Kenya became the first African nation to receive landmark climate disaster funding. It will be used to identify Kenyans who have suffered climate-related losses and damages during the last decade.

The Sh90 million ($700,000) in funding comes from the Santiago Network on Loss and Damage, a Switzerland-based United Nations mechanism funded by voluntary contributions from developed countries and the international community.

The Kenyan funding will be administered by the national government and used to identify Kenyan communities that have suffered losses as a result of climate-induced droughts, floods, crop failures and other extreme weather events.

Festus Ng’eno, principle secretary for Kenya’s Environment, Climate Change and Forestry, announced the achievement at a recent U.N. climate meeting in Bonn, Germany. He said the assistance is a milestone as Kenya is only the second country globally to benefit from the fund. Vanuatu, a low-lying archipelago, was the first.

In a Facebook post, the State Department for Environment and Climate Change in Kenya said, “Despite enduring some of East Africa’s most devastating climate shocks, Kenya has never fully measured the true scale of what has been lost. That is set to change.”

“It is long overdue for countries on the frontline of the climate crisis to receive support to build resilience,” Fred Njehu, a Pan-African political strategist with Greenpeace, told the Daily Nation. “Kenya’s allocation points to shifting climate actions, from frameworks, roadmaps, and dialogues to actual implementation.”

The funding comes as African countries continue to pursue climate justice and reparations from countries that are historically most responsible for the greenhouse gas emissions causing climate change.

Kenyan President William Ruto has often called for better financial models to hasten Africa’s economic growth. The country has established ambitious goals to mitigate the climate crisis, Jeremiah Kioli, chairman of the Kenya Climate Change Working Group, told Mongabay. He said Kenya, as the first African nation to receive loss and damage funding, demonstrates the country’s commitment to climate action and fundraising.

The funds will largely be used to create systems to assess the losses that will require compensation. “How do you measure loss and damage? You need the systems, just as it is with the Green Climate Fund,” Kioli told Mongabay.

“This achievement underscores Kenya’s leadership in climate action and its commitment to building resilience against the growing impacts of climate change,” the Environment Ministry said, as reported by Capital News.

Banner image: Mechanics attempt to rescue parts of a vehicle that was swept away from an open air garage in the March 2026 flooding that caused the death of at least 110 people and displaced 34,700 in different areas across Kenya. Image by Maxwell Agwanda.

The Molopo Regional Court in Mahikeng, South Africa, sentenced two wildlife traffickers, Edward Motlatsi Phiri, 46, and Tlhoriso France Ralph, 51, to eight years in prison. They were convicted of smuggling a Temminck’s pangolin, a vulnerable species native to Southern and Eastern Africa, according to a statement released by the North West province’s environment agency.

The judgment, delivered on May 26, 2026, followed the arrest of four suspects on June 2, 2023, when law enforcement authorities, acting on a tip, intercepted a vehicle in which they were traveling and seized a live female pangolin (Smutsia temminckii) intended for sale.

During the court hearing three years later, charges against two accused traffickers were withdrawn while Phiri and Ralph were found guilty.

“This sentence sends a strong message that wildlife crime is a serious offense with devastating environmental consequences,” said Bitsa Lenkopane, with the Economic Development, Environment, Conservation and Tourism in the North West province, in a statement. “Every operation, every investigation, and every successful prosecution strengthen our collective fight against illegal wildlife trafficking.”

Pangolins are trafficked for their scales, worth thousands of dollars on the black market. They are falsely believed to have medicinal qualities in East Asia. The demand has driven steep declines in pangolin numbers worldwide: Six of the eight species are classified as endangered or critically endangered today. Pangolins are also consumed as bushmeat in parts of Africa.

These mammals are protected under South African law, which prohibits their possession, sale, display or transportation. Their international commercial trade is also banned under CITES, the global wildlife trade agreement.

Soon after the pangolin was seized, authorities brought it to the Johannesburg Wildlife Veterinary Hospital for immediate care, where it was named Naledi.

In a social media post, the hospital said Naledi “arrived in one of the worst conditions” — she was severely dehydrated, starving, emaciated, already in kidney failure, and was pregnant. Despite best efforts, Naledi and her unborn baby died.

“An entire future generation, gone forever because of greed and the illegal wildlife trade,” the statement said. “This sentence sends a powerful message: Wildlife crime is not a harmless offence. It causes immense suffering, destruction, and loss.”

The North West province environment agency said illegal trade in the region is due to “proximity to Botswana and the porosity of South Africa’s borders.” It called on communities to “work closely with law enforcement authorities by reporting suspicious activities linked to wildlife trafficking, illegal hunting, and the unlawful possession or trade of protected species.”

The illegal trade in pangolin scales seems to have slowed in recent years, but poaching hasn’t stopped. Conservationists say deterrents against wildlife crimes include stricter law enforcement, intelligence-led operations to dismantle the trafficking network, along with increased prosecution and convictions.

Banner Image: A Temminck’s pangolin in Mozambique. Image by Bart Wursten via iNaturalist (CC BY-NC)

Even as President Donald Trump boosts coal over clean energy, solar power is hitting new milestones in the U.S. and remains the leading source of new power. New reports released Wednesday by global energy think tank Ember and the Solar Energy Industries Association show the continued growth of solar and decline of coal in the United States despite federal policy. Ember says in May, for the first time, solar supplied more of the nation’s electricity than coal, or 12.8%. Coal supplied 12.2%, its fourth-lowest monthly share ever. The Republican president has been helping the struggling U.S. coal industry while curtailing solar and wind. A Democratic California congressman says the coal industry is dying.

By Jennifer McDermott, Associated Press

Banner image: Solar panels operate on a farm with cattle Tuesday, April 28, 2026, in Christiana, Tenn. Image by Joshua A. Bickel via Associated Press

Manas National Park in India’s Himalayan foothills was once home to some 100 Indian rhinos, almost all of which were wiped out by poaching by the late 1990s. After a campaign to reintroduce them, the population is growing and several calves have been born. But their recovery still needs active support, reports contributor Sneha Mahale for Mongabay India.

Researchers followed the fate of 42 greater one-horned rhinos (Rhinoceros unicornis) reintroduced to Manas in the state of Assam from 2006-2021. The rhinos arrived there in one of two ways: 22 wild rhinos were translocated from other protected areas in Assam, and 20 injured or orphaned rhinos were rescued and rehabilitated at a center, then released into Manas.

The rhino reintroduction program is showing hopeful signs, the decade-long study found. Between 2012 and 2022, the researchers recorded 35 rhino births in Manas: 19 calves from translocated females, and nine from rehabilitated individuals. First-generation rhino females, born in Manas, also birthed five calves; the mothers of two more calves remained unidentified.

“Breeding and calving are among the most important indicators that reintroduced rhinoceroses have adapted well to their new environment,” study lead author Deba Kumar Dutta, a wildlife biologist and member of the Asian Rhino Specialist Group at the IUCN, the global wildlife conservation authority, told Mongabay India.

The study also found the two groups of rhinos settled in different parts of the national park. Translocated rhinos spread out over a larger area, often using remote or less-disturbed parts of the park, while rehabilitated rhinos were largely in central areas, giving birth close to antipoaching camps and zones with regular human presence.

“Rehabilitated rhinos are often human-imprinted and tend to remain close to human-inhabited areas within protected areas,” Dutta said. “At times they may even move towards nearby villages, mingling with cattle during the night and returning to the park in the morning. Translocated rhinos, captured from the wild and released into natural habitats, generally retain their natural behaviour.”

While the births of calves over the years is a hopeful sign, experts said the rhino population in Manas still needs continued management. Poaching, for example, led to the loss of some male rhinos in the early years of reintroduction, which disrupted breeding. Researchers also warn that the small, reintroduced population may face risk of inbreeding from a small genetic pool.

Yadvendradev Jhala, retired senior scientist and dean at the Wildlife Institute of India, said the rhinos of Manas should be managed as a metapopulation connected with those in nearby protected areas such as Kaziranga National Park and Pobitora Wildlife Sanctuary in Assam, as well as other populations in the adjoining state of West Bengal.

Dutta said Manas’s grassland habitat also needs active management, including removal of invasive plants and maintenance of perennial water sources. 

Read the full story by Sneha Mahale here. 

Banner image: A rhino mother and calf in Manas National Park. Image courtesy of Deba Kumar Dutta.

The intersection of environmental breakdown, climate change and economic instability has emerged as a primary threat to the resilience of smallholder farmers in Indonesia, according to researchers and local entrepreneurs who spoke at a recent convention.

During the 2026 Asia Grassroots Forum, held in Jakarta on June 3 and 4, Alex Arnall, an associate professor for environment and development at the University of Reading, U.K., said climate change has become an “agent of exclusion,” creating a “double exposure” for farmers who must simultaneously navigate global market volatility and erratic weather. The Asia Grassroots Forum focused on building sustainable business ecosystems for smallholders.

Previous research showed extreme weather events can affect farmers in southeast Asia by damaging crops, agricultural infrastructure like irrigation systems and farm equipment, and by increasing operational costs and reducing revenues. A 2024 report found that every 1% increase in average temperature raises the price of food production by 1% to 2% across Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Malaysia and the Philippines. Researchers have also noted that smallholder farmers in the region face a massive financing gap, with less than one-third of the $100 billion needed annually for climate-smart adaptation, leaving them in urgent need of better access to credit, insurance and targeted financial support

Drawing on his work with salt farmers in Thailand, Arnall described how even highly-skilled, traditional producers are seeing their knowledge “undermined” by sea-level rise and coastal change. “Farmers in many places … are losing trust in the weather patterns as they become more unpredictable,” Arnall said.

Michelle Arsjad, CEO of the seaweed biotechnology company AquaBloom, said at the panel that she’s seen the impacts of climate change on two vulnerable groups: Seaweed farmers and land-based farmers.

Mongabay previously reported that unpredictable monsoon winds and unusually warm waters trigger bacterial infestations that attack commercially valuable Eucheuma cottonii seaweed. Farmers are then forced to harvest the seaweed prematurely, which fetches a significantly lower price at the market, trapping them in a cycle of shrinking yields and lower revenues.

For land farmers, Asrjad said the crisis is equally unpredictable. She said land farmers increasingly “don’t believe in seasons anymore,” struggling to protect staple crops like rice and chili from drought during monsoons and heavy rainfall during dry seasons.

For Arsjad, the role of a modern agricultural business like hers is to act as a buffer against the intersecting shocks from climate change and price volatility. So, AquaBloom utilizes seaweed-based biostimulants to help crops resist climate-induced stress, which increases yields by 20–30%, she said. This approach supports farmers whose local knowledge is being rendered obsolete by shifting climates, according to Arsjad.

Banner image: Panelists sit during a discussion on how to build inclusive agriculture at scale. Michelle Arsjad (second from left) and Alex Arnall (third from left) are among the speakers. Image by Naina Rao.

Colombia passed a landmark law June 4 aimed at improving traceability of its cattle supply chain to ensure beef isn’t sourced from deforested land.

The law hopes to enhance existing traceability systems and make it easier to identify when cattle have grazed in protected areas and forests that were illegally cleared for pasture.

“This is the most powerful tool for determining whether the meat people consume comes from deforested areas,” said representative Juan Carlos Losada, one of the law’s sponsors, in a post on X.

About 54% of Colombia’s total land area is covered by forest, that’s roughly 60 million hectares (148 million acres). Deforestation has ebbed and flowed in recent years, declining in 2023, spiking in 2024 and then declining again in 2025. Cattle are always one of the main drivers.

The country has over 29.7 million heads of cattle, according to last year’s estimates from the Colombian Federation of Cattle Ranchers.

To better regulate the industry, lawmakers tried to pass traceability legislation in 2021 and 2022 but failed to move it through Congress. Another version took too long to reach a final debate in the senate, and expired in 2024.

The effort began around the same time that the European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) was passed. Once implemented, the law will require that companies trading with the EU demonstrate their cattle and other commodities weren’t sourced from deforested land.

The law allows officials to establish “high surveillance zones” in deforestation hotspots. It includes the ability to implement special control measures and additional monitoring, registration, and control of cattle movements and inventories.

The work will be carried out by the Colombian Agricultural Institute (ICA), the country’s agriculture and livestock agency, in coordination with the National Council to Combat Deforestation.

The law also requires different parts of the government to integrate existing monitoring and traceability systems and take steps to improve coordination.

Over the next six months, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development must also develop regulations for a certification that identifies producers whose products aren’t linked to deforestation. Though, the law doesn’t specify the requirements needed to obtain the deforestation-free certification.

Cattle producers aren’t the only group with new responsibilities. Over the next two years, slaughterhouses, meat processing facilities, livestock auction houses, cattle traders, and live-cattle exporters must also implement due diligence policies and best practices for ensuring their products aren’t linked to deforestation.

Conservation groups said if the law works as intended, the country could make unprecedented progress in the fight against illegal deforestation.

“Colombia is setting an example for the region and for the rest of the world,” said Susanne Breitkopf, the director of forest campaigns at the Environmental Investigation Agency, in a statement. “This law can ensure that beef sold in Colombian supermarkets does not come from deforested rainforest areas or from places where deforestation finances illegal economies.”

Banner image: Cattle graze on land near the Indigenous community of Maticurú. Photo by Edilma Prada Céspedes.