The Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) has been accused of harassing co-petitioners in a case challenging the relocation of the Nairobi Animal Orphanage to make it part of the larger Bomas International Conference Complex. The proposal would carve out between 76 and 89 acres inside Nairobi National Park for upgrades to wildlife rescue and rehabilitation facilities. Conservationists are concerned that the facility, which will include parking for 1,300 vehicles, poses threats to a protected indigenous forest and habitat for the critically endangered black rhino.

On July 16, the Environment and Land Court in Nairobi ordered its deputy registrar Vincent Kiplagat to visit the park in the presence of all parties to prepare and file a report about the proposed facility.

The Nairobi-based NGO Save the Nairobi National Park (SaveNNP) said it was denied court-ordered access to the site. In a statement sent to Mongabay, SaveNNP condemned “threats and intimidation” by KWS personnel.

In the same statement, SaveNNP and JustAct, another Nairobi-based NGO, accused the KWS of planning to “control the narrative and ensure the voice of Kenyans was not heard by the courts or the media while on site.” Similar claims were made by Friends of Nairobi National Park.

Mongabay asked KWS spokesperson Duncan Wanyama for a comment and was referred to a local media report in which Wanyama said the visitors were not obstructed and that rangers were just enforcing standard protocols within the park.

The activists said they were later allowed in, but “only once the court officers, KWS representatives, members of the media, and the sole legal representative of the co-petitioners who they allowed to enter the park, had completed the site visit.”

The KWS has defended the project, saying it will include better facilities, such as a wildlife hospital, visitor amenities and more space for wildlife rescue cases. It will also be an economic boon to the region and employ roughly 500 people, KWS has said.

At least 4,642 Kenyans have since signed a petition asking the court to determine if the orphanage construction can legally proceed. Nairobi National Park is the only national park in the world located within a capital city. It’s home to iconic wildlife including lions, leopards and rhinos.

The current Nairobi National Orphanage was established in 1964. KWS Director General Erastus Kanja has said the upgrades to the park will improve capacity for wildlife rescue, rehabilitation and conservation education. The new facility will “enable us to give a more or less semi-wild area where we can start reintroducing the animals,” he said.

Last month, Kenya’s former Chief Justice David Maraga was arrested during a protest of the proposed relocation of the orphanage. The Law Society of Kenya described his arrest as “a direct assault on the civic space guaranteed under Article 37 of the Constitution. National heritage sites are not state property to barter behind closed doors.”

Banner image: Lions relax inside the Nairobi National Park. Photo courtesy of SaveNNP.

GUWAHATI, India (AP) — Flooding in India’s northeastern Assam state has killed at least 50 people and displaced 700,000 after days of heavy monsoon rain that overflowed the Brahmaputra River, officials said Friday.

The river, one of Asia’s largest that originates in China’s Tibet region and flows about 900 kilometers (560 miles) through Assam, flooded villages, swept away homes and forced nearly 300,000 people into government-run relief camps, officials said.

Authorities provided food and relief supplies to flood victims including airdrops from helicopters, Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma said.

Nearly 900 villages were submerged and more than 7,000 homes were without electricity, he said.

Police, disaster response teams and local volunteers were working to rescue stranded residents and deliver essential supplies to flood-hit communities, officials said.

Jatin Gogoi, a 52-year-old farmer from Nazira, said the rising waters swept away his bamboo-walled home and destroyed his livelihood.

“I lost all my cattle. My five-member family and I have nowhere to go, so we are taking shelter in a relative’s home,” he said over the phone.

Flooding on Thursday evening disrupted parts of Guwahati, Assam’s capital with about 2 million residents, as submerged roads left commuters stranded for hours.

“I had to stay overnight at my office. The roads were filled with water, some waist deep,” said Sudip Mazumdar, a journalist in Guwahati.

Experts say human-caused climate change is intensifying South Asia’s monsoons, which traditionally run from June to September and again from October to December. The rains, once predictable, now arrive in erratic bursts that dump extreme amounts of water in short periods, followed by dry spells.

By Wasbir Hussain, Associated Press

Banner image: Flood-affected villagers wait to cross the flood water in Sivsager, upper Assam, India, Friday, July 24, 2026. Image by Parikhit Saikia, Associated Press.

In celebration of World Mangrove Day on July 26, the U.S.-based Mangrove Action Project (MAP) has announced the winners of its 12th annual photography awards.

“Mangroves are the underdog. They will never be as glamorous as the Amazon rainforest or coral reefs. But through photography we can change that narrative, and intrigue people by showing them their beauty, diversity and fragility,” Leo Thom, creative director with MAP told Mongabay in an email.

Mangroves cover just 0.1% of the surface of the Earth but are essential ecosystems; they stabilize coastlines and provide habitat for diverse wildlife including fish, reptiles, amphibians, birds, primates and, even, big cats such as tigers. Mangroves also store three to five times more carbon per acre than tropical forests.

Scientists estimate that more than half of all mangrove ecosystems are at risk of collapse by 2050, mostly from sea-level rise and severe storms associated with climate change.

Gaurav Patil/Mangrove Photography Awards (MPA)

 The 2026 overall winning photograph features another threat to mangroves — ghost nets, fishing nets that are discarded or lost at sea. This photo was taken near Nandgaon village, south of Mumbai, India. At sea, such fishing gear can entangle wildlife including sea turtles, birds and whales. Less understood is how problematic ghost nets are for mangroves.

“I have been watching ghost nets getting trapped in mangroves for the last several years,” photographer Gaurav Patil from India, said in a press release.

Michol Sanchez/MPA

A “highly commended” photo in the threats category of the contest shows how mangroves lying at the interface of land and sea can become repositories for plastic from both sources. This mangrove in the Philippines is “a portrait of neglect, and a warning: nature can endure much, but not indefinitely,” the release said.

Garry Lotulung/MPA

A “highly commended” portfolio of photos titled “Encircled by the Sea,” features pictures of a community and mangrove in Central Java, Indonesia, that have been flooded by sea level rise.

Garry Lotulung/MPA

One of the photos in the series highlights Pasijah, a resident who refused to leave when her community flooded, and has spent the last 20 years planting mangroves, roughly 15,000 seedlings per year.

Kerron Noel/MAP

The category for “wildlife” photographs showcases the extraordinary diversity of wildlife that depend on mangroves, including a silky anteater (Cyclopes didactylus) taking a mangrove nap in the Caroni Bird Sanctuary, Caroni Swamp on the west coast of Trinidad.

Raj Hassanaly/MPA

Another photo features a lemur perched in a mangrove in Madagascar. At least 23 species of lemurs depend on mangroves in Madagascar.

Ashok Behera/MPA

Two mudskippers engaged in a territorial display on the Sundarbans’ tidal flats in India was a “highly commended” photo.

Avijit Ghorai/MPA

Another “highly commended” photo spotlights a juvenile royal Bengal tiger in India’s Sundarbans, part of the world’s largest contiguous mangrove forest.

Banner image of baby blacktip sharks in a mangrove nursery off Santa Cruz Island in the U.S. is part of a portfolio series. Image courtesy of Pelayo Salinas de León/MPA.

Four African wild dogs were recently spotted in Kasungu National Park in Malawi, making it the first confirmation of the endangered species in the park in more than a decade. The wild dogs appear to have travelled hundreds of kilometers from a park in eastern Zambia to reach Kasungu.

Matthew Becker, chief executive of the Zambian Carnivore Programme, told Mongabay his team recognized the four African wild dogs (Lycaon pictus) from a database of known wild dogs collected in South Luangwa National Park and the Luangwa River valley as part of a long-term study. South Luangwa is located around 300 kilometers (186 miles) to the west of Kasungu. The four dogs had been recorded in May near a school in Mfuwe village, just outside South Luangwa, Becker said.

The wild dogs may have traversed parts of the Malawi-Zambia Transfrontier Conservation Area (TFCA), Becker added. The TFCA connects Malawi’s Kasungu to Zambia’s Lukusuzi National Park adjoining the Luangwa Valley, through a long narrow region of densely packed villages, farms and homesteads,

“I suspect they would have used the areas that were least impacted by development and (with the) least amount of threats, but one never knows with dogs,” Becker said.

He added that “it’s very promising” the wild dogs were able to move from South Luangwa all the way into Malawi. “I think hopefully this signals more dogs in the future exchanging between the countries through dispersal,” he said, adding that the journey of the four dogs to Kasungu shows that South Luangwa should be integrated into the TFCA.

Gervaz Thamala, Kasungu field operations manager for the NGO International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), told Mongabay he spotted the four wild dogs a few hundred meters from the park’s main gate, along its eastern boundary, early on July 17.

“They were so relaxed,” said Thamala, who photographed the dogs from his vehicle. “I didn’t want to leave them, but I thought it wasn’t fair to stay too long.”

Former den sites in the south and north-west of Kasungu have lain dormant for years, said Thamala.

In 2022, the Malawian government, IFAW and African Parks introduced hundreds of animals, including impalas (Aepyceros melampus), warthogs (Phacochoerus africanus) and elephants (Loxodonta africana) to Kasungu. Impalas, which are common prey for wild dogs, are now plentiful in a part of the park south of where the dogs were spotted, Thamala said. “I wouldn’t doubt if [the dogs] are going to stay.”

In a statement sent to Mongabay, Bruce Sosola, IFAW Malawi’s country director, said his organization’s work to protect and reconnect wildlife habitats and avoid human-wildlife conflict within the TFCA helps wild dogs and elephants move safely between the two countries.

“The natural return of African wild dogs to Kasungu National Park after a decade isn’t just an extraordinary sighting, it’s proof that our ecosystem is truly healing,” he said.

Banner image: Four African wild dogs were spotted in Malawi’s Kasungu National Park in July after more than 10 years. Image courtesy of the International Fund for Animal Welfare.

In the rugged, high-altitude meadows of the Eastern Himalayas in India, researchers have confirmed the presence of a tiny plant with purple-blue flowers, last documented in the country more than 150 years ago.

The plant, Cyananthus hookeri, was previously recorded in India by British botanist Sir Joseph Dalton Hooker who collected some specimens from the northeastern state of Sikkim in 1867.

Last year, a research team located the species at an altitude of 3,600 meters (11,811 feet) in Chuna Valley in Tawang district of Arunachal Pradesh state, also in northeast India. This milestone, documented in a recent update in Oryx, marks the first confirmed record of the species in Arunachal Pradesh and the first record from India in 158 years, the researchers write.

Sudhanshu Sekhar Dash, one of the botanists on the research team from the Botanical Survey of India, told Mongabay over email that the rediscovery of Cyananthus hookeri “is an exciting and significant botanical finding.”

“What impressed us most was that such a distinctive species had remained undetected despite extensive botanical exploration in the eastern Himalaya,” Sekhar Dash said. “This highlights how remote alpine ecosystems still harbor poorly documented plant diversity.”

C. hookeri is a small, short plant that grows in mat-like clumps. It has densely hairy stems, and striking purple-blue flowers with hairy throats.

Sekhar Dash said the plant is a highly specialized herb that’s adapted to harsh mountain climates. “It creates robust, hairy cushions that protect it from the severe mountain conditions,” he said.

Despite the excitement of the find, Sekhar Dash said their fieldwork revealed an extremely small population of fewer than 50 mature individuals.

The species is also restricted to “rugged alpine terrains (~3,600 m), characterized by extreme topography, unpredictable weather, and a critically narrow flowering window,” Sekhar Dash said.

This makes the plant highly susceptible to random population fluctuations, impacts of climatic changes, human pressures and other disturbances, he added.

Given C. hookeri’s small population size and distribution, the research team recommends categorizing the species as nationally endangered in India.

To ensure C. hookeri’s survival, Sekhar Dash urged long-term monitoring of its population, deepening its ecological understanding and community-led conservation efforts.

Banner image: Cyananthus hookeri in flower in Chuna Valley, Tawang district, Arunachal Pradesh, India. Image courtesy of Lahiri, S. et al. (2026) via Oryx (CC BY 4.0).

More than 40 years after sediment from a volcanic eruption filled up a stretch of the North Fork Toutle River in the U.S. state of Washington, beavers are turning the smothered waterway into a thriving wetland. However, a planned infrastructure project now threatens to undo five years of restoration progress, reports contributor Isabel Gil for Mongabay.

Following the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens, Mark and Dawn Smith, owners of the Eco Park Resort, watched as volcanic sediment accumulated over native vegetation and wildlife along the river. The degradation was exacerbated when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 1989 built a sediment retention structure (SRS) to hold back sediment to protect shipping routes and downstream communities from flooding. The structure trapped volcanic material, creating a massive sediment plain on the Smiths’ property.

In 2021, the Smith family began collaborating with natural resource experts from the Cowlitz Indian Tribe, the Cascade Tribe, and conservation groups to reintroduce beavers (Castor canadensis) to the area.

Emily Fairfax, an assistant professor of geography at the University of Minnesota, told Mongabay that 58 beavers have been relocated to the resort in the last five years. Many of them were at risk of being euthanized after coming into conflict with humans in other areas.

The relocated beavers have established a complex network of dams and what Smith described as “honeycomb” canals, deepening ponds and allowing native willows and alders to take root.

Smith said he’s seen ducks and elk return to his property. Moreover, the restored wetland habitat now supports sensitive fish species, including Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) and rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss).

While some beavers continue to live in the resort, others have even moved out to nearby land via connected waterways.

“It is really amazing to see how their engineering activities are essentially helping regreen this volcanic wasteland,” Jonah Piovia-Scott, a biology professor at Washington State University, told Mongabay.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers recently announced plans to further raise the SRS spillway crest by 10 feet (3 meters) to mitigate downstream flood risks.

Mark Smith said raising the SRS would cause a fresh backlog of sediment that could bury the newly formed wetlands and fish habitats. Smith has filed a notice of intent to sue the Corps, advocating for nature-based solutions over human-made infrastructure.

The prospect of losing the restored ecosystem is a heavy blow for the family. “I’m 67 now, and I’ve been here 35 years on this property and I’ve watched it die twice and I’m gonna have to watch it die again,” Smith told Mongabay.

He said he remains committed to the project, asserting that if the habitat is destroyed, his family will be the first to help the beavers start anew.

Read the full story by Isabel Gil here.

Banner image: Beavers are restoring stretches of North Fork Toutle River in the U.S. state of Washington. Image by GrandTetonNPS via Wikimedia Commons (Public domain).