Female putty-nosed monkeys get their males to run defense against predators
Female putty-nosed monkeys know what to do when they detect a leopard. They chirp out an alarm call to the males, essentially recruiting them to be their “hired guns.” In…
Global forest loss increased in 2020
No one was sure exactly what near-term impact the global pandemic would have the world’s forests in 2020. Some expected lockdowns and economic shocks to dampen deforestation rates; others thought…
Unrelated adoptions by bonobos may point to altruistic traits, study says
Nahoko Tokuyama says she couldn’t believe what she was seeing when she noticed the wild bonobo with an unknown infant on her back in the Luo Scientific Reserve in the…
We’re killing those tropical trees we’re counting on to absorb carbon dioxide
"If a tree lives 500 years, it carries the carbon assimilated and stocked for the last 500 years,” says Giuliano Locosselli, a researcher at the University of São Paulo (USP)…
Podcast: What are the tropical forest storylines to watch in 2021?
For our first episode of 2021, we’re taking the opportunity to look at some of the most important trends and issues that will be affecting rainforest conservation over the next…
Rainforests: 11 things to watch in 2021
2020 was a rough year for tropical rainforest conservation efforts, as explained in Mongabay's year-end wrap-up on rainforests. So what's in store for 2021? Here are 11 things to watch.…
How the pandemic impacted rainforests in 2020: a year in review
Like virtually everything in 2020, COVID-19 defined the year for tropical rainforests. Conservation was particularly hard hit in tropical countries.
France’s tropical forest conservation efforts: an interview with AFD’s Gilles Kleitz
Since hosting the United Nations Climate Change Conference in 2015 which resulted in the Paris Climate Agreement, France has become a leading proponent for tropical forest conservation. This effort has…
Herd opportunity: Hundreds of elephants return to DRC’s Virunga
For years, Anthony Caere, an anti-poaching pilot at Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), peered through the windows of his helicopter to see a landscape mostly…
Philanthropist Wendy Schmidt: ‘Solutions are always local’
This week, scientists from James Cook University in Australia announced the discovery of a previously unknown detached coral reef in the Great Barrier Reef. It was the first new reef…
With a drastic decline in tropical fruit, Gabon’s rainforest mega-gardeners go hungry
The rainforest of Lopé National Park in central Gabon is one of the last safe havens for the endangered forest elephant (Loxodonta cyclotis). But in a new study in Science,…
The Amazon savanna? Rainforest teeters on the brink as climate heats up
Shifting rainfall patterns, especially those exacerbated by climate change, could drive large parts of the Amazon rainforest to become drier savanna, a new study has found. Rainfall acts like a…
Podcast: Great ape ‘forest gardeners of Africa’ benefit from conservation victory
On today's episode of the Mongabay Newscast we’re discussing great ape conservation in Africa and how that goes hand-in-hand with efforts to protect the second-largest rainforest in the world. Listen…
$154b in capital has gone to 300 forest-risk companies since the Paris Agreement
Since the Paris climate agreement was signed in 2016, 300 companies at risk for contributing to deforestation have received at least $153.9 billion in financing, according to a new analysis…
Probe begins into alleged deforestation by Olam, ‘world’s largest farmer’
The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) is carrying out an investigation into whether Singapore-based agribusiness giant Olam deforested more than 25,000 hectares (62,000 acres), in contravention of sustainability criteria it had…
World Rainforest Day: The world’s great rainforests
Tropical rainforests have an outsized role in the world. Of the Earth’s ecosystems, rainforests support the largest variety of plants and animal species, house the majority of indigenous groups still…
How much rainforest is being destroyed?
Primary forests in the tropics are declining at an accelerating rate according to analysis of satellite data released last week by the University of Maryland (UMD) and World Resources Institute…
For forest communities without a legal footing, new guideline is a starting template
Forest communities around the world struggling to achieve the legal recognition that would give them a greater say in how their natural resources are managed now have recourse to an…
Loss, resilience and community amid an outbreak: Q&A with gorilla researcher Magdalena Bermejo
Between 2002 and 2005, a series of Ebola outbreaks spread through the forests of northwest Republic of Congo. Dozens of people died. For the region’s western lowland gorilla (Gorilla gorilla…
Podcast: Listening to elephants to protect Central Africa’s tropical forests
On today’s episode of the Mongabay Newscast we take a look at a project that aims to preserve the rainforests of the Congo Basin in Central Africa and the biodiversity…
Twelve rangers killed in latest Virunga Park incident
Twelve rangers and five other people were killed in Virunga National Park in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo on Friday. It was the latest deadly incident…
For great apes at risk of infection, COVID-19 is also an economic threat
In the 23 years since founding Volcanoes Safaris, Praveen Moman has weathered a range of crises in the region around Rwanda and Uganda: Ebola outbreaks, economic strife, kidnappings, political unrest.…
National parks in Africa shutter over COVID-19 threat to great apes
Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo shut its doors to tourists this week in an attempt to protect its great apes from possibly being infected by the…
Palm oil giant Olam under scrutiny again over Gabon plantations
The World Rainforest Movement (WRM) has accused Singapore-based agribusiness company Olam of making meaningless “zero deforestation” pledges about a major oil palm development in Gabon and neglecting the rights of…
Oil exploration at odds with peatland protection in the Congo Basin
The peatlands of the Congo Basin are home to more than just massive carbon stocks and some of our closest — and most threatened — relatives in the animal kingdom,…
Past and future tropical dams devastating to fish the world over: Study
A survey of 40,000 existing and 3,700 planned dams finds that the structures could fragment fish habitat in the Amazon, Niger, Congo, Salween and Mekong river systems by 25% or more.
Subsistence farming topples forests near commercial operations in Congo
The effects of commercial logging, mining and farming can ripple beyond the boundaries of the operations, leading to the substantial loss and degradation of nearby forest for subsistence agriculture, a…
Rainforests in 2020: 10 things to watch
After a decade of increased deforestation, broken commitments, and hundreds of murders of rainforest defenders, the 2020s open as a dark moment for the world’s rainforests. Here are some key…
2019: The year rainforests burned
2019 closed out a "lost decade" for the world's tropical forests, with surging deforestation from Brazil to the Congo Basin, environmental policy roll-backs, assaults on environmental defenders, abandoned conservation commitments,…
Tropical forests’ lost decade: the 2010s
The 2010s opened as a moment of optimism for tropical forests. Widely available satellite imagery via platforms like Google Earth brought new levels of accountability which, for the first time,…
Special series
Forest Trackers
- Deforestation spikes in Virunga National Park, DRC
- Slash-and-burn clearing nears Indigenous park as Brazil’s fire season ignites
- New areas of primary forest cleared in Brazil’s ‘lawless’ Lábrea
- Deforestation intensifies in northern DRC protected areas
Oceans
- ‘Watered-down’ plan to save India Ocean yellowfin tuna disappoints conservationists
- Tin mines close in on an Indonesian hamlet still clinging to nature
- NGOs back Maldives’ ambitious plan to save Indian Ocean yellowfin tuna
- Satellites keep watch over global reef health in a world first
Amazon Conservation
- Under assault at home, Indigenous leaders get a violent welcome in Brasília
- Amazon dams: No clean water, fish dying, then the pandemic came
- In Brazil’s most Indigenous city, prejudice and diversity go hand in hand
- With Indigenous rights at stake in Brasília, a territory is attacked in Paraty
Land rights and extractives
- Under assault at home, Indigenous leaders get a violent welcome in Brasília
- With Indigenous rights at stake in Brasília, a territory is attacked in Paraty
- Myanmar junta’s growing reliance on extractives for cash raises concerns
- Illegal logging in Philippines’ Palawan stokes fears of a mining resurgence
Endangered Environmentalists
- Rights groups demand end to Cambodia’s persecution of green activists
- With Indigenous rights at stake in Brasília, a territory is attacked in Paraty
- Brazil’s Bolsonaro vowed to work with Indigenous people. Now he’s investigating them
- Intimidation of Brazil’s enviro scientists, academics, officials on upswing
Indonesia's Forest Guardians
- From Flores to Papua: Meet 10 of Indonesia’s mangrove guardians
- Why I stand for my tribe’s forest: It gives us food, culture, and life (commentary)
- Reforesting a village in Indonesia, one batch of gourmet beans at a time
- Restoring Sumatra’s Leuser Ecosystem, one small farm at a time
Conservation Effectiveness
- Is planting trees as good for the Earth as everyone says?
- ‘Bad science’: Planting frenzy misses the grasslands for the trees
- A Malagasy community wins global recognition for saving its lake
- Scientists in Costa Rica are growing new corals to save reefs
Southeast Asian infrastructure
- Irrigation dams threaten Thailand’s tiger forests, say conservationists
- Relocating mangroves for Indonesian highway ‘not that easy,’ expert warns
- Indonesian governor’s arrest in road project points to more tainted contracts
- Papua deforestation highlights eastward shift of Indonesia forest clearing
