Gabon has ended its 19-year fisheries partnership with the European Union, which allowed EU industrial vessels to target tuna in Gabonese waters in exchange for payment, arguing the agreement no longer serves the country’s economic interests.

The decision follows a June 2025 Council of Ministers meeting at which the government announced it would seek to renegotiate the Sustainable Fisheries Partnership Agreement (SFPA), before formally ending it on June 29, 2026.

In a statement last year, the Gabonese government said the massive exploitation of fishery resources wasn’t commensurate with the returns Gabon should receive in exchange.

In a speech in January, government spokesperson Charles Edgard Mombo, said the move to cancel the agreement “reflects Gabon’s firm commitment to strengthening its sovereignty over its fishery resources and promoting a renewed, balanced, sustainable, and mutually beneficial cooperation framework.”

The SPFA between the EU and Gabon was established in 2007 and implemented through three protocols lasting between three and six years. The latest protocol covering 2021–2026 allowed up to 27 EU purse seiners, commercial fishing boats that use large, vertical nets; six pole-and-line tuna vessels and four exploratory crustacean trawlers to fish in Gabonese waters.

An independent evaluation commissioned by the European Commission found the EU paid Gabon an average of €2.6 million ($3 million) annually between 2021 and 2024 in exchange for access to 32,000 tons of tuna. However, it also found that Gabon captured just 23% of the total economic value generated; nearly half accrued to other countries because EU vessels made little use of Gabonese ports or processing facilities.

An EU Commission spokesperson told Mongabay the bloc has been ready to negotiate a new agreement since October 2025. “We are working on a new generation of sustainable fisheries agreements, and a future agreement with Gabon could be an example of this,” she said.

The EU has ongoing SPFAs with seven African countries, including Mauritius and Mauritania, which are due to expire later this year. Eight SPFAs are currently dormant.

“SFPAs were designed as fisheries access agreements, not as economic development agreements,” Peter Hammarstedt, Chief Campaigns Officer at the international oceans nonprofit Sea Shepherd, told Mongabay by email. He said the design of the partnership favors European operators over domestic processors and fishing companies, which it doesn’t financially support.

Hammarstedt added that Gabon has invested in its domestic tuna industry to process more EU catches, but the EU found the port infrastructure “inadequate”. The EU Commission spokesperson did not respond to this comment.

“What African coastal and island states need is not simply access-fee revenue, but genuine investment in conservation, economic development that creates jobs, builds domestic industries, and enables them to capture a greater share of the value from their own waters,” Hammarstedt said.

The Gabonese Ministry of Fisheries and Maritime Economy did not respond to Mongabay’s request for comment by the time this article was published.

Banner Image: Artisanal fishers at Cocobeach, Gabon. Photo by Ralph Messi on Unsplash.

Kazakhstan has released its first tiger into the wild more than seven decades since the last confirmed sighting of the big cat in the country.

On July 31, 2026, an adult female Amur tiger called Umit, which means “hope” in Kazakh, leapt from her cage on the back of a pickup truck, as she was released into the wilderness of the 450,000-hectare (1.1 million-acre) Ile-Balkhash State Nature Reserve in southeastern Kazakhstan.

According to a statement issued by the Kazakhstan government on Aug. 3, Umit is fitted with a satellite tracking collar to monitor her movements and behavior in real time.

“Today we are truly witnessing a historic event,” said Kazakh Ecology and Natural Resources Minister Yerlan Nyssanbayev in the statement. “For the first time in over 70 years since tigers were wiped out in Kazakhstan, a tiger has been reintroduced to its historic range.”

The area of the Ile-Balkhash Reserve where Umit was released was once inhabited by the extinct Caspian (Turian) tiger. Its last confirmed sighting in Kazakhstan was recorded in 1948. Umit is an Amur tiger, a population of the mainland Asian tiger (Panthera tigris tigris) native to the Russian Far East and northeastern China.

The Amur and Caspian tigers were once recognized as two distinct tiger subspecies, but the IUCN recognized both as Panthera tigris tigris in 2017.

Preparations for returning tigers to Kazakhstan have taken more than a decade, the Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources said.

The reserve was established in 2018 to create the necessary conditions for the tigers’ return to the wild, including efforts to increase the population of their natural prey, such as Bukhara deer (Cervus hanglu bactrianus) and kulan (Equus hemionus kulan).

The Kazakh government chose Amur tigers after research showed their genetic makeup was almost identical to that of Caspian tigers, which went extinct owing to habitat loss and hunting by humans.

Umit is one of four Amur tigers gifted to Kazakhstan by Moscow. Captured from the far-eastern Russian region of Khabarovsk Krai, the animals — two adult tigers and two cubs aged around six to seven months — were flown to Kazakhstan in May 2026, ahead of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s visit.

Amur, the adult male tiger, and Turan and Ussuri, the two cubs, are currently living in adaptation enclosures in the Ile-Balkhash reserve, local Kazakh media has reported.

According to the Kazakh government’s statement, Amur is undergoing behavioral tests and will be released into the wild after they’re completed and experts confirm he’s fully prepared to survive on his own.

Meanwhile, the two cubs are expected to stay in the special enclosures until they are at least 18 months old. “After veterinary examinations and behavioral tests for each tiger are completed, an individual decision will be made on the possibility of releasing them into the wild,” the statement said.

Banner image: Umit, an adult female Amur tiger, recently released into Ile-Balkhash State Nature Reserve in southeastern Kazakhstan. Image courtesy of Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources.

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

The best-known wildlife recoveries in the U.S. are often associated with the West. Yet some important gains have occurred east of the Mississippi, among cities, roads, farms, and landscapes altered over several centuries.

Andrew Moore’s new book, Beasts of the East: The Fall and Rise of America’s Eastern Wilderness, examines the decline and partial return of animals that once occupied the region in abundance. Before European settlement and large-scale land conversion, eastern habitats supported bison, elk, moose, woodland caribou, cranes, black bears, passenger pigeons, and Carolina parakeets. Many disappeared as forests were cleared, wetlands drained, and wildlife hunted.

Some losses were permanent. Other species have returned through reintroductions, habitat restoration, hunting restrictions, and long-term management, reports Mongabay’s Erik Hoffner. The state of Kentucky now has roughly 10,000 elk (Cervus canadensis) across a 16-county restoration zone, the largest herd east of the Mississippi. At Nachusa Grasslands in the state of Illinois, conservationists have restored tallgrass prairie on former farmland and reintroduced bison (Bison bison). Forest regrowth across parts of New England has helped moose, bears, fishers, and otters expand their ranges.

These recoveries have also brought some problems. An animal may find enough food and cover while still struggling to coexist with people. Elk damage crops, browse vegetation, and get hit by vehicles. Pumas (Puma concolor) could survive in much of the East, where forests and deer are plentiful, although proposals to restore them would probably meet strong resistance.

Development remains another constraint. Suburban growth, distribution centers, data centers, and new roads continue to divide rural and forested land. Wildlife crossings can reduce collisions and reconnect isolated habitat, including within the range of North Carolina’s critically endangered red wolves (Canis rufus). Their value still depends on preserving enough land on either side.

The eastern record suggests that wildlife restoration can work in heavily settled regions. It depends on suitable habitat, steady funding, public acceptance, and agencies able to manage animals after their numbers begin to rise. Returning large species may create costs for farmers, drivers, and nearby communities. Those effects need to be anticipated rather than treated as evidence that restoration has failed.

Read Erik Hoffner’s interview with Andrew Moore here.

Banner image: A group of elk traverses an active mine site between forest patches in Kentucky. Image courtesy of Brittany L. Slabach.

Human-induced climate change has more than doubled the likelihood of the extreme weather conditions that fueled Canada’s destructive 2026 wildfire season, finds a rapid analysis.

As of early August, thousands of wildfires torched more than 3.8 million hectares (9.4 million acres) across the country — an area already significantly in excess of Canada’s 30-year annual average of 2.7 million hectares (6.7 million acres). The 2026 wildfire season has escalated with astonishing speed, with approximately 94% of the total burned area accumulating in a brief five-week window between late June and late July.

In its analysis of Canada’s wildfires, the team at World Weather Attribution (WWA), a global network of scientists who examine the influence of climate change on extreme weather events, focused on a metric called daily severity rating (DSR). It integrates temperature, wind, humidity and dryness to measure how difficult a fire is to suppress once ignited.

By combining observational data with climate models, the researchers found that the kind of fires that burned in July 2026 can now be expected in today’s climate influenced by greenhouse gas emissions every two to six years in the Northwest Territories and every six to 15 years in Ontario. In a pre-industrial, cooler climate, such fires would occur every 50 years or so.  

“Our research is yet another piece of evidence for this shift being due to climate change,” Theodore Keeping, research associate in extreme weather and climate change at Imperial College London, said in a press release. “The geographic spread of these fires is scary and shows that despite preparedness from wildfire governance, adaptation alone is not enough. We need to rapidly move away from fossil fuels to avoid events like this becoming even more of a reality”.

The blazes in Canada have taken a severe toll on local populations, particularly Indigenous communities, which research suggests account for 42% of wildfire evacuations despite representing only 5% of Canada’s population.

Gaps in emergency communication have forced several remote communities, including the Namaygoosisagagun (Collins) First Nation of Northwestern Ontario, to flee by boat without any official early warning. Additionally, toxic smoke plumes traveled hundreds of kilometers, exposing more than 120 million people across Canada and the U.S. to hazardous air quality, according to the report.

“Indigenous communities, families, and firefighters are bearing the brunt of losses of homes, traditional practices, and also the long-term mental health impacts,” said Roop Singh, head of urban and attribution at the Red Cross Red Crescent Climate Centre, in the press release. “A few years ago a fire of this magnitude would have been a rare event. It is now happening more often as a result of climate change.”

While Canada has recently increased investments in its capacity to suppress wildfires and interagency coordination, researchers said that physical limits to adaptation are being reached.  

Banner image: Wildfire smoke colouring the air orange in Toronto on the morning of July 15, 2026. View over the intersection of College St and Spadina Avenue looking southeast. Image courtesy of ARandomName123 via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0).

Numbering fewer than 25,000, lions remain vulnerable to extinction. These big cats have suffered catastrophic declines and today occupy roughly 6% of their historical range.

Living with lions (Panthera leo) is not easy. Outside of protected areas, lions kill livestock and, infrequently, people. In response, the cats are poisoned, shot and speared. But across Africa, where the majority of lions live, communities are trialing traditional and new ways to ensure people and lions can coexist.

To mark World Lion Day on Aug. 10, 2026, here is a look at some of Mongabay’s recent coverage of those projects.

Protecting livestock saves lions

In a conflict hotspot in northern Zimbabwe, Zimbabwean lion conservationist Moreangels Mbizah and her colleagues train Batabilili (“protectors” in Tonga, the local language).

These community guardians track lions and promote the use of secure enclosures for livestock, as well as lion deterrents, reports Mongabay contributor Ryan Truscott. While not a panacea, the guardians program has significantly helped reduce conflict between lions and people, and vice versa.

In 2026, Mbizah won a prestigious Whitley Award for her work. The £50,000 ($67,500) prize money will help Mbizah’s NGO, Wildlife Conservation Action, recruit more “Batabilili.”

More evidence of success?

In northern Botswana’s Okavango Delta region, a conservation nonprofit, CLAWS Conservancy, has helped set up a real-time alert system to warn locals of approaching lions so they can take measures to protect themselves and their livestock.

Lions are fitted with GPS collars and tracked.

“If the lion gets within a 5-kilometer [3-mile] radius of a village, or 3-kilometer [1.9-mi] radius of a smaller cattle post or homestead, then it automatically triggers the dispersal of an alert directly to the people who live within that radius where that line is breached,”  CLAW Conservancy’s Andrew Stein said in a Q&A with Mongabay’s Abhishyant Kidangoor in 2025. “It’s like a virtual fence.”

In February, contributor Gloria Dickie reported that lions appear to be rebounding in the region where the lion alert-system operates. Restoration of traditional herding practices has also contributed to a large drop in cattle losses and fewer retaliatory lion poisonings.

Community engagement is key

In northern Kenya, the Samburu women’s group Mama Simba (“Mothers of Lions” in Kiswahili) has played an active role in human-lion coexistence for more than a decade, partnering with the Ewaso Lions conservation project.

In a commentary co-authored with Victoria Wanjohi, a wildlife conservation scientist, Mama Simba says that, “the inclusion of women in Africa’s lion conservation efforts is essential to not only to protect the species, but to do so sustainably with the buy-in of nearby communities — which at times can have a tense and challenging relationship with the predatory species.”

“Lions have a powerful place in Samburu culture,” Mama Simba and Wanjohi say. “Traditional beliefs hold that when a lion roars at night, it signals good fortune coming to the community.”

Banner image: A lion in Zambia. Image by Darren Obbard via iNaturalist (CC BY 4.0).

As biodiversity on Earth faces rapid decline, scientists are advocating for a new conservation approach: Save habitat for primates and protect countless other species along with them.

For long, conservation efforts and funding have prioritized umbrella species such as tigers and giant pandas on the basis that protecting the vast areas they depend on can help protect other wildlife that live in the same ecosystems.

A 2025 study found that monkeys, apes and other charismatic primates are potential “umbrella species” as well. They, too, often require large tracts of healthy habitat to survive. And by safeguarding the vast territories these animals need, countless other wildlife that share their ecosystem would also be protected, researchers say.

The researchers analyzed the habitats of 16 primate species across China’s biodiverse Yunnan province. They also examined the ranges of 601 species of threatened and endemic mammals, amphibians, birds and reptiles, as well as 4,010 species of seed plants found in Yunnan. Their analysis showed that if just 30% of Yunnan were designated a primate conservation priority area, 86% of the animals and 72% of the seed plants would have about a third of their habitats protected.

Protecting that area would also protect for more than half of the provinces’ annual carbon storage, the study found.

Conservation groups elsewhere, too, have advocated for protecting the habitats of charismatic primate species as a way to extend protection to several other species. For example, the nonprofit Rainforest Trust has sought to protect habitats of the critically endangered Grauer’s gorilla (Gorilla beringei graueri) in the Democratic Republic of Congo, which it says will then help safeguard habitats of more than 11,000 species. Similarly, according to the Borneo Orangutan Survival Foundation, protecting habitats of Bornean orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus) could help protect an estimated 20,000 species across the rainforests of Borneo and Sumatra.

Primates “are charismatic which helps greatly with fundraising and advocacy and a role as flagships,” Tim Davenport, Africa director at the U.S.-based nonprofit Re:wild, who wasn’t involved in the study, told Mongabay by email. “But equally they have a significant role in forest habitats, both as prey for higher groups but as vital seed dispersers through frugivory. Significantly, the reverse is true, a forest in decline is often characterised by the loss of its primates first.”

“Protecting wild populations of large vertebrates is a great way to protect so much more,” Amy B. McEuen, author of the new book How to Think Like an Ecologist, who wasn’t involved in the study, told Mongabay in an email.

“The umbrella approach is very practical as a conservation tool,” Davenport said. “Its limitations are more a function of governance and human behaviour than the concept itself.”

Banner image: The black-and-white snub-nosed monkey (Rhinopithecus bieti) is found in Yunnan, China. Image by Rod Waddington via Flickr. (CC BY-SA 2.0).