Our pollution of the planet with heavy metals, plastics, industrial chemicals, pesticides and more is pushing Earth systems to the limit, and us closer to crossing a dangerous planetary boundary we don’t understand.
Industrial agriculture feeds billions of people and created the modern world. But the nitrogen and phosphorus it’s fertilized with is putting the biosphere, and humanity, at risk.
All seven sea turtle species are already endangered. Now humanity’s overshoot of planetary boundaries — climate change, ocean acidification, pollution and more — is upping the ante. Can turtles, people and conservation adapt?
What happens when an environmental catastrophe takes place in an isolated area at the periphery of the world’s attention? The last six weeks in the Democratic Republic of Congo and…
Humans have created so much plastic that it now exists from the slopes of Mount Everest to the extreme depths of the oceans. When we consider the effects of plastic…
On Feb. 8, 2019, two weeks after the collapse of a dam holding mining waste killed 272 people and left a trail of destruction in Brumadinho, in the Brazilian state…
The first signal of the day is the sun stretching steadily upward amid a gigantic sea of mountains. The mass of rock, forest and water is so huge that the…
When the world went on lockdown, nature got a reprieve, or so it seemed. Dolphins swam in the Hudson River, Los Angeles’ famed smog dissipated, and wild animals were reportedly…
Activists have accused British-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto of contaminating water sources around its ilmenite mine in Madagascar. At some sites, uranium and lead levels have been recorded at 52…
On Aug. 12, authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo's Kasaï province noticed the Kasai River had turned red. Witnesses said the bodies of hippos and dead fish were seen…
Tons of logging debris is choking rivers in Malaysian Borneo, devastating local wildlife and cutting off water supplies to 200,000 urban residents. The logjam, which has been described as a…
In the early hours of July 13, a group of unknown people set fire to a massive warehouse full of agrochemicals in the Cornubia area of Durban on South Africa's…
This article is a journalistic collaboration between Mongabay’s Latin America (Latam) team and Colombian digital news website Rutas del Conflicto. Ana Villa has traveled dozens of times on the highways…
This report is a partnership between Mongabay Latam, Rutas del Conflicto and La Liga Contra el Silencio. In Colombia’s Meta department, a stretch of several miles of reddish, arable land…
With wildfires raging in the western U.S. and floods sweeping parts of Europe, it’s easy to forget that these regions are some of the most well-prepared to tackle climate change.…
A new study has identified 2050 as the tipping point by which stakeholders in the Mekong Delta will no longer be able to mitigate the issue of saltwater intrusion, which…
MIAMI — Along the Miami shoreline, luxury high-rises and condominiums run parallel to Biscayne Bay, one of South Florida’s most biodiverse ecosystems, characterized by its once abundant coral reefs, seagrass…
When the Okhchuchay River runs milky white, it means there has been another dangerous incident. The waterway begins in Armenia, passing through lands rich for mining, then flowing into Azerbaijan, where it…
JAKARTA — Activists in Indonesia have filed a legal challenge to controversial mining legislation passed last year and widely seen as undermining environmental protections to the advantage of mining companies.…
A recent investigation has found dangerously high levels of mercury among women from different Indigenous communities in four Latin American countries. This chemical element is a neurotoxic substance that presents…
Three young environmental activists in Cambodia face between five and 10 years in prison and fines of up to 10 million riels ($2,500) on charges of conspiracy and insulting the…
Indigenous people living near the Teles Pires and São Manoel dams in the Brazilian Amazon say the projects have polluted their river, causing health problems and wrecking the fishery. COVID-19 made things worse.
BANGKA, Indonesia — In the lore of Bangka Island, one of the world’s main tin-producing centers, the rocky, white-sand beach of Tuing holds a special place. Tuing Beach is one…
A dam holding back mining waste from Brazilian miner Vale is at risk of collapsing, a government audit says. The same company was responsible for two tailings dam collapses since…
COLOMBO — The X-Press Pearl cargo ship that caught fire off western Sri Lanka has begun to sink, raising alarms over oil and chemical spills that could have potentially devastating…
From her porch on Village Acres Farm in Mifflintown, Pennsylvania, Angela Brubaker can see the curved rows of trees in the new riparian buffer along Lost Creek. The tree tubes…
In the late 2000s and the early 2010s, the Brazilian palm oil industry told us that oil palm plantation expansion would take a different path than in Southeast Asia, where…
The United Nations Basel Convention regulates international transport of hazardous waste, which in 2021 expanded to include plastics. But the U.S. has never fully implemented the agreement; Biden may change that.
During 18 months, Mongabay investigated allegations challenging the “sustainable” status of the Brazilian palm oil supply chain, unveiling the opposite, with impacts including deforestation and water contamination, discovering what appears to be an industry-wide pattern of brazen disregard for Amazon conservation and for the rights of Indigenous people and traditional communities in northern Pará state.
Manual Pintado spent the past 15 years raising cattle in El Pangui, a municipality nestled in south-eastern Ecuador´s Amazonian region. Now, he receives an income for leaving his 15 hectares…
