Biodiversity Crisis News

As the planet plunges headlong into its sixth mass extinction, caused by humans, biodiversity is being lost at an unprecedented rate. Global targets to slow this alarming trend have not…

Reports show that BASF, Bayer and Syngenta take advantage of permissive legislation to reap huge profits from highly hazardous pesticides banned in Europe.

Wildlife populations around the world have shrunk by 68% on average in the past nearly 50 years, according to a new report from WWF and the Zoological Society of London. In that…

A dramatic surge in jaguar poaching and confiscations could be linked to Chinese-led investment in Latin America, poverty and corruption, according to a new study.

Meet biologist Jonathan Slaght as he spends years tracking a giant bird “the size of a fire hydrant with a six-foot wingspan.” Slaght’s new book, Owls of the Eastern Ice, offers engaging tales from the field.

Referred to as barking deer, 12 species of muntjacs inhabit Asia. The rarely seen, critically endangered Large-antlered muntjac inhabits the evergreen forests of Southeast Asia’s Annamites Range.

Well organized global crime networks are pulling millions of tropical birds, fish, turtles and mammals out of the Amazon — a lucrative trade that is destroying ecosystems and putting public health at risk.

The 38 species, some found in the Amazon, were logged, milled, and sold in Brazil or exported, likely ending up as high-end decking. Better tracking and protection is needed, say researchers.

A lapsed moratorium protecting the Amazon river dolphin is up for renewal, but the Bolsonaro administration has delayed acting, even as scientists warn it could mean the freshwater mammal’s extinction.

On today’s episode of the Mongabay Newscast we look at how the environmental crises we’re currently facing intersect with two other major crises: the Covid pandemic and the systemic racism…

Native Brazilian bees provide several environmental services – pollination of flora and agricultural crops being the most important one. But new studies show that pesticides may affect them more intensely.

Koalas in the hundreds were literally ‘left up a tree’ after the catastrophic Australian bushfires. Dedicated teams made up of people and dogs came to their rescue.

The statistics capturing the effects that pets have on wildlife are mind-boggling. Cats in the United States alone kill at least 1.3 billion birds and up to 22.3 billion small…

The screech of scarlet macaws high overhead. The dawn rumble of howler monkeys. The hammering of a greater spotted woodpecker. These are some of the sounds I have had the…

Life can’t function without insects. At least, not for long. Dutifully, they pollinate, break down waste, cycle nutrients, move seeds, and touch every web of life, filling endless functional niches…

Research measured the impacts of human disruption: bird flocks declined and vanished, seed dispersion changed, while the Rupununi region showed just how bountiful an undisturbed ecosystem can be.

The only positive effect of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic is that it has generated public awareness of the risks of emerging diseases. One may hope that this will result in…

The amount that the Brazilian government fails to collect because of tax exemptions on pesticides is nearly four times as much as the Ministry of the Environment’s total budget this year. In addition, multinational giants in the pesticide sector also receive millions in public funding for research.

On today’s episode of the Mongabay Newscast, we speak with acclaimed environmental journalist John Vidal about the coronavirus pandemic's links to the wildlife trade and the destruction of nature. Listen…

During the 1980s, only a few hundred Atlantic Forest tamarins remained. By 2014, conservation efforts boosted that to 3,700. But in 2018, yellow fever wiped out 32%. A vaccine offers hope.

Last year, Jessie Panazzolo, like many young conservationists (and some middle-aged ones too), didn’t so much feel her career had stalled as that it had been cut out by the…

Dung beetle species populations are moving toward collapse in parts of the Brazilian Amazon apparently due to climate change-driven drought, fires, and other human disturbances.

Western lowland gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) may be avoiding their neighbors, according to a new study that presents evidence of territoriality among gorilla groups in the Republic of Congo. Using…

New research finds that if humans carry on with business as usual and the environmental degradation that results, we will pay a steep price — quite literally. Researchers with WWF,…

MANILA — Governments across Southeast Asia have vowed to strengthen cooperation in curbing the illegal wildlife trade, suspected to have sparked the novel coronavirus epidemic. The issue will be at…

Patagonia’s huemul is an agile herbivore of which only about 1,500 may remain at 100 or so scattered sites between sea level and the Andes; it is being buffeted by complex interrelated stressors.

One year after a tailings dam collapsed in Brazil’s southwestern state of Minas Gerais, killing 259 people and unleashing a tsunami of toxic mud, affected indigenous inhabitants are still struggling to relocate away from the polluted waters of the Paraopeba River.

More than one-third of the world’s remaining pristine forests, known as intact forest landscapes, exist within land that’s either managed or owned by indigenous peoples, a new study has found.…

2019 was the year the environment finally broke into the mainstream. Inspired by Greta Thunberg’s youth strikes and Extinction Rebellion, climate activism blossomed around the world, and green concerns were…

Meat and dairy consumption in Europe are contributing disproportionately to habitat destruction of charismatic species like the giant anteater in Brazil's Cerrado savanna.