Rainforests and Africa News

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“For mothers and young elephants, Dzanga Bai becomes something of a playground and a very safe place,” says Yvonne Kienast, project manager and head researcher of the Dzanga Forest Elephant Project. Image by Rhett A. Butler/Mongabay.

A unique clearing in Central Africa draws elephants from the dense forests

David Akana 6 Apr 2026
A lemur eating a strawberry guava. Image courtesy of Natalee Phelps.

An invasive guava is muscling out Madagascar’s forests — and lemurs are helping

Ryan Truscott 31 Mar 2026
Massaha forest. Image by ZB.

How a community defended its ancestral forest from logging

Rhett Ayers Butler 16 Mar 2026
What used to be a dirt road through the heart of the Ngezi Forest Nature Reserve has recently been widened to facilitate development. Image courtesy of Viola Clausnitzer.

Works on planned luxury resort on Pemba island go ahead despite concerns

Victoria Schneider 10 Mar 2026

Cameroon’s decade of conflict leaves apes and conservationists in peril

Orji Sunday 3 Mar 2026
Satellite image of the eastern part of the Cape York Peninsula in Australia. Courtesy of Earthstar Geographics SIO / Microsoft maps

Scientists can’t agree on where the world’s forests are

Rhett Ayers Butler 17 Feb 2026
A forest elephant near Ngounié, Gabon. Image by marcusgmeiner via iNaturalist (CC BY-NC 4.0)

What’s next for the major pledge to halt & reverse Congo Basin deforestation?

Latoya Abulu 5 Feb 2026
Destroyed trees inside the Apamprama reserve. Image by Awudu Salami Sulemana Yoda.

Successful campaign proves Ghana’s forests are worth more than gold (commentary)

Daryl Bosu 5 Feb 2026
Francis Hallé. Photo by Thomas Samson / AFP

Francis Hallé, the botanist who took a raft into the rainforest canopy

Rhett Ayers Butler 22 Jan 2026
East African mahogany (Khaya anthotheca), Chirinda Forest, Zimbabwe. Image courtesy of Tony Robello via Wikimedia Commons.

Too many African plants fall into the IUCN’s ‘not evaluated’ trap (commentary)

Victor Nsereko Wantate 20 Jan 2026
Loading a barge with iron ore from Simandou. Image by Paul Kagame via Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)

Hopes and fears as Guinea exports iron ore from Simandou mines

Ashoka Mukpo 16 Jan 2026
Myotis nimbaensis, shown here, is a new species of bat named for the mountain range in which it is found, the Nimba Mountains in West Africa. Photo © Kendra Snyder / Bat Conservation International.

Rare bats at risk as iron ore mine advances in Guinea’s Nimba Mountains

Victoria Schneider 30 Dec 2025
Rainforest in Brunei in 2025. Photo by Rhett Ayers Butler

The year in rainforests 2025: Deforestation fell; the risks did not

Rhett Ayers Butler 26 Dec 2025
Journey by pirogue for members of the Baliga

Congo’s communities are creating a 1-million-hectare biodiversity corridor

Elodie Toto 18 Dec 2025
Forest elephants

Wildlife and communities bear the cost as Simandou rail corridor advances across Guinea

Younoussa Naby Sylla 11 Dec 2025
A L’Hoest’s monkey (Allochrocebus Ihoesti) at Rwanda’s Nyungwe National Park. Image by Ashoka Mukpo for Mongabay.

An Empire of Nature: African Parks and Rwanda’s Nyungwe Forest

Ashoka Mukpo 4 Dec 2025
A juvenile bonobo (Pan paniscus) gazes at an uncertain future.

DRC hit by record deforestation in 2024, satellite data show

Ruth Kamnitzer 26 Nov 2025
Baobab Alley in Madagascar. Photo by Rhett Butler.

Pioneering primatologist in Madagascar shares decades of conservation wisdom

Mike DiGirolamo 18 Nov 2025
Logging truck leaves the forest in Ghana. Image courtesy of Fern.

As Ghana ships first ‘gold standard’ timber to EU, questions about FLEGT’s future remain (commentary)

Fred Pearce 3 Nov 2025

Tanzanian conservationists mourn death of plant expert Aloyce Mwakisoma

Ryan Truscott 13 Oct 2025
Cacao illegally farmed inside Côte d’Ivoire’s Cavally Forest Reserve. Image courtesy of Mighty Earth.

A cacao rush drives ‘alarming’ deforestation in Liberia

Ashoka Mukpo 10 Oct 2025
A Verreaux’s sifaka dancing.

Madagascar’s dry forests need attention, and Verreaux’s sifakas could help

Mino Rakotovao 15 Sep 2025
A young Grauer's gorilla in Kahuzi-Biega National Park.

Park guardians or destroyers? Study dissects 2 narratives of DRC’s Indigenous Batwa

Blaise Kasereka Makuta 11 Sep 2025
A brilliant blue male Francis’s gorgeous sapphire, euthanized after being reared in captivity. Image courtesy of Jonathan Francis.

Discovery of dazzling blue butterfly underscores peril facing Angola’s forests 

Ryan Truscott 3 Sep 2025

‘Let’s understand the value of the forest’ says Liberia’s Silas Siakor

Ashoka Mukpo 1 Sep 2025
A woman walks through a forest in Liberia. Image by Open Government Partnership via Flickr (CC BY-2.0).

Liberia has a new plan to protect its rainforests. Can it work?

Ashoka Mukpo 1 Sep 2025
Critically endangered African forest elephants act as seed dispersers in the rainforest, taking the seeds far, far away from the mother plants.

As forest elephants plummet, ebony trees decline in Central Africa’s rainforests

Spoorthy Raman 29 Aug 2025

Uncovering forest loss in gorilla park six months after M23 offensive in the DRC

Elodie Toto, Latoya Abulu 31 Jul 2025
White-bellied pangolin (Phataginus tricuspis), Gabon. Image by bureaubenjamin via iNaturalist (CC BY-NC 4.0)

Pandemic-era slump in ivory and pangolin scale trafficking persists, report finds

Spoorthy Raman 17 Jun 2025
Mongabay podcasts

With offerings in 4 languages, Mongabay’s podcasts expand global reach

Mongabay.com 10 Jun 2025
Banner image of the Ekalakala bonobo group in the Kokolopori Bonobo Reserve in the DRC courtesy of Martin Surbeck/Kokolopori Bonobo Research Project.

Female bonobos wield power through unity: Study

Kristine Sabillo 3 Jun 2025
Banner image: The Madikwe Game Reserve in South Africa captured by the Pléiades Neo satellite. Image courtesy of the Airbus Foundation and Connected Conservation Foundation.

‘Satellites for Biodiversity’ upgrades with new projects and launches insight hub

Kristine Sabillo 26 May 2025

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