What happens to an ecotourism town when the wildlife doesn’t show?
DONSOL, Philippines — Omar Nepomuceno is looking for the whale sharks, as he has for over 20 years. Ask him what the odds are of finding one, and he’ll answer…
Leopards get a $20m boost from Panthera pact with Saudi prince
Wild cat conservation group Panthera has signed an agreement with a member of the Saudi royal family to help protect leopards worldwide, especially perhaps the rarest subspecies in the world,…
Homestay programs in Nepal’s rhino hub hold promise and pitfalls for locals
NAWALPUR DISTRICT, Nepal — A few kilometers from the town of Danda along the East-West Highway in Nepal's southern plains, the road diverges. One fork leads to Barauli, the other…
In Ethiopia’s Addis Ababa, Gullele Botanical Garden captivates city dwellers
ADDIS ABABA — Five miles northwest of Addis Ababa’s thriving city center is the lush Gullele Botanic Garden (GBG), the first well-established site of its kind in Ethiopia that covers…
On the island of Java, a social forestry scheme creates jobs at home
KALIBIRU, Indonesia — For years, Parjan hoped his community might one day gain title to the Menoreh Hills. The green valley northwest of the Javan city of Yogyakarta was tilled…
On one island, a microcosm of Vietnam’s environmental challenges
CAT BA ISLAND, Vietnam – While approaching Hai Phong, a major city on Vietnam’s northeast coast, it is impossible to miss signs of the country’s fast-growing economic might. GDP growth…
A plea to Botswana: Please rethink a “Not Enough Fences” approach (commentary)
Recent headlines around the world indicate that the government of Botswana is considering significant changes to the country’s approach to wildlife management. I give the government great credit for the…
Can jaguar tourism save Bolivia’s fast dwindling forests?
ÑUFLO DE CHÁVEZ, Bolivia — Few countries in the tropics have seen their trees chopped down as quickly as Bolivia did between 2001 and 2017. According to data from the…
Giant pines a tourist draw, cash cow for Yogyakarta farmers
MANGUNAN, Indonesia — Not long ago, people would come to Mangunan only to tap the giant trunks of reddish pine for sap, used as everything from antiseptic to glue. But…
Guyana: The school where indigenous youth learn about their land
ANNAI, Guyana — It’s 8:30 a.m. and the main school building of the Bina Hill Institute’s Youth Learning Centre is strangely quiet. The classrooms are deserted, the newly built dormitories…
DRC’s Virunga to welcome visitors again after 8-month closure
Virunga National Park in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo will reopen its gates to tourists on Feb. 15 after officials closed them more than eight months ago. A spate…
Audio: Good news from Mexico monarch reserve despite looming deforestation, mine threat
On today’s episode, we talk with Mongabay contributor Martha Pskowski, who recently traveled to central Mexico to report on threats to monarch butterflies in their overwintering grounds. Listen here: …
A community in Guyana relies on indigenous knowledge in conservation
YUPUKARI VILLAGE, Guyana — If Russian Dorrick is sure of anything, it’s that his community is capable of protecting their natural environment here in southern Guyana’s epic Kanuku mountain range.…
Bans on the bird trade in South America yield mixed results
The trade of live birds in South America is down to its lowest levels in years, according to a report released Jan. 16 by conservation NGOs TRAFFIC and WWF. But…
Saving the forests of the Congo Basin: Q&A with author Meindert Brouwer
It was an ambitious project from the start: to capture the Congo Basin rainforest in the pages of a book. Stretching across an area larger than Saudi Arabia, the world’s…
‘Ecosystem guardians’ remain passionate despite dicey conditions
Central America is home to some of the most diverse ecosystems on the planet, with its rich savannas, tropical forests and coastal dunes hosting a bounty of flora and fauna.…
‘Conservation never ends’: 40 years in the kingdom of gorillas
December 1978 A year into an 18-month research project on the critically endangered mountain gorilla in Rwanda’s Volcanoes National Park, Amy Vedder and Bill Weber, newlywed graduate students from the…
Deforestation and mining threaten a monarch butterfly reserve in Mexico
ZITÁCUARO, Mexico - “As long as the butterflies keep coming, we’ll still have work here,” says Javier Ambrocio, looking out over the Sierra Chincua Monarch Butterfly Sanctuary. A cold breeze…
Bird business: The man who taught his tribe to profit from conservation
Read the other stories in this four-part series on the indigenous groups living around Eaglenest Wildlife Sanctuary in Arunachal Pradesh, India: From a new bird to a new community reserve:…
Peru’s Brazil nut harvesters learn to monitor forests with drones
Flor Rumayna and Sara Hurtado arrived in Lima this past August from their homes in the Amazon headwaters to learn more about aerial monitoring of forests. They’d been researching new technologies…
Special series
Endangered environmentalists
- Two deaths trigger alarm at Mexico’s Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve
- Fighting to save an endangered ape, Indonesian activists fear for their lives
- Iran sentences eight conservationists convicted of spying
Indonesias forest guardians
- Reforesting a village in Indonesia, one batch of gourmet beans at a time
- Restoring Sumatra’s Leuser Ecosystem, one small farm at a time
- Indigenous Iban community defends rainforests, but awaits lands rights recognition
Amazon infrastructure
- Database offers new details on the dams that hold mining waste
- Xavante tribe digs in as Brazil reneges on vow not to build a road in their reserve
- Vale has filed hundreds of requests to exploit indigenous lands in Amazon
Asian rhinos
- Indonesia-WWF split puts rhino breeding project in Borneo in limbo
- Indonesian officials wield sharia law in defense of Sumatran rhinos
- Love triangle complicates efforts to breed Sumatran rhinos
