Conservation Drones News

SINGAPORE — It’s been a hectic few weeks for Kevin Marriott. On a humid May morning in Singapore, he shuttles between two locations at the city’s Windsor Nature Park. At…

KORK THLORK, Cambodia — Vorn Keo, perched on the edge of a green wooden boat, navigates through the flooded forest of Tonle Sap Lake and across the boundary into a…

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…

Conservation apps have emerged in recent years as an efficient and cost-effective way to get citizens to monitor and document wildlife across the world. But an Australian initiative is going…

During what scientists have named the “Sixth Mass Extinction” (the fifth one wiped out the dinosaurs), conservationists are racing against the clock to carry out critical monitoring as quickly as…

Tropical forests across the world are hurting. Climate change is intensifying drought and wildfires worldwide, and deforestation continues to challenge conservation efforts to save intact forests. This means scientists need…

Mayra Estrella’s father always spoke to her about sea turtles. Growing up, she remembers hearing stories linking a pair of turtles to the very existence of the Comcáac people, the…

Threats to wildlife and wild places abound. Waters warming due to climate change threaten coral reefs more frequently and with greater intensity than ever before; the expansion of agriculture, infrastructure,…

Teaching Indigenous communities in the Amazon to tap on remote-monitoring technologies during forest patrols can reduce illegal deforestation, a new study has found. Researchers, whose work was published July 12…

A total of 33 teams spanning 16 countries from Brazil to India have been chosen to advance to the next stage of a five-year, $10 million competition aimed at preserving…

Rodger Schlickeisen made a name for himself in conservation circles from the early 1990s thanks to his leadership at Defenders of Wildlife, which grew rapidly in membership and influence during…

In 2019, XPRIZE Rainforest opened its doors and challenged the world to develop new biodiversity assessment technologies by offering a $10 million prize for the best one. The consequent mobilization will extend…

When Sellemah was a girl, in the days when the Tl’ches archipelago was still inhabited, the tide pools were full of urchins. The Songhees Nation elder, who also goes by the…

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, we implemented a travel moratorium for staff and contributing journalists in March 2020. In practice, this meant we stopped assigning stories that required travel…

ANTANANARIVO, Madagascar — To achieve its ambitious large-scale reforestation goals, Madagascar is turning to the sky. The country will use drones to plant trees in isolated areas. The plan is…

Up in the cool Mexican mountains, countless monarch butterflies gather together for the winter. When the sun warms their wings to just the right temperature, the mass of monarchs take…

In March 2020, just prior to COVID-19 being a pandemic, I spent a few days in the tri-border region of Brazil, Colombia, and Peru. There I used a drone to…

In early March 2020, I visited the tri-border area of Peru, Colombia, and Brazil and used the opportunity to explore a cluster of potential deforestation hotspots detected by Global Forest…

While I've written about use of drones in conservation since 2012 — a Mongabay story was the first to use the term "conservation drones" — 2019 was the first year…

The dry forest of western Madagascar is famous for its wildlife and baobab trees, including the tourist destinations of Baobab Alley, Tsingy de Bemaraha, and Kirindy Forest. Among the species…

In 2007, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) launched the Heart of Borneo, an initiative that aimed to conserve 22 million hectares (54 million acres) in the transboundary area…

Borneo has been special to me since my earliest years. As a kid, I would voraciously read books about the wilds of Borneo, with its dense rainforests inhabited by traditional…

Sometimes looking for rare plants can mean taking extreme steps. And for decades, botanists at the National Tropical Botanical Garden (NTBG), a nonprofit based on the island of Kauaʻi in…

This story was produced in partnership with the Pulitzer Center. DARIÉN GAP, Panama — There is a land at the center of the Americas that is said to remain in…

Forest monitoring has experienced a revolution in recent years, with vast improvements in satellite sensors, the emergence of drones, and growing ubiquity of on-the-ground technologies like smartphones and camera traps.…

The Brazilian government used a drone to help confirm the presence of an uncontacted indigenous group deep in the Amazon rainforest. FUNAI, Brazil's indigenous affairs agency, undertook an expedition to…

On this episode of the podcast we discuss the increasing use of drones by wildlife lovers, researchers, and businesses, how that might be stressing animals out, and how drone hobbyists…

Last month, Seattle Audubon hosted a panel discussion featuring Mongabay staff and colleagues about the ever-growing applications of technology for conservation. Mongabay Founder and CEO Rhett A. Butler moderated the…

Scientists have discovered a 'supercolony' of Adélie penguins in Antarctica's remote Danger Islands, raising hopes that the bird's population isn't declining as rapidly as previously thought. The discovery, which is…

Steven Kotler is a leading thinker on how technology can be employed to halt the global loss of biodiversity. Recently the prolific author and journalist convened a weekend forum for…