After hours of wading through raging rivers and braving the steep, slippery slopes of the Victoria-Anepahan Mountain Range (VAMR) on a rainy morning in October 2022, wildlife specialist Aubrey Jayne…
With the world busy evaluating the conclusion of the latest meeting under the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity in Montreal (COP15), and the publication of the post-2020 Global Biodiversity…
COP15, MONTREAL, Canada — After marathon negotiations and a clutch of protests (including a “die-in” by global youth, and a walk-out by developing countries over a funding stalemate) nearly 200…
From microbes to meerkats, the wealth of species on Earth is the glue that holds the cycles of life together: producing food, regulating climate, building soil, maintaining ecosystems and more.…
We are peoples of place — our relationship with our lands and waters have sustained us for millennia. What happens to one species or ecosystem has immeasurable impacts on our…
As global biodiversity loss persists, a team of international scientists is calling for a more holistic approach to biodiversity protection: by coupling conservation efforts with human justice measures. In a…
In November, Mongabay revealed a massive illegal shark fishing and finning operation across the fleet of Dalian Ocean Fishing (DOF), a distant-water fishing firm that has claimed to be China’s…
Biodiversity protection and restoration were key topics at COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh, and for good reason. Ahead of the UN Climate Change Conference, which included a full Biodiversity Day this…
The world is losing species alarmingly fast. The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), an independent science and policy group, says a million species face extinction. Few…
Amid a global biodiversity crisis, nations have agreed to protect threatened species like sharks, songbirds, glass frogs and tropical timber by regulating their trade. Over the past two weeks, member…
The COVID-19 pandemic in 2020 caught Costa Rica’s Cabécar Indigenous communities at a precarious time. Amid the species-rich forests of the Talamanca Cabécar Indigenous territory, climate change had already begun…
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…
A recent New York Times Magazine article stoked debate on how worried we should be about Earth’s future as a viable habitat for human beings. The author, David Wallace-Wells, said he was less worried…
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…
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…
Tuna is ubiquitous in Japan, from high-end sashimi to go-around sushi chains and every neighborhood grocery store. But despite tuna’s central place in Japanese food culture, few know what really…
Funders of a $1.7 billion pledge announced at the 2021 U.N. climate conference say they disbursed around 19% of the money to bolster the land rights of Indigenous and local…
During the decade-plus in which he ran a program in China designed to reduce demand for wildlife products like shark fin, tiger bone, rhino horn and elephant ivory, Steve Trent…
The Halda River — the world’s only gene bank for pure Indian carp fishes such as ruhi (Labeo rohita), catla (Labeo catla), Mrigal (Cirrhinus cirrhosus) and Kalibaush (Labeo calbasu) —…
When Adhi Tayuh Braka joined one of China’s largest fishing fleets in 2018, he planned to catch tuna, knuckle down and save money to get married. To pass the time,…
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…
In 2014, as temperatures topped 40° Celsius, or 104° Fahrenheit, in eastern Australia, half of the region’s black flying fox (Pteropus alecto) population perished, with thousands of the bats succumbing…
A dearth of research leaves scientists mostly flying blind as to insect abundance and diversity in the tropics. But a new study identifies losses in Brazil of terrestrial species, while aquatic species seem to be holding steady.
Heat waves are reshaping life in the Mediterranean, with few of the sea’s coves, bays and shorelines untouched, according to a recent study looking at the impact of marine heat…
Giant tortoises (Chelonoidis spp.) have trundled across the Galápagos Islands for perhaps 3 million years. Over that time, they’ve evolved to survive with little food or water in the islands’…
Taiwanese filmmaker Chris Chang moved to Berkeley, California, in August 2021, when the state was already experiencing a deep environmental crisis. In 2020, thousands of wildfires in California burnt through…
Since 1960, the world has lost an area of forest larger than the island of Borneo, according to a recent study. That net loss of 817,000 square kilometers (315,000 square…
Antarctic krill — tiny, filter-feeding crustaceans that live in the Southern Ocean — have long existed in mind-boggling numbers. A 2009 study estimated that the species has a biomass of…
PHNOM TAMAO, Cambodia — Prime Minister Hun Sen has stepped in to cancel all development projects slated for the Phnom Tamao forest, near the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh, following…
Some 50,000 wild species provide for many of the world’s people, according to a recent report from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). But today, those…