Habitat Degradation News

Mario’s nervousness is evident on the other end of the phone as he speaks about how three men tried to stab him in November 2020. This wasn’t the first time something…

JAKARTA — An upgrade to a road that cuts through one of Southeast Asia’s last great swaths of intact rainforest is driving deeper encroachment by humans into blocks of forest…

The Siona are a binational people, their territory straddling two countries: Sucumbíos province in northeastern Ecuador and in the Putumayo department in southeastern Colombia. But the forest they depend on…

The Catatumbo River originates in northeastern Colombia’s Norte de Santander Department and flows to Venezuelan Lake Maracaibo. For generations, it has provided passage for fishermen and small farmers; but increasingly,…

JAKARTA — Onrizal Onrizal remembers hearing stories of human-like creatures living in the forest when he was growing up in Sungai Dareh, a town in western Sumatra, Indonesia. Legend had…

“Unless urgent and effective conservation action is taken, these magnificent animals are likely to go extinct within our lifetime.”- Dr. Carlos Drews, Director of WWF’s Global Species Program In 2011,…

It was August 26, 2020. Dirlene Mejía, a park ranger who works in the area around Concepción Lake, a protected area located in eastern Bolivia, had just left for her…

Between 2010 and 2020, South America lost an average of 2.6 million hectares of forest per year, according the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). In other…

The four-wheel-drive bumped over a rutted road. Rain that began as soon as they left the pavement was so thick that the road, compacted by traffic, became slippery, and the…

Europe is failing to protect its oceans, despite having policies in place to safeguard its marine environment, according to a report published by the European Court of Auditors (ECA) on…

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.

AKLAN, Philippines — Authorities in the Philippines have arrested a resort owner on the island of Boracay for allegedly violating the country’s forestry and marine resources management laws. The investigation…

“In the years when logging was not happening, sometimes you did not see the sunlight in the bush because of the tree cover,” said Musa Mballo, a forest protection activist…

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia — Conservationists are calling for a Sumatran rhino habitat at the northern tip of the Indonesian island to be fully protected from planned road-construction projects. Officials in…

Maned wolves, pumas, giant anteaters, tapirs and other Neotropical mammals are threatened with local extinctions unless more conserved areas are established in Brazil’s savanna biome, say scientists.

Selective logging has long been touted as an environmentally and ecologically favorable way to harvest timber, yet a new study adds to a growing body of evidence that suggests this…

OGAN KOMERING ILIR, Indonesia — Officials in Sumatra plan to build a billion-dollar bridge to the Bangka-Belitung archipelago off the island’s east coast, but conservationists warn it threatens a key…

Located in northeastern Brazil, the Caatinga, with its shrublands and dry forests, is seen by many as poor in biodiversity. As a consequence, the region receives little investment for conservation…

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.

Humans have not treaded lightly on the Earth. Over the centuries, we have left our mark on almost every ecosystem, contributing to a steady, and increasingly rapid, decline in the…

OGAN KOMERING ILIR, Indonesia — Over the past two decades, much of the forests in Ogan Komering Ilir district in southern Sumatra, Indonesia, have been cleared to make way for…

PALAWAN, Philippines — Deep in the forests of Palawan, the biodiverse island in the western Philippines, a plethora of plant species thrive. Many are so rare and astonishingly beautiful that…

A dramatic surge in jaguar poaching and confiscations could be linked to Chinese-led investment in Latin America, poverty and corruption, according to a new study.

Spurred by a deadly Brazilian dam disaster in early 2019, a partnership between the U.N. and industry leaders has released new guidance on managing mining waste. Released Aug. 5, the…

Meet biologist Jonathan Slaght as he spends years tracking a giant bird “the size of a fire hydrant with a six-foot wingspan.” Slaght’s new book, Owls of the Eastern Ice, offers engaging tales from the field.

In the Wai‘anae Mountains, a range on the western side of O‘ahu, Hawaii, a group of scientists were surveying the land for tiny, terrestrial snails when they came across something…

JAKARTA — A new study on certified oil palm plantations and their links to past deforestation has sparked a debate over whether they can be considered sustainable if they’re established…

Referred to as barking deer, 12 species of muntjacs inhabit Asia. The rarely seen, critically endangered Large-antlered muntjac inhabits the evergreen forests of Southeast Asia’s Annamites Range.

COLOMBO — Surveys carried out in the early 1980s in the many reservoirs in Sri Lanka’s dry zone showed abundant populations of the red-fin labeo (Labeo lankae), an endemic species…

Well organized global crime networks are pulling millions of tropical birds, fish, turtles and mammals out of the Amazon — a lucrative trade that is destroying ecosystems and putting public health at risk.