wildlife-filmmaker-who-made-plants-behave-like-characters-has-died-aged-84/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>23 May 2026 23:28:29 +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/20/2026/05/23232705/mike-salisbury-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=320066</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Global]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Conservation and Obituary]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[To Mike Salisbury, patience was not a virtue so much as a working method. Lions did not hunt on cue. Plants did not move at a human pace. Polar bears did not respect production schedules, or much else. The task was to wait, improvise, and find a way to show television audiences that the natural [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[To Mike Salisbury, patience was not a virtue so much as a working method. Lions did not hunt on cue. Plants did not move at a human pace. Polar bears did not respect production schedules, or much else. The task was to wait, improvise, and find a way to show television audiences that the natural world was stranger, livelier and more intricate than they had thought. Salisbury, who died on May 13th aged 84, spent more than four decades turning that patience into television. His route into that work was suitably unpolished, according to an obituary in The Guardian. He did not go to university. He worked as a mechanic with Voluntary Service Overseas in Africa, where he developed his interest in photography. Back in Britain, he pressed the BBC for a chance until Horizon gave him a brief research opening. He worked first on Parkinson, then on science documentaries, before moving to Bristol and the BBC’s Natural History Unit. There he found the place where persistence, practicality, and curiosity could become a career. His breakthrough came with Life on Earth, David Attenborough’s 1979 account of evolution. Salisbury helped produce some of its most memorable sequences, including a lion hunt that had defeated him once before. He went back and got it. That became part of his reputation: not bluster, but refusal to be beaten by weather, animals, equipment or logistics. In 1985 he made Kingdom of the Ice Bear, filmed in Arctic conditions that tested both people and kit.&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/mike-salisbury-wildlife-filmmaker-who-made-plants-behave-like-characters-has-died-aged-84/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
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										<wfw:commentRss>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/mike-salisbury-wildlife-filmmaker-who-made-plants-behave-like-characters-has-died-aged-84/feed/</wfw:commentRss>
					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-320066</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Givaldo Santos, Kaiowá and Guarani leader, was killed on May 1st, aged 40</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/givaldo-santos-kaiowa-and-guarani-leader-was-killed-on-may-1st-aged-40/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/givaldo-santos-kaiowa-and-guarani-leader-was-killed-on-may-1st-aged-40/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>22 May 2026 19:46:56 +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/20/2026/05/22194455/givaldo_kaiowa_guarani-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=320029</guid>

											<reporting-project>
							<![CDATA[Founder's briefs]]>
						</reporting-project>
					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Brazil, Latin America, and South America]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Endangered Environmentalists, Indigenous Peoples, Indigenous Rights, Obituary, and Violence]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The MS-289 runs through the Taquaperi Reserve in southern Mato Grosso do Sul, between Coronel Sapucaia and Amambai. For the Kaiowá and Guarani, it is both a road and a reminder of the land disputes that have shaped life there for generations. It passes through territory where thousands of indigenous people live crowded into a [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The MS-289 runs through the Taquaperi Reserve in southern Mato Grosso do Sul, between Coronel Sapucaia and Amambai. For the Kaiowá and Guarani, it is both a road and a reminder of the land disputes that have shaped life there for generations. It passes through territory where thousands of indigenous people live crowded into a reserve established nearly a century ago, while many of their traditional lands remain outside its boundaries. Violence has long accompanied these disputes. Over the past two decades, Kaiowá and Guarani communities have endured killings, threats, evictions, and recurring confrontations linked to efforts to reclaim ancestral territories. The conflicts have stretched across generations of leaders, officials, ranchers and judges. One of those leaders was Givaldo Santos. On the evening of May 1st, he was waiting for his brother near a bus stop inside the Taquaperi Reserve, between Coronel Sapucaia and Amambai. According to witnesses, two armed men arrived on a motorcycle and opened fire. He was hit several times and died before help could reach him. He was 40 years old. He left behind a wife and five children. Santos served as vice-chief of the Kaiowá and Guarani community in Taquaperi. Those who knew him struggled to explain the attack. Residents said he had no known personal enemies and had not reported receiving threats. The circumstances of the killing led many in the community to suspect it was an execution. Investigations remain ongoing. His responsibilities included representing families before authorities, helping organize community responses to disputes&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/givaldo-santos-kaiowa-and-guarani-leader-was-killed-on-may-1st-aged-40/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-320029</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Norlan Pagal, fisherman and guardian of Tañon Strait, died on May 14th, aged 56</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/shot-for-defending-the-sea-norlan-pagal-kept-watching-from-shore/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/shot-for-defending-the-sea-norlan-pagal-kept-watching-from-shore/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>21 May 2026 12:40:54 +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/20/2026/05/21123838/Norlan-Pagal-video-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=319928</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Asia, Philippines, and Southeast Asia]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Conservation, Fishing, Illegal Fishing, Marine Conservation, Obituary, and Oceans]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[The sea off San Remigio could look gentle from shore. White sand, clear water, and boats moving slowly across Tañon Strait. For many families in Barangay Anapog, in northern Cebu, it was also the pantry and workplace. Fish and shellfish were food, income, and a future to pass on. By the early 2000s, that future [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[The sea off San Remigio could look gentle from shore. White sand, clear water, and boats moving slowly across Tañon Strait. For many families in Barangay Anapog, in northern Cebu, it was also the pantry and workplace. Fish and shellfish were food, income, and a future to pass on. By the early 2000s, that future was shrinking. Catches had fallen. Commercial boats entered waters reserved for small fishers. Dynamite and compressors damaged the reefs and frightened those who tried to stop them. The rules were known, but enforcement was weak, meaning that despite the sea’s protected status, it was still being stripped. Norlan Pagal had been a fisherman since 1979. He left school after Grade 4, but he learned fishery law closely and remembered what the sea had once provided. In 2002, when the decline became impossible to ignore, he joined the bantay dagat, the volunteer sea patrol that guards coastal waters in the Philippines. Three years later he became chair of the Anapog Fishermen Association. For more than a decade he helped watch over the Anapog Marine Protected Area and the wider Tañon Strait Protected Seascape. The work was direct and dangerous. He and other volunteers went out in small boats, sometimes paddling to confront fishers using illegal gear. They patrolled, reported violations, organized clean-ups, and helped restore mangroves. Sometimes they succeeded: commercial vessels were caught, sanctuaries defended, and rules enforced in a place where they had often been ignored. At other times the answer was violence. Norlan Pagal.&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/shot-for-defending-the-sea-norlan-pagal-kept-watching-from-shore/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-319928</doi>				</item>
						<item>
					<title>Monica Montefalcone, leading seagrass scientist, dies in Maldives diving accident, aged 51</title>
					<link>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/monica-montefalcone-leading-seagrass-scientist-dies-in-a-maldives-diving-accident-aged-51/</link>
					<comments>https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/monica-montefalcone-leading-seagrass-scientist-dies-in-a-maldives-diving-accident-aged-51/#respond</comments>
					<pubDate>16 May 2026 09:34:39 +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/20/2026/05/16093229/Monica-Montefalcone-768x512.jpg" type="image/jpeg" />
					<guid isPermaLink="false">https://news.mongabay.com/?p=319589</guid>

					
											<locations>
							<![CDATA[Europe, Italy, and Mediterranean Sea]]>
						</locations>
					
											<topic-tags>
							<![CDATA[Ecosystems, Marine Conservation, Obituary, Oceans, Restoration, and Seagrass]]>
						</topic-tags>
					
					
											<description>
							<![CDATA[To Monica Montefalcone, the sea was a place to study: its plants, reefs, hidden habitats and seasonal changes. A meadow of Posidonia oceanica was not just a patch of green beneath the water. It provided a nursery, offered shelter, stored carbon, and afforded coastal protection. To most swimmers it might have looked like seagrass. To [&#8230;]]]>
						</description>
																					<content:encoded>
							<![CDATA[To Monica Montefalcone, the sea was a place to study: its plants, reefs, hidden habitats and seasonal changes. A meadow of Posidonia oceanica was not just a patch of green beneath the water. It provided a nursery, offered shelter, stored carbon, and afforded coastal protection. To most swimmers it might have looked like seagrass. To Montefalcone it was a living system, and one that recovered slowly once damaged. That slowness mattered. Posidonia grows at a pace that does not fit human timetables. In the Mediterranean, more than half of its meadows have been lost over the past century; in Liguria, the losses were especially severe. Laws and European directives could help protect what remained, she argued, but protection alone was not enough. Where hundreds of hectares had disappeared, waiting for nature to repair itself would mean leaving the work to future generations. Active restoration, including the manual replanting of seagrass, was therefore a practical response to a practical problem. Monica Montefalcone. From Sky TG24 Montefalcone, who died on May 14th in a diving accident in the Maldives, was 51. Her daughter, Giorgia Sommacal, 23, died with her, along with Muriel Oddenino, a research fellow who had worked with her, Federico Gualtieri, a recent marine-biology graduate, and Gianluca Benedetti, a diving instructor and boat operations manager. Four of the victims were connected to the University of Genoa, where Montefalcone was an associate professor of ecology. The group had been diving in caves in Vaavu Atoll. The final details of the accident&hellip;This article was originally published on <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2026/05/monica-montefalcone-leading-seagrass-scientist-dies-in-a-maldives-diving-accident-aged-51/" data-wpel-link="internal">Mongabay</a>]]>
						</content:encoded>
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					<slash:comments>0</slash:comments>
										<doi>https://doi.org/10.66709/news-319589</doi>				</item>
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