The government of French Polynesia announced it is expanding the extent of ocean where extractive industries like seabed mining and industrial fishing will not be allowed. With this move, 30% of French Polynesia’s waters will now be fully protected.

Last year on June 8, French Polynesia, a French overseas territory, established the Tainui Atea marine protected area. It spans nearly 5 million square kilometers (2 million square miles) of its exclusive economic zone, the area of ocean that French Polynesia has exclusive rights to conserve and manage. Some 900,000 km2 of this (about 350,000 mi2), located near the Society Islands and the Gambier Islands, are fully protected waters where no extractive fishing or mining is allowed.

On June 7, 2026, French Polynesia President Moetai Brotherson announced that French Polynesia would expand its fully protected waters by another 520,000 km2 (200,000 mi2) near the Austral, Marquesas and Western Society islands. This brings about 1.4 million km2 (540,500 mi2) or 30% of French Polynesia’s waters under full protection from extractive industries.

“French Polynesia has maintained a moratorium on seabed mining in its waters since 2022, reaffirmed by the Presidency in 2025, and banning it was part of the 2025 protection commitments,” Donatien Tanret, principal officer of the Pew Bertarelli Ocean Legacy, which helped develop the conservation plan, told Mongabay by email.

The protected area has artisanal fishing zones where local people are allowed to continue fishing and sustain their local communities, but industrial fishing in prohibited, Tanret said.

In 2025, artisanal fishing zones collectively covering 190,000 km2 (73,000 mi2) were created. Meanwhile, more than 8,000 km2 (3,088 mi2) of artisanal fishing zones will be added in 2026, Tanret said. Fishing is limited to single pole-and-line catch from boats less than 12 meters (39 feet) in length.

The protected area was established by consensus of the communities within French Polynesia, and more than a decade of advocacy from local mayors, Tanret said.

He added that France helps enforce the protections by conducting surveillance, including satellite vessel-tracking and operational support on the ground.

The new protected zone will help conserve 20 species of sharks including the critically endangered scalloped hammerhead (Sphyrna lewini) and oceanic whitetip (Carcharhinus longimanus). The protected zone is also one of the few known breeding sites for 22 bird species, including the endangered Polynesian storm-petrel (Nesofregetta fuliginosa), the vulnerable Phoenix petrel (Pterodroma alba), as well as Murphy’s petrel (Pterodroma ultima), which flies thousands of kilometers across the Pacific between feeding trips.

The protections will also support swordfish, bigeye tuna and opah that live in the Austral and Marquesas, as well as 455 mollusk species, 60 pelagic (or open-ocean) fish species, three sea turtle species and 10 marine mammal species.

“This is our mission as Oceanians,” President Brotherson told AFP. “We also hope that it can inspire other countries, especially the larger ones, in the way they manage their relationship with the ocean.”

Banner image: Sharks in French Polynesia. Image courtesy of Hannes Klostermann, Ocean Image Bank.

U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration recently repealed the 2024 Public Lands Rule, which established that conservation should have equal priority with industry when it comes to accessing leases for U.S. public land.

That shift in priorities will apply to 245 million acres (99 million hectares) of public land managed by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM). That’s roughly 10% of U.S. land that the agency leases for a multitude of private uses including grazing, mining, energy development and, until recently, conservation.

In the federal register the Department of the Interior (DOI) said, “[b]y rescinding the 2024 Rule, the BLM eliminates mechanisms — such as restoration and mitigation leasing — that threatened to restrict productive use of the public lands.”

An example of the decision’s impact can be found in the state of Montana. Roughly 950 American bison (Bison bison) have grazed on 63,000 acres (25,495 hectares) of federal land there since 2022. However, the DOI, which oversees BLM, revoked that grazing permit on May 8, just days before repealing the Public Lands Rule.

Interior secretary Doug Burgman said that according to federal grazing laws, public land leases can only be given to animals, “intended for use primarily for their meat, milk, or other animal products.” He added that “considerable evidence” suggests the bison are intended for “for some other purpose, such as conservation.”

Before western settlement, upwards of 100 million bison roamed the plains, serving as “ecosystem engineers shape[ing] healthy and diverse ecological communities,” the DOI acknowledged in its 2020 Bison Conservation Initiative. Today, just 530,000 remain, mostly as livestock.

Historically, bison were crucial to the survival of Native Americans across the western U.S. “Bison are our relatives. We have ancestral and spiritual obligations to care for them, as they do us,” J. Garret Renville, chairman of the Native American Coalition of Large Tribes, wrote in a formal protest of the DOI decision. “Our success as a people is dependent on their success. Our history, our futures, and our fates are intertwined.”

Alison Fox, CEO of American Prairie, the Montana-based NGO that owns the bison herd in question, said in a statement that “this decision abandons decades of consistent federal policy.”

The Western Watersheds Project, an Idaho-based NGO, said BLM is “inventing a wholly new standard for livestock grazing permits in order to justify their pro-cattle bias.”

Renville said as the decision is written, “it is unlikely that any tribal government or tribal citizen buffalo herd would ever be eligible for BLM grazing leases.”

The BLM has said American Prairie bison must be removed by Sept. 30. In an email to Mongabay, American Prairie said, “we are still waiting for a decision on our request for a preliminary injunction.”

BLM declined to comment since the case is pending litigation.

Banner image: Bison and calves in Lamar Valley of Yellowstone National Park. Image courtesy of U.S. National Park Service. 

SPOKANE, Wash. (AP) — High winds drove a wildfire into an eastern Washington neighborhood, forcing the evacuation of about 1,500 people and destroying some homes, fire officials said Wednesday.

It’s unclear how many homes were lost in Spokane. Fire officials were working Wednesday to determine the number and the full extent of the damage, said Matthew Vinci, fire chief for Spokane County Fire District 9. He confirmed Tuesday that some homes were engulfed in flames.

The evacuation order for the 1,500 residents remained in effect Wednesday, said Chandra Fox, deputy director for Spokane County Emergency Management.

“Our concern is for increased winds Wednesday afternoon,” Fox said.

The blaze started just after noon on Tuesday and quickly moved up a hill, said fire district spokesman Robert Gray. Winds then shifted, sending flames into a neighborhood, Gray said.

Fire crews from Washington state and Idaho attacked the fire from the ground and air, but it quickly grew to 225 acres (.35 square miles). It was 10% contained Wednesday morning, according to the National Interagency Fire Center.

More than 32,000 fires have burned more than 3,900 square miles (10,100 square kilometers) so far this year in the United States, according to the fire center, which coordinates the mobilization of large-scale firefighting efforts.

That’s significantly higher than the 10-year average of just under 24,000 fires burning about 2,200 square miles (5,700 square kilometers) by early June, according to the fire center, even though fire activity has been relatively light in recent weeks.

Weather and fuel models that predict conditions like wind, lightning and how likely plants and other materials are to burn also show an increased danger of fires in multiple areas across the U.S. in coming weeks, according to NIFC. Some regions with critical conditions for fire include portions of California, and the Southwest, Great Basin and Rocky Mountain areas.

By Associated Press

Banner image: This photo provided by Spokane Fire District 9 shows the Upriver Fire burning northeast of Spokane, Wash., on Tuesday, June 16, 2026. (Robert Gray/Spokane Fire District 9 via Associated Press. 

Two municipalities in the Peruvian Amazon have granted native stingless bees the legal right to exist, thrive and be represented in court. This is the first time any insect has been recognized as a rights-bearing entity anywhere in the world, according to a correspondence published in Nature.

The ordinances passed in the municipalities of Satipo and Nauta-Loreto guarantee the bees’ right to exist, reproduce and flourish. This establishes a legal framework allowing Indigenous groups and conservationists to sue on behalf of the bees.

The campaign was led by Rosa Vásquez Espinoza, founder of Amazon Research Internacional. She spent years traveling into the Amazon to document the bees in collaboration with Indigenous communities. Indigenous peoples have cultivated stingless bees since pre-Columbian times, and they have cultural and spiritual meaning for Indigenous groups such as Asháninka and Kukama-Kukamiria peoples.

“Within the stingless bee lives Indigenous traditional knowledge, passed down since the time of our grandparents,” Apu Cesar Ramos, president of EcoAshaninka of the Ashaninka Communal Reserve told The Guardian. “The stingless bee has existed since time immemorial and reflects our coexistence with the rainforest.”

The Nature authors noted that stingless bees pollinate roughly 80% of tropical flora. However, they face climate change, deforestation, pesticides and competition from invasive European honeybees.

Peru’s national Law No. 32235, passed in 2025, formally recognized stingless bees as a species of national interest. This milestone helped pave the way for the municipal ordinances.

“This ordinance marks a turning point in our relationship with nature: it makes stingless bees visible, recognises them as rights-bearing subjects, and affirms their essential role in preserving ecosystems,” Constanza Prieto, Latin American director at the Earth Law Center, who helped campaign for the ordinances, told The Guardian.

The Peru ordinances are part of a broader global “Rights of Nature” movement that seeks to give ecosystems and species legal standing similar to that of people or corporations. Rivers, forests and even glaciers have been granted legal rights in countries including Ecuador, New Zealand and Colombia. But insects had never crossed that threshold before.

Shi-Jie Wang and A.J.Wubie, who co-authored The Nature piece, said legal rights matter, because they give communities a way to fight back by suing those who destroy habitat or use harmful pesticides. So far, they said, insects have had almost no meaningful legal protection.

The IUCN, the global wildlife conservation authority, identifies more than 1,100 insect species as threatened, including more than 20 bee species. Their loss poses systemic risks to food security, forest regeneration and climate resilience.

The researchers are calling on policymakers, particularly those governing biodiversity hotspots in Asia and Africa, to adopt similar legal models for insects.  

Banner image: A bee emerging from a hive in Moyobamba, Peru. Image courtesy of Bill Salazar via Pixels/ Creative Commons. 

Former sea turtle hunters in Cabo Verde, off the coast of West Africa, have shifted to working in loggerhead turtle conservation along the archipelago nation’s main nesting beaches. The change was propelled by 2018 legislation that criminalized killing threatened turtle species, Sonam Lama Hyolmo reported for Mongabay.

Rangers, around a dozen of which used to poach or hunt turtles, now patrol key beaches where turtles lay their eggs, walking several kilometers each night during the nesting season, which runs from June to October. Turtle meat is historically consumed in Cabo Verde and many other regions, which has created a conflict between conservation needs and local customs. However, awareness campaigns and employment opportunities are helping to bridge that gap.

“I had turtle meat for personal consumption and never realized I could make a living out of conserving them,” Roni Nelson Batista Ramos, a ranger and camp coordinator at the Turtle Foundation, told Mongabay. “But now, I guard them against the poachers, and it’s motivating to see how these efforts have driven positive impacts for their conservation.”

Ramos and others monitor around 31 kilometers (19 miles) of coastline, patrolling the beaches on foot, and using drones and dogs for added assistance.

Roughly two-thirds of loggerhead turtle nesting activity in Cabo Verde happens on the eastern island of Boa Vista, which has seen a dramatic decline in illegal turtle hunting, according to the Turtle Foundation. In 2007, 1,253 female loggerheads were illegally caught on the island; by 2024 there were just 20. Over the same period, loggerhead turtle nests on Boa Vista increased more than sevenfold.

Cabo Verde’s loggerhead turtle population is the largest in the east Atlantic Ocean and the third largest in the world, after Oman and southeast Florida.

Another four of the world’s seven sea turtle species roam the waters of the Cabo Verde archipelago: the green turtles (Chelonia mydas), the leatherback turtle (Dermochelys coriacea), the Olive Ridley turtle (Lepidochelys olivacea) and the critically endangered hawksbill turtles (Eretmochelys imbricata).

Fishing bycatch is another significant threat to sea turtles in the region. In 2024, the Sustainable Fisheries Partnership Agreement (SFPA) renewed a five-year allowance for 56 fishing vessels from Spain, Portugal and France to fish in Cabo Verdean waters.

Read the full story here.

Banner image: A ranger measuring a turtle’s shell and collecting data at the Canto camp. Image courtesy of The Turtle Foundation.

In India’s northeast, local communities are leading the charge for the protection of the marbled cat, one of Asia’s most poorly studied small wild cat species, reports contributor Barasha Das for Mongabay India.

The marbled cat (Pardofelis marmorata) is widely distributed across South and Southeast Asia. However, not much is known about its population and movement patterns because it isn’t a species many researchers specifically set out to study. It is “often studied as part of broader wild cat groups rather than through species-specific research,” Jimmy Borah, deputy director of the legal and advocacy division at conservation NGO Aaranyak, told Mongabay India.

Most of what is known about the cat is from camera trap records, Borah added. One such camera trap study in Southeast Asia found that only a small proportion of the marbled cat’s range in the region lies within protected areas.  

Similarly, conservationists with the Eastern Himalayas Marbled Cat Project (EHMCP) used camera traps to confirm the presence of the marbled cat in parts of the states of Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland and Meghalaya, finding that most habitats of the wild cat extend beyond protected areas. “It became clear that if conservation efforts are to be effective, we need to focus on sensitizing communities living around these forests because they interact more frequently with these species but are less aware of them,” Giridhar Malla, founder of the EHMCP, told Mongabay India. 

The EHMCP conducted awareness programs in villages near the cat’s habitat and engaged local youth and hunters in their camera trap research. “The challenge is visibility. If people don’t know about a species, it’s difficult to build conservation around it,” Malla said.

Communities near the marbled cat habitats have now initiated conservation measures to protect the species. In October 2025, for example, the Lokpeng Welfare Society, a local conservation group in Lokpeng village in Arunachal Pradesh, declared their community forest as the country’s first community-conserved area for marbled cats. Hunting marbled cats and other wildlife is prohibited within the conservation area. Similarly in Nagaland’s Hebamlo village, residents passed a resolution banning hunting for marbled cats and other small wild cats, and established anti-poaching camps. 

While Indian national law bans hunting wild cats, some bushmeat hunting still happens in states like Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland where land and resources are largely governed by local customary laws.

“While I respect local traditions, it’s equally important to recognize the need to protect every species in our forests and reduce hunting,” said Anand Goi, member of the Lokpeng Welfare Society.

Some residents in Arunachal Pradesh’s Siang region said they also plan on starting village homestays to attract wildlife enthusiasts. They also plan to involve hunters in these initiatives to create alternative livelihoods to hunting the cats.

“Low-impact, well-managed, community-led ecotourism can contribute positively to conservation,” Borah said. 

Read the full story by Barasha Das here.

Banner image: A marbled cat captured on camera trap in Nagaland. Image by Giridhar Malla.