United States News

It’s been called a “river monster,” and for good reason. The arapaima (Arapaima gigas) is a freshwater fish that can grow longer than a horse and weigh up to 200…

The Wallace Global Fund’s Ellen Dorsey says philanthropic foundations need to do more, including divesting from fossil fuels and focusing less on building their own endowments.

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…

Ocean shipping is presently the world’s sixth-largest carbon emitter. But a push by entrepreneurs is addressing the climate crisis and trying to revolutionize the industry with a next generation of wind-powered vessels.

Restoring forests in areas where they once stood is an important step toward halting climate change. It helps to ensure a host of other environmental services, too, like provision of…

Camera traps bring you closer to the secretive natural world and are an important conservation tool to study wildlife. This week we’re meeting the smallest members of the North American…

The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) is a 19 million acre reserve in the northeastern corner of Alaska that's renowned for its beauty and wildlife. ANWR also holds great cultural…

In the past year there's been a lot more talk about stakeholder inclusivity in the conservation sector. The combination of the social justice movement arising out of George Floyd's killing…

For nearly 20 years, Robin Baird has been following killer whales, trying to figure out what they eat. At first, he would look to see what was in their mouths…

Rodger Schlickeisen made a name for himself in conservation circles from the early 1990s thanks to his leadership at Defenders of Wildlife, which grew rapidly in membership and influence during…

For at least the past 20 years, conservation has been wrestling with some of the darker aspects of its historical relationship with local communities: legacies of colonialism, institutional racism, lack…

Scientists implore US, EU, Japan, South Korea and UK to stop harvesting forests to turn into wood pellets to burn as fuel at converted coal-burning power plants; a policy the UN has erroneously condoned as “carbon neutral.”

The priest class of the ancient European Celtic societies drew their name, the Druids, from the word for oak, revered as “the tree of life.” The Greek god Zeus and…

In 2016, Lumber Liquidators, a US retailer, paid a record-setting $13 million penalty after pleading guilty to importing flooring manufactured from illegally logged timber. As part of its plea deal,…

For decades, scientists observed a puzzling group of whales in the Gulf of Mexico. The animals looked like Bryde's whales — but not quite. They fed like Bryde's whales —…

Western forests are pretty healthy, though our relationships with them may not be.  Humans crave the spotlight in environmental narratives. We shape the land and fix the bad contours. Of…

Michael Regan, President Biden’s choice to head the Environmental Protection Agency, in 2019 saw no climate benefit to the production of wood pellets in North Carolina to make energy abroad; what will he do at EPA?

A bipartisan group of former U.S. officials have joined forces to propose a set of policy recommendations to help the Biden Administration deliver on its campaign pledge to put $20…

A new U.S. administration is in office, and on Wednesday it made clear that addressing climate change will be at the top of its list of priorities. In an expansive…

Dear President Biden, Congratulations to you and Vice President Harris on your historic election. We pray for the success of your administration and your efforts to confront the COVID-19 pandemic,…

Two gorillas at San Diego Zoo in California have tested positive for COVID-19, in the first reported cases of great apes contracting the novel coronavirus. Three of the primates showed…

David Bonderman is one of the best known figures in private equity, having made his name and fortune by taking over undervalued companies and turning them around. Bonderman, the founding…

In a newly released map, the coastal waters of the eight main Hawaiian islands are alight with color. Blue, turquoise, green, yellow, orange and red tinge the islands’ perimeters, each…

2020 was a rough year for tropical rainforest conservation efforts, as explained in Mongabay's year-end wrap-up on rainforests. So what's in store for 2021? Here are 11 things to watch.…

Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, 2020 has been the year of the climate commitment, with a number of companies and governments announcing plans to reduce carbon emissions by a specified level…

During the summer, we were submerged in a thick blanket of smoke in California. Being evacuated alongside thousands of others as fire does its undeniable thing gives one a lot…

The bison circled four times around the holding pen, before the lead animals took them into the 3,400-hectare (8,500-acre) pasture, their new home on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in the…

Marine mammals stranded on beaches in the southeastern United States died with high levels of pollutants stored in their organs and blubber, researchers reported recently in Frontiers in Marine Science.…

Over 25 years ago, world-renowned scientist Edward O. Wilson (often referred to as E.O. Wilson), published his celebrated homage to his personal journey as a scientist, biologist, and human being,…

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.