Tropics News

RIO DE JANEIRO – Horto, a secluded neighborhood in the south of Rio de Janeiro with a view of the famed Christ the Redeemer statue, is enveloped by forest. Tropical…

Ostrich-shaped but elephant-sized, a species known as the elephant bird once roamed Madagascar’s tropical forests. But close to a thousand years ago, these giant birds slipped into extinction. Now all…

Think of a mammal that’s at risk of extinction. What comes to mind? A charismatic tiger, perhaps? Or a grand herd of majestic elephants? What about the Mount Lefo brush-furred…

The great drought and megafires that the Amazon experienced in recent years caused the death of 2.5 billion trees and vines in the Lower Tapajós River Basin, one of the…

In Brazil's different biomes, each environment offers a distinct experience. An unspoiled natural landscape is not only a precious reservoir of biodiversity, it can also be a feast for the…

I’ve been writing about wild things for more than 10 years, and while there are many animals I don’t know, I thought I’d at least heard of most of the…

TIMBULSLOKO, Indonesia — For Kartimah, traveling to the doctor’s office for her regular checkups is no longer such a simple journey. The trip used to be a short hop by…

The asteroid impact 66 million years ago that killed more than 75% of all species on Earth, including all non-avian dinosaurs, triggered an ecological catastrophe that took the neotropical rainforests…

Belize sits on the cusp of protecting the key piece of the largest rainforest preserve north of the Amazon. In April 2021, the Nature Conservancy and a consortium of conservation…

Polar phytoplankton, fish, seabirds and mammals are increasingly threatened by global warming, which is destabilizing Arctic ecosystems, even as southern species move northward — will the imbalanced biome collapse?

In 2012, researchers described a teensy, aspirin-sized chameleon, Brookesia nana, from a thin slice of rainforest in northern Madagascar. The species, which experts believe is the smallest reptile in the world, grabbed plenty…

I’ve lost count of the number of times, working as a journalist across Latin America, that I’ve met, spoken to, or heard from or about Indigenous peoples and other local…

In a once-cleared patch of rainforest, four black-tufted marmosets scamper up to a pile of bananas lying in a plastic dish on the ground. Within the banana flesh are the…

Covering around 13% of Earth’s surface and harboring an estimated 83% of its endangered wildlife, protected areas are tasked with an outsize responsibility to safeguard vulnerable species, as well as…

Thanks to the rollout of free, high-resolution satellite imagery, the job of monitoring deforestation in tropical forests just got a lot easier. Last year Norway’s Ministry of Climate and Environment…

Tropical trees have shorter life spans than trees in other parts of the world, living, for example, just over half as long as temperate trees. A new analysis suggests that,…

Hanging in harnesses 80 feet above the rainforest floor, I realize Ruth and I might be the first humans to have ever been in the canopy of this living fossil,…

I don’t know whether it’s all thanks Greta Thunberg, or due to unusually strong fire seasons in Australia, North and South America, and Siberia in the past 12 months, but…

This article is a one year follow up to the award-winning series, The Great Insect Dying published in June, 2019 on Mongabay. The original series documents insect losses in Europe, the U.S. and the tropics — here’s what we know today.

Mining, both legal and illegal, impinges on more than one-fifth of Indigenous territory in the Amazon, according to a new study from the World Resources Institute (WRI) and the Amazon…

A new study provides an in-depth look at the detrimental impacts of human activities on wildlife in the Neotropical region of the Americas over the past 500 years. The study,…

Multiple studies show that Arctic warming is altering temperate and equatorial weather. Now, new research finds that Antarctic ice melt could be a major tropical change agent too.

New research offers early evidence that the Arctic and tropics are no longer a world apart; melting sea ice may be intensifying equatorial trade winds and emergence of El Niño.

Life is reshuffling itself at an unsettling clip across Earth’s surface and in its oceans, a new study has found. The research, published Oct. 18 in the journal Science, drills…

Near consensus found among 24 entomologists and scientists working on 6 continents: Insects are likely in serious global decline, but much more data needed.

In 2010, the Board of the Consumer Goods Forum (CGF), an organization comprised of around 400 of the world’s retail and manufacturing companies, passed a resolution to achieve zero net…

In the fourth and final story of this exclusive Mongabay series, entomologists around the world offer far ranging solutions to curb and reverse the great insect die-off.

Tropical insects are wildly diverse, but most species are unstudied or unknown, even as they’re heavily impacted by deforestation, climate change and pesticides.

The insects of the EU and US are the best studied in the world, and it is here that a strengthening case can be made for an alarming insect abundance decline.

Recent surveys hint at an insect apocalypse. But are insects at risk globally? Mongabay talks with 24 scientists on 6 continents to find out in an exclusive new series.