The fourth episode in the New Guinea series of Mongabay Explores uncovers the massive Trans-Papua Highway, the potential it has to deforest the largest protected area in Southeast Asia, and…
The third episode in the New Guinea series of Mongabay Explores covers the island’s unique birds-of-paradise, and their symbolism as ambassadors for both the island’s beautiful landscape, and also the…
Gharials (Gavialis gangeticus), are a strange and unique crocodilian. Although they’re one of the world’s largest crocodilians by mass, they also have comically thin jaws suited for catching fish rather…
Proposed legislation to ban the import of hunting trophies (e.g. horns, antlers, tusks) apparently enjoys popular support within the UK, yet the effects of these policies are likely to be…
An agreement for the rights to the natural capital covering 2 million hectares (4.9 million acres) in Malaysian Borneo for the next 100 years “in its present form is legally…
They may be labeled “degraded,” but forests that have been logged, or are otherwise no longer pristine due to human activity, can still provide immense value. According to new research…
The second episode in the New Guinea series of Mongabay Explores covers the struggles faced by Indigenous communities in Papua New Guinea to protect their customary land rights, and one…
MINDANAO, Philippines — For environmental groups in the Philippines, 2021 went out with a big blow: on Dec. 23, the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) reversed a 4-year-old…
It's difficult to overstate the enormity of biodiversity on the island of New Guinea. It contains over 13,000 endemic plant species (meaning these plants grow nowhere else in the world).…
JAKARTA — Indonesia is launching a program to make the country’s ports more environmentally friendly in an effort to reduce its carbon emissions and protect the marine ecosystem. The so-called…
Update Feb. 10, 2022: Sabah's attorney general says the consent of Indigenous communities is required for this agreement to move forward. Read the update here. Adrian Lasimbang, an Indigenous leader in…
Confining conservation efforts to only 30% of Earth's land may render a fifth of mammals and a third of birds at high risk of extinction by 2030, according to a…
The flooding of land for hydroelectric dams has affected more than one-fifth of the world’s tigers (Panthera tigris) and one in two hundred jaguars (Panthera onca), according to the findings…
A group of women in rural El Salvador is standing up against a major infrastructure project that threatens to clear hundreds of hectares of forest and cut off access to…
TERNATE, Indonesia — At the inauguration of the Guraping Mangrove Tourism Forest last month in Sofifi, a sleepy coastal town and capital of one of Indonesia’s remotest provinces, North Maluku…
SINGAPORE — On a vast plateau atop Jingmai Mountain in Yunnan, China, nearly a mile above sea level, grows a forest of ancient tea trees. During summer, silvery cobwebs line…
Cooking with firewood, diesel and gas all add to climate change and is harmful to health. So innovators have launched solar cookery enterprises that could transform Mexico’s fossil fuel-dependent businesses.
By the OECD’s estimates, every year countries in Africa are cheated out of more than $50 billion in taxes, mainly by multinational corporations that run mines, oil wells, and plantations…
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…
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…
Farmers in northern Côte d’Ivoire are full of praise for cashew, the Brazilian nut tree introduced in the 1960s – ironically, it turns out – to combat deforestation. They rhapsodize…
Across the African savanna belt from Senegal to Ethiopia, threats to shea trees (Vitellaria paradoxa) — the source of shea butter — have become a regional environmental concern. At the…
On a cold and humid morning in March, two bird surveyors stood in the dim forests of Kenaboi State Park in Malaysia, straining their ears for birdsong. From where they…
Activists in Malaysia are celebrating an unprecedented U-turn by the Selangor state government after it cancelled plans last week to develop the Kuala Langat North Forest Reserve. The forest reserve…
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…
BLACK JOHNSON, Sierra Leone — Seated along the peninsula south of Freetown is the secluded village of Black Johnson. Rainforest covers the hills that rise behind it, home to chimpanzees…
MAKUENI, Kenya — A quarter of the world's 4.4 billion hectares (10.9 million acres) of cropland is degraded, often due to drying, according to the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization…
Feisal Abdalla spends his days on the sea, taking tourists on whale-watching, snorkeling and diving trips. He and his wife, Amina Sabel, also manage a string of ecotourism cottages along…
The Keeling Curve Prize has announced the 2021 winners of its annual award for projects that effectively remove climate change-causing gases from the atmosphere. The winning projects each receive $25,000…
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…