The reported death of a 28-year-old laboratory technician in eastern Siberia has triggered regional quarantines and international attention over fears of the cause of death and a lack of transparency.

According to local media reports, Darya Shipilova, a technician employed at the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute of Siberia and the Far East, died on Oct. 2 at a regional hospital in the nearby town of Shelekhov. She had been diagnosed with pneumonia of “unknown” origin, according to Rospotrebnadzor, Russia’s public health agency.

Local Russian media reported that Shipilova told medical staff she had accidentally dropped a test tube containing live bacteria while collecting samples.

Rospotrebnadzor refuted claims of a biosafety reach, maintaining that tests detected no professional pathogens and there had been no complaints from other staff at the institute regarding infectious diseases in the past 10 days, Russian newspaper Kommersant reports.

Russian authorities have reportedly quarantined the hospital and anyone who came into contact with the employee, according to the Associated Press (AP).

AP also reports that Anna Popova, the head of Rospotrebnadzor, flew to Irkutsk for an emergency anti-epidemic meeting with the region’s Governor Igor Kobzev, who called the case a “particularly dangerous infection”.

Local media have reported that more than 60 staff members at the Anti-Plague Institute were isolated inside their workplace. Unofficial reports, including those from the independent Russian media outlet Liudi Baikala, said that nearly 200 people were placed under medical observation or isolation.

“Attention must be paid to the reported illness and death of a worker in a Siberian lab that handled dangerous pathogens,” said Jennifer Nuzzo, Professor of Epidemiology and Director of the Brown University Pandemic Center, in a statement shared with Mongabay. “Though we don’t know enough about the case to conclude it presents a broader threat, several reported details are enough to raise concerns.”

Nuzzo said that the patient’s laboratory duties at a facility with a history of handling high-consequence agents, including plague (Yersinia pestis), warrant complete transparency. “What is needed now is clear, detailed, and transparent communication from Russian health authorities,” Nuzzo stated, urging full disclosure of testing criteria and contact monitoring.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that Washington is keeping a close watch, according to The Guardian. “I don’t think it’s cause for alarm, but it is cause for focus and a cause just to keep an eye on it,” said Rubio.

WHO representatives told CNN that the organization is in contact with Russian officials to verify diagnostic findings, assessing the immediate public health risk to the broader population as low.

Banner image: Irkutsk, the largest city in Irkutsk Oblast region in Russia, is home to the Irkutsk Anti-Plague Research Institute of Siberia and the Far East, where the death of a laboratory technician has triggered regional quarantines and international concern. Image courtesy of © Vyacheslav Argenberg via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0).

Founder’s Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries.

Twenty months after the dismantling of USAID, a new analysis documents what the international development agency’s disappearance has meant for conservation projects around the world.

Projects have stalled or collapsed in countries from Kenya to Bangladesh, reports Mongabay’s Ashoka Mukpo. Wildlife patrols, forest monitoring, community conservation programs and environmental policy work have all been hit.

The report draws on interviews and surveys involving 150 people familiar with the agency’s work in Bangladesh, Peru, Kenya, Colombia and Vietnam. It was produced by One Earth Partners, a consultancy founded by former senior USAID officials Monica Bansal and Hadas Kushnir.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s dismantlement of USAID removed nearly $1 billion from global conservation and environment funding. USAID spent $366 million on biodiversity conservation and $257 million on climate adaptation in fiscal year 2024, plus hundreds of millions more on clean energy, natural climate solutions, ocean plastics and pollution.

The report traces what happened to some of that work after the agency was dismantled. USAID had trained officials in Colombia and Peru to use satellite data to monitor Amazon deforestation. It was a major supporter of anti-poaching and wildlife law enforcement at Mozambique’s Gorongosa National Park. In Bangladesh, nearly two decades of work had gone into helping communities develop nature-based tourism and negotiate revenue-sharing arrangements around protected areas.

Kenya was particularly hard hit. Daniel Sopia, who heads the Maasai Mara Wildlife Conservancies Association, told Mongabay that his organization lost a five-year, $6.5 million grant. He laid off 10 staff members and cut its budget by 72%. Plans for new conservancies that would have protected wildlife corridors were put on hold.

USAID had its critics, including conservation groups concerned about bureaucracy, high overhead costs and the demands placed on local partners. Some organizations have managed to replace the lost money with funding from other government sources and private philanthropy.

Others are still looking. One Earth Partners published a list of 100 former USAID-supported projects seeking new funders.

Read the full story by Ashoka Mukpo here..

Banner image: Savannah elephants in the Biliquo Bulesa conservancy in northern Kenya. Image by Ashoka Mukpo/Mongabay.

SANTAREM, Brazil (AP) — Off-grid solar power is spreading across Brazil’s Amazon, helping remote communities prepare for severe drought while replacing costly, polluting diesel generators. In Nova Sociedade, where residents walked up to 20 kilometers for water during the historic 2024 drought, solar panels now power pumps supplying clean water to 36 families. Household systems provide lighting and phone charging, while installations elsewhere support schools, health clinics and local businesses. More than 100,000 off-grid systems were operating by 2026. Advocates say renewable energy can strengthen Indigenous and traditional communities, improve climate resilience and help protect the rainforest.

By Gabriela Sá Pessoa, Associated Press

Banner image: Felipe Arapiuns, who is part of the Arapium Indigenous group, installs a donated solar panel on the roof of his home in the Nova Sociedade community near Santarem, Para state, Brazil, Thursday, Sept. 3, 2026. Image courtesy of Andre Penner, Associated Press

Researchers surveying garden and wild flowers across northern Thailand have uncovered 16 previously unknown species of black, yeast-like fungi living inside the flowers, according to a recent study.

The newly described fungi belong to the Aureobasidium genus, a commonly occurring group of yeast that can be found almost everywhere, from air and human skin, to water, rocks, soils and wood.

A research team from Chiang Mai University and Kasetsart University, both in Thailand, found the 16 new-to-science species growing in 31 different flowering plants, including bougainvillea, vinca, and butter daisy, according to the study.

Many of the newly described fungi take their names from their host flowers, such as A. bougainvilleae, or A. catharanthi, referring to its host, the Catharanthus genus of periwinkles. Others were named after their collection sites, such as A. chiangmaiense, referring to the province, and A. kwanphayaoense, referring to Kwan Phayao (Phayao Lake).

Two species were named in honor of prominent Thai mycologists, or fungi experts: A. saisamorniae recognizes Saisamorn Lumyong, a professor at Chiang Mai University, while A. savitreeae honors Savitree Limtong, a professor at Kasetsart.

“We wanted the names to tell a story, either about where these fungi came from or about the people who have helped advance mycological research in Thailand,” Nakarin Suwannarach, study co-author and professor at Chiang Mai University, said in a news release.

Alongside the 16 species, the researchers also recorded four species of fungi that had previously never been documented in Thailand before.

“Our team was motivated to study Aureobasidium because it was one of the most frequently isolated fungal genera from our flower samples,” Suwannarach said.

Fungi within the Aureobasidium genus are prized in industry for producing useful enzymes, controlling plant diseases, and breaking down plastics, the researchers say.

Some Aureobasidium species can also act as opportunistic human pathogens, so establishing an accurate baseline of native fungal populations will help scientists track future ecological shifts, the study authors write.

They add the study shows that flowers in northern Thailand are home to an “unexpectedly high” diversity of Aureobasidium species.

Banner image of a butter daisy flower (Melampodium divaricatum), from which researchers recently isolated Aureobasidium saisamorniae, a new-to-science species of fungus. Image by Nakarin Suwannarach (CC BY 4.0).

Right-wing candidates made big gains in both houses of Congress in Brazil’s Oct. 4 general election. Brazil’s main Indigenous organization, the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil APIB, told Mongabay that the result will drive new attempts to strip constitutional protections from Indigenous peoples.

“Unfortunately, what we saw today is, let’s say, a bleak moment,” Dinamam Tuxá, an executive coordinator with APIB, told Mongabay in an audio message. “We did not expect this result.”

The far-right Liberal Party, affiliated with presidential candidate Flávio Bolsonaro, won 19 of the 54 Senate seats up for election, bringing its total seats to 28 of the chamber’s 81, or 35%, starting from 2027. This is nearly double its current number and the largest bloc in the house.

Other right-wing parties, namely the Progressistas (PP), Republicanos and Novo, secured 8 seats, bringing their total representation to 15 seats. This gives the four parties a majority in the Senate. Center-right parties now occupy 9 seats, and centrist parties, 13. Left and center-left hold 15 seats.

The Liberal Party consistently cast votes against Indigenous rights between 2019 and 2026, according to an analysis of Congress’s voting records by the Indigenous Missionary Council (CIMI), a Catholic Church-affiliated advocacy organization.

According to CIMI’s analysis, 95.9% of the party’s votes were against Indigenous rights. The other right-wing parties voted similarly: Republicanos at 90.5% and Progressistas (PP) at 85.6%. Novo cast anti-Indigenous votes 100% of the time.

On Oct. 25, Flávio Bolsonaro will face off against incumbent Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, in a second round of voting for the Brazilian presidency. In the first round of votes, Bolsonaro won by nearly 2%, but neither he nor Lula reached the 50% needed for an outright victory. 

“Regardless of President Lula’s result, the Federal Senate will certainly be one of the powers that will act against the rights of Indigenous peoples,” Tuxá said.

A record 79 Indigenous people ran for Congress, across both houses, in 2026. However, just three, Juliana Cardoso, Paulo Guedes and the former Minister of Indigenous Peoples, Sônia Guajajara, were elected.

“Without a doubt, their presence will be more important than ever in the face of a Congress that has become even more anti-Indigenous,” Tuxá said.

Banner image: Sônia Guajajara, former Minister of Indigenous Peoples, was one of three Indigenous candidates elected in Brazil’s 2026 general election. Image courtesy of Hermes Caruzo/COP30.

On June 17, 2015, Philippine officials confiscated thousands of turtles in cement tanks from a warehouse in Palawan, an island province in the Philippines. More than 3,800 of them were endangered Palawan forest turtles (Siebenrockiella leytensis), piled as many as a dozen deep, awaiting export. Some had ulcers on the undersides of their shells or open wounds on their feet; others had been bitten by turtles crowded in alongside them.

Sabine Schoppe organized the response. No facility was equipped to deal with thousands of turtles so students built shade and shelters. A former crocodile enclosure was turned into an emergency pond. Schoppe and her colleagues worked around the clock, joined by veterinarians and turtle specialists who came from abroad. “Yesterday by sadness and work, now by hope,” she wrote after help began arriving.

Schoppe had arrived in the Philippines from Germany in 1995 after completing a doctorate in biology. She began with bird surveys and coastal resource management in the Visayas before moving to the State Polytechnic College of Palawan, now Western Philippines University, where she was a guest professor of aquatic and marine biology. She also became an associate editor of The Palawan Scientist.

The bakoko, as the Palawan forest turtle is known locally, was first described scientifically from specimens said to have come from the Philippine island of Leyte. Those specimens were later destroyed during the bombing of Manila in World War II. For decades scientists didn’t know where the turtles lived until they were eventually found in Palawan.

The species lives in burrows alongside creeks and small rivers where collectors can dig them out making them relatively easy targets. Keeping them healthy as pets is another matter. The animals are solitary and prone to stress, skin problems and shell rot in captivity. Crowded together, they can attack one another.

Schoppe was a co-founder of the Philippines-based nonprofit Katala Foundation. She began its freshwater turtle program in 2007 and its pangolin program the following year. Under her leadership, the foundation built a turtle rescue facility and established the first protected area specifically for the Palawan forest turtle. They successfully bred the species for conservation.

That preparation was critical after the 2015 confiscation. Some 2,200 turtles from the warehouse were released, but more than 1,000 remained in care, suffering from ailments that included bone infections, eye problems, dehydration and emaciation. More than 300 died in the first weeks. Schoppe and her colleagues monitored released animals, building one of Asia’s few large-scale post-release monitoring programs for freshwater turtles.

Schoppe received the Andrew Sabin Award for Excellence in Chelonian Conservation in 2015. In 2026, she was named the recipient of the  Behler Turtle Conservation Award, the field’s highest honor. She was too ill to travel to Mexico to receive it; a longtime colleague from Palawan accepted it for her. She died less than six weeks later on Sept. 13. She was 63.

Banner image: of Sabine Schoppe. Image courtesy of Katala Foundation.