The only positive effect of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic is that it has generated public awareness of the risks of emerging diseases. One may hope that this will result in…
In May of 2015, ten people were arrested and three charged in Yunnan, China. They had killed a Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) and were selling its meat. The panda’s paws…
The fall of the Suharto regime and the beginning of the democratic or reformasi era in Indonesia coincided with a massive surge in deforestation. One of the central reasons for…
The largest carnivorous mammal of tropical America – the King of Beasts of the Amazon rainforest – is the jaguar. Found from the deserts of the American southwest as far…
California Governor Jerry Brown has done nearly everything within his reach to solve climate change. When he hosts the Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco in September, he can…
Imagine you are the head of a small NGO trying to conserve vultures. You have limited funds, and have to choose your actions carefully. Would supplementary feeding increase the population?…
I have something in common with the sassy character Lucy, Charlie Brown’s eternal “frenemy” in the iconic Peanuts cartoon series by Charles M. Schulz. We are both great admirers of…
It was getting late in the day and we were searching for our favorite swimming hole and camp site, a place called D’dar Poom Chop (which translates roughly from the…
“If you don’t know where you’re going, you’ll end up someplace else.” So said US baseball legend Yogi Berra, on the importance of having a goal in sight and a…
A recent commentary piece by Dr. Erik Meijaard provides a comprehensive view of the current situation and conservation actions undertaken in Baluran National Park as compared to time he spent…
Hear E.O. Wilson talk about his Half-Earth proposal in this January 2017 edition of Mongabay's podcast. The current issue of Sierra, a magazine published by the Sierra Club, contains a…
The new Trump administration in the U.S. brings with it a wave of policy and agenda shifts that are set to negatively impact the state of the environment on a…
On January 29, 2017, approximately 200 farmers from the village of Malinzanga in Tanzania stormed the office of the village chairman demanding something be done to protect their crops from…
Among the World’s most controversial industries, palm oil production is once again in the headlines. The polarized rhetoric and contradictory claims – concerning who really did what and where –…
When we learned that Berta Cáceres, a leader of the indigenous Lenca people, was murdered in Honduras, we were shocked but not surprised. A violent death is the all-too-frequent fate…
At present rates of destruction, in about 25 years there will be no rainforests outside protected areas in Malaysia, already void of Sumatran rhinoceroses, nor in Indonesia. Many fewer than…
OK, I will keep this short. Plenty has been said about the recent sad event in Indonesian Borneo. For those unaware of the story search the internet for “WWF”, “Kalimantan”, “Meijaard”,…
Fire is bad and needs to be stopped at all costs. That is the attitude European administrators brought to colonized lands stretching from Africa to Latin America and Australia during…
As the celebratory dust of the Paris climate change summit settles, an important gap remains. The reductions in carbon pollution that nations pledged to achieve are important steps in the…
Mist is rising through the forest canopy in the growing dawn of the South Indian jungle. It’s barely seven am and I am driving back from a stupendously successful morning…
The shocking image of a burnt orangutan mother and its baby this week really brought it home: All orangutans are Critically Endangered. This used to be the privileged status of…
Russ Mittermeier, long-time Chair of the IUCN/SSC Primate Specialist Group and Executive Vice-Chair of Conservation International has spent the better part of the last 46 years working on the conservation…
The Paris Conference of Parties (COP) of the UNFCCC has come and gone, and all but the most cynical would agree that the outcomes were on the positive side and…
I have spent the better part of the past 45 years promoting conservation of primates and their tropical forest habitats, and have had the opportunity to visit and experience firsthand…
Next year is the 100th Anniversary of the United States National Park Service, a branch of the Department of the Interior. The NPS largely owes its existence to one of…
Sadly, it is not a magician’s illusion, but a genuine plummeting in giraffe numbers across Africa. After a two-year effort spearheaded by the Giraffe Conservation Foundation, members of the International…
Home to an unmatched diversity of landforms, terrestrial and marine wildlife, and the world’s second-largest expanse of tropical forest, the African continent is undergoing a suite of social, economic and institutional transformations that are creating complex challenges for conservation efforts.
Forest set alight to clear land for oil palm in Riau's peatlands June 3, 2015. Photos by Rhett Butler. With global sea levels going up at a rate of about…
In this commentary, Fred Bercovitch, wildlife conservation biologist at Kyoto University, confronts the conservation community with an unconventional approach to stopping the ivory trade and illegal elephant killing. The views…
In this commentary, David Dellatore, Program Manager at the Sumatran Orangutan Society, questions the value of the Malaysian Palm Oil Council's essay-writing contest which will pay contributors to conclude that…