Scientists call it flood-retreat agriculture. As a swollen river blankets a dry plain and then recedes, it replenishes the thin soil with enough nutrients to sprout grass for cattle and…
Tropical insects are wildly diverse, but most species are unstudied or unknown, even as they’re heavily impacted by deforestation, climate change and pesticides.
The insects of the EU and US are the best studied in the world, and it is here that a strengthening case can be made for an alarming insect abundance decline.
Recent surveys hint at an insect apocalypse. But are insects at risk globally? Mongabay talks with 24 scientists on 6 continents to find out in an exclusive new series.
The homegrown banks that back the flood of soy into China have with little knowledge of the deforestation their funding is potentially supporting, according to the nonprofit CDP, an international…
The way humans have changed the forests of Central and South America may be making it impossible for subsistence hunters to continue their way of life, according to two conservation…
The World Health Organization (WHO) approved the inclusion of traditional Chinese medicine in the revision of its influential International Classification of Diseases for the first time on May 25, touching…
It’s hard to imagine how the oceans might operate without the sway of human activity. The recent assessment by the U.N. Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services found…
Just before Pope Francis released Laudato Si’, an encyclical, or formal letter from the pope, on the environment, on May 24, 2015, global concern for the environment seemed to be…
Investments known as green bonds that are intended to slow climate change can finance the operation of tree plantations in ways that have few, if any, environmental benefits, according to…
Fines and the threat of disease could dissuade consumers from buying bushmeat, according to recent surveys of markets where wildlife species are sold for food in the Southeast Asian country…
Warmer temperatures are fanning the spread of a deadly disease in frogs, a new study has found. Teasing apart the complex dynamics of the effects of climate change on how…
It might seem harmless enough at first. The big eyes and the rambunctious, bounding play of the tiny cats and monkeys on your social media feed draw you in, and…
Life on this planet, in all its wide diversity, is disappearing more quickly now than it has at any time in human history, and some 1 million species of plants…
All you need to find out how many dung beetles survive in a damaged rainforest is a plastic cup, a length of string, a plate, a piece of muslin ……
When fisherfolk in India’s westernmost state of Gujarat find a whale shark tangled in their fishing nets, it’s an unwelcome sight. They can’t legally harvest the protected species, yet the…
For more than three months, penguins living off the coast of Namibia have been battling an outbreak of bird flu. The worst of the disease seems to have passed, but…
The elephant poaching epidemic continues to tear across the African continent. It’s even reached remote refuges in recent years, like the Luangwa Valley in Zambia, where poaching deaths began surging…
Scientists have fretted over the expanding masses of plastic in the ocean for decades. Most have seen the rise with their own eyes, and yet the available datasets typically don’t…
Deforestation can reduce communities’ access to clean drinking water, according to a recent study conducted in Malawi. A lot of prior research on how deforestation impacts water dynamics has shown…
Countries should concentrate on outcomes instead of actions when they set aside areas for parks and reserves to shore up the loss of biodiversity, according to a group of scientists.…
The puma family took biologist Mark Elbroch by surprise. They were supposed to be a ways off. But here they were, year-old kittens, bungling the final moments of a baby…
There’s a new record for the tallest tree in the tropics, and the scientists who found it say it could add to our understanding of how and why some trees…
Island-dwelling animals around the globe often face a common threat: alien species that compete with them for food, kill them and their young, and otherwise hamper their ability to survive.…
Whales can behave quite differently in response to sonar depending on where they live and what they’re doing, new research has found. The pair of studies, on different species and…
The chief minister of the Malaysian state of Sabah has called on construction crews working on the multi-billion-dollar Pan Borneo Highway project to avoid breaking up the region’s forests and…
Tapirs may help rainforests recover after destructive human use and increase the amount of carbon they hold, new research has found. The study, based in the Brazilian Amazon, found that…
Animals around the globe are losing ground to farming and ranching, and their numbers are dwindling at the hands of human hunters. But the question of where to direct precious…
WATAMU, Kenya — One Saturday mid-morning in late January, close to 100 people descended on the narrow streets of Watamu village along Kenya’s north coast to clean up the streets.…
Giraffes have to search a wider area for food and water when people live nearby, according to a recent study. “Giraffes are huge browsing animals that live in African savanna…