At least four suspects have been arrested in connection with the deaths of 18 elephants in the Amboseli ecosystem in southern Kenya, near the border with Tanzania. Preliminary investigations by a multiagency team suggest poisoning from agricultural pesticides, authorities say.

In July, 16 elephants were found dead at Kimana Sanctuary and Kuku Group Ranch in the Amboseli ecosystem. The death toll rose to 18 in August, after two more elephant carcasses were found in Kitenden B reserve, near the Amboseli National Park.

On Aug. 21, Kenya Wildlife Service’s (KWS) communication director Duncan Wanyama told Mongabay by phone that another elephant was in critical condition in Amboseli and under close watch by animal experts. The KWS has previously said that most of the elephants found dead were female and their calves.

Investigations have led to the recovery of substances, including chemicals that are potentially toxic, and “unlabelled materials”, which have been secured for further scientific analysis, Kenya’s Cabinet Secretary for Tourism and Wildlife Rebecca Miano said in a statement seen by Mongabay. “Although the investigations remain active, the arrest of persons of interest and the recovery of exhibits do not in themselves establish criminal culpability,” she said.

Miano added that a suspect believed to have crucial information about the killings of the elephants was still at large.

Initial investigations indicated that the elephants died after ingesting a toxic substance, with laboratory tests pointing to cyanide. The elephants were thought to have come into contact with the chemical in pesticides sprayed on tomatoes in nearby farms, although Miano said this is yet to be scientifically proven.

Farmers from the area have refuted the allegation and told the Associated Press on Aug. 7 that the communities there have long coexisted with elephants.

Kenya-based conservation NGO WildlifeDirect has sought more independent and transparent investigations. “The reported deaths … are a warning that Kenya’s pesticide governance, regulatory oversight, and enforcement systems require urgent reform,” Paula Kahumbu, WildlifeDirect’s CEO, said in a statement when the death of the first 15 elephants was announced. “If toxic chemicals are capable of entering crops consumed by elephants, we must ask whether farmers, farm workers, neighbouring communities, livestock, and consumers are being adequately protected.”

A multi-government-agency team has been investigating the matter, including within the community that lives adjacent to the national park.

Miano commended the local communities for their “vigilance and cooperation during these investigations”.

“Their readiness to share information and support the multi-agency operation demonstrates that communities are not passive beneficiaries of conservation, but indispensable partners and the primary guardians of Kenya’s wildlife heritage,” she said.

Miano called for cross-border collaboration to ensure the safety of the animals that move freely between Kenya and Tanzania and promised a sustained probe until the truth about the jumbos’ deaths is established.

Banner image: A Kenya Wildlife Service team rescued this elephant that was stuck in the mud in Muchuro, Isiolo County, on Aug. 22, 2026. Image courtesy of KWS.

As the 2026 El Niño strengthens in the equatorial Pacific, satellites are capturing the first major signs of disruption to the marine food web.

According to by NASA’s Earth Observatory observations, satellite measurements show a substantial drop in surface concentrations of chlorophyll across the Central Pacific compared with neutral conditions in June 2025. Chlorophyll is the pigment that helps plants absorbs sunlight to generate energy, and its reduction indicates a decline in phytoplankton, the base of the ocean’s food webs.

Hyung-Gyu Lim, an associate professor of oceanography at Chonnam National University in South Korea, told Mongabay by email that a developing El Niño can slow the process of upwelling, where nutrient-rich cold waters rise from the ocean depths to the surface. “This may trigger less nutrient supply. It is not surprising for me,” Lim said.

Matthew Kehrli and Graham Trolley, oceanographers at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, wrote in a NASA Earth Observatory article that El Niño can suppress upwelling because easterly equatorial trade winds weaken, causing the warm surface layer of the ocean to extend deeper.

They added that as El Niño progresses, chlorophyll concentrations will likely decrease further over a broader region.

The ecological consequences of this nutrient decline would mean less food available for zooplankton, as well as for fish, seabirds, and marine mammals, the NASA Earth Observatory article said. This affects fisheries: Peru’s anchovy fisheries, for example, saw significant declines in catch during previous El Niño events, driven by warmer surface waters, reduced upwelling, and lower phytoplankton levels. This year, the country has repeatedly suspended its vital anchovy fishery to protect vulnerable fish stocks, while starving pelicans have begun invading urban ports in search of food.

NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center estimates a greater than 90% chance the current El Niño will persist into early 2027.

Despite the severe immediate disruptions, the NASA Earth Observatory said oceans often undergo a “chlorophyll rebound” once the event subsides.

Research led by Lim also suggests  higher iron concentrations from ocean currents, as well as iron dust blown from dry land in parts of Central and South America, help fuel the resurgence of chlorophyll after El Niño. Iron is a key nutrient that stimulates phytoplankton growth.

Lim said recent Earth System Model studies “suggest that oceanic drivers facilitate a post-El Niño chlorophyll rebound fueled by subsurface iron supply. Furthermore, atmospheric drivers — such as dust-iron deposition — can significantly modulate marine productivity.”

Lim added surface satellite maps only show part of the ecological picture. To truly capture the dynamics, he said, advanced observation systems must integrate both surface and subsurface observations from oceans.

Banner image: Average chlorophyll concentrations in the Central Pacific for June 2026, right, appear significantly reduced under a strengthening El Niño compared to June 2025, when conditions were neutral. Images courtesy of NASA Earth Observatory/Michala Garrison.

Aug. 25 is a National Day of Action to support U.S. national parks and public lands. One focus of the event is the U.S. government’s intention to rescind a rule that bans road construction and industrial logging across more than 23 million hectares (57 million acres) of national forest land.

The 2001 Roadless Rule, has helped protect some of the country’s most wild public lands, including Alaska’s Tongass National Forest, the world’s largest intact temperate rainforest and the ancestral homeland of several Indigenous peoples.

“A rollback on the Roadless Rule means cultural genocide for our people,” Yolanda Fulmer of the Tlingit Indigenous nation and a Tongass representative with the California-based NGO Women Earth and Climate Action Network (WECAN), said in a statement. “Every part of our culture is intimately intertwined with the Tongass Forest, our traditional homelands.”

The Tongass spans 6.8 million hectares (17 million acres) of mountains, rivers, rugged coastline and old-growth forest. Nicknamed “America’s Climate Forest,” the Tongass holds 20% of all the carbon stored in the country’s national forests and provides habitat for some 400 wildlife species including bears, wolves and moose. It also supports roughly 40% of North American bird species.

If the Roadless Rule is rescinded, roughly 3.6 million hectares (9 million acres) of the Tongass could lose protections against new road development. Nationwide, 18 million hectares (45 million acres) of national forest system land could be affected.

In an Aug. 18 statement, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which administers national forests through the U.S. Forest Service, said roads are necessary to maintain and protect forests. “Across the country, we’ve watched preventable conditions — overgrown stands, insect outbreaks and disease — turn healthy landscapes into tinderboxes,” Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said in the statement.

However, researchers found that between 1992 and 2024 wildfires were four times more likely near roads than in roadless areas. Another study found more than 90% of wildfires occurred within half a mile of a road.

“Constructing new logging roads into roadless areas will increase human-caused wildfire ignitions by careless recreationists, criminal arsonists, or simple accidents,” Carson States with Firefighters United for Safety, Ethics, and Ecology said in a statement.

Osprey Orielle Lake, WECAN executive director, told Mongabay the administration wants to rescind the Roadless Rule to “open up these roads for industry.”

The Roadless Rule also restricts timber, oil, gas, coal or mineral development on protected land. The Trump administration has issued a series of executive orders supporting such industries, including one aimed specifically at “Unleashing Alaska’s Extraordinary Resource Potential.” 

In his first term, U.S. President Donald Trump exempted Tongass from the Roadless Rule; that decision drew half a million public comments, 96% of them opposed. U.S. President Joe Biden later reinstated protections.

“Across the country, people want forests, people want wildlife, people want there to be no roads so that we can enjoy these national treasures,” Lake said.  

A public comment period on the proposed Roadless Rule rollback will be open until Sept. 21.

Banner image: WECAN Tongass representatives protesting. Image courtesy of WECAN.

Indonesian authorities have charged 72 individuals with intentionally igniting forest fires across five provinces on the island of Borneo and four on Sumatra.

Fires across both islands have burned nearly 286,000 hectares (about 707,000 acres) of land from January to Aug. 24 alone, according to FireWatch, a satellite-based monitoring tool developed by forest-mapping platform Nusantara Atlas. That’s an area half the size of the island of Bali. Officials say prolonged dry conditions and a powerful El Niño this year have severely worsened the wildfires.

In a statement, local law enforcement alleged that the 72 suspects used fire to clear land in preparation for planting. Police seized lighters, fuel containers, machetes, axes, and samples of burned soil and tree trunks among various items of evidence.

The smoke from the wildfires has caused choking haze clouds that have reduced visibility to just 10 meters (33 feet) in one province, according to the Associated Press.

Mongabay previously reported that the fires have also caused hazardous air quality, and the destruction of vegetation has led to food shortages for wildlife like long-tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis). The smoke has even drifted across the border to neighboring Malaysia.

The wildfires have also affected critical conservation work, Mongabay previously reported. In Borneo’s West Kalimantan province, fires came close to an orangutan rehabilitation facility run by the nonprofit YIARI, where more than 60 critically endangered Bornean orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus) are housed after being rescued from the illegal wildlife trade and habitat loss.

Meanwhile, the health toll is rising rapidly. In the six worst-affected provinces, the Indonesian Ministry of Health reported that acute respiratory infection cases have surged. In Central Kalimantan province, cases jumped by 78.1% in just one week, from 402 to 716, while West Kalimantan has recorded more than 151,000 cases since January.

In a press release, Indonesia’s National Disaster Management Agency (BNPB) said emergency responders have successfully extinguished or contained 526 hectares (1,299 acres) of active wildfires. This includes 71.5 hectares (176 acres) of localized brush and forest fire outbreaks, and 454 hectares (1,122 acres) of larger, high-priority peatland and forest blazes.

Firefighting operations so far have included air-dropping millions of liters of water on intense blazes in remote terrain from aircraft. On the ground, tens of thousands of personnel, including military units, professional firefighters, and volunteers, are also helping douse the flames directly.

Since fires frequently smolder deep in dry peatlands, crews are digging containment trenches — specialized water-filled barriers dug into the earth to isolate a fire — to block the fires’ spread. The BNPB also said authorities are carrying out cloud seeding to induce rainfall.

Banner image: Firefighters carry their equipment as they attempt to extinguish a wildfire in a peatland area in Palembang, South Sumatra province, on Aug. 11. Image by AP Photo/Muhammad Hatta.

BUNIA, Congo (AP) — More than 300 people died of Ebola in eastern Congo in the past week, one of the highest weekly tolls yet, government data showed Monday, as health workers struggle to catch up with an outbreak that is spreading at unprecedented speed.

Ministry of Health data showed that as of Saturday, the outbreak had recorded 5,514 cases and 2,642 deaths, including 317 deaths reported in the previous seven days. But Congolese experts have said the outbreak that started weeks before it was confirmed could be three times the known size.

This is the fastest-growing Ebola outbreak in history, with many people dying outside treatment centers. It has recorded seven times more deaths at this stage than the 2014-2016 West Africa Ebola outbreak that is the deadliest in history with over 11,000 in all.

Most new cases in Ituri province, the current epicenter, still come from outside monitored contacts.

Nearly half of people infected have died — 47.9% — but the government data shows much higher rates in hard-to-reach areas such as North Kivu province, which has a fatality rate of 68.6%.

Frontline workers to receive vaccine used in past outbreaks

A key challenge has been the lack of approved vaccines or treatments for the rare Bundibugyo virus responsible for the outbreak.

On Friday, Congo received more than 16,000 doses of the Ervebo vaccine that was effective in past Ebola outbreaks caused by a different, more common type. The World Health Organization says it also will be used in clinical trials for a Bundibugyo virus vaccine.

WHO says it’s not known whether Ervebo can protect against the Bundibugyo virus, although early laboratory and animal data suggest it may offer some protection.

Officials have not said when the vaccine will be rolled out to frontline workers. In Ituri, locals expressed optimism that it will help slow the outbreak.

“I am very pleased that these vaccines have finally arrived,” said Héritier Ramazani, a resident. “We are fed up with recording new cases of Ebola every day.”

The outbreak is unfolding in some of the most challenging conditions imaginable, with rebel threats and intense population movements.

Medical teams in Ituri and other affected provinces also face work stoppages by responders who haven’t been paid, anger from long-traumatized communities, bad roads and misinformation claiming that Ebola isn’t real.

Experts believe the virus was spreading in the mining town of Mongbwalu as early as February, months before authorities declared the outbreak on May 15.

By Associated Press

Banner image: People dressed in protective gear unload a coffin containing the remains of six-year-old Baudjo Baraka Jules, who died of Ebola, for a burial service in Bunia, Ituri province, eastern Congo, Tuesday, Aug. 18, 2026. Image courtesy of Dieudonne Dirole, Associated Press. 

In Liberia’s Grand Gedeh county, deforestation for cocoa has soared since 2020, pushing the region’s cocoa trade into an uncertain future. The EU is Liberia’s biggest cocoa customer, but is set to implement the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), which bans the import of forest products, including cocoa, made on land deforested after Dec. 31, 2020, reports Mongabay’s Ashoka Mukpo.

“If cocoa from Liberia was produced on land cleared after that EUDR cutoff date, it would fail on deforestation grounds,” Owen Gibbons, senior manager for global advocacy and UK public affairs, at the Rainforest Alliance, told Mongabay.

In 2024, the EU imported more than 17,000 metric tons of cocoa from Liberia, a 30% increase in two years.

Soon, Liberian cocoa producers will have to show their beans weren’t produced on forest land cleared after December 2020. However, most cacao plantations in Grand Gedeh are deep inside forests. In fact, much of the forest loss in the region has occurred since 2020. Before that, 99% of the county was covered by forests.

Some forests are communally owned and private individuals can lease them out. However, cacao plantations have also encroached into other forests, including the proposed Kwa National Park area, where commercial agriculture is currently banned.

To meet the EUDR requirements, cocoa producers will have to show their EU customers exactly where the cocoa plantations are and when they started production. Tracing every plantation and its production is a massive undertaking. Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, both major cocoa exporters, have spent years establishing traceability systems. Liberia only started recently.

“Liberia is at a very early stage on all these fronts,” Gibbons said. “There is no national traceability infrastructure comparable to what exists in Côte d’Ivoire or Ghana.”

Even if Liberia puts a traceability system together, the EU could still reject its cocoa since most of the deforestation in Grand Gedeh happened post 2020.

As uncertainties loom, many people in the country involved in the cocoa trade are unaware of the implications of the EUDR, including Lincoln Daslah, secretary of a cocoa-buying collective and a middleman between producers in Grand Gedeh and exporters in Monrovia.

When told about the regulation, Daslah said that while he knows the forest is disappearing, he doesn’t understand why the EU would want to hurt his business.

However, some EU policymakers said the rule is still necessary to protect forests in counties like Grand Gedeh.

“I understand the frustration of farmers in Liberia that just started production in that sense and aren’t ready,” said Delara Burkhardt, a German member of the European Parliament. “I think still in the long term we have to make sure that sustainable practices are supported, and clear-cutting forests is something that breaches the law.”

Read the full story by Ashoka Mukpo here.

Banner image: Traders sorting through cocoa beans in Grand Gedeh, Liberia. Image by Ashoka Mukpo for Mongabay.