Freshwater Ecosystems News

JAMBI — A quintet of Jambi residents gathered one morning in May at the home of Leni Haini, an Indonesian environmental activist who last year received a prestigious award from…

OASI DI CANNEVIÉ, Italy — In the early morning haze, Luca Bellini steered his green boat through the web of canals and lagoons of the Po River Delta. He had…

In southeast Alaska, people and bears alike come to the shore of the Chilkat River to catch salmon beside evergreen trees and mountains with snow-covered stony summits. Five species of…

Flitting through the forest foliage, darting between branches and flawlessly negotiating their way around gargantuan tree trunks, bats have evolved exquisite adaptations to their forest homes. Although inaudible to human…

Lula's administration is weighing the renewal of Belo Monte hydroelectric plant's license, a dam blamed for taking away the livelihoods of riverine communities and causing socio-environmental chaos - built by Lula's party.

One of Bangladesh’s two Ramsar sites, wetlands of international importance, is slowly losing some of the waterbirds that seek respite at this key migratory pit stop, a new study says.…

Last year, a car fueled by human waste toured the European countryside, covering more than 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles). It was the culmination of To-Syn-Fuel, a pathfinding project using technology…

On April 4, a large fire gutted thousands of shops at a popular clothing market named Banga Bazar in the Bangladeshi capital, Dhaka. Firefighters complained of water scarcity as a…

Sometimes, our current mass extinction crisis can be represented by the loss of a single individual. On April 21, locals spotted a 93-kilogram (205-pound) body in the waters of Dong…

Every year, 22 million sockeye salmon begin life some 420 kilometers, or about 260 miles, inland from the Alaskan coast, in plastic bins. They’re at the Gulkana hatchery, the largest…

In 2005, fishers in northern Thailand captured a Mekong giant catfish of gargantuan proportions. Tipping the scales at 293 kilograms (646 pounds), the critically endangered Pangasianodon gigas raised a question…

In 1997, people in Asunción Mita, a municipality in eastern Guatemala, weren’t really thinking that mining could arrive close to home. But that same year, the country’s Ministry of Energy…

KORK THLORK, Cambodia — Vorn Keo, perched on the edge of a green wooden boat, navigates through the flooded forest of Tonle Sap Lake and across the boundary into a…

As a field biologist, Keith Perchemlides has often watched flames dance around tiny ponds that mark the remains of a vast wetland that once covered a large part of southwestern…

For Indigenous women in the Amazon, the wetland of Lake Tarapoto is a living classroom. The women consider it not just a home for the fish they rely on to…

Paul Van Damme and Fortuna Vargas Mejía met 28 years ago in Puerto Villarroel, a village in the Bolivian department of Cochabamba. Van Damme was a Belgian marine biologist who…

LIMURU, Kenya — Kiambu County in Kenya is facing a major water scarcity crisis that is threatening not only people’s livelihoods but also biodiversity. Rivers and wetlands that were once…

This is the second article in a Mongabay series focused on changes to the ecology and hydrology of the Mekong River. Read Part One. Niwat Roykaew, an environmental activist based…

This is the first article in a Mongabay series focused on changes to the ecology and hydrology of the Mekong River. Read Part Two. The Mekong River carves a vast…

PALEMBANG, Indonesia — Lithan, 68, grew up eating fish caught from the rivers and freshwater swamps near his village in Ogan Ilir district, near the southern tip of the island…

After 24 years of eluding ornithologists, a small, ground-hopping songbird known only from the tropical forests of northeastern Madagascar has been spotted by researchers once again. The dusky tetraka (Xanthomixis…

This story was produced with the funding support of the Pulitzer Center. WEST TURKANA, KENYA—By late morning along Kaito beach on the western banks of Lake Turkana, the heat beating…

Considering the invasive nature of the species, Bangladesh has finally banned the cultivation, breeding, transportation, sale and conservation of suckermouth catfish (Hypostomus plecostomus), as it gradually encroaches on local water…

DHAKA — As Bangladesh authorities prepare to declare the  country’s largest freshwater wetland a Ramsar site, its two other designated wetlands of international importance, including the Sundarbans, continue to come…

Temperate peatlands sequester tremendous amounts of carbon, but many have experienced extensive harm. Now, as climate change worsens, land managers are urgently moving to restore these vital ecosystems.

New research suggests travel between increasingly separated terrestrial and aquatic habitats may impact tropical amphibian microbiomes and immunity, leading to more disease, though more research is needed.

The indiscriminate use of gillnets by fishers in Bangladesh has become a major threat to the two freshwater dolphin species found there: the Ganga River dolphin (Platanista gangetica) and the…

Venezuela sits on one of the largest deposits of proven crude oil and natural gas reserves in the world. For decades, it’s been the backbone, if not the lifeline, of…

Large hydropower dams that obstruct the Amazon basin have long come under fire for their environmental and cultural impact — Belo Monte being the most prominent example. Yet a bigger…

Not quite aquatic but not fully terrestrial, mangrove forests are uniquely adapted to inhabit the interface between land and sea in the warmer parts of the world. Compared to the…