Off West Africa’s coast, a sea of oil spills goes unreported
When BP’s Deepwater Horizon offshore oil rig flooded the Gulf of Mexico with 4 million barrels of oil in 2010, the catastrophe was headline news across the world for months.…
Niger Delta communities in ‘great danger’ as month-old oil spill continues
Crude oil from a blowout has been pouring into creeks in the Niger Delta since Nov. 5, with the well's owner, Nigerian energy firm Aiteo, unable to contain the spill…
For tradition and nature on the Bijagós Islands, loss of one threatens the other
Quinta Monteiro and her son Nivaldo watch a Nigerian comedy show on TV as they sit in their living room in Guinea-Bissau’s capital, Bissau. The sound of cars zooming by…
For world’s rarest gorillas, camera traps prove pivotal for protection
MBE MOUNTAINS, Nigeria — Three hop-like steps and a leap, and suddenly Jacob Osang, an eco-guard with the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), appears to be levitating above the rainforest floor.…
Liberia loggers felling trees outside concession as government stands by
MONROVIA, Liberia — Civil society groups say logging companies are exploiting weak monitoring and enforcement of Liberia’s forestry laws. A new briefing highlights the illegal harvest of as much as…
At a ‘certified’ palm oil plantation in Nigeria, soldiers and conflict over land
When the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) was created by a coalition of industry giants, retailers, banks, and NGOs in 2004, it was supposed to be the catalyst for…
Technology and tradition team up to watch over a sacred island’s sea turtles
POILÃO ISLAND, Guinea-Bissau — As night falls, the only lights visible on uninhabited Poilão Island are the nearly full moon and the eerie red glow beaming from a few headlamps.…
In rural Nigeria, the magic of cinema builds support for ape conservation
BAMBA, Nigeria — It’s sunset in Bamba, a small farming community in Cross River state in southeast Nigeria. Louis Nkonyu, 46, caresses the touchpad of his laptop in search of…
Outgunned by militants, rangers fear for chimpanzees in southwest Mali
Forestry officer Karim Kamisoko is not at his post. Instead of patrolling Bafing Faunal Reserve in southwestern Mali, he and his fellow rangers are 70 kilometers (43 miles) away, taking…
Deforestation soars in Nigeria’s gorilla habitat: ‘We are running out of time’
IKOM, Nigeria — When 57-year-old Linus Otu was a child, each dawn arrived with the chatter of monkeys and occasional belches of gorillas from the mountain that overlooks his small…
On Nigeria-Cameroon border, joint patrols throw a lifeline to threatened apes
CROSS RIVER STATE, Nigeria — Sampson Akoba's long career as a ranger has left him with a wealth of assorted memories: hunters’ revolts, the death of his nephew in a…
Forests falling for cashew monocultures: A ‘repeated mistake’ in Côte d’Ivoire (commentary)
Farmers in northern Côte d’Ivoire are full of praise for cashew, the Brazilian nut tree introduced in the 1960s – ironically, it turns out – to combat deforestation. They rhapsodize…
Tracking white-bellied pangolins in Nigeria, the new global trafficking hub
CROSS RIVER NATIONAL PARK, Nigeria — It wasn’t supposed to be this straightforward. For days, we’d crisscrossed rainforest-blanketed mountains, hacked through thorny thickets and corkscrewing lianas, narrowly escaped rockfalls, and…
Scientists look to chimps’ past to gauge their future under climate change
Peering back over the last 120,000 years, scientists have uncovered where chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) rode out past periods of global change, providing insights into how they might be affected by…
Worked to death: How a Chinese tuna juggernaut crushed its Indonesian workers
This story won an Excellence in Investigative Reporting award from the Society of Publishers in Asia (SOPA) in 2022. (Baca dalam Bahasa Indonesia | 阅读中文版 | 日本語で読む) When Sepri was…
Industrial fishing harbor plan raises a stink in Sierra Leone
BLACK JOHNSON, Sierra Leone — Seated along the peninsula south of Freetown is the secluded village of Black Johnson. Rainforest covers the hills that rise behind it, home to chimpanzees…
Nigeria seeks transnational help to disrupt a still-brisk pangolin trade
Nigeria’s emergence as a trafficking hub for illegal wildlife appears unhindered by the coronavirus pandemic. Between 2016 and 2019, some 200 metric tons of pangolin scales were seized by law…
On board Ghana’s trawlers, claims of human rights abuses and illegal fishing
Emmanuel Essien was sure he had evidence of illegal fishing on board an industrial trawler operating in the waters off the coast of Ghana. The 28-year-old fisheries observer had video…
Nigeria seizes scales from 15,000 dead pangolins
Authorities at the Nigeria Customs Service have announced the seizure of 7.1 tons of pangolin scales that smugglers were attempting to ship out of the country. According to customs officials,…
In Sierra Leone, two colorful land crabs rediscovered, two new species found
On a recent expedition to the remote forests of Sierra Leone, West Africa, researchers found two species of crabs new to science and rediscovered two species not seen in more…
For Africa’s great apes, even ‘best-case’ climate change will decimate habitat
Gorillas, chimpanzees and bonobos face a bleak future thanks to a perfect storm of human-driven factors, a recent study shows. The triple whammy of the climate crisis, growing human population,…
It’s Juneteenth, but these American companies are still profiting from slavery (commentary)
Juneteenth marks the date in 1865 where an estimated 250,000 enslaved people in Texas were freed, marking the official end of slavery in the Confederacy – two years after the…
Banks increased deforestation-linked investments by $8B during Covid-19: report
The world’s 50 largest financial institutions increased their investments in deforestation-linked commodity companies by more than $8 billion since the early months of the Covid-19 pandemic, a new report has…
A fatal stabbing sends a Gambian fishing village into turmoil over fishmeal
Residents of the Gambian coastal town of Sanyang say life has gotten harder since a fishmeal plant set up production in 2017. Growing tensions over unresolved disputes with the factory…
The Hungry Mills: How palm oil mills drive deforestation (commentary)
For decades, Indonesia has been blighted by some of the highest levels of deforestation on earth. It also provides more than half the world’s palm oil. The two things are directly related. Palm…
‘Spectacular’ orange-furred bat described from West African mountain
An orange-furred bat, new to science, has been described from the caves and mining tunnels of the Nimba Mountains in Guinea, West Africa. A group of researchers, led by the…
Fears for rosewood as Guinea-Bissau prepares to lift six-year logging ban
Three men are piling wood on a solitary truck parked along the only the road to Djendo, a small town in eastern Guinea-Bissau. They work in silence, throwing rosewood, a…
Entangled: How a global seaweed ‘plague’ threatens West Africa’s coastline
From the Gulf of Guinea to the mouth of the Senegal River, a sprawling shroud of seaweed is choking coastal ecosystems and the fishing communities that depend on them. Offshore,…
What makes chimps unique? Candid Animal Cam meets our close relatives
Camera traps bring you closer to the secretive natural world and are an important conservation tool to study wildlife. This week we’re meeting our closest living relative: the chimpanzee. Chimps are…
In mangrove restoration, custom solutions beat one-size-fits-all approach
The vast tangled mangrove forests that sweep along so many tropical coasts are one of the world’s most biodiverse ecosystems. They also play crucial roles in protecting coastlines from erosion…
Special series
Forest Trackers
- License to Log: Cambodian military facilitates logging on Koh Kong Krao and across the Cardamoms
- Forest behind bars: Logging network operating out of Cambodian prison in the Cardamoms
- Indigenous communities in Argentina’s Chaco fear another heavy fire season in 2023
- As tourism booms in India’s Western Ghats, habitat loss pushes endangered frogs to the edge
Oceans
- Europe’s top science panel supports call for moratorium on deep-sea mining
- A Southeast Asian marine biodiversity hotspot is also a wildlife trafficking hotbed
- Experts, activists unite to blast Indonesia’s U-turn on sea sand exports
- As one Indian Ocean tuna stock faces collapse, nations scramble to save others
Amazon Conservation
- Boosted with fresh donations, Amazon Fund reboots stalled projects
- Majority of Brazil’s Congress votes to restrict Indigenous land advances
- Protected areas store a year’s worth of CO₂ emissions, study reveals
- Indigenous land rights key to curbing deforestation and restoring lands: Study
Land rights and extractives
- Dams and plantations upend livelihoods in Ethiopia’s Lower Omo River Valley
- Fish deaths near Rio Tinto mine in Madagascar dredge up community grievances
- Award-winning, Indigenous peace park dragged into fierce conflict in Myanmar
- Logging permit threatens Quilombola bioeconomic ‘paradise’ in the Amazon
Endangered Environmentalists
- Indigenous chief shot in head in Brazil’s ‘palm oil war’ region; crisis group launched
- ‘You don’t kill people to protect forests’: New Thai parks chief raises alarm
- Vietnam’s environmental NGOs face uncertain status, shrinking civic space
- ‘We lost the biggest ally’: Nelly Marubo on her friend Bruno Pereira’s legacy
Indonesia's Forest Guardians
- Pioneer agroforester Ermi, 73, rolls back the years in Indonesia’s Gorontalo
- After 20 years and thousands of trees planted, Kalimantan’s veteran forester persists
- Aziil Anwar, Indonesian coral-based mangrove grower, dies at 64
- A utopia of clean air and wet peat amid Sumatra’s forest fire ‘hell’
Conservation Effectiveness
- Learning to live with — and love — bears and eagles in Colombia’s cloud forest
- Africa’s land and forest restoration initiative gathers pace in Malawi
- Study shows Kenyan elephant shrew may be adapting to human disturbance, drought
- Saving forests to protect coastal ecosystems: Japan sets historic example
Southeast Asian infrastructure
- Indonesia’s new capital ‘won’t sacrifice the environment’: Q&A with Nusantara’s Myrna Asnawati Safitri
- Small farmers in limbo as Cambodia wavers on Tonle Sap conservation rules
- To build its ‘green’ capital city, Indonesia runs a road through a biodiverse forest
- Robust river governance key to restoring Mekong River vitality in face of dams
