GELAM ISLAND, Indonesia — Not long ago, Suparyanto discovered that his family home on a small island off the west coast of Borneo was to become a quartz mine. “I…
To bring seabirds back to Kaho‘olawe, you need to first find the cats. And to find the cats on Kaho‘olawe, you need to know where to find the bombs. Eleven…
PHNOM PENH — In late December 2023, on a remote island in Preah Sihanouk province, off the southwest coast of Cambodia, a team of conservationists uncovered nine nests belonging to…
CENTRAL ARU, Indonesia — One afternoon last November, Natanel Ginobal, 67, drove his motorboat to check the mud crabs caught by the traps he had installed earlier the day. He…
For the past two decades, wildlife photographer and writer Bjorn Olesen and travel writer Fanny Lai have published books aimed at raising awareness of conservation in Asia. Beginning in 2012,…
CON CHIM, Vietnam — Off the coast of Vietnam's Tra Vinh province lies Con Chim, a tiny stretch of land where the wind sweeps in off the water, weaving through…
Scientists named hundreds of new to science species this year, including an electric blue tarantula, two pygmy squids, a silent frog, and some thumb-sized chameleons. These newly uncovered creatures give…
KINGSTON — “All of this was mangroves,” says marine scientist Mona Webber, pointing toward a line of ghostly gray boulders separating the road from the sea. We’re standing on the…
JAKARTA — New research on slugs has found two types of mangrove forests in the Indo-West Pacific region, highlighting their much-needed protection against deforestation and rising sea levels. The study…
MAKASSAR, Indonesia — Daeng Bau says he has no plans to move from his home on the tiny island of Lae-Lae, a stone’s throw across the seafront here in Makassar,…
Seven years ago, Redonda, a volcanic island in the Caribbean Sea, resembled the moon's surface: a dusty, debris-covered, barren terrain. The island, which is part of Antigua and Barbuda, had…
PALEMBANG, Indonesia — In February 1965, President Sukarno, flanked by aides and a photographer, unlocked the door to Indonesia’s first experimental nuclear reactor, the TRIGA Mark II, in the city…
CAPE TOWN — Evidence of mice attacking albatross chicks on Marion Island, midway between South Africa and Antarctica, makes for grim viewing. One video, captured at a colony of endangered…
A recent study found that locally managed marine areas in Fiji strengthened the mechanisms believed to advance conservation efforts but ultimately led to few social, economic or even ecological benefits.…
ARU ISLANDS, Indonesia — More than 10 years have passed since a young official in Indonesia’s eastern Aru Islands saved his archipelago from becoming a monoculture plantation. Today, Mika Ganobal…
Mayra Parra presses play on her laptop, and the video on the screen comes to life for the Perez family in the town of Abriaquí, Colombia. As a spectacled bear…
JAKARTA — The Indonesian government is considering applying an international treaty to fight illegal fishing at more ports across the country, to gain better oversight of the all-important fishing industry.…
How do you make people care about protecting marine habitats and wildlife? You tell stories, says Enric Sala, an explorer-in-residence and founder of the Pristine Seas project at the National…
In 2007, an NGO began linking up forest fragments in Brazil’s most at-risk biome. Today, Saving Nature has forest corridor projects underway on three continents. Part three of a three-part Mongabay mini-series on island habitat restoration.
In 2002, a couple vacationing in Costa Rica, stunned by deforestation there, bought land and regrew a transitional cloud forest — a grassroots model worth emulating: Part two of a three-part Mongabay mini-series on island habitat restoration.
Two musical instrument makers wanted to save Hawai‘i’s rare koa tree. In the process, they restored a tropical forest on the slopes of the Big Island’s Mauna Loa volcano. Part one of a three-part Mongabay mini-series on island habitat restoration.
It’s often been said that big cats don’t like water — but this mythological thinking isn’t entirely accurate. New research provides evidence that some male cougars (Puma concolor), or pumas,…
The Philippine eagle, the archipelagic nation's iconic, endemic apex predator, has been declared threatened with extinction for nearly three decades. Yet despite its status as the national bird, little is…
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…
SAMAL ISLAND, Philippines — Its official name, the Island Garden City of Samal, tells you all you need to know about this bucolic township off the coast of the southern…
The Peruvian diving petrel is a tiny, thrush-sized seabird that spends more time in the water than in the air. True to its name, it plunges into the chilly waters…
In 2009, a group of Indonesian researchers published a report on the vulnerability to climate change of the eastern Indonesian island of Lombok, home to about 4 million people. Their…
Damselfish can be fastidious farmers. They prune and cultivate small patches of algae, often no more than half a square meter (5 square feet) in area, ensuring they have a…
Stuart Sandin’s first impression of Palmyra Atoll, a remote island in the central Pacific Ocean, during a visit in 2004, was troubled. There were seabirds, but their presence was fragmented,…
JAKARTA — Much of the mangroves, seagrass beds and coral reefs in Indonesia lie outside protected areas, which could thwart efforts at effective marine conservation, a new report shows. Indonesia…