Islands News

RSS
602 stories
Deep-sea starfish in American Samoa

US prepares to auction leases for seabed mining blocks in federal waters

Elizabeth Claire Alberts 27 May 2026
Ed Singson shows off the seaweed in his bucket

Philippine fishing and Indigenous communities wary of clean energy boom in Marcos stronghold

Michael Beltran 18 May 2026
Dove Lake beneath Cradle Mountain in Tasmania’s highlands, where cool, ocean-influenced conditions have helped slow the pace of climate change across the landscape. Image by Stefan Lovgren.

Long dubbed a ‘climate refuge,’ warming Tasmanian forests need our help

Stefan Lovgren 12 May 2026
Deforestation, climate change, and trade pose threats to the species, which has dwindled to a few hundred from some 750,000 in the 1960s.

US proposes endangered species protections for an imperiled Jamaican butterfly

Spoorthy Raman 7 May 2026
Philidris nagasau, an ant species endemic to Fiji that farms Squamellaria plants. Image by Eli M. Sarnat via AntWeb (CC BY 4.0).

Novel DNA research shows massive native ant decline over hundreds of years in Fiji

Shanna Hanbury 28 Apr 2026

Researchers say remote Lake Superior island’s wolves are thriving as packs prey on moose

Associated Press 27 Apr 2026
a ferret by Alfredo Gutiérrez via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Invasive ferrets removed from an island in a world-first

Shreya Dasgupta 15 Apr 2026

Council recommends opening US Pacific marine monuments to commercial fishing

Bobby Bascomb 13 Apr 2026

A new bird species has been discovered in Japan after 45 years

Naina Rao 13 Apr 2026
Waved albatross (Phoebastria irrorata). Photo by Rhett Ayers Butler

Half of seabirds are declining. Protecting marine flyways could help save them

Rhett Ayers Butler 10 Apr 2026
Azurina eupalama, last documented evidence of its existence, photographed in 1983 by Jack Stein Grove at Sullivan Bay, Santiago Island, Galapagos Archipelago

Is the Galápagos damselfish extinct?

Rhett Ayers Butler 7 Apr 2026

Researchers uncover 10 new moth species and 7 new genera in Hawaiʻi

Bobby Bascomb 4 Apr 2026

From endangered to invasive: Rare ocelot spotted on Mexico’s Cozumel Island

David Brown 18 Mar 2026
What used to be a dirt road through the heart of the Ngezi Forest Nature Reserve has recently been widened to facilitate development. Image courtesy of Viola Clausnitzer.

Works on planned luxury resort on Pemba island go ahead despite concerns

Victoria Schneider 10 Mar 2026
Sperm whale (Physeter macrocephalus); the species is one of 19 cetacean species that spend time in the Azores.

Azores dodges proposal to overturn no-fishing zones in its giant new MPA network

Maria José Mendes 23 Feb 2026

Giant tortoises return to Galápagos island 180 years after relatives went extinct

Bobby Bascomb 20 Feb 2026
Across Kep province, fishing communities fear the Funan Techo Canal will see them lose their homes on land and their livelihoods at sea. Image by Gerald Flynn / Mongabay.

Cambodia’s canal mega-project threatens coastal communities and marine life

Gerald Flynn, Phoung Vantha 10 Feb 2026
Food security activist Richard Rojo in his Vanuatu taro garden. Image courtesy of Monica Kidd.

Vanuatu communities move to protect taro, an ancestral climate-resilient crop (analysis)

Monica Kidd 26 Jan 2026

From south to north, Sri Lanka’s cricket dreams undermine fragile ecosystems

Malaka Rodrigo 19 Jan 2026
The fish-eating bat has been recorded on more than 45 islands in the Gulf of California. Isla Partida Norte is home to the largest known colony of the species. Image courtesy of José Juan Flores Martínez.

Up close with Mexico’s fish-eating bats: Interview with researcher José Juan Flores Martínez

Astrid Arellano 31 Dec 2025
The orchids at Levy Preserve are naturally occurring and indicate that this land hadn’t been disturbed for many years.

A small preserve leads a big effort to save native plants in the Bahamas

Marlowe Starling 30 Dec 2025
Elizabeth Erasito.

Elizabeth Erasito, custodian of Fiji’s parks and places

Rhett Ayers Butler 30 Dec 2025
George Teariki-Mataki Mateariki. Photo from Cook Islands Tourism

George Teariki-Mataki Mateariki, the Birdman of Atiu, has died, aged 67

Rhett Ayers Butler 29 Dec 2025
Illustration of a slender-billed curlew by Elizabeth Gould & Edward Lear via Wikimedia Commons (Public domain).

Declared extinct in 2025: A look back at some of the species we lost

Shreya Dasgupta 26 Dec 2025
Photos of Nepenthes megastoma, a newly described critically endangered species endemic to Palawan in the Philippines, showing its lower pitcher (a) and two distinct variant forms of its upper pitcher (b-c). Image courtesy of Altomonte et al., 2025 (CC BY-NC-ND).

New pitcher plant found in the Philippines may already be critically endangered

Shreya Dasgupta 24 Dec 2025
Community members plant red mangrove (Rhizophora mangle) propagules in Hanging Site as part of a restoration effort.

Huge ‘blue carbon’ offsetting project takes root in the mangroves of Sierra Leone

Edward Carver, Mohamed Fofanah 23 Dec 2025
A critically endangered lesser Antillean iguana in Dominica. Image courtesy of Andrew Snyder/Re:wild.

Tiny Caribbean island brings hope for critically endangered iguana

Shreya Dasgupta 18 Dec 2025
greater mouse-deer

Reforestation and wild pig decline spark surge in miniature deer in Singapore

Carolyn Cowan 8 Dec 2025
Unlike other ocean-based energy solutions such as offshore wind, OTEC systems could provide baseload energy.

For fossil fuel-dependent islands, ocean thermal energy offers a lifeline

Sean Mowbray 5 Dec 2025
Batasan Island in Danajon Bank, the only double barrier reef in the Philippines and one of only three in the Indo-Pacific region, is sinking as a result of a 7.2 magnitude earthquake that hit Bohol province in 2013.

Filipinos wade through floodwaters due to sinking land, rising sea & corruption

Jewel S. Cabrera 4 Dec 2025

A fragile Sri Lankan island fights back against the threat of mineral extraction

Malaka Rodrigo 28 Nov 2025
O'Shaughnessy's chameleon (Calumma oshaughnessyi), restricted to Madagascar. Image courtesy of Ricardo Rocha.

Island-confined reptiles face high extinction risk, but low research interest

Shreya Dasgupta 26 Nov 2025

you're currently offline