Biodiversity Hotspots News

JAKARTA — Conservation groups are calling on the Asian Development Bank to tighten its scrutiny of a road project it plans to fund in Indonesian Borneo that may pose risks…

On July 19, Australian mining firm Predictive Discovery posted a breathless press release on its website. “Bonanza”-grade gold had been discovered at its Bankan exploration site in a remote part…

Before the clearing and excavators and bulldozers, before plans to build a gold mine and oil palm plantations, the Jemaluang and Tenggaroh forest reserves in Johor, Malaysia, were wildlife-rich jungles…

Protected forests, such as those in national parks, are unlikely to be cut down when surrounded by intact forests. Conversely, when a protected forest’s neighboring lands are degraded, it’s likely…

As the world grapples with unparalleled rates of deforestation and extinction, an increasing number of governments and other entities are recognizing the importance of protecting 30% of the land and…

It’s easier to spot the bristly, gray-brown hide of a Bornean bearded pig (Sus barbatus) ambling through orderly rows of oil palm trees, than amid a dense tropical forest. But…

When Frank Mbago, a Tanzanian botanist, learned that the IUCN, the global conservation authority, had declared the Erythrina schliebenii plant extinct, he was wary. His skepticism was justified: in 2011, a team…

Negligible fines and inadequate enforcement are turning Italy into a hotspot for illegal Myanmar timber in spite of EU sanctions and regulations against the latter's timber trade, according to a…

Every few years, stretches of Borneo’s towering dipterocarp trees fruit in a synchronized pulse. In those months, the air is rich with brown, winged fruit, which fall and spin to…

  This is part of a two-article series on industrial fishing in Madagascar’s waters. Part one focuses on offshore fishing; part two will look at near-shore fishing. On Madagascar’s east…

“Let me turn on my video,” says David Obura halfway through our Zoom call. He holds up his phone so I can see the landscape behind him: rows of green…

In Brazil's different biomes, each environment offers a distinct experience. An unspoiled natural landscape is not only a precious reservoir of biodiversity, it can also be a feast for the…

JAKARTA — UNESCO has urged the Indonesian government to close a stretch of road that runs through the largest protected area in Southeast Asia, citing its negative environmental impact. In…

Picking out the fluty whistle of a Sulawesi babbler (Pellorneum celebense) is easy. Spotting it is far more difficult: these shy and diminutive birds, endemic to the forests of the…

Swinging lithely from branch to branch high up in the forest canopy, a family of hoolock gibbons hoots vigorously to guard its territory against intruders. A type of small ape…

The European Union has imposed new sanctions on a state-owned timber enterprise in Myanmar following the coup in February, as part of an international effort targeting businesses whose profits are…

Mongabay Latam and Folha, through the Stories Without Borders project, document what is happening on the border between Peru and Brazil. MÂNCIO LIMA, Acre — The Acre antshrike is known…

On Dec. 28 last year, a Monday, a group of representatives from a local cement firm arrived at the foot of the Mount Kanthan limestone hills in Perak, Malaysia. The…

Malaysian scientists and activists have called on road planners in the Bornean state of Sabah to reconsider a 13-kilometer (8-mile) stretch of the Pan Borneo Highway that will cut through…

Gibbons, hornbills, komodo dragons and even Sumatran orangutans — these are just a few of the animals once kept illegally behind bars at a small zoo in North Sumatra, Indonesia.…

Within months of newly discovered species of snakes, geckos and turtles being described (along with their locations) by scientists, traders find and harvest the animals for sale on the Internet.

Aina Randriarisoa found a perch for Labramia ambondrombeensis on the taxonomical tree of life. She helped identify the tree from its genetic signature, the arrangement of its leaves, the shape…

Polar phytoplankton, fish, seabirds and mammals are increasingly threatened by global warming, which is destabilizing Arctic ecosystems, even as southern species move northward — will the imbalanced biome collapse?

More numerous than stars, our planet’s microbes play an integral role in helping life thrive on Earth. But what happens when climate change, pollution and ocean acidification impact microbes? — We don’t know.

In 2012, researchers described a teensy, aspirin-sized chameleon, Brookesia nana, from a thin slice of rainforest in northern Madagascar. The species, which experts believe is the smallest reptile in the world, grabbed plenty…

Experts see sustainable small-scale cultivation of endemic fruits, nuts and vegetables by traditional communities as a way to value and save Cerrado ecosystems, while also supporting some of the biome’s best defenders.

MANILA — Palawan is an outlier in the Philippine archipelago, its topography and habitat closer to that of Borneo than the rest of the country’s major islands. This so-called last…

With no natural predators to worry about, jaguars (Panthera onca) roam the forests of South and Central America. This feline is found in 18 countries, but only 4% of its…

Even as agribusiness and the Brazilian government became allies to aggressively convert more of the savanna for soy and cattle, the National Campaign in Defense of the Cerrado moved to conserve the biome.

The native vegetation of Brazil’s vast savanna is rapidly being replaced by plantations and pastures. At risk along with the biome’s grasslands are hundreds of endemic, uniquely adapted reptile species.