Ghana has issued its first batch of sustainable timber licenses under the European Union Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (FLEGT) system, which aims to block illegal logging and strengthen forest governance.

Sixteen years after Ghana signed a voluntary partnership agreement with the EU, the nation approved the first six FLEGT licenses for five companies. The licenses do not guarantee full compliance with the European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), which is supposed to go into effect at the end of this year.

“We can all be happy now for how far we have come,” Ghana’s minister for lands and natural resources, Emmanuel Armah-Kofi Buah, said via a spokesperson in August 2025. “This milestone has been achieved through collaborative efforts of both state and non-state institutions, including civil society organizations.”

The five companies that received FLEGT licenses were Samartex Timber and Plywood Co. Ltd., Logs and Lumber Ltd., JCM Company Ltd., Mere Plantations Ltd. and West Coast Wooden Products Ghana Ltd. Starting Oct. 8, all Ghanian timber products covered by the license will be allowed to export to the EU.

Following the celebration of the milestone, Buah also had a warning for illegal loggers and miners: “These people should know that we are coming for them. We will come hard at them. The field day is over, and there is no hideout for them,” he said.

According to Global Forest Watch, Ghana lost 13,900 hectares (34,350 acres) of primary forest in 2024. Ghana hopes the move will increase exports to Europe, bolstering the nation’s planted forest farms to reduce pressures on primary forests.

Exports to Asia, mainly India, have been on the rise, while exports to the EU have been declining, according to the latest report by Ghana’s forestry commission. Europe now imports about a fifth of Ghana’s timber exports, down from more than half in 2008.

FLEGT licenses will help fulfil the legality requirement of the EUDR, but they do not guarantee full compliance. Wood extracted legally in Ghana may fall short of the EUDR’s requirements if it was harvested from land deforested after 2020, for example.

Once the EUDR is applied, EU importers will need to document geographic coordinates of the plots of land where the timber was produced to satisfy the added requirements.

“Ultimately, we must focus on increasing trade in legal timber products while tackling deforestation and biodiversity loss,” said Jonas Claes, deputy head of the EU Delegation to Ghana.

Claes added that the EU will be increasing investments in the nation. “More support is underway,” he said. “We are planning for an additional €37 million [$43.4 million] towards the improved management and conservation of natural resources—both land and forests.”

Banner image: Ghanaian Minister Emmanuel Armah-Kofi Buah (left) and the former EU Ambassador to Ghana Irchad Razaaly (right) at a Ghana-EU FLEGT Voluntary Partnership Agreement event in August 2025. Image courtesy of the Ghana Forestry Commission.

A new report on the state of the world’s oceans paints a grim picture. The ninth annual Copernicus Ocean State Report finds “No part of the ocean is untouched by the triple planetary crisis, as pollution, biodiversity loss, and climate change are putting pressure on the ocean worldwide.”

The EU-funded report draws on decades of historical and current observational data as well as satellite measurements to create a resource for policymakers, scientists and citizens to more fully understand the challenges facing the world’s oceans.

“With all this information we can ensure that we are better prepared … to ensure that we can live with these situations which are evolving,” Karina von Schuckmann who worked on the report as senior adviser at Mercator Ocean International, told Mongabay at a press conference.

Ocean change

Global ocean temperatures are rising at unprecedented rates, and marine heat waves are intensifying worldwide. Sea surface temperatures have been increasing each decade since satellite records began in 1982. The northeastern Atlantic Ocean bordering Europe has been warming nearly twice the global rate at 0.27° Celsius (0.49° Fahrenheit) per decade since 1982.

Tropical regions of the North Atlantic, including the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico, experienced record-breaking marine heat waves in 2023; some areas were affected for up to 300 days. Polar regions are also seeing dramatic changes: Arctic sea ice is declining, and the Southern Ocean is warming and freshening, contributing to shifts in global currents.

At the same time, plastic is polluting every ocean basin and acidification is threatening endangered species and corals, the report finds.

Marine ecosystem change

Warming oceans are having a cascade effect on marine life. Rich coastal areas, fed by upwelling of cool, nutrient-rich, deeper water are shrinking while entire ecoregions are shifting toward the poles in search of cooler water. Invasive species that are better suited to warmer waters are moving in with disastrous consequences. In the Mediterranean, native clams completely collapsed in some areas as Atlantic blue crabs moved in and took over. Coral reefs and plankton communities are also under stress from rising temperatures and acidification.

Societal & economic change

Rising seas are increasing flood and erosion risks for Europe’s roughly 200 million coastal residents while many low-lying UNESCO World Heritage sites are at risk of flooding in the coming centuries. Globally, millions of people dependent on fisheries, tourism and aquaculture face growing risks.

Interconnected ocean

The report emphasizes the deep interconnectedness between ocean health, the climate and human well-being. Changes to ocean temperature and sea level are affecting where people can live and how they earn a living.

“The science is unequivocal: The ocean is changing fast, with record extremes and mounting impacts,” von Schuckmann said. “This knowledge is not just a warning — it’s a blueprint for restoring balance between people and the ocean.”

Banner image: A humpback whale diving in Alaska. Image by AP/  Brenda Rone/National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — The search continued on Tuesday for 22 people still missing following Typhoon Bualoi that caused flooding and landslides in Vietnam and has killed at least 26.

Eight fishermen are among those unaccounted for, as well as four members of the same family — a father, a mother and two children — in Tuyen Quang province who were buried when a landslide struck their house, state media said.

Rainfall topped 30 centimeters (nearly a foot) in parts of Vietnam, including the capital, Hanoi, over the past 24 hours, the national weather agency said Tuesday. It warned that heavy downpours would continue.

The prolonged rain triggered flash floods and landslides that cut off roads and isolated communities from the northern mountains of Son La and Lao Cai provinces to central Nghe An province.

Rivers swollen by downpours and dam discharges have also caused widespread flooding and landslides in the north. The Thao River in Yen Bai rose well above emergency levels overnight, sending water up to a meter deep (3 feet) into homes and forcing evacuations.

The near-continuous downpours throughout Tuesday meant that most streets in Hanoi were flooded and authorities warned that people close to the Red River, which passes through the city, should take precautions.

Flights at Hanoi’s Noi Bai International Airport were diverted or delayed because of heavy rain. Many schools were forced to close by mid-day and about 2.3 million Hanoi students will stay home on Oct 1.

Because of the same storm system, authorities have also evacuated nearby vulnerable areas and shut down roads where landslides have blocked travel.

Bualoi has already caused at least 20 deaths in the Philippines since Friday.

It made landfall in Vietnam early Monday then lingered, which increased the danger.

Global warming is making storms like these stronger and wetter, according to experts, since warmer oceans provide tropical storms with more fuel, driving more intense winds, heavier rainfall and shifting precipitation patterns across East Asia.

By Aniruddha Ghosal, Associated Press

Banner image: Aerial view of flooding caused by rain after Typhoon Bualoi in Lao Cai, Vietnam. Tuesday, September 30, 2025. (Do Tuan Anh/VNA via AP)

The Northeast Pacific ocean, off the U.S. West Coast, is experiencing its fourth-largest marine heat wave since record-keeping began in 1982.

“The extent of the current Pacific marine heatwave should be surprising … but unfortunately, record breaking heat is our new norm,” Chris Free, a marine scientist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, told Mongabay.

Large marine heat waves have become a recurring theme in the Northeast Pacific since the early 2010s. In 2013, the region was gripped by what was nicknamed The Blob, a massive marine heat wave that stretched from the Gulf of Alaska to Southern California. Lasting roughly three years, The Blob had catastrophic impacts on marine wildlife and ecosystems in the region and was followed by more devastating heat waves.

The current Blob, officially NEP25A, first emerged in early May within the Gulf of Alaska and rapidly expanded to cover an area of about 8 million square kilometers (3.1 million square miles), roughly the size of the contiguous U.S., according to researchers with NOAA Fisheries’ California Current Integrated Ecosystem Assessment (IEA).

“NEP25A gained much of its size when a low-pressure system crossing the Gulf of Alaska reversed coastal winds that had helped cool the ocean surface. The heatwave grew and approached the West Coast approximately one month ahead of other large heatwaves in recent years,” NOAA IEA notes.

NEP25A is part of a much larger ongoing marine heat wave system stretching across the North Pacific, from the waters off Japan to North America’s west coast.

Several recent studies attribute the rising marine heat waves in the Northeast and North Pacific to climate change.

“Five of the six largest marine heat waves in the Northeast Pacific have all occurred in the last six years,” Free said. “This trend in record breaking heat is alarming because of its impacts on ocean ecosystems and economies.”

The 2013-2016 Northeast Pacific heat wave, for instance, led to the collapse of kelp forests, mass deaths of seabirds and sea lions washing ashore, harmful algal blooms, and the disruption of entire marine food webs. Fisheries like those of the Pacific sardine also suffered, Free said.

The current blob, NEP25A, has also “been accompanied by reports of warmer-water species such as marlin and tuna to the north of their typical range, and signs of harmful algal blooms that can be fueled by warmer waters along the Oregon Coast,” NOAA Fisheries said in a statement. “If the marine heatwave grows and persists, it may further affect the large California Current Ecosystem through shifts in marine life and changes in the food web, for instance.”

However, “NOAA’s latest forecasts predict that marine heatwave conditions will ease near the West Coast as we move into winter, though they are likely to persist farther offshore,” the statement added.

Banner image: North Pacific Ocean temperature anomalies on September 28, 2025. Positive values mean areas warmer than average; negative values means cooler than average. Image via NOAA Coral Reef Watch.

Plastic pollution is widespread across the Amazon Rainforest’s rivers, plants and animals, according to a recent study.

Previous research suggests up to 10% of total plastics in the ocean arrive there via the vast network of waterways that’s the Amazon Basin. To understand how and where plastic pollution is present within the basin itself, researchers looked at 52 field studies dating back to 2000 that reported on plastic within the biome across all nine Amazonian countries.

The first evidence of animal death caused by microplastic pollution surfaced in 2009, when scientists investigated the death of a manatee likely suffocated by a plastic bag.

Since then, the researchers found 51 more studies published as of April 2025 showing evidence of plastic contamination in fish, manatees, turtles and birds, as well as in soil sediments and drinking water sources.  

“Even wild animals that have little contact with people and that live deep in the forest, far away from cities, are already contaminated with microplastics,” lead author Jéssica Fernandes de Melo, an ecology and biodiversity conservation researcher at the State University of Santa Cruz, Brazil, told Mongabay by phone. “We’ve also seen birds using [macroplastics] to build their nests.

“You could be bathing in the middle of a small stream in the middle of Amazonas state and see a piece of plastic floating along the water. To me, that is already very shocking,” Fernandes de Melo said.

Municipalities in more remote areas often lack recycling or adequate waste management programs, leading to an accumulation of plastic waste in the environment, Fernandes de Melo said. 

Two-thirds of the animal species found to be contaminated are consumed locally, which also raises concerns about impacts on human health, the authors write.

However, most studies found plastic fragments in fishes’ digestive systems, which are rarely eaten. It’s still unclear if there’s plastic within their muscle tissue, which would pose a higher risk to human health. The level of plastic contamination in drinking water is also poorly understood, the authors write.

“Plastic contamination in the Amazon presents a highly worrying scenario,” the authors write, “While the evidence suggests that plastic is omnipresent, research is clearly in its infancy.”

The first study to specifically measure plastic contamination in the biome — rather than opportunistically finding evidence of plastic pollution — was only published in 2018. While there’s been more research on the issue since 2020, there are still no studies on the impact of nanoplastics, the review highlighted. In large regions of the Amazon, no field studies have been carried out, with most of the research concentrated along the main stem of the Amazon River.

“We need to understand how serious this problem is, but there is also a gap, a significant lack of research in this area,” Fernandes de Melo added.

Banner image: Plastic waste in Amazonas state, Brazil. Image courtesy of Michell Mello/Fiocruz Amazônia.

More than 10 years after unusually high water temperatures in the Pacific Ocean killed off Northern California’s aquatic kelp forests, the region has still not recovered, reports David Helvarg, executive director of ocean conservation group Blue Frontier, for Mongabay.

From 2013 to 2017, a mass of unusually warm water nicknamed “the Blob” hugged California’s coast, leading to kelp forests collapsing. An estimated 95% of bull kelp (Nereocystis luetkeana), the main species of the region’s aquatic kelp forests, died.

Helvarg dove in Casper Cove, off Fort Bragg, a town in Northern California, and found that kelp forests there had still not recovered on a significant scale, except for some coves where more intensive recovery efforts are underway.

In one dive, he counted 120 purple urchins (Strongylocentrotus purpuratus) within what he guesstimated was just 1 square meter (11 urchins per square foot). Urchins devour weakened kelp forests, and for kelp to thrive, the number of urchins should be kept low, at around 2 per square meter, Helvarg notes.

Before the Blob, purple urchins were kept in check by the sunflower sea star (Pycnopodia helianthoide), a starfish that can grow up to 24 arms and weighs up to 5.9 kilograms (13 pounds). The critically endangered starfish is the major predator of urchins in Northern California, but the species lost 99% of its population to a disease outbreak that scientists say was helped by the warming waters.

Without sea stars, the purple sea urchins multiplied. One 2021 study estimated that their population grew by 10,000% in Northern California. The urchins, bolstered by the heat-weakened kelp, cleared around 563 kilometers (350 miles) of shoreline of kelp forests.

Getting rid of the purple urchins is hard work, as the species can survive in a dormant state for several years. This has left behind large stretches of rocky seafloor littered with urchins, which will reawaken when new kelp manages to take root.

In Casper Cove, dozens of divers have managed to clear more than 150,000 urchins from a 0.4 hectare (1-acre) stretch. But the task took three years, and hundreds of kilometers are still suffering from the impacts.

“There is nothing so beautiful as diving in a kelp forest, and I worry I may not get to do that again in my lifetime,” Sheila Semans, executive director of the Noyo Center for Marine Science in Fort Bragg, told Helvarg. “The kelp crisis will be a focus of attention for years to come.”

Read the full story by David Helvarg here.

Banner image: David Helvarg among the kelp stipes off Anacapa Island in southern California’s Channel Islands. Image courtesy of Jessie Altstatt.