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In March, IBAMA dismantled an illegal mining operation in the Raposa Serra do Sol Indigenous Territory in Roraima. This image from Operation Xapiri shows rocks resulting from bedrock blasting. After being crushed, the ore is processed using cyanide to separate the gold from other minerals.

Cyanide ponds from illegal mining threaten Amazon Indigenous territory

Elizabeth Oliveira 2 Nov 2026
The Arazaire community is split in two, bisected by the Inambari River. On the river's left bank, where residents once had agricultural plots, forest, and ceremonial lagoons, the landscape is now dominated by mercury-laden ponds and deforestation.

Amazon communities lose water as mining and deforestation reshape rivers

Vanessa Romo 23 Oct 2026

Another mining-linked pollution incident raises alarm over Zambia’s Kafue River

Chisapi Kumbutso 22 Oct 2026

Facing pushback on data centers, tech giants are promising hosts more money and fewer secrets

Associated Press 22 Oct 2026
The village of Bento Rodrigues in the aftermath of the Mariana mining disaster in Minas Gerais, Brazil, in 2015, showing destroyed buildings caked in mud and a lot of debris.

Climate change could send more toxic mining waste into coastal waters, study warns

Madeline Shaw 16 Oct 2026
Vehicles navigate a flooded road in Mozambique’s Maputo province in January 2026. Forecasters warn that the developing El Niño could bring heavier rainfall and flooding to parts of East and Southern Africa. Image by AP Photo.

Act before El Niño: Expert worries about deepening hunger in East and South Africa

David Akana 14 Oct 2026
Thumbnail Conservation Entangled

Fishing in polluted waters

Izzy Sasada 8 Oct 2026
Myanmar mines

Myanmar’s mines pollute Thai rivers

Juan Maza 4 Oct 2026

Satellite data reveal massive scale of routine oil pollution in oceans. See the map

Shanna Hanbury 2 Oct 2026

Endangered dolphins survive in a Bangladesh river so polluted it’s ‘not livable’ for fish

Mongabay.com 1 Oct 2026
Mineral traders watch on as antimony ore is transferred from Myanmar trucks to Thai trucks at the Pheung Khleung border crossing. Image by Gerald Flynn / Mongabay.

Myanmar’s polluting mines selling to China through Thai companies

Gerald Flynn 1 Oct 2026
Examples of deep-sea litter found in the Mar del Plata Submarine Canyon. (A) Medium-sized plastic wrapper. (B) Rubber boot. (C) Food wrapper. (D) Snack wrapper. (E) Tissue paper wrapper,. (F) Sediment-filled plastic bag. Image courtesy of Teso et al. (2026) (CC-BY 4.0).

Plastic and rubber litter found in remote submarine canyon off Argentina’s coast

Shreya Dasgupta 25 Sep 2026
A volunteer counts cigarettes following a 2012 beach cleanup in Hawai‘i, United States. Image courtesy of the NOAA Marine Debris Program.

Cigarette butts make up 12% of aquatic litter, global review finds

Shanna Hanbury 22 Sep 2026
Illegal miners at work in the Atewa Forest Reserve, Ghana. Image courtesy of A Rocha Ghana.

Illegal mines threaten biodiversity and drinking water in Ghana’s Atewa Forest

Mabel Adorkor Annang 21 Sep 2026
Mending fishing nets in Vietnam

Fishers bear deep costs of plastic pollution in Vietnam, but could help turn the tide

Carolyn Cowan 16 Sep 2026
A Ganges river dolphin in Bangladesh.

Against the odds, endangered dolphins survive in Bangladesh’s polluted river

Md Jahidul Islam 14 Sep 2026

Court rules residents of a US city don’t have a constitutional right to lead-free water

Bobby Bascomb 10 Sep 2026

Marine conservation collides with mining in Indonesia’s biodiversity-rich Moramo Bay

La Ode Risman Hermawan 4 Sep 2026
Destroyed crops along the Chambishi Stream after the Sino-Metals Leach Zambia tailings spill, taken around 6 March 2025. Image courtesy of Southern Africa Litigation Center.

Development banks are backing problematic mineral projects, report finds

Elodie Toto 3 Sep 2026
The coal-fired Payra Power Plant. Image by Muhammad Mostafigur Rahman.

Failed environmental safeguards leave coastal Bangladesh facing coal pollution

Rashidul Hasan 28 Aug 2026

‘Devastating’ rush for critical minerals has little to do with green energy: Report

Victoria Schneider 27 Aug 2026
The Belo Monte hydropower dam on the Xingu River in Brazil’s Pará state. Image courtesy of TV Brasil.

Brazil relaxes Belo Monte water rule amid El Niño-fueled Amazon drought risk

Shanna Hanbury 26 Aug 2026
A sponge crab (Sphaerodromia brizops) collected at the Muirfield Seamount, southwest of the Cocos (Keeling) Islands.

Scientists discover 149 new deep-sea species at remote Indian Ocean seamounts

Emma Smith 26 Aug 2026
A team from the nonprofit ASD Monde responding to the Ebola outbreak in the DRC. Image courtesy of ASD Monde.

Polluted waterways and water shortages complicate the fight against Ebola in the DRC

Elodie Toto 26 Aug 2026
Koalas typically climb into the upper reaches of trees to escape fire

Rescue networks built by fire: Saving animals from Australia’s bushfires

Starre Vartan 24 Aug 2026

Tapirs, bats and nests: How plastic infiltrates Amazonian wildlife

Tiago da Mota e Silva 18 Aug 2026

Indonesia leads global tally of abuses linked to Chinese transition-mineral investments

Hans Nicholas Jong 18 Aug 2026
Residents at Paraíso Grande riverine community, located 30 minutes by fast boat from the city of Humaitá, say the risk of accidents with big convoys increases during the Madeira River’s high-water season, when its banks are flooded.. Image by Karla Mendes/Mongabay.

Fatal barge crashes fuel fear over Madeira River waterway expansion in Brazil

Karla Mendes 17 Aug 2026
Aerial photograph of the nickel processing facilities in Morowali.

Nickel expansion puts Indonesia’s biodiversity goals under pressure, study finds

Hans Nicholas Jong 12 Aug 2026

Mining threat persists in Raja Ampat, Indonesia’s ‘Amazon of the Seas’

Hans Nicholas Jong 4 Aug 2026

Nicaragua’s gold boom is now encroaching on protected areas and Indigenous land

Maxwell Radwin 3 Aug 2026
Krishansar Lake sits at more than 3,700 meters in the Ganderbal district of the Kashmir Valley. Image by Rohit Sharma via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Introduced fish thrive amid Kashmir’s freshwater habitat degradation

Hashim Quraishi 3 Aug 2026

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