Melanesia News

RSS
496 stories

In New Guinea, megadiverse lowland forests are most at risk of deforestation

Carolyn Cowan 21 May 2025
Banner image of a weimang (Dendrolagus pulcherrimus) in Lumi, Papua New Guinea, by John Cannon/Mongabay

Locals, researchers race to save unique biodiversity of PNG’s Torricellis

Mongabay.com 18 Apr 2025

Even in death, Indigenous Fijians protect the sea

Rhett Ayers Butler 17 Apr 2025
A grizzled tree kangaroo (Dendrolagus inustus)

PNG’s Torricelli Mountains teem with life — and the risk of extinction

John Cannon 31 Mar 2025
Keith Davis, an American fisheries observer, disappeared on a Taiwanese-owned, Panamanian-flagged vessel in 2015. Image courtesy of Mark Benjamin.

‘Fatal Watch’: Interview with documentary makers on fisheries observer deaths

Edward Carver 20 Mar 2025
Fishing in Fiji. Image courtesy of Tom Vierus/WCS.

Funerary practices in Fiji protect marine areas while honoring the deceased

Sonam Lama Hyolmo 28 Feb 2025
Banner image of Gianluca Grimalda on a cargo ship courtesy of Gianluca Grimalda.

Climate researcher fired for refusing air travel wins compensation

Kristine Sabillo 30 Jan 2025
A Hooded Pitohui (Pitohui dichrous) from Papua New Guinea.

Indonesia’s voracious songbird trade laps up rare and poisonous pitohuis

Spoorthy Raman 10 Jan 2025
Banner image of the Bougainville forest planted by Carteret Islanders, by Thibault Le Pivain for Mongabay.

PNG climate migrants sail away with native trees to their new home

Mongabay.com 28 Nov 2024
Carteret islanders on a canoe. Image credit: Friends of the Earth.

In a Noah’s Ark move, PNG migrants bring thousands of trees to safer ground

Thibault Le Pivain 21 Nov 2024

World’s largest known coral — visible from space — found in Solomon Islands

Bobby Bascomb 14 Nov 2024
Mammalogists often use ear tags to identify individuals in their research. But Echidnas do not have external ears to attach a tag. Opiang used color-coded plastic tubing, glued to spines to identify individuals (visible on the right forelimb). Quiet, rare, nocturnal, hard-to-tag and found in remotest parts of New Guinea, field study of echidnas presents tremendous challenges. Photo by Muse Opiang

With rare mammal tourism, observing means conserving (commentary)

Charles Foley, Jon Hall 1 Nov 2024
A canoe of Indigenous design in Colombia. Image by J.J. Javier via Nia Tero.

Indigenous territories & peoples are key to achieving COP16’s 30×30 target (commentary)

Hon. Trevor Mahaga, Ricardo Camilo Niño Izquierdo 18 Oct 2024

Pacific Island nations propose ecocide be adopted as international crime

Shreya Dasgupta 17 Sep 2024
A yellow oriental paper wasp (Polistes olivaceus)

Bats & bees help ni-Vanuatu predict storms — but will climate change interfere?

Sonam Lama Hyolmo 10 Sep 2024
A school of barracuda in Papua New Guinea.

Not merely ‘exploration’: PNG deep-sea mining riles critics & surprises officials

Elizabeth Claire Alberts 2 Sep 2024
oriental pied hornbill

New database unveils the role of Asian hornbills as forest seed dispersers

Carolyn Cowan 15 May 2024
A flame bowerbird (Sericulus ardens) in PNG.

Conservationists welcome new PNG Protected Areas Act — but questions remain

Spoorthy Raman 12 Apr 2024
Informal logging road

Unseen and unregulated: ‘Ghost’ roads carve up Asia-Pacific tropical forests

Carolyn Cowan 11 Apr 2024

In Raja Ampat, pearl farming balances business and ecological sustainability

Basten Gokkon 22 Mar 2024
The helmet jellyfish (Periphylla periphylla) collected with a remotely operated vehicle in the North Pacific Ocean.

Communities worry anew as PNG revives seabed mining plans

John Cannon 20 Mar 2024
Jonathan Mesulam

PNG communities resist seabed mining: Interview with activist Jonathan Mesulam

John Cannon 1 Mar 2024

Can ecotourism protect Raja Ampat, the ‘Crown Jewel’ of New Guinea?

Mike DiGirolamo 20 Feb 2024

Indonesia invites Turkish investors to develop tuna farms in Papua

Basten Gokkon 30 Jan 2024

In PNG, researchers record 9 new species of predatory hermaphroditic land snails

Spoorthy Raman 24 Jan 2024
Women making skirts from grass in Southern Highlands Province of Papua New Guinea.

‘Cowboys’ and intermediaries thrive in Wild West of the carbon market

John Cannon 9 Jan 2024
An Indigenous person in a boat.

Vast new MPAs are PNG’s first to be co-managed by Indigenous communities

Ian Morse 14 Dec 2023
The Victoria crowned pigeon (Goura victoria) is the largest living pigeon species on the planet. Image by Bjørn Christian Tørrissen via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0).

Logging, road construction continue to fuel forest loss in Papua New Guinea

Spoorthy Raman 30 Nov 2023

Collaboration key to rediscovery of egg-laying mammal in Papua’s Cyclops Mountains

Basten Gokkon 28 Nov 2023
Mangroves along Wallace's Passage

The Indo-West Pacific harbors two distinct mangrove hotspots, study says

Basten Gokkon 30 Oct 2023
A green turtle swimming in the waters of New Caledonia.

New Caledonia expands strictly protected coverage of its swath of the Pacific

Elizabeth Claire Alberts 27 Oct 2023
A grizzled tree kangaroo at the TCA base in Lumi.

Defending a forest for tree kangaroos and people: Q&A with Fidelis Nick

John Cannon 4 Oct 2023

you're currently offline