Midway through a recent documentary called Last of the Right Whales, we get a drone’s-eye view of half a dozen jet-black right whales cuddling and caressing while lolling in an…
The concept of "biocultural diversity" has gained wider prominence in recent decades as academics, institutions, and practitioners have expanded cross-disciplinary work at the intersection of human culture and biological diversity.…
As a best-selling author, the co-founder of the award-winning Amazon Conservation Team, and an acclaimed public speaker, Mark Plotkin is one of the world’s most prominent rainforest ethnobotanists and conservationists.…
Today we review how the world’s forests fared in 2021 and take a look at the major forest and conservation storylines to watch in 2022. Listen here: The UN’s Food…
Update 2/2022: In late January, correspondence found among the late E.O. Wilson’s papers connected him with J. Phillipe Rushton, whose research in the 1980s and 1990s has been linked with white…
Maritza Sepúlveda grew up in San Felipe, a town far from the ocean in central Chile. Despite this, or perhaps because of it, her curiosity about the ocean began early…
All across the arid and semi-arid landscapes of Africa, grasslands meet the eye. These ecosystems provide a wealth of environmental services, sequestering immense amounts of carbon (grazing lands store up…
As deforestation and subsequent human expansion into natural areas continue, separating people from wildlife is unrealistic. Even in “pristine” landscapes, like national parks, humans and wildlife are always sharing the…
It's the perfect time of year to pick up a great book, and we've got a couple recommendations for you today. Listen here: Our first guest is Janisse Ray, author…
Earlier this week climate activists Kevin J. Patel and Julia Jackson published an op-ed in Newsweek that effectively accused the Biden Administration of betraying their climate commitment at last month's…
Some people know that they want to be scientists from an early age. Not so with Sara Beery. The computer vision expert got started on her path to science in…
Research published in recent years has shown that Indigenous territories have experienced substantially lower rates of forest loss than non-Indigenous lands. Given that Indigenous territories account for at least 36%…
Today we take a look at two stories that Mongabay has been reporting out of Southeast Asia. Both stories involve the land rights of local and Indigenous communities in or…
In 1986 a 24-year-old from Ohio named Daniel Katz set out to save tropical rainforests by creating a way for consumers to directly support more eco-conscious approaches to producing products…
When Elisa Panjang was 10 years old, playing outside her home in Sandakan, a small town in Malaysian Borneo, she heard a snuffling sound near the forest’s edge. As she…
Rhinos aren’t built for flight. Robin Radcliffe, a veterinarian at Cornell University with several decades of experience taking care of rhinos, is well aware of this. So when Namibia, one…
Between the global pandemic, the accelerating impacts of climate change and environmental degradation, and the conservation sector's reckoning with its colonial past, 2020 and 2021 have been a tumultuous time…
Last week, primatologist and conservation icon Jane Goodall interviewed Mongabay founder and CEO Rhett Ayers Butler for her Hopecast podcast. Goodall and Butler talked about the importance of good storytelling…
Liliana Dávalos had only been studying geology for a few days at the National University of Colombia in 1991 when the program director told the whole class that women were…
“To summarize my view of where we are at the present time in the conservation movement…we are winning battles in a losing war,” famed biologist, naturalist, and writer Edward O.…
For at least the past 20 years, there has been regular talk about the need to break down silos in conservation. The argument is straightforward: to be successful, the field…
Last month, nine organizations collectively announced a $5 billion pledge toward biodiversity conservation efforts worldwide. Most of the participants are philanthropic foundations, but one signatory is Rainforest Trust, a conservation…
COVID-19 has devastated communities around the world, but for some Indigenous groups, the pandemic posed an existential threat. Few people are better placed to speak to the impact COVID is…
To the Haudenosaunee, water is life. In their creation story, deep water covered the Earth, until a woman, known as Sky Woman, fell from an island in the sky. Birds…
Most people are familiar with the world's "big cats": Lions, tigers, leopards, jaguar, puma, and cheetah. But far fewer people know about the much larger number of small cat species,…
Efforts to protect wildlife and landscapes have generally been shifting away from "fortress conservation" — where local people are excluded from the lands they've traditionally managed — toward more inclusive…
In March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic shut theatres across North America and beyond. What's the receipt of two Primetime Emmy Awards, a Tony Award, and nominations for four Academy Awards,…
“Wild rats are as different to laboratory rats, as probably a wolf is to a Chihuahua. That’s not an embellished analogy … The biggest misconception, I think, is that we…
Over the past five years, Mighty Earth has emerged as one of the most influential advocacy groups when it comes pushing companies to clean up their supply chains. The group,…
Environmental causes have traditionally attracted only a small share of philanthropic support in the United States: Between 1-3% of annual giving, depending on how the issue area is defined. But…