“It’s such a simple phrase: stay alive! The other side is necropolitics.” This appeal was made by philosopher and prominent Indigenous leader Ailton Krenak to Brazilians to reelect President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva over far-right candidate, senator Flávio Bolsonaro. Flávio’s statement that he will not demarcate any Indigenous lands “reveals his malicious intent to do everything in his power to prevent Indigenous peoples from surviving,” Krenak said, drawing parallels with Flávio’s father, former President Jair Bolsonaro (2019–2022).

Indigenous people have mobilized on social media and in the streets, warning of threats to their rights and the environment in the event of a victory by Flávio Bolsonaro, who, like his father, supports agricultural expansion and mining on Indigenous lands.

“Fight with Lula,” posted the Arariboia Indigenous Territory profile on Instagram, stating that the defense of Indigenous peoples “must be reflected in public policies.”

“Indigenous Peoples with Lula! Vote in the runoff election for the demarcation of Indigenous Lands!” posted the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (Apib) in a call for a national mobilization on Oct. 18, which brought together thousands of Indigenous people. Another mobilization is planned for Oct. 21.

Artists held a rally in Rio de Janeiro that drew more than 50,000 people and Lula supporters mobilized in 22 other state capitals.

This pro-Lula movement intensified after Lula narrowly lost the first round of elections on Oct. 4, contrary to the election polls that showed him leading.

“We cannot accept setbacks that endanger our territories, our lives, and our right to exist according to our ways of life,” posted Mídia Indígena, a network of Indigenous communicators.

“So that this never happens again!” posted the Instituto Socioambiental (ISA), a civil society organization focused on environmental and Indigenous rights, referring to the humanitarian crisis in the Yanomami Indigenous Territory during Jair Bolsonaro’s term. “We don’t want to cry again,” said Adneia Yanomami in a manifesto by female leaders published by Repórter Brasil.

If Flávio Bolsonaro wins, the newly created Ministry of Indigenous Peoples could be abolished, minister of Indigenous Peoples Eloy Terena told Mongabay by phone: “With a single stroke of a pen, he can undo all the achievements we have accomplished in these almost four years.” Terena also warned of a “much more hostile environment for the rights of Indigenous peoples” in the National Congress in 2027, whose membership will consist primarily of right-wing representatives.

Polls show Flávio Bolsonaro with a narrowing lead over Lula for the Oct. 25 runoff election. Roughly 21% of voters abstained in the first round election; environmental activists are urging voters to vote in the runoff.

“Now, it’s an empathic vote. It’s saying that you definitely left home because you don’t want these Bolsonarists running the country,” Krenak told Mongabay via video call. “Vote for what you believe your country needs to survive.”

Banner image: People hold signs demanding the demarcation of their lands on April 9, 2026. Image by Eraldo Peres/Associated Press.

A battery system that stores excess energy when it’s plentiful will power an apartment building in Buffalo, New York, when the grid is strained and electricity is costly. The manufacturer and state officials hope it will show that larger batteries can safely operate where people live and work. Buffalo-based battery storage manufacturer Viridi and developer Good Carbon Co. say the lithium-ion battery system is connected to the electric grid for Peace Bridge Place. Viridi says the 3.75 megawatt-hour system can power the building for several days. It’s among the largest of these systems in a U.S. residential building.

By Jennifer McDermott, Associated Press

Banner image: A sign for Peace Bridge Place apartments that have Viridi’s lithium-ion battery energy storage system in Buffalo, N.Y., Thursday, Oct. 15, 2026. Image courtesy of Lauren Petracca, Associated Press. 

Cambodia’s population of critically endangered Irrawaddy dolphins has increased to an estimated 118 individuals since the confirmed birth of six calves this year. They were born along a 120-kilometer (75-mile) stretch of the river in Kratie and Stung Treng provinces, in the country’s northeast.

Conservation officials say the births are a strong sign that the river’s sole cetaceans can recover if severe environmental threats are curbed, reports contributor Eung Sea for Mongabay.

In Cambodia and Laos, Irrawaddy dolphins (Orcaella brevirostris) are regarded as sacred animals representing the ancestral spirit of the river. They also generate vital ecotourism revenue for riverside communities.

“Irrawaddy dolphins are very important for our community,” said Heang Koeurn, a boat driver at the Kampi dolphin pool, a 60-meter-deep (nearly 200-foot) stretch of the Mekong that serves as a protected habitat for some 20 Irrawaddy dolphins in Kratie. “People here can make more income from tourists by driving them to see the beauty of Irrawaddy dolphins.”

“They are a source of Cambodian national and local pride,” said Ian Baird, a professor of geography at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in the U.S. “They may also inspire people to protect the river and its tributaries from the impacts of more dams in the future.”

Yet the Irrawaddy dolphin population in Cambodia’s section of the Mekong remains far below late-1990s estimates of roughly 200 individuals. The steep decline is largely from electrofishing, habitat degradation, and gillnet entanglement, which is especially deadly for calves, Sea reported.

Additionally, more than 160 dams operating throughout the Mekong Basin have altered the hydrology and fish communities that dolphins rely on for food.

Frances Gulland, chair of the U.S.-based Marine Mammal Commission, likened losing the dolphins to “losing a star from the sky.”

Locals guarding the dolphins’ habitat work with limited resources and face physical risks from illegal fishers, often armed. They earn just $5 to $7.50 per day. “The income is small, but it is out of the goodness of our hearts we keep doing this job,” said Kem Sophat, a river guard.

The consequences of failed conservation were evident in 2022, when the last dolphin in the Anlong Chheu Teal pool, between northern Cambodia and southern Laos, died from net entanglement. Phoy Vanna, an Anlong Chheu Teal community leader, told Mongabay the number of tourists there has since declined.

In 2014, Cambodia’s Fisheries Administration and WWF-Cambodia launched a joint initiative to balance Mekong dolphin conservation with the needs of local fishers.

I Sanaroth, Kampi fisheries chief, told Mongabay that while gillnets are still used within the protected habitat zones, it’s at a small scale.

“The population of the Mekong Irrawaddy dolphins has increased due to joint conservation. Our work is not done,” Sanaroth said.

Read the full story by Eung Sea here.

Banner image: Irrawaddy dolphins are regarded as sacred, representing the ancestral spirit of the river, in Laos and Cambodia. Image © Marc Thibault via iNaturalist (CC BY-NC 4.0).

An oil well in southern Niger has been spewing crude oil and gas into the air since Sept. 25, damaging nearby installations and raising concerns about the potential impact on wildlife. Authorities reported the situation was still not fully under control four weeks later.

“An environmental incident of exceptional severity occurred at the Goumeri W8 oil well,” Abdoulkarim Mohamed Ali, general secretary of Niger’s Ministry of Petroleum, said in a statement broadcast on Oct. 12. The disaster was “characterized by the ejection of large quantities of crude oil and gas to heights of more than 10 meters,” or 33 feet.

As the statement was read on state TV, striking images showed crude oil erupting from the well like a geyser and spilling across the site. According to Ali, the situation was still “not fully under control” and could even get worse. “The platform, shared with the Goumeri W3 and W4 oil wells, has sustained significant damage, also compromising the integrity of these two neighboring installations,” the statement added.

Initial findings ruled out the possibility of a criminal or terrorist act, though the cause of the eruption remains unknown, the statement said.

A field mission including the petroleum minister and the environment minister was deployed on Oct. 14 to assess the situation. The team was able to meet the engineers working on the disaster, as well as a team sent by the Algerian government to assist.

The Goumeri W8, W3 and W4 wells are part of the Agadem oil block, operated primarily by CNPC Niger Petroleum SA, a local subsidiary of state-owned Chinese oil company China National Petroleum Corporation.

Agadem is located in the south of the country, close to the border with Chad and Nigeria.

The desert region provides important habitats for three threatened species of Sahara Desert antelope: the Egyptian dorcas gazelle (Gazella dorcas dorcas), the slender-horned gazelle (Gazella leptoceros), and the addax (Addax nasomaculatus).

Although the true environmental impact of the disaster is not yet known, the massive release of crude oil could have negative consequences for threatened biodiversity. An investigation has been opened to determine the exact causes of the accident and establish responsibility.

Mongabay contacted Niger’s Ministry of Petroleum and CNPC Niger Petroleum SA for comment, but did not received a response by the time this story was published.

Banner image: Gas flaring at an oil installation of the China National Petroleum Corporation Niger in the Agadem block, 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) north of the hamlet of Melek. Image by NigerTZai via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Fifty automated recording units scattered across the backcountry of Yellowstone National Park in the U.S. gather roughly 500,000 hours of ambient sound each year. Computer models then sift through those recordings for wolf vocalizations, reports Justin Catanoso for Mongabay.

Jeffrey Reed, a linguist and former software engineer, helped launch the Cry Wolf Project in 2023 within the long-running Yellowstone Wolf Project. It uses machine learning to pick out and analyze wolf calls. It turns the audio into spectrograms that reveal the structure of individual calls. So far, the project has isolated more than 8,000 continuous hours of wolf recordings, creating what researchers say is the largest database of wild wolf communication.

Tracking wolves has generally meant catching them and fitting them with radio collars. Dan Stahler, Yellowstone’s chief wildlife biologist, told Catanoso that doing so is expensive and carries risks for both wolves and people. Recorders can simply be left in the field. Researchers are testing whether differences in wolves’ voices can identify individuals and help track their movements.

The idea is also being tested in Europe. In northern Italy’s Po Valley, Osservatorio Lupi — “Wolf Observatory” — has deployed a dozen recording units near farms and towns. It hopes eventually to use the recordings to warn communities when wolves approach livestock. Researchers are exploring similar uses for brown bears and along wildlife migration corridors.

Reed has annotated roughly a fifth of the archive by hand to check the models’ results. For now, listening to wolves still involves a fair amount of human listening.

Read the full story here.

Banner image: Two wolf puppies from the Junction Butte Pack in Yellowstone National Park captured in a 2025 photo. Pups learn to howl early on by mimicking the vocalizations of their mothers. Image by Jeremy SunderRaj, National Park Service, courtesy of Jeff Reed.

Typhoon Champi has moved from the western Pacific into the Philippine Sea and has become a Category 5 super typhoon, according to the U.S. National Weather Service.

It had maximum sustained winds of 160 mph (258 kph) by late Monday Asia time, and was not near land.

Champi earlier passed close to Guam, and the governors of Guam and the Northern Mariana Islands requested emergency disaster declarations Friday.

U.S. President Donald Trump approved the emergency declaration for Guam. The Federal Emergency Management Agency said federal assistance was available for the territory to supplement local response efforts.

Airports, harbors and some health facilities in the territories were closed. Relief supplies were unlikely to reach the islands for three to five days, FEMA said Saturday.

Meanwhile, former hurricane Trudy weakened to a tropical storm early Monday after it lashed parts of Mexico’s Pacific coast with rain and winds.

The storm had maximum sustained winds of 60 mph (100 kph) and was moving west at 6 mph (9 kph), according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami.

Trudy was moving away from the coast and its center was forecast to pass south of the Baja California Peninsula on Monday and Tuesday.

Some further rainfall was possible in the region where the ground has been saturated by successive storms.

By Associated Press

Banner image: This GOES-19 GeoColor satellite image provided by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and taken on Thursday, Oct. 15 2026, shows Hurricane Trudy in the Pacific. Image courtesy of NOAA via Associated Press.