When people think about apes in the connection with Sumatra, they will mainly picture the charismatic orangutans that are capturing international attention as well as conservation efforts. The attention for…
Over the past two decades, orangutan researcher Marc Ancrenaz watched as a tidal wave of oil palm has engulfed his once-forested research sites in northern Borneo. When he would find…
The planned construction of three luxury residential estates in vital wildlife refuge and popular tourist site Bokor National Park marks the latest update in a wider tale of loss for…
With no natural predators to worry about, jaguars (Panthera onca) roam the forests of South and Central America. This feline is found in 18 countries, but only 4% of its…
Swamps, sloughs, marshes, bogs, fens; water purification, flood control, wildlife nurseries, nutrient providers, carbon sinks: wetlands have many names and serve many environmental purposes. But for centuries they have been…
Since the 2018 emergence of African swine fever in China, the viral disease has torn through Asia, leaving behind a trail of economic devastation. It’s witheringly fatal to pigs but…
Update: The five activists were released on February 8 after they "signed an agreement not to enter restricted areas without permission," as Reuters reported. On Friday afternoon Kratie provincial environment…
The native vegetation of Brazil’s vast savanna is rapidly being replaced by plantations and pastures. At risk along with the biome’s grasslands are hundreds of endemic, uniquely adapted reptile species.
The Amazon basin lost more than 2 million hectares of primary forest cover in 2020, according to a new satellite data analysis released today. The authors say this likely eclipses…
Indonesia’s Kerinci Seblat National Park is the largest national park on the island of Sumatra and the second-largest park in Southeast Asia. It is home to a wide variety of…
Chances are, the works of the world’s insects touch your lips every day. The coffee or tea you savor, both are insect pollinated. Apples, oranges, cabbages, cashews, cherries, carrots, broccoli,…
Covering around 13% of Earth’s surface and harboring an estimated 83% of its endangered wildlife, protected areas are tasked with an outsize responsibility to safeguard vulnerable species, as well as…
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…
EAST LAMPUNG, Indonesia — It’s early December and Sujiono is busy trimming the branches of a ficus tree in his village in Sumatra’s Lampung province. It’s not your typical pruning…
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…
Under the thick blanket of smoke, relentless flames spread with dizzying speed over swaths of Pantanal Matogrossense National Park, its grasslands parched by months of drought. In a charred marshland,…
The mountainous forests of northern Madagascar are biodiverse beyond measure, containing plant and animal species found nowhere else on the planet. Other forests in Madagascar have been lost in recent…
From underwater tunnels to bridges to communication cables snaking across the ocean floor, structures made by humans are encroaching on marine life at an ever-growing pace. Our physical footprint of…
Rising across remote stretches of southeast Cambodia, the Cardamom Mountains harbor dense tropical rainforest, much of it native growth carpeting the range’s wet slopes. Due to its remoteness, the vast…
Tim Beatley will humbly tell you that he’s not a birder. But in his new book, there are enough appearances by obscure members of the class Aves to suggest that…
A thin plume of smoke rises above the lush canopy of the Apyterewa Indigenous Territory, deep in the Brazilian Amazon. A couple of men feed the flames engulfing a wooden…
The illegal wildlife trade is out of control in the Brazilian Amazon and Cerrado, says the award-winning NGO known as RENCTAS, which tracked 3.5 million wildlife trafficking ads on social networks last year.
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.
“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…