Protected areas are important for saving tropical forests and biodiversity, but for them to be effective, local communities living around the reserves need to have access to non-agricultural jobs, a…
Female hummingbirds sometimes look like the brightly colored males of their species. Researchers have long pondered the reason for this. Now, a study of hummingbirds in Panama suggests that sporting…
The jaguar population in Mexico increased by about 800 animals from 2010 to 2018, according to the first two censuses of the elusive carnivores ever conducted in the country. The…
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…
The alleged mastermind of the 2016 killing of environmental and Indigenous rights activist Berta Cáceres was convicted of homicide by a Honduran court on Monday. Roberto David Castillo Mejía, the…
Like a mermaid on an underwater picnic, she floats gently in the current as slivers of sunlight reveal a garden of corals in the Golfo Dulce, in southern Costa Rica.…
Early on the morning of Sept. 16, 2018, an olive ridley sea turtle (Lepidochelys olivacea) hauled herself out of the ocean along a beach on Costa Rica’s Nicoya Peninsula. Moving…
In 2000, Dr. Rafael Reyna-Hurtado spotted a herd of white-lipped peccaries (Tayassu pecari) for the first time in the Mayan Forest. The sight, he says, took his breath away. Never…
Everyone’s lives have been upended by coronavirus, but perhaps nowhere have the impacts been as devastating as in Mesoamerica’s indigenous territories. In March, just before the pandemic really hit the…
Howler monkeys change their calls when they’re close to deforested areas, a new study has found. A team of researchers, led by anthropologist Laura Bolt of the University of Waterloo…
This week’s Climate Strike mobilized and inspired millions of people around the world, including us. On Friday, we stood with young protesters in New York’s Battery Park, listening to Greta…
2018 was a difficult year for the world's tropical rainforests. Below are of some of the biggest rainforest storylines for the year, but we couldn't cover everything, so if there…
CUETZALAN, Mexico — Rain clouds thicken overhead as a small crew finishes the installation of a pair of rooftop solar panels. The house stands along a dirt road in a…
Secondary forests — those that regrow naturally after being cleared or degraded — constitute more than half of existing tropical forests. When they are old enough, they support a wide…
Tropical forests are incredibly diverse ecosystems, and ecologists have long wondered why. New research studying a specific Panamanian tree – the yellow-flowering Handroanthus guayacan – has provided an answer. But…
A researcher has identified a colorful tree frog as a new species and named the amphibian Sylvia’s tree frog, Cruziohyla sylviae, after his 3-year-old granddaughter. Andrew Gray, Curator of Herpetology…
Conservation scientists meeting in Mexico are warning that planned expansion of industrial monocultures in Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula poses a threat to traditional agricultural practices that help maintain biodiversity and ecosystem…
(This is a collaborative article by Mongabay Latam and Plaza Pública, a Guatemalan investigative news outlet) The spokesperson for the Public Prosecutor’s Office, Julia Barrera, told Plaza Pública and Mongabay…
While Costa Rica is now known as a world leader for conversation policies and ecotourism, the Central American country had some of the world's highest deforestation rates prior to establishing…
