It’s not unusual to see some rivers running black in Venezuela, or for fishermen to return home scraping dark sludge off their boots. Crumbling infrastructure and a lack of government…
Industrial agriculture feeds billions of people and created the modern world. But the nitrogen and phosphorus it’s fertilized with is putting the biosphere, and humanity, at risk.
JAKARTA — The Indonesian government has unveiled the country’s first national priority plan to recover the ecosystems of 15 major lakes in “critical” condition by 2024. “Saving these national priority…
KISUMU, Kenya — First light finds Edikite Ochieng' Otieno waist-deep in weeds on the banks of Lake Victoria in western Kenya. A nearly unbroken mat of water hyacinth covers the…
The waters of Lake Victoria — the world’s largest freshwater tropical lake — are clogged by water hyacinth that harm the fishery, economy and health. Locals are combatting the invader by turning it into biofuel.
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — In a move that has prompted outrage in Cambodia and beyond, the Phnom Penh Municipal Court on May 5 sentenced five activists from the environmental group…
LAKE ALAOTRA, Madagascar — Madagascar’s environment minister, Baomiavotse Vahinala Raharinirina, celebrated World Wetlands Day last month by planting native reeds and sedges along the shore of sprawling Lake Alaotra in…
National and international NGOs from around the world have asked more than two dozen banks not to finance a 1,445-kilometer (898-mile) pipeline to shuttle oil from fields in Uganda to…
For centuries, Lake Andranobe in Madagascar's central highlands has nourished the surrounding communities. Over the past 16 years, its dependents have come together to restore the ailing lake. Now, that…
One of the world’s rarest birds, once thought to be extinct, successfully bred in the wild late last year. The crop of ducklings marks a victory for conservation groups that…
Eighty-eight-year-old Le Huy Hoanh stands up from his bench and carefully poured tea in rural Vietnam, and mimes for us how he used to kill gods. With his long spear…
Until recently, researchers knew of four lakes lying hidden underneath the Greenland ice sheet. Now, scientists say they’ve identified 56 more, bringing the total to 60 known subglacial lakes beneath…
JAKARTA — Officials in Indonesia have released a predictive calendar they hope will give fish farmers in the country’s largest lake a heads-up on water conditions that have previously killed…
Millions of fish in floating cages died suddenly this week in Lake Toba, the biggest lake in Indonesia. E. Naibaho, a local aquafarmer, noticed the fish in his floating pens…
DENPASAR, Indonesia — Tilapia is a mainstay of Balinese cuisine, but hundreds of thousands of the freshwater fish choke to death regularly in the resort island’s largest lake, for reasons…
The equatorial ecosystems of the Albertine Rift are packed with plants and animals found nowhere else on Earth. Formed as tectonic plates in eastern Africa have slowly pulled away from…
LAKE LIMBOTO, Indonesia — Anton Kui has fished here since he was in fifth grade. He remembers he could quickly catch a day’s worth of fish close to his home.…
MERABU, Indonesia -- The district of Berau on Borneo island is one of the world’s largest sources of coal for power generation (it gained notoriety in 2010 in the Bakrie-Rothschild…
Andrea Crosta of the Elephant Action League (EAL), one of the stars of the new Netflix documentary The Ivory Game, appears on the latest episode of the Mongabay Newscast. Crosta…
Driving down a winding road here in Indonesia’s North Sumatra province, one finally arrives at the sweeping vista of Lake Toba. Ringed with pine-studded hills, the volcanic lake was thronged…
This is the second article of an in-depth, four-part series exploring threats facing the Mekong Delta and how they might be addressed. Read the first, third and fourth installments. othing that influences…
Another mass fish death has hit Indonesia’s main western island of Sumatra. Four months after millions of carp and tilapia died suddenly in Lake Toba, the archipelagic country’s biggest lake,…
n the morning of May 4, the fish farmers of Haranggaol were waking up to feed the tilapia and carp they raise in floating cages here on Indonesia’s Lake Toba.…
After an Indonesian district deployed the military and police to enforce a controversial program to dismantle fish farms in a Lake Toba village, chief security minister Luhut Pandjaitan said that…
From the shore, the fish farmers looked on as soldiers dismantled their floating cages. These community-owned tilapia farms had been the main source of income in Sualan — a village…
When the sun rose over Indonesia's giant Lake Toba on Wednesday last week, fish farmers saw that death in the night had visited their floating cages, and taken everything. By…
This weekend saw the designation of 20 new UNESCO biosphere reserves around the world. Included in these is the brand new Tsá Túé International Biosphere Reserve, the first in northern…
or the past ten years Kenya and Uganda have been engaged in a fierce tussle over Migingo Island in Lake Victoria. A low slab of rocky land less than the…
“We're no longer the men of the lake. If the lake goes, we will too.” With these words, Simiano Valero expresses his sadness over the disappearance of Poopó Lake, the second…
Fishing gear stands ready next to the day's catch on the shore of Lake Victoria. Photo credit: Isaiah Esipisu. Lake Victoria, Africa's largest fresh water body and the world's second…
