Will shipping noise nudge Africa’s only penguin toward extinction?
CAPE TOWN — Seabird ranger Eduard Drost was busy with a routine inspection in an African penguin colony off the South African coast in 2021 when he noticed a troubling…
COP27 long on pledges, short on funds for forests — Congo Basin at risk
SHARM EL SHEIKH, Egypt — The first big news of the COP27 climate conference was a forest promise: UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced a 26-nation partnership to conserve woodland…
Where is the money? Brazil, Indonesia and Congo join forces in push for rainforest protection cash
The world’s three forest giants — Brazil, Indonesia and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) — have signed a joint statement calling for the negotiation of new payment mechanisms to…
Millions are spent on climate research in Africa. Western institutes get most of it
As the thorny question of climate responsibility and funding for damages takes center stage at the COP27 summit in Egypt, one aspect of climate finance remains understudied: climate research funding.…
In Kenya, a Maasai community burned by ecotourism gives it another shot
When luxury safari hotel Shompole Lodge opened in Kenya in 2000, it was an overnight sensation. For $630 a night, guests could gaze at elephants and zebras while soaking in…
After 14 years of advocacy, the DRC president finally signs new Indigenous peoples law (commentary)
After five months of waiting, the Indigenous pygmy peoples of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) have secured a major victory. Earlier today, the president of the DRC, Felix…
Podcast: Escape into nature’s soundscapes
Healthy ecosystems are often noisy places: from reefs to grasslands and forests, these are sonically rich thanks to all the species defending territories, finding mates, locating prey, or perhaps enjoying…
Can a luxury chocolate company help a Congolese forest?
African cocoa plantations have seen massive growth in recent years on its path to help feed the world’s veracious appetite for a popular delicacy – chocolate. The Ivory Coast, the…
Breeding success raises hopes for future of endangered African penguin
Two African penguin chicks have emerged from their nest beneath a boulder at a site in South Africa where conservationists have used lifelike decoy penguins and broadcast penguin calls to…
Forests & Finance: Certification for deforesters, and repression for an evicted community
Congo Basin impact of new FSC rule will depend on governance YAOUNDÉ — Until recently, forestry companies that had cleared natural forests for plantations since the Forest Stewardship Council was…
Support rangers to protect wildlife & habitats for the future (commentary)
For over 35 years, I have been working on the frontlines of African wildlife conservation and have witnessed significant breakthroughs in tackling poaching, human-wildlife conflict and habitat loss. Yet it…
Protecting the peatlands and woodlands in Angola’s ‘source of life’
It’s a stunning landscape with a prophetic name: Lisima lya mwono, or “the source of life” as it’s known in the language of the local Luchaze people. But that’s not…
Agroecology can feed Africa and tackle climate change — with enough funding
With 350 million people facing food insecurity on the continent, most African nations face a quandary: how to vanquish hunger and meet the climate challenge. The continent is warming faster…
Will CITES finally act to protect rosewood this month? (commentary)
Madagascar is said to be one of the top biodiversity hotspots in the world. About 80% of Madagascar’s unique biodiversity, numerous species found nowhere else on Earth, depends on its…
Element Africa: Keeping platinum in the ground, and minors out of mines
South Africa approves platinum mine despite community concerns GA-NGWEPE, South Africa — South Africa’s minister of mineral resources and energy has approved a platinum mine in the Vhembe Biosphere Reserve,…
Is natural gas the solution to Africa’s energy needs? New research says no.
Should African countries use natural gas to power their economies until they can build more climate-friendly renewable electrical grids? The question has been at the heart of an acrid debate…
As banks fund oil pipeline, campaigners question their environmental pledges
Activists have accused an association of banks claiming to adhere to principles safeguarding people and the environment of “greenwashing.” Two signatories of the Equator Principles are currently advising East African…
East Africa should promote renewable energy, not oil pipelines (commentary)
On October 18, 2022, Ugandan President H.E. Yoweri Kaguta Museveni delivered a keynote address during African Energy Week which took place in Cape Town, South Africa between October 18 and…
Forests & Finance: From logging in Cameroon to cocoa in Côte d’Ivoire
Logging near Cameroon national park raises red flags over permits YAOUNDE — Agroindustrial company Cameroun Vert S.A., or Camvert, is again clearing forest near Campo Ma'an National Park, raising questions…
Broken houses and promises: residents still in poverty near massive diamond project
More than 14 years after being forcibly relocated from their ancestral villages to make way for mining in one of the world’s largest diamond-producing projects, residents of Arda Transau in…
Tracking the moves of Asian forestry companies in Central Africa (analysis)
Asian companies made their entry in force in the 1990s, in Cameroon, Gabon and Equatorial Guinea. In Southeast Asia, companies intensively and unsustainably logged the dipterocarp forests, the tall, straight-trunked…
Element Africa: Mines take their toll on nature and communities
Groups demand end to Chinese gold mine operating inside DRC reserve ITURI PROVINCE, Democratic Republic of Congo — Civil society groups have condemned what they say is illegal gold mining…
Forests & Finance: A road project, food baskets, and unique wildlife
DAKAR — The construction of a highway linking the Senegalese capital, Dakar, to Saint Louis, the principal city in the north of the country, will encroach heavily on forest reserves,…
Ethiopia’s honey forest: People and wildlife living in sweet harmony
The Gura Ferda forest in southwest Ethiopia is a beautiful example of a forest and local people living in harmony, says biodiversity and protected area specialist Julian Bayliss. Bayliss, who…
Technology makes studying wildlife easier, but access isn’t equal
Studying primates in the wild has historically been a tough task. Alexander Piel knows the challenges too well. Since 2005, the biological anthropologist has been studying primates in countries like…
Poaching surges in the birthplace of white rhino conservation
In the first nine months of this year, poachers have killed 190 rhinos in state-run protected areas in South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province. That’s one rhino killed every 35 hours. Most…
“Largest of its kind” dam in Cameroon faces backlash from unimpressed fishmongers
NDJI, Cameroon – Batchenga, 65 kilometers (40 miles) northeast of Cameroon’s capital Yaoundé, is slowly reopening. After serving as a ramp at the start of a national road linking the…
Study highlights ‘friends with benefits’ relation between gorillas and chimps
Gorillas and chimpanzees living in a remote part of the Congo Basin hang out together and some, like humans, even establish “relationships with benefits,” a new study reveals. Observations of…
‘Critically endangered’ listing for East African dugong population is needed (commentary)
Once common in East Africa, there is now only one known viable dugong population found in this entire region. With just a few hundred left in the waters around the…
Australian oil and gas firm Invictus awarded carbon offset project in Zimbabwe
Australian firm Invictus plans forest protection projects covering more than 300,000 hectares, or 741,000 acres, of indigenous forest in western Zimbabwe, which the company says will more than offset emissions…
Special series
Forest Trackers
- Mennonite colonies linked to deforestation of Indigenous territories and protected areas in Paraguay
- Deforestation on the rise in Quintana Roo, Mexico, as Mennonite communities move in
- Logged and loaded: Cambodian prison official suspected in massive legalized logging operation
- Bolivian national park hit hard by forest fires in 2022, satellite data show
Oceans
- ‘Manta grid’ provides a ray of hope against industrial bycatch threat
- As oceans warm, temperate reef species edge closer to extinction, study shows
- Can we control marine invaders by eating them?
- Sea level rise looms, even for the best-prepared country on Earth
Amazon Conservation
- RSPO suspension of Brazil palm oil exporter tied to Mongabay land-grabbing report
- Tropical forest regeneration offsets 26% of carbon emissions from deforestation
- Plan to mine ‘clean energy’ metals in Colombian Amazon splits communities
- Peru congress debates stripping isolated Indigenous people of land and protections
Land rights and extractives
- Plan to mine ‘clean energy’ metals in Colombian Amazon splits communities
- Peru congress debates stripping isolated Indigenous people of land and protections
- Brazil tackles illegal miners, but finds their mercury legacy harder to erase
- Lula government scrambles to overcome Yanomami crisis, but hurdles remain
Endangered Environmentalists
- ‘You don’t kill people to protect forests’: New Thai parks chief raises alarm
- Vietnam’s environmental NGOs face uncertain status, shrinking civic space
- ‘We lost the biggest ally’: Nelly Marubo on her friend Bruno Pereira’s legacy
- Murders of 2 Pataxó leaders prompt Ministry of Indigenous Peoples to launch crisis office
Indonesia's Forest Guardians
- Pioneer agroforester Ermi, 73, rolls back the years in Indonesia’s Gorontalo
- After 20 years and thousands of trees planted, Kalimantan’s veteran forester persists
- Aziil Anwar, Indonesian coral-based mangrove grower, dies at 64
- A utopia of clean air and wet peat amid Sumatra’s forest fire ‘hell’
Conservation Effectiveness
- For key Bangladesh wetland, bid for Ramsar status is no guarantee of protection
- Biodiversity, human rights safeguards crucial to nature-based solutions: Critics
- Protecting canids from planet-wide threats offers ecological opportunities
- Mangrove forest loss is slowing toward a halt, new report shows
Southeast Asian infrastructure
- As Indonesia’s new capital takes shape, risks to wider Borneo come into focus
- Tunnel collapse at dam project in orangutan habitat claims yet another life
- Sulawesi nickel plant coats nearby homes in toxic dust
- Indonesia’s grand EV plans hinge on a ‘green’ industrial park that likely isn’t
