Brazil’s use of pesticides has spiked in recent years, growing by over 300,000 tonnes since 2010, according to experts. A recent report, published by the NGO Operação Amazônia Nativa (OPAN)…
PARAÍBA VALLEY, Brazil — Under the frigid morning air of the Mantiqueira Mountains in southeastern Brazil, honeybees begin leaving the hive. “When day breaks they are calmer,” says Mara Galvão,…
Likely the world’s most popular garment, jeans use huge amounts of water to grow irrigated cotton, a major factor in destroying the Aral Sea. Today, the industry, though making sustainability pledges, still does much harm.
Brazilian soybean producers have been highly successful in using genome technology to benefit their crops, with huge economic and environmental gains, a new paper highlights. Currently, the growers are using…
A dearth of research leaves scientists mostly flying blind as to insect abundance and diversity in the tropics. But a new study identifies losses in Brazil of terrestrial species, while aquatic species seem to be holding steady.
Travelling by train from central London, it doesn’t take long before the city gives way to a patchwork of mostly agricultural fields. But one of these fields is special. The…
Where I live in the Rocky Mountains, summer is marked by the arrival of the Rocky mountain iris, a favorite for bumble bees and other pollinators, which also make their…
Rodents gnawing on oil palm crops can be a costly business. One study estimated that they can reduce yields by as much as 10%. Among the means used to tackle…
If locusts return by the millions this September, as forecasted, South African farmers hope to follow their movements via a state-of-the-art tracking system, allowing for targeted elimination with pesticides.
Despite some amazing rebounds, six decades after Rachel Carson’s call to curb pesticide use, the world’s birds are in deep trouble — assaulted by toxic chemicals, lost habitat, hunting, invasive species, and climate change.
Primates and other tropical wildlife are increasingly being exposed to pesticides pharmaceuticals, plastics, nanoparticles and other synthetic materials, but adverse impacts on these animals have been little studied.
IZTARU, Costa Rica — “This simple wooden beehive is 20 years old. It was the first little bee house I ever made. I call it a relic; it’s sacred to…
TERNATE, Indonesia — It’s a sunny day in January in Indonesia’s North Maluku province, and Kamil Ishak is looking at the crops on his organic farm. “I was introduced to…
Brazil’s lower house of congress has overwhelmingly approved a bill that would loosen regulations for the use of pesticides, raising concerns that approval in the Senate would unleash further environmental…
KAVREPALANCHOK, Nepal — Ram Shrestha is spraying pesticide on his potato plants next to a paved road. The cracked earth seems lifeless here in this part of Kavrepalanchok district, a…
Amid the smog, butterflies, bees and other insects are having a hard time smelling the flowers they so dutifully pollinate. Researchers found that common, ground-level air pollutants such as nitrogen…
Pesticides have been dropped from planes and even helicopters with the aim of evading IBAMA, the Brazilian environmental agency, for years as a method to clear remote and hard-to-reach areas…
Scientists analyzed levels of chemical pollutants in native jataí bees across eight landscapes in Brazil’s São Paulo state. They found that in landscapes with more vegetation, the bees had fewer pollutants, at lower levels, indicating that the plants act as a filter and protective barrier
PITU SUNGGU, Indonesia — Arief Sore holds up a clutch of desiccated rice stalks a short distance from the unusual arable field he tills in Pangkep district on Indonesia's Sulawesi…
The United Nations’ Human Rights Committee has found that the Paraguayan government failed to regulate the use of harmful chemicals near an Indigenous community, resulting in severe health issues and…
Our pollution of the planet with heavy metals, plastics, industrial chemicals, pesticides and more is pushing Earth systems to the limit, and us closer to crossing a dangerous planetary boundary we don’t understand.
NAIROBI — Munene Njoka, a young farmer from central Kenya, is furious. The reason for his rage is a bundle of decaying maize stacked in a corner of his home.…
In some places in North America, the sound of buzzing above fields and forests may no longer foretell trouble, but rather, an innovative solution to a centuries-old problem. Drones are…
In the late 2000s and the early 2010s, the Brazilian palm oil industry told us that oil palm plantation expansion would take a different path than in Southeast Asia, where…
During 18 months, Mongabay investigated allegations challenging the “sustainable” status of the Brazilian palm oil supply chain, unveiling the opposite, with impacts including deforestation and water contamination, discovering what appears to be an industry-wide pattern of brazen disregard for Amazon conservation and for the rights of Indigenous people and traditional communities in northern Pará state.
Firings, threats, thefts, gag orders, attempted kidnappings and other intimidation against environmental researchers and civil servants appear to be on the rise; many blame an incendiary Bolsonaro government.
Swarms of locusts tens of kilometers wide have threatened to devastate crops in East Africa since late 2019, putting some 32 million people at risk of going hungry. The desert…
Iconic, romanticized, and celebrated, fireflies illuminate the evenings and twilight memories of people around the globe. For years, naturalists and conservationists have noted, anecdotally, that fireflies seem to be in…
Dark, milk, or somewhere in between, chocolate is a favorite treat all over the world. The Theobroma tree, the genus responsible for our cravings, thrives in shady, tropical regions. But…
Chances are, the works of the world’s insects touch your lips every day. The coffee or tea you savor, both are insect pollinated. Apples, oranges, cabbages, cashews, cherries, carrots, broccoli,…
