On May 21, residents of Sakwa, in southeastern Kenya, gathered to protest the government’s plan to install a nuclear power plant near their homes, along Lake Victoria.

Sakwa, in Siaya County, is home to the Luo tribe and lies along the shores of Africa’s largest freshwater lake, which Kenya shares with Uganda and Tanzania.

In late March 2026 during the International Conference on Nuclear Energy, Kenyan President William Ruto announced the construction of a 2,000-megawatt nuclear power plant in the area. There is currently no information about the plan available on the national Nuclear Power and Energy Agency (NuPEA) website. However, Ruto said construction would begin next year, and the plant is expected to start producing electricity by 2034.

“No country in the world has ever achieved its development ambitions without adequate and reliable energy,” Ruto said. He also stressed nuclear energy is considered by the United Nations to be a low-carbon source of energy and integral to the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. “The integration of nuclear energy into our national grid therefore represents a strategic transition towards securing a stable long-term solution for Kenya’s rising electricity demand,” he said.

In his speech, Ruto said he had already consulted residents of Siaya County and suggested that local communities supported the project. However, the recent protest indicates the reality on the ground is quite different.

Additionally, a petition against the project launched in April gathered more than 400 signatures before being submitted to NuPEA and the county governor. Mongabay reviewed the document and found locals expressed concerns over radioactive waste management, fears of losing ancestral land and being displaced.

“Such displacement would not occur in isolation; it would fragment extended family landholdings, disrupt inheritance systems, and likely trigger disputes over compensation and resettlement – challenges that Kenya has historically struggled to manage equitably,” the petition noted.

The presence of a nuclear power plant near the ecologically sensitive Lake Victoria is also raising alarm among fishing communities that depend on the lake for sustenance and their livelihoods. “Potential radioactive leakage, thermal discharge, or accidental releases from nuclear operations could alter aquatic ecosystems, disrupt fish breeding cycles, and introduce long-term radioactive contamination into the food chain,” the petition stated.

The lake and its extraordinary biodiversity are already compromised by climate change and invasive species. According to a recent report by World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), Africa’s Great Lakes harbor the highest diversity of freshwater fish species in the world. But invasive species have caused Lake Victoria to suffer one of the most significant vertebrate extinction events in modern history.

Still, the lake is crucial for local food systems and the economy, yielding more than 800,000 metric tons of fish annually and locals worry these fish could become contaminated if waste from a nuclear plant were mismanaged or in the event of an accident.

Banner image: Lake Victoria in Kenya. Image by Jozef020 via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).

World Turtle Day is celebrated every May 23 to raise awareness about the threats faced by turtles and tortoises.

Turtles, tortoises and terrapins, which together make up the order Testudines, have evolved over millions of years, dating back to the Triassic period. However, recent reports show that more than half of the world’s 359 turtle and tortoise species now face extinction. They have outlived dinosaurs and survived multiple ice ages, but they can’t evolve quickly enough to keep up with human pressures, including climate change, researchers have concluded.  

The IUCN has logged a total of 68 turtle, terrapin and tortoise species that are critically endangered. One of the most endangered, the Burmese roofed turtle (Batagur trivittata), is estimated to have just 10 mature individuals left in the wild.

However, this past year was not all bad news. Floreana giant tortoises (Chelonoidis niger niger), were once believed extinct after disappearing from Ecuador’s Galápagos Islands roughly 180 years ago. In February, they returned to Floreana Island thanks to a long-running breeding program using tortoises from another island that still carried Floreana tortoise DNA.

In addition, green turtles (Chelonia mydas), whose range is global, were moved from the endangered list to least concern after its population increased by around 28% since the 1970s.

In Mexico, a massive turtle trafficking bust in November 2025 put more than 2,300 live, wild-caught freshwater turtles back on the path to living freely. The month-long police operation was launched after 55 critically endangered Vallarta mud turtles (Kinosternon vogti), the world’s smallest turtles, were stolen from a university lab.

In more good turtle news from Mexico, an experimental trial of fishing nets equipped with solar lighting showed positive initial results; they reduced turtle bycatch by nearly two-thirds. According to the researchers, green flashing lights might help sea turtles see the nets in dark water and avoid getting caught. If used more widely, it could help more green turtles  and loggerhead turtles (Caretta caretta) avoid fishing nets.

In the Brazilian Amazon, researchers have warned that a planned shipping waterway on the Tapajós River could disrupt the communication between endemic Amazon river turtles (Podocnemis expansa). They are South America’s largest freshwater turtle species.

Scientists behind the study found the turtles use vocalizations to coordinate their nesting, hatching and migration. Researchers fear that added underwater noise from dredging and barge traffic could interfere with those calls in one of the species’ most important breeding areas.

Brazil classifies the species as near threatened and approaching the vulnerable category, noting the health of the species depends on conservation measures.

Banner image: Amazon river turtles (Podocnemis expansa) in Brazil. Image courtesy of Luiz Alfredo Batista/IBAMA.

Artificial intelligence is listening to orca calls in real time and helping to reduce their exposure to underwater noise. The effort is focused on an endangered orca subspecies in the Salish Sea, off the coasts of the northwestern U.S. and western Canada, reports Mongabay writer Abhishyant Kidangoor.

The southern resident orcas (Orcinus orca ater), made up of just three pods, are one of the world’s most endangered marine mammal populations. There are an estimated 76 individuals remaining in the wild, as of December 2025.

Vessel traffic and underwater noise are active threats to their survival because orcas use clicks and echolocation to hunt and locate their pod in the ocean. Constant noise from vessels makes it more difficult for them to communicate and navigate.

Noise from a typical modern ship can raise underwater sound levels by 12 to 17 decibels, at frequencies lower than natural ambient noises, which can be extremely  disruptive for orcas.

The decibel scale isn’t linear; a 10-dB increase means the sound intensity is 10 times stronger. Sound also travels faster and farther underwater than in air.

Research shows that the odds of orcas catching prey decreases by 12.5% for every additional decibel of maximum noise.

The AI-powered tool, OrcaHello, was developed during a 2019 hackathon event, and tracks the orcas’ movements by detecting their calls through underwater audio livestream. The team behind OrcaHello then trained a machine-learning model to recognize the calls of the specific orca subspecies so they can detect when the pods approach the port or other busy waterways.

“It’s a real-time AI alert system that’s listening 24/7 for orca calls,” co-developer Akash Mahajan told Kidangoor in a video interview.

The Port of Seattle, Washington State Ferries and the Quiet Sound program use this information to coordinate vessel slow-downs and pause pile-driving when orcas are present nearby.

“If there is pile-driving, which is noisy construction, going on in the Port of Seattle when an alert goes out, one of our experts tells the port to pause the construction while the whales are in the area,” Prakruti Gogia, co-developer of the initiative, told Kidangoor.

So far in 2026, southern resident orca calls were detected on 19 distinct days.

Read the full story by Abhishyant Kidangoor here.

Banner image: Endangered subspecies Southern resident orcas (Orcinus orca ater). Image by ywcai via iNaturalist (CC BY-NC 4.0).

As gibbon seizures reached a record high in 2025, conservationists warn that dismantling the illegal trade requires a deep understanding of the diverse motivations driving consumer demand, contributor Ana Norman Bermúdez reports for Mongabay.

In 2025, authorities confiscated 336 gibbons between January and August alone, representing approximately 20% of all recorded seizures since 2016, according to an analysis by the wildlife trade monitoring network TRAFFIC.

Experts say that because motivations for buying a gibbon vary widely across different buyer communities, solutions must be tailored accordingly.

“Primates have always fascinated people,” said Elizabeth John of TRAFFIC, adding that gibbons are particularly appealing “because of their uniqueness and rarity.”

While Indonesia and Vietnam have historically dominated the gibbon trade, India and Malaysia have emerged as key countries in the illegal chain in recent years.

In Malaysia, demand is often driven by a misplaced “love” for animals. Mariani “Bam” Ramli, founder of the Gibbon Conservation Society, said most owners acquire gibbons through informal networks or online, usually to keep as pets, and surrender their animals voluntarily. “Most of them say they love animals, or they want their children to have an animal to play with,” Ramli said.

The market in India has two kinds of demand: local trade in rural areas and wealthy urban buyers willing to buy gibbons for social standing. Florian Magne, director of the HURO Foundation, said that gibbons are often perceived as “prestigious pets, attracting attention and conferring social status.” Magne also points to a growing demand from private zoos and collections owned by India’s elites as a driver for both domestic and international trade.

The cost of the rising demand for gibbons is the destruction of wild populations. Because gibbons are highly social and will defend their young to the death, the capture of a single infant often represents the annihilation of an entire family group.

Social media further amplifies trafficking by portraying gibbons as cute and manageable. This digital influence is even displacing long-standing cultural norms, such as those in Garo Hills in India’s northeast where traditional beliefs once held that harming a gibbon was a sin.

However, the reality of ownership is often grim. As gibbons reach adulthood, they become increasingly difficult to manage, leading many owners to attempt to surrender them. Returning these captive animals to the wild is difficult, requiring years of rehabilitation that is not always successful.

Susan Cheyne, vice chair of the Section on Small Apes at the IUCN, said reducing demand is “absolutely critical” for the species’ survival. While education may suffice where awareness is low, shifting social norms is necessary where gibbons are tied to status. The message, Cheyne said, should be clear: “Keep gibbons wild.”

Read the full story by Ana Norman Bermúdez here.

Banner image Two hoolock gibbons in Hoollongapar Gibbon Sanctuary, India. Image by কুমুদ ঘোষ via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0).

The wild can be a “death trap” for rescued slow lorises, one of the world’s most trafficked primates, according to a recent study, reports Mongabay’s Carolyn Cowan.

Researchers followed the fate of nine confiscated Bengal slow lorises (Nycticebus bengalensis) released into Lawachara National Park in Bangladesh. Six months later, only two individuals were surviving; several died within days or weeks of release.

Slow lorises are the world’s only venomous primates and highly territorial animals. The findings highlight the lethal nature of their territorial conflict in the wild: Researchers recovered four bodies bearing marks of venomous bite wounds on their heads, faces and digits, indicating they perished in fights, most likely with wild residents.

“It’s assumed that returning confiscated or rescued animals to the wild is always a positive conservation story,” said study co-author Anna Nekaris, a professor of ecology, conservation and the environment at Anglia Ruskin University, U.K. “But for animals such as the Bengal slow loris, this is not always the best course of action.”

The two survivors established larger home ranges than those that died, the study found, suggesting that success for released slow lorises depended on moving away from established territories of other lorises.

Longer stays in captivity also negatively impacted survival in the wild. “For this reason, release should take place as soon as an animal meets strict health and behavioral criteria, rather than extending captivity unnecessarily,” said Richard Moore, senior adviser at the conservation organization IAR Indonesia Foundation, which has been rehabilitating and releasing Javan slow lorises (Nycticebus javanicus) for 15 years.

Hassan Al-Razi, study lead author and team leader at Plumploris e.V., a Germany-based nonprofit rehabilitating lorises at the Jankichara Wildlife Rescue Centre in Lawachara, said Lawachara National Park has likely reached a saturation point, with most slow loris territories already taken.

“For forest-dwelling species [in Bangladesh], release sites are often selected based on logistical convenience rather than ecological suitability,” Al-Razi said. “As a result, certain forests have effectively become dumping grounds for rescued animals and are no longer appropriate release sites.”

Jahidul Kabir, deputy chief conservator of forests at the Bangladesh Forest Department, said while rigorous protocols exist for charismatic species like tigers, no such guidelines have existed for slow lorises. Kabir added the department now recognizes the need for a data-driven approach to prevent future release-related mortality.

Experts argue rescue and release efforts only treat the symptoms of a larger crisis. “The goal is not to perfect release methods indefinitely, but to reduce trade pressure to the point where large-scale rescue and release become unnecessary,” Moore said.

If releasing an individual harms the local wild population, Nekaris said, then not releasing it might be the better alternative.

Read the full story by Carolyn Cowan here.

Banner image: Researchers fitted each of nine Bengal slow lorises with a radio collar to monitor their behavior. Image courtesy of Hassan Al-Razi.

Gunmen have killed two rangers in Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the latest deadly attack in a region roiled by militia violence.

Park sources said a heavily armed group opened fire on a control post at Kamuhororo, on the southern shore of Lake Edward inside Virunga, early on May 21. Kasereka Valyathire Baraka, 35, and Munguakonkwa Mihigo Jacques, 34, the rangers on duty at the time, were both killed, according to national park officials.

The killings underscore the extreme risks facing conservation personnel in the eastern DRC. Instability here stems from overlapping conflicts between rebel groups including M23, Mai-Mai and scores of militias. Virunga has recorded more ranger deaths than any other protected area in the DRC, making it one of the world’s most dangerous conservation posts.

It’s also a UNESCO World Heritage Site and biodiversity hotspot, home to two species of great apes: eastern gorillas (Gorilla beringei) and chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes).

Park officials said they haven’t yet identified the attackers. The provincial office of the Congolese Institute for Nature Conservation (ICCN), the government agency that manages the DRC’s national parks, described the attack as “odious and unacceptable.”

“We call for a thorough and urgent investigation to bring the perpetrators and their sponsors to justice,” Emmanuel de Merode, director of Virunga National Park, said in a statement obtained by Mongabay.

More than 200 rangers have been killed in Virunga National Park in the last century. Rangers are often outnumbered by armed groups in the region.

There’s also hostility toward the park among some segments of the local population. Officials say Virunga and other protected areas can only be successful if they can create a better conservation-based economy than the war-based economy, which many armed groups depend on.

“If conservation creates hardships, it won’t work,” De Merode told Mongabay recently. “We cannot tell people not to use natural resources without offering them an alternative,” he added, referring to efforts by the park to support alternative livelihoods for surrounding communities.

Mongabay has been documenting violence in and around Virunga National Park for more than a decade.

• He survived a deadly attack, now he is calling for better working conditions for rangers in DRC
• Twelve rangers killed in latest Virunga park incident
• Six rangers killed in deadly militia attack in DRC’s Virunga National Park
• Eight rangers, soldiers killed in Virunga National Park
• Six staff killed in deadliest attack at Congo’s Virunga National Park

Despite the latest deaths, officials have reiterated their determination to continue protecting Virunga. In the statement obtained by Mongabay, officials said the park management “reaffirms its unwavering determination to continue its mission of conserving and preserving the Congolese natural heritage, whatever the threats and trials.”

Banner image: Kasereka Valyathire Baraka, left, and Munguakonkwa Mihigo Jacques were the latest Virunga rangers killed in the line of duty. Images courtesy of Virunga National Park.