In a world wracked by wildfires, deadly storms, and the now too-familiar drumbeat of dire climate warnings, statistical descriptions of the future humanity faces can seem at once too sterile…
Every October, at least 10 million straw-colored fruit bats (Eidolon helvum) arrive in Kasanka National Park in Zambia from the rainforests of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Besides its spectacular…
Record extreme weather in the U.S., Brazil, China and elsewhere is impacting food production this year, with the future expected to be far worse. Agriculture requires “transformational change” to meet the climate crisis, say experts.
New agri-technologies and traditional farming practices done right could combine to offer significant benefits and hope for the global environment and health.
"Tell me what you eat, and I shall tell you what you are," the French lawyer Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin wrote in his 1826 opus, Physiologie du Goût. This is quite…
Residents of the Gambian coastal town of Sanyang say life has gotten harder since a fishmeal plant set up production in 2017. Growing tensions over unresolved disputes with the factory…
Every item of food has a story to tell. Kiwifruits may grow in New Zealand, but they can be flown across the world to sit on a grocery store shelf…
Swarms of locusts tens of kilometers wide have threatened to devastate crops in East Africa since late 2019, putting some 32 million people at risk of going hungry. The desert…
More than a decade after the Planetary Boundaries framework was first proposed by top scientists, we are no closer to changing our destructive trajectory — but 2021 gives us three opportunities to act.
ANTANANARIVO, Madagascar — As drought pushes more than 1 million people toward famine in southern Madagascar, violent winds have been veiling the sky with dust and sand, at times blotting…
There’s nowhere on Earth quite like Madagascar when it comes to the sheer wealth and wonder of biodiversity. But along with its natural richness, the island nation is beset by…
Aid agencies amass nutrition data diligently from the scorched south of Madagascar. But on the ground, the sale of kitchen utensils is a real red flag for aid workers —…
JAKARTA — Indonesia’s dwindling forests may be cleared for farmland under a government-led program to boost domestic food production, raising fears of a surge in deforestation. The government’s “food estate”…
This article is a one year follow up to the award-winning series, The Great Insect Dying published in June, 2019 on Mongabay. The original series documents insect losses in Europe, the U.S. and the tropics — here’s what we know today.
JAKARTA — Observers and activists have raised concerns about the leading role the Indonesian government plans to give to the military and to big corporations in a program to establish…
JAKARTA — The Indonesian government is doubling down on a plan to establish large-scale agricultural plantations across the country, in a move that threatens widespread deforestation and the disenfranchisement of…
Brazil is a leading producer of the world’s beef, but ranching is also the leading cause of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. Now the global pandemic has curbed meat consumption in both Brazil and China.
JAKARTA — The Indonesian government is pushing ahead with a plan to grow crops on a Puerto Rico-sized area of peatlands, despite criticism from experts and a history of similar…
Agribusiness entities that deforested vast swaths of the Cerrado biome in Brazil to grow corn are now suffering a drop in production because of climate changes brought about by their own actions.
In 1997, Charles Moore was sailing a catamaran from Hawaii to California when he and his crew got stuck in windless waters in the North Pacific Ocean. As they motored…
Late rainfall, intense drought, dry riverbeds, more forest fires, less food available — indigenous communities across the Amazon suffer social transformations due to climate change.
JAKARTA — Nyoman Suryadiputra says he still vividly remembers the time he traveled deep into the heart of the lush tropical peat forests of Indonesian Borneo in 1996 to document…
ALBAY, Philippines — Ramon Oliva, a rice farmer from the Philippine province of Camarines Sur, has been tasked to look after the main dam at Mount Isarog in the town…
The Brazilian savanna has always been a dry place, but the massive conversion of native vegetation to soy is making it far dryer, as is deepening, climate change-driven, drought.
LIMURU, Kenya — In the lush, rolling highlands of Limuru in central Kenya lies a farm like few others. From the outside, it could be growing anything in its rows…
BENGUET, Philippines — Every day, at least 1,500 metric tons of semi-temperate vegetables are trucked down from Benguet, a mountainous province in the northern Philippines, to depots called bagsakan in…
Every year, billions of fish — almost one-fifth of the world’s annual wild catch — are dried, pressed and ground into oil and meal. The majority of this material is…
The world is in a slow-moving, persistent water crisis. Rapidly rising water usage, increasingly uncertain rainfall, and widespread water pollution push more of our world into water stress and intensify…
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.
This month’s nationwide blackout forced citizens to deforest parks for firewood, to pull water from polluted rivers, and resulted in the death of hospitalized babies and endangered wildlife.
