Belize is an amazing country where warm, humid jungles, cool tropical rivers, mangrove forests, and wildlife abound. I am an ecologist drawn to Belize as a special place where I…
When she was a child, Cruz Ávila used to walk through the forest as part of her daily routine. She would pick wood or medicinal plants. She learned to find…
JENNINGS MOUNTAIN, St. Vincent and the Grenadines — The destruction was terrible, but the silence was even worse. Yvette Pereira had just walked up the road to the farm she…
JAKARTA — Researchers have confirmed that a lagoon in Indonesia’s Raja Ampat archipelago, a popular dive site, is a nursery for newborn and juvenile manta rays, cementing the area’s status…
Tangled up too often in fishing nets, manta rays have been plunging toward extinction as fishing pressure and other stressors take a toll on their populations. But the species has…
The first time you see a proboscis monkey (Nasalis larvatus), you might be hit with a mix of fascination, joy and perhaps some confusion: muscular limbs attached to a pot-bellied…
MAROS, Indonesia — Forty-two kilometers, or about 26 miles, north of the bustling port city of Makassar in Indonesia’s South Sulawesi province, undulating karst formations dominate the landscape. Covering an…
The figures vary and come from different sources, including the government, but they all point to the wildlife massacre taking place on the roads of Brazil’s Mato Grosso do Sul…
In early 2022, the public in Labuan Bajo, the gateway to Indonesia’s popular Komodo National Park, was both pleased and dissatisfied with the Indonesian Ministry of Environment and Forestry’s decision…
Known only by his identity code, ID#35 was the last individual of a doomed subpopulation of freshwater Irrawaddy dolphins (Orcaella brevirostris). He was the sole occupant of a deep pool…
An Asian elephant supports itself on one leg, completely submerged in garish electric-blue water, while a keeper tugs painfully at its ear. The photograph shows bubbles rising from its trunk…
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…
PUTUMAYO, Colombia — When Jonh Jairo Mueses-Cisneros was approached by leadership at Corpoamazonia about turning Colombia’s southwestern department of Putumayo into a bird-watching hotspot more than 10 years ago, he…
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).…
The Río San Juan Biosphere Reserve in Nicaragua is one of the most biodiverse ecosystems in Central America. It is also part of the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor, which extends from…
KAMPALA, Uganda — Tour guide Patrick Kataama relied heavily on income from leading gorilla-trekking tours in Uganda's national parks. These tours were abruptly shut down in late March 2020, after…
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…
An hour’s drive south of the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, set against the backdrop of the volcanic Mount Salak, lies Bogor, whose frequent rainfall — even during the dry season —…
I saw my first wild gorillas in Rwanda in 2002 and I was immediately drawn in by their power, their beauty, and the awareness that these amazing creatures were, despite…
Efforts to protect wildlife and landscapes have generally been shifting away from "fortress conservation" — where local people are excluded from the lands they've traditionally managed — toward more inclusive…
The loss of the Mukambi River Pride lioness last June was sobering proof that the shock wave of COVID-19 had reached the heart and wildlife of Zambia’s Kafue National Park.…
Two years ago, fire ravaged the Tucavaca Valley Municipal Wildlife Reserve in the heart of Bolivia’s Chiquitania region, wiping out thousands of square kilometers of habitat. Now this threat has…
Every evening, along the banks of the Rembau River in Malaysia, fireflies put on a spectacular display. Against the dark silhouette of the berembang mangroves (Sonneratia caseolaris) they dance, synchronizing…
CHIANG MAI, Thailand — Once widespread across Southeast Asia, from Java to southern China, green peafowl (Pavo muticus) have vanished from much of the region over the past few decades,…
Kahuzi-Biega National Park in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is renowned for its biodiversity, including Grauer's gorilla — an endemic subspecies — and around 350 bird species. The area…
In the wake of George Floyd's killing last year, long-running concerns about discrimination, colonial legacy, privilege, and power dynamics in conservation have gained prominence, forcing many organizations in the sector…
When COVID-19 started to sweep across the world last year, conservationists feared that it would be a disaster for Africa’s wildlife. Tourism revenues evaporated, causing salary cuts and layoffs for…
Filip Wojciechowski moved to the island of Bohol in the Philippines in 2014 to study one of the country’s most elusive nocturnal primates, the Philippine tarsier. But he hadn’t reckoned…
The coastal ecosystem of the Caribbean is as unique as the region’s year-round humid tropical climate. On the island of Jamaica, picturesque deep-blue waters and rich biodiversity are among the…
On Jan. 11 this year, something happened that primatologists had both feared and expected: two western lowland gorillas at San Diego Zoo Safari Park tested positive for SARS-CoV-2. Right from…
