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Excavations at the mine, which has been found to be the source of the pollution in two rivers in Karonga district. Image by Jordan Simeon Phiri for Mongabay.

Malawi government suspends coal miner’s license over river pollution

Charles Mpaka 20 Apr 2026
Pa Haw, father of Saw Si Paw, takes to the Salween River each morning to inspect their nets for fish, despite heavy metal contamination linked to mining sites upstream. Photo by Gerald Flynn/Mongabay.

Asia’s longest free-flowing river contaminated by arsenic linked to Myanmar mines

Gerald Flynn 20 Apr 2026
The King River enters Macquarie Harbour, where decades of mining have contributed to contaminated sediment buildup at the river’s delta. Image by Stefan Lovgren.

In Tasmania, the mines have closed but the rivers remember

Stefan Lovgren 16 Apr 2026

BP sued in Kenya over alleged toxic waste from 1980s oil exploration

Associated Press 16 Apr 2026

Afghanistan’s capital is in the grip of a water crisis

Associated Press 14 Apr 2026

Repeated failures expose gaps in Indonesia’s nickel waste management

Hans Nicholas Jong 13 Apr 2026
Cattle forage through plastic and household waste at an open dumping site in Jaigaon. Image by Chandrani Sinha.

Indian border town adjacent to Bhutan is reeling from riverbed pollution

Mongabay.com 10 Apr 2026
Fishers in Dunga on the shores of Lake Victoria. Image by Achieng’ Otieno for Mongabay.

On the shores of Lake Victoria, a youth-led campaign to revive a wetland

Achieng’ Otieno 9 Apr 2026
A fan mussel (Pinna nobilis) in a Neptune grass meadow. Image by Arnaud Abadie via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0).

A French city cut its marine pollution — and its seagrass bounced back

Edward Carver 7 Apr 2026

Microplastics found in fish in Tuvalu, a remote South Pacific nation

David Brown 7 Apr 2026
Vietnamese activists hold a photo of dead fish, allegedly killed with toxic chemicals, during a protest to urge Formosa Plastics Group to take responsibilities for the cleanup in Vietnam, August 2016, in Taipei, Taiwan.

10 years after Vietnam’s Formosa steel plant spill, justice for victims remains elusive

Hướng Thiện 6 Apr 2026
Cymodocea nodosa seagrass in Spain, also known as Little Neptune grass. Restoring and protecting seagrass can have climate and coastal protection benefits. Image courtesy of Liam McGuire/Ocean Image Bank.

The underwater meadows that help keep beaches from disappearing

Rhett Ayers Butler 31 Mar 2026
Lubumbashi River, at the level of the Kalubwe bridge, where significant fish mortality was reported in November 2025. Image by Ruth Kutemba.

4 months after DRC mine spill, residents remain impacted

Ruth Kutemba, Elodie Toto 26 Mar 2026
Northern gannet (Morus bassanus) nest made largely of plastic debris. Image courtesy of Martin Brogger.

Seabird nests built with plastic waste off the coast of Germany: Photo of the week

Shanna Hanbury 25 Mar 2026
Occupation of Funai’s Altamira branch. Image courtesy of the Medio Xingu Indigenous Women’s Movement.

Indigenous groups demand halt to Belo Sun Amazon gold mine

Shanna Hanbury 23 Mar 2026
Trash bags full of discarded plastic. Image by Adil Edin via Unsplash (Public domain).

Huge amounts of nanoplastics discovered in tap and bottled water

Shanna Hanbury 23 Mar 2026
Lake Victoria in Kenya. Image by Jozef020 via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).

World Water Day: Earth’s freshwater reveals new species & faces mounting threats

Mongabay.com 22 Mar 2026
The construction site of Bridge Data Centre's 0.2 GW QHI01 data center in Khlong Tamru subdistrict, Chonburi province, Thailand. Photo by Andy Ball/Mongabay.

Thai data center boom sparks fears of water shortage, air pollution

Gerald Flynn 11 Mar 2026

Beyond the Potomac River, sewage spills threaten cities with old infrastructure and little funds

Associated Press 10 Mar 2026
Ibama (Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources) conducting an operation to combat illegal gold mining in Indigenous territory in the state of Pará, Brazil.

Mining rush for critical minerals threatens Amazon land reform settlements

Sam Cowie, Cícero Pedrosa Neto, Isabel Harari 9 Mar 2026

New study assesses geoengineering marine ecosystem risks, knowledge gaps

Ruth Kamnitzer 19 Feb 2026
A caddisfly in the Oligotricha genus.

Insects are moving pharmaceutical pollutants from rivers to land; risks unknown

Sean Mowbray 13 Feb 2026
Loggerhead turtle swimming around fish aggregation device (FAD) belonging to the Ecuadorean purse seiner 'Ingalapagos', which was documented by Greenpeace in the vicinity of the northern Galapagos Islands.

Abandoned tuna-fishing devices pollute the Galápagos Marine Reserve

Marlowe Starling 9 Feb 2026
Coral reef, Tioman Island

Malaysia lost 20% of its coral reefs in three years

Rhett Ayers Butler 5 Feb 2026
Sirsiya river in Nepal. image by Suresh Bidar

‘Holy river’ carries industrial waste & sewage from Nepal to India

Suresh Bidari 21 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
After burning off the mercury, a relatively pure piece of gold remains. Image by Thomas Graham for Mongabay.

Turning the Amazon’s toxic gold mine waste liability into economic opportunity (analysis)

Timothy J. Killeen 13 Jan 2026
Foothills of the Atewa forest range, one of several ecologically sensitive areas where mining permits have been issued. Image by Ahtziri Gonzalez/CIFOR via Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Ghana repeals legislation that opened forest reserves to mining

Awudu Salami Sulemana Yoda 8 Jan 2026
Rescuers search for victims at the site of a landslide in Suwawa on Sulawesi Island in July 2024.

Indonesia’s illegal gold boom leaves a toxic legacy of mercury pollution

Sarjan Lahay, Junaidi Hanafiah, Teguh Suprayitno 7 Jan 2026
The Indigenous Macaquiño community on the banks of the Vaupés River in Colombia’s Vaupés region. Image by Aimee Gabay/Mongabay.

Urban sprawl and illegal mining reshape a fragile Amazon frontier

Aimee Gabay 6 Jan 2026
The mining dredges installed along the Nanay River have begun to consume sections of forest. Image courtesy of FCDS Peru.

Mercury, dredges and crime: Illegal mining ravages Peru’s Nanay River

Enrique Vera 31 Dec 2025
Ningsih is about to add chlorine to the "Gentong Mas Santun" septic tank, which functions to inhibit the growth of and eliminate bacteria and microbes in feces.

On Indonesia’s longest river, a Borneo community passes crucial public health milestone

Anggita Raissa 29 Dec 2025

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