Amid lack of enforcement, fishermen take the fight to blast fishing
LAMBANGAN and UWEDIKAN, Indonesia — “At first, I saw some spinefoot fish, about 50 of them. I was smoking out on the water.” It was midday three years ago, says…
Environmental headlines
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Timor-Leste: Maubere tribes revive customary law to protect the ocean
Read the other stories in Mongabay’s three-part profile of the Maubere’s revival of tara bandu: Timor-Leste: Q&A with a Maubere fisherman on reviving depleted fisheries Timor-Leste: With sacrifice and ceremony,…
Machine-learning app to fight invasive crop pest in Africa
Since the arrival of the fall armyworm (Spodoptera frugiperda) caterpillar in West Africa in early 2016, true to its name, it has been marching quickly and mercilessly through the continent,…
Latam Eco Review: Wandering hippos, condor central, and the macaw trade
Top stories from our Spanish-language service, Mongabay Latam, last week followed high-flying condors to their lowland home; hippos wandering through Colombia’s jungles; and scarlet macaws in their last holdout in…
Africa’s slender-snouted crocodile is not one but two species
At first glance, the slender-snouted crocodiles living in Lake Tanganyika in Central Africa look very similar to the ones in the Gambia River in West Africa. But as it turns…
In other news: Environmental stories from around the web, October 26, 2018
Tropical forestsNew research offers alternative tropical tree species for bioenergy production (CIFOR). African parks need $1.2 billion or more each year to truly protect wildlife, scientists calculate (The New York…
Whales and dolphins change the way they communicate in a noisy ocean
Noise from ships changes the way that whales and dolphins communicate with each other, according to two studies published this week. Marine biologists know that an increasingly cacophonous ocean, filled…
Bird-rich Indonesian island yields up new songbird species
JAKARTA — Less than a decade after the world was introduced to the latest species of Asian leaf-warblers, a new songbird of that group has now been described by scientists.…
Peru seizes plane with 30kg of cocaine in Bahuaja-Sonene National Park
LIMA, Peru — A joint operation by law enforcement agencies in Peru managed to seize 30 kilograms (66 pounds) of cocaine from a plane intercepted in Bahuaja-Sonene National Park last…
Genome-wide study confirms there are six tiger subspecies
While there were perhaps as many as 1000,000 tigers in the world a century ago, scientists say that there are fewer than 4,000 today, occupying less than 10 percent of…
Indonesia’s anti-graft agency ‘eager to intervene’ in palm oil sector
Indonesia’s graft-ridden palm oil sector is in need of an “overhaul,” according to the nation’s anti-corruption agency. The agency, known as the KPK, is helping guide a sweeping review of…
Trapper, turned conservationist: Bill Wood (obituary)
On October 10th the world lost an unlikely conservation hero: Bill Wood, a trapper who turned his expertise to save scores of species from extinction. Bill was 84. A third…
Violence spikes during Brazil elections, rural minorities fear worse
Brazil’s elections have brought an apparent surge of violence, with indigenous groups, quilombos and rural minorities fearful as the right’s rhetoric grows more hostile.
Citizen Ape: The fight for personhood for humans’ closest relatives
Cecilia spent more than 30 years locked up without a trial. After the death of her companions, she spent her days and nights alone in a small cage with bare…
Camera trap photos confirm discovery of lowland bongo in Uganda for first time
Camera trap photos have confirmed the first-ever sighting of the world’s largest forest antelope in Uganda. Endemic to the tropical forests of Central and West Africa, the lowland bongo (Tragelaphus…
Stay or go? Understanding a partial seasonal elephant migration
African elephants use areas of grassland, bushland, and woodland, but how do they move through these different vegetation types in different seasons, especially where water becomes a seasonally scarce resource?…
Bat Week: the super powers of bats (photos)
Sure, you may know that bats echolocate to control insect populations, but bats have other offbeat super powers. According to fossil records, bats have been around for at least 50…
CITES rejects another Madagascar plan to sell illegal rosewood stockpiles
A single log of rosewood from Madagascar can sell for thousands of dollars in China, and a bed made from the wood can cost as much as $1 million. But…
Absent for decades, zebras reintroduced to park in southern Tanzania
A herd of zebra now roams the southern highlands of Tanzania for the first time since the 1960s. Staff from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and its partners released 24…
Two black rhinos found dead in Chad after move from South Africa
Two of the six black rhinoceroses flown to Chad’s Zakouma National Park from South Africa earlier this year have died, according to the NGO behind the translocation program. African Parks,…
Special series
Endangered environmentalists
- Murder of activist in India highlights growing risk to environmental defenders
- Number of murdered environmental activists rose once again in 2017
- Indonesia to investigate death of journalist being held for defaming palm oil company
Indonesias forest guardians
- Papuan chef Charles Toto serves up sustainability and environmental protection in a platter
- In eastern Indonesia, a forest tribe pushes back against miners and loggers
- Faith in the forest helps Indonesia’s Dayaks keep plantations, loggers at bay
Amazon infrastructure
- China increasingly involved in Brazil’s ambitious Amazon rail network
- Amazon and climate science threatened if Bolsonaro elected Brazil’s president (commentary)
- Grainrail: ‘2nd revolution in Brazilian agribusiness’ and Amazon threat
Asian rhinos
- For Javan rhinos, the last holdout may also be a deadly disease hotspot
- ‘At capacity’? A Nepali park reckons with its rhinos
- What’s killing Nepal’s rhinos?
