BOGOTÁ — In Colombia’s Chocó department, renowned by environmentalists for its abundant biodiversity, Afro-Colombian communities collect gold from rivers as part of an ancestral way of life. “When we talk…
Fires have destroyed at least 18,000 hectares of vegetation (44,480 acres) in central Brazil’s savanna region and now threaten a national park that’s home to rare species such as jaguars,…
Our pollution of the planet with heavy metals, plastics, industrial chemicals, pesticides and more is pushing Earth systems to the limit, and us closer to crossing a dangerous planetary boundary we don’t understand.
Nearing the end of her undergraduate studies in ecology, Drea Darby sat frustrated at her desk, searching for jobs in conservation. She had envisioned a career out in the field,…
One of the main fears about the Brazilian Amazon is beginning to materialize: logging is starting to move from the periphery of the rainforest toward the core of the biome,…
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…
(阅读中文版。) When Sepri was growing up, life in his village began to deteriorate. In the 1990s, the village, Serdang Menang, in the south of Indonesia’s Sumatra Island, was centered around…
Traditional people and communities are vital to conserving biodiversity, but many are still absent from official maps. A new report highlights progress made in making them visible.
On the western fringe of the Brazilian Amazon, lush forest stretches for miles across a protected reserve that is home to the Ashaninka Indigenous people. Just a few miles away,…
Brazil is likely feeding international demand for gold with bullion tainted by violence, deforestation and pollution, given that almost a third of the country’s registered gold production is classified as…
On Feb. 8, 2019, two weeks after the collapse of a dam holding mining waste killed 272 people and left a trail of destruction in Brumadinho, in the Brazilian state…
The report came in from naturalists aboard a whale-watching boat: A 4-year-old whale calf was entangled in fishing rope. He appeared thin, and lesions mottled his body. A few days…
Nigeria’s emergence as a trafficking hub for illegal wildlife appears unhindered by the coronavirus pandemic. Between 2016 and 2019, some 200 metric tons of pangolin scales were seized by law…
Mongabay joins a noted forest ecologist in Olympic National Park to experience its magnificence and significance as a bastion of biodiversity and a carbon storehouse; protection of these vanishing U.S. and Canadian ecosystems is vital, say scientists.
Recent scientific studies confirm what Brazilian farmers already feel in practice: the uncontrolled production of agricultural commodities is destroying the productivity and profits of agribusiness itself, a cycle researchers are calling “agro-suicide.”
Thousands of Indigenous people marched in Brazil’s capital this week, ahead of a landmark Supreme Federal Court ruling that activists warn could hamper the official recognition of Indigenous people’s territories…
The statistics paint a grim picture: Accelerating species losses, 10 million hectares (25 million acres) of forest destroyed every year, apocalyptic declines in the abundance of some wildlife. The planet…
Tons of logging debris is choking rivers in Malaysian Borneo, devastating local wildlife and cutting off water supplies to 200,000 urban residents. The logjam, which has been described as a…
BROOME, Australia — A cool breeze blows through the savanna country east of Broome, a small town on the far north coast of Western Australia, Australia's largest state. This time of year is known as Barrgana by the…
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…
In the early hours of July 13, a group of unknown people set fire to a massive warehouse full of agrochemicals in the Cornubia area of Durban on South Africa's…
The fragility of Latin American forests has been demonstrated by a pioneering study published in the journal Science Advances, which reveals an alarming finding: half of the region's forests would…
An Indigenous community in Peninsular Malaysia is fighting an eviction notice that could see it displaced to make way for a “world-class eco-city.” The Mah Meri families residing in the…
The EU and the forestry industry say burning wood to make energy is carbon neutral and cleaner than coal. But critics say biomass is a disaster for forests, biodiversity and the climate. Mongabay reviews the evidence on both sides.
A Malaysian timber certification authority has halted its review of a conflict between Sarawak Indigenous communities and a forest license holder after the plywood company Samling Group filed a $1.18…
In 2017, the name “La Merced de Buenos Aires,” or simply “Buenos Aires,” became famous throughout Ecuador. This small parish located high in the Andean province of Imbabura was invaded…
The Brazilian state of Acre, nestled along the border with Peru and Bolivia in the Amazon, has been called “the place where the wind makes the curve,” a saying that,…
DUMAGUETE CITY, Philippines — Local authorities in the central Philippines pushing ahead with a land reclamation project that will bury four marine reserves face strong opposition from scientists, fishers and…
Since 2002, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) has had a moratorium on the issuance of new logging concessions in its vast portion of the Congo Basin rainforest. If the…
Indigenous people in Brazil are bracing for a surge in invasions and violence on their territories after a controversial bill that could make land grabs easier cleared a key legislative…
