Conservation leadership News

As you read this, a sailing ship is retracing the path of the voyage taken by English naturalist Charles Darwin in the 19th century — the very voyage that led…

DUBAI — It was Sara Olsvig's love of ice that brought her to the desert of Dubai for the 2023 U.N. climate summit, COP28. As an Inuit child growing up…

Nepal’s community forestry program has been hailed as a success for helping increase the country’s forest cover from 26% to 45% in 25 years. As part of the program, pioneered…

On this episode of the Mongabay Newscast, co-host Rachel Donald speaks with Laura Martin, an associate professor of environmental studies at Williams College in Massachusetts. Donald and Martin dive into…

“Our wildest dreams never included what we are doing now,” says conservationist Paul Rosolie in a new podcast interview with Mongabay. What began as a grassroots initiative of his and…

Last week, communities and conservation stakeholders from across the African continent gathered in Windhoek, Namibia, to attend the first Indigenous Peoples’ and Local Communities’ Conservation Congress. “IPLCs themselves organized this…

In the conservation world, partnerships between the big international NGOs, or BINGOs, and local grassroots organizations are often marriages of unequals. And as with any union, the biggest pain points…

KATHMANDU — Whenever a potentially undescribed new bird species is reported in Nepal, ornithologist Hem Sagar Baral takes the next flight to the location to assess the claim. The scientific…

PHNOM PENH — A court in Cambodia has denied the requests of three activists from environmental group Mother Nature Cambodia to travel to Sweden to accept an international award. In…

PHNOM PENH — Mother Nature Cambodia, one of the country’s most prominent environmental activism groups, was named one of Right Livelihood’s 2023 laureates on Sept. 28, making it the first…

KATHMANDU — Nepal’s owls are perhaps the least-studied birds in the country, often overlooked by researchers more focused on the rarer vultures and cranes. Yet owls also face the same…

Guanabara Bay, the historic gateway to Rio de Janeiro, is both a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the most polluted coastal ecosystems in the world. It sees 18,000…

MENDAHARA ULU, Indonesia — At the end of 2018, three communities in this subdistrict on the island of Sumatra were given rights to manage their local peatland by Indonesian President…

POHUWATO, Indonesia — The world's largest collective of seafaring nomads has sailed the waters off Sulawesi Island and farther afield for centuries, forging a cultural legacy that inspired even James…

Conservation technologies like drones, remote sensing and machine learning have a massive role to play in aiding the work of conservation scientists and helping policymakers devise better-informed decisions about where…

Dogger Bank, a sandbank in the North Sea the size of Washington state, was designated a marine protected area more than decade ago to conserve its sensitive seabed habitat. Yet…

A recent study found that locally managed marine areas in Fiji strengthened the mechanisms believed to advance conservation efforts but ultimately led to few social, economic or even ecological benefits.…

ARU ISLANDS, Indonesia — More than 10 years have passed since a young official in Indonesia’s eastern Aru Islands saved his archipelago from becoming a monoculture plantation. Today, Mika Ganobal…

On the eastern edge of Victoria, British Columbia, abutting the Salish Sea, sits Uplands Park, spanning about 30 hectares, or 74 acres, amid the bustling municipality of Oak Bay. Although…

When Pablo Garcia Borboroglu first laid eyes on a wild penguin colony in Patagonia, Argentina, he experienced two things at once: a sense of extraordinary wonder for these wild animals,…

A new study shows that both conservation and agricultural production can improve when women farmers more widely participate in group decisions about sustainable practices. The report, published in February in…

The concept of a “pristine wilderness” is a flawed one, researchers argue, but this pervasive idea — one where human absence is required in order to preserve land — occupies…

For Indigenous women in the Amazon, the wetland of Lake Tarapoto is a living classroom. The women consider it not just a home for the fish they rely on to…

Mr. Sobhan, a wealthy retired lawyer, decides he wants to do something to improve society. Realizing that the new aquaculture revolution has driven out local fish species, he compiles a…

On his ninth birthday, Robertus Darren Radyan gave a present to each person who came to his party. Each guest got to take home a light-red flower pot that had…

Ocean fisheries experts Daniel Pauly and Rashid Sumaila have been awarded the 2023 Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement, referred to as a “Nobel Prize for the environment,” in recognition of…

ST ANDREWS, Scotland — Francineia Fontes Baniwa laughs enthusiastically as she tells of a conversation she had with her traveling companion, Nelly Marubo while on the train to Scotland: “Nelly…

Between 2004 and 2012, Brazil was able to slash deforestation by nearly 84% with a series of policies known as PPCDAm, a major instrument in reducing environmental destruction in the…

Kenya’s youngest environmentalist, 10-year-old Karen Kimani, takes inspiration from a role model who died before she was born: Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Wangari Maathai, a champion for both people and…

KILIFI, Kenya — An incident in Kelly Roberts Banda’s childhood set him on the path of climate advocacy. Although Banda did not realize it at the time, what appeared then…