Researchers have found the first genetic evidence of bat-borne viruses within commercially sold bat guano fertilizer in Thailand.

However, the viral strains the team detected are not known to infect humans. Moreover, since the researchers only identified fragments of viral RNA and did not isolate live, intact viruses, they could not confirm if the genetic material poses an active threat to human health, according to a recent study, reports Mongabay’s Carolyn Cowan.

But the findings suggest that viral genetic material from bat populations can persist far beyond caves and survive within publicly available retail products, the study says.

“The most surprising thing was that these viruses don’t just stay in the caves,” senior author Thachawech Kimprasit, a medical microbiologist at Mahidol University in Bangkok, told Mongabay. “Their material can be found in commercial end products.”

The discovery raises concerns over a general lack of biosecurity protocols to protect harvesters, agricultural workers, and retail handlers, Thachawech added.

Bat guano or droppings are harvested from caves and widely used as agricultural fertilizer around the world. Researchers screened 41 samples of commercially available bat guano fertilizer commonly sold in Thai markets. They found two samples that tested positive for Alphacoronaviruses, a genus of coronaviruses, and one sample that tested positive for Betacoronaviruses, the genus that includes the Sarbecovirus subgenus, from which the pathogen responsible for COVID-19 originates.

The researchers identified the croslet horseshoe bat (Rhinolophus coelophyllus), a cave-dwelling insectivorous species common across mainland Southeast Asia, as the most likely natural host of the detected Betacoronavirus.

“Biosecurity management of bat guano fertilizers might require heat treatment or chemical treatment to remove the virus raw genetic material,” Thachawech said. “We should also focus on maintaining safe ecological boundaries between bats and people.”

Thura Soe Min Htike, a conservation officer at the Nature Conservation Society–Myanmar, who wasn’t involved in the study, said the solution to predicting and preventing zoonotic diseases is not to target bats, but rather to manage human activities.

The mammals provide vital ecological benefits like insect control and crop pollination that have been shown to enhance yields of regional crops like durian, rice and cacao. “The real issue is not the bats themselves, but human disruption of their habitats, which increases the risk of disease transmission,” Thura Soe Min Htike said.

According to Thachawech, the best way to minimize the risk of disease transmission is to follow the “One Health” approach, which recognizes the interconnectedness of human, animal, and environmental health.

“People’s health and environmental health is the same health,” he said. When it comes to bats and their caves, this means minimizing disturbance: “There’s no need to disturb bat roosts.”

Read the full story by Carolyn Cowan here.

Banner image: Bats in a cave roost in Thailand. Image by Jayakarthi Natarajan via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).

Since June, Myanmar’s military government has increased its efforts to restart a massive, controversial hydropower project backed by China that has remained suspended for 15 years.

The Myitsone Dam project, launched in 2009 and estimated to cost $3.6 billion then, was to be built along the Mali River, the N’mai River, and their confluence at Myitsone, where the Ayeyarwady River begins. Planned in Kachin state in an earthquake-prone area in northern Myanmar, the project is owned by Upstream Ayeyarwady Confluence Basin Hydropower Company, which is jointly owned by China’s Power Investment Corporation, Myanmar’s Ministry of Electric Power and Asia World Company. The dam was designed to be 1,310 meters (4,298 feet) long and 139.6 meters (458 feet) high.

In 2011, then-President Thein Sein suspended the project after widespread public opposition due to its environmental and social impacts.

However, at a June 30 press conference in Naypyidaw, the junta’s spokesperson, Khaing Khaing Soe, stated that the Myitsone project would be resumed to generate electricity for Myanmar.

The chief minister of Kachin state, Khet Htein Nan, also promoted the project during a public meeting in the state on June 23, offering incentives about electricity and adding that the dam will be built to withstand earthquakes and there will be no need to worry about flooding. He further said that if construction begins this year, the project could be completed within 8.5 years.

These statements follow junta leader-turned-President Min Aung Hlaing’s visit to China in early June.

The head of the junta’s Myitsone Project Implementation Committee said on his social media account that between January and the end of July 2026, authorities had held 38 meetings with local communities regarding the project.

Jacob, a spokesperson for the Kachin Human Rights Watch who uses only one name, told Mongabay by phone that these meetings do not reflect the genuine will of the people, but instead are intended to coerce public endorsement, constituting a violation of citizens’ basic rights.

“The Myitsone area and the Ayeyarwady River are part of the heritage of not only the local communities but also the entire people of Myanmar,” he said. “By proceeding with this project, the military is destroying our natural heritage. At the same time, it is violating the property rights of the people.”

In December, the Myanmar military issued a statement warning legal action against individuals and organizations opposing its projects.

Kenneth Ray Olson, professor emeritus at the University of Illinois, U.S., who has researched the Irrawady River Delta, told Mongabay by email that the construction of Myitsone dams could reduce the amount of water flowing downstream during floods and stop nutrient-rich mud and sand from reaching the delta, affecting farming and the health of the river.

Until now, the terms of the project agreement have not been disclosed to the public.

Mongabay contacted the junta’s spokesperson and the head of the Myitsone Project Implementation Committee in Kachin state but hadn’t heard back by the time of publishing.

Banner image: Activists in Myanmar protest against the Myitsone Dam project in this 2019 file photo. Image by AP Photo/Thein Zaw.

Three more African countries have joined calls for a precautionary pause on deep-sea mining until the environmental, social and economic impacts of such mining are better understood. This brings the number of African countries supporting a moratorium to six.

Mauritius, Mozambique and the Republic of the Congo announced support for the precautionary pause during the annual meeting of the International Seabed Authority (ISA) in Kingston, Jamaica, in July, joining Malawi, Kenya and Madagascar.

The government of Mauritius said in its statement during the ISA meeting that “the sustainable development of Mauritius is inextricably dependent on a healthy and resilient ocean.”

Mauritius officials stressed that decisions regarding deep-seabed mining must be made based on “best available scientific evidence and by the precautionary approach, as enshrined in the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.”

Malawi was the first African country to support a precautionary pause in May 2026. Kenya and Madagascar followed in June.

“The basis for all of these countries, while taking into account their individual contexts, is the lack of sufficient science and the governance gaps that persist,” David Willima from the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition (DSCC), a group of more than 140 NGOs and organizations, told Mongabay via email.

The six African nations are among 46 countries globally that support a moratorium or precautionary pause on deep-seabed mining.

The ocean floor in the deep sea has small, hard rocks called polymetallic nodules that contain minerals like nickel, cobalt and manganese. Countries and companies want to mine these minerals for renewable energy and defense technologies.

The push for a moratorium or precautionary pause emerged in 2019 from gaps in scientific knowledge about the larger environmental impacts of mining for the nodules in international waters.

Joel Matonga, senior legal officer at the Malawian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, told Mongabay in a phone interview that Malawi decided to be the first African country to announce its stand as, like other developing nations, it is bearing the brunt of a warming ocean and a changing climate.

“We have had an increase in cyclones originating from the Madagascan area, the worst one being Cyclone Freddy in 2023 which caused devastating effects that led to a lot of fatalities and the displacement of people,” Matonga said.

During the two-week ISA meeting, Kenya, which is pro-moratorium, was allocated a seat for the first time on the 36-member ISA Council where rules governing the exploitation of deep-seabed mining are negotiated.

Willima of the DSCC said that with 10 seats on the ISA Council, Africa has a strong voice in shaping the rules, including developing environmental safeguards and benefit-sharing.

“The challenge will be turning that numerical strength into a common negotiating position despite divisions between mining interests and the growing precautionary-pause camp,” he said.

Banner image: Manganese nodules on the seafloor in the Clarion-Clipperton zone that’s been considered for deep-sea mining. Image by ROV KIEL 6000, GEOMAR – Geomar Bilddatenbank via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0).

In a village in central Nepal, growing conflict between farmers and rhesus macaques has prompted researchers to test artificial intelligence-based systems that can swiftly detect and deter the monkeys, reports contributor Praveen Kumar Yadav for Mongabay.

A 2026 study that followed rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta) in one central Nepal region, found that nearly half of their diet consists of cultivated crops. In villages like Birta Deurali, also in central Nepal, farmers take turns guarding fields every two hours, Yadav reported.

To alleviate this burden, researchers in the country are developing AI-driven solutions.

Progress Jung Thapa, a researcher at Madan Bhandari University of Science and Technology, has developed a system built on cameras and lightweight computing devices trained on more than 4,000 annotated images. It detects monkeys and interprets their behavior, such as whether the monkeys are moving, feeding, or being vigilant, with an 88% accuracy across 28 field trials.

“If a monkey is still watching, the farmer has time,” Thapa said. “If it is already feeding, the response has to be immediate. A machine can detect. But a human decides.” Once a threat is identified, the system sends an alert straight to the farmer’s phone.

Meanwhile, Santosh Giri, an assistant professor at Tribhuvan University, is developing a prototype that pairs AI detection with an ultrasonic deterrent to repel monkeys. The deterrent system is, however, yet to be tested in working farm environments.

Both Thapa and Giri acknowledged that translating these technologies to field conditions is challenging. Poor visibility from rain or dense foliage, for example, reduces accuracy of detections.

Furthermore, even if farmers receive phone alerts, labor shortages make it hard for farmers to respond to them, according to zoologist Laxman Khanal.

Experts also warned of the macaques’ adaptability. “Monkeys are highly adaptive,” said Naresh Subedi, a wildlife researcher. “If deterrents do not represent real risk, they may eventually stop responding.”

The conflict with rhesus macaques has long been recognized at the policy level, but progress to address it effectively remains slow. A 2026 review of Nepal’s relief policies for wildlife-induced damage found that compensation for crop damage has struggled to keep pace with the scale of conflict, forcing farmers to bear losses alone.

While Nepal’s Ministry of Agriculture, Forests and Environment formed a 15-member technical task force in May 2026 to evaluate relief systems, the group has yet to release its report.

Read the full story by Praveen Kumar Yadav here.

Banner image: Monkeys displaying aggressive behaviors detected by the detection system designed by Progress Jung Thapa and his team. Image courtesy of Progress Jung Thapa.

RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — Brazil’s Supreme Court has upheld state laws denying tax incentives to farmers who adhered to the country’s soy moratorium. The court also affirmed the constitutionality of the voluntary agreement. For nearly 20 years, the pact barred the purchase of soy grown on deforested Amazon land. Major grain traders withdrew from the moratorium in January after top soy-producing states revoked tax benefits for participating companies. Brazil is the world’s largest soybean producer, accounting for about 40% of global output. The Brazilian Association of Vegetable Oil Industries said the ruling ends years of legal uncertainty but is unlikely to revive the pact.

By Gabriela Sá Pessoa,  Associated Press

Banner image: Patchwork of legal forest reserves, pasture, and soy farms in the Brazilian Amazon in Mato Grosso. Image by Rhett A. Butler/Mongabay.

A cocoa boom in southeast Liberia is wiping out native forests and encroaching into a proposed national park. The would-be Kwa National Park, a dense tropical rainforest, is home to chimpanzees, forest elephants, pygmy hippos and pangolins.

Kwa is partly located in Grand Gedeh county, one of the most densely forested regions in southeast Liberia. Commercial agriculture is banned across the 1,720 square-kilometer (664 square-mile) area set aside for the national park, reports Mongabay’s Ashoka Mukpo.

Yet, during patrols, forest rangers from Liberia’s Forestry Development Authority (FDA) and community eco-guards, such as George Bowey with the Wild Chimpanzee Foundation, have discovered illegal cocoa plantations inside the park’s boundaries. Much of the forest around Kwa has already been cleared for cacao by people who live nearby.

“At the end of 2023, we started seeing cocoa going closer to the park, but to enter the park it was last year,” Bowey said.

Mukpo accompanied Bowey through the dense canopy of Kwa to reach a massive 100-hectare (250-acre) cacao plantation full of leafless, rotting trees and waist-high cacao saplings. On their way back to a ranger camp, Mukpo and Bowey passed other cacao plantations within Kwa, all showing signs of burns on trees.

Cacao can be grown in one of two ways: Saplings can be intercropped with other tree species to form a diverse ecosystem; or gasoline can be poured at the base of trees and their roots set on fire, effectively killing trees to make way for cacao. It’s the second method that migrant cacao workers from neighboring Côte d’Ivoire have brought to Kwa.

Since these plantations have appeared in Kwa, chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and forest elephants (Loxodonta cyclotis) seem to have fled deeper into the park, Bowey said.

Grand Gedeh county borders Côte d’Ivoire, the world’s biggest exporter of cacao beans. As recently as 2020, 99% of the county was covered by natural forests. Since then, forest cover has been in decline as Liberian landowners have cashed in on the cocoa fever, offering their forest land to migrant workers from Côte d’Ivoire in exchange for a share in the earnings.

Forests in southeastern Liberia are communally owned, and laws regulate how they can be leased for commercial agriculture.

Yei Neagor, in-charge of the FDA’s regional headquarters in Zwedru, Grand Gedeh’s capital, told Mongabay the enforcement mandate of the agency is limited. FDA rangers can mostly operate within forests where commercial cacao farming is banned under the terms of co-management agreements between the FDA and local communities. In those forests, they arrest the migrant workers, but not the Liberians who hired them. Neagor added she’s been instructed not to destroy any mature cacao trees, even those planted illegally in protected areas like Kwa.

“We sit and fold our hands and watch the forest going,” she said. “Generations will judge us tomorrow.”

Read the full story by Ashoka Mukpo here.

Banner image: Community eco-guard George Bowey in an illegal cacao farm in the proposed Kwa National Park. Image by Ashoka Mukpo for Mongabay.