The resumption of a crow-shooting campaign in Singapore has revived intense debate over lethal wildlife management in the highly urbanized city-state.

Government officials revived the culling program in response to public complaints about crow attacks on pedestrians and cyclists, reports contributor Robin Hicks for Mongabay.

In a public statement in March announcing the resumption of crow shooting, National Development Minister Chee Hong Tat said that alternative measures such as trapping the birds, tree pruning, and removing nearly 9,000 nests in 2025 had proved insufficient.

How Choon Beng, director of wildlife management at the National Parks Board, told Hicks that shooting, combined with other measures, would lead to a “gradual and sustained reduction” in crow numbers.

But some experts say culling is merely a reactive measure that fails to address the underlying drivers of the bird boom.

Albert Liu, assistant director for conservation at the nonprofit Nature Society Singapore, told Hicks that culling primarily serves “to show the public that something is being done” and “treats the symptoms, not the cause.”

Ecologists point out that the hyperabundance of “nuisance” birds, such as house crows (Corvus splendens), Javan mynas (Acridotheres javanicus) and common pigeons (Columba livia), is driven entirely by human-made urban conditions.

A global review of more than 400 studies found that most crow species grow more abundant as cities expand because urban areas provide plenty of food, nesting spots, and few predators. A Singapore-specific study from 2003 supports these findings.

For example, crows often nest in the yellow flame trees (Peltophorum pterocarpum) common along Singapore’s streets, while pigeons and mynas can be found nesting on air-conditioning ledges and under sheltered walkways in public housing estates. Hawker centers in the city also provide easy access to leftover food, and many residents still feed the birds, even though it’s illegal.

Ongoing forest clearance for public housing in parts of the country is projected to expand the urban environments where these highly adaptable birds thrive.

“As long as we keep providing unlimited food and increasing numbers of nest sites, the population will grow,” John Marzluff, a professor of wildlife science at the University of Washington in the U.S., told Hicks. “This is not rocket science — it is plain biology.”

Liyin Lim, founder of the community group Urban Birds Initiative, said if people don’t learn how to coexist with the birds, Singapore will remain locked in a cycle of endless culling. “There is an unspoken painful contradiction: Urbanization plays a key role in driving the population expansion of urban-adapted birds,” she said.

Read the full story by Robin Hicks here.

Banner image: A crow poisoned by a pest control company at Sungei Tengah Lodge is seen in July 2026. Some of the birds poisoned in this location were rescued by animal welfare group ACRES and treated with a charcoal solution. Image by Robin Hicks for Mongabay.

Costa Rican lawmakers unanimously voted to require wildlife crossings for new and existing road infrastructure when evidence shows the infrastructure interrupts natural connectivity and threatens wildlife safety. The measure, approved in August 2026, will help wildlife avoid being struck by cars while crossing roads and connect habitat, the regulation notes.

Once signed into law by the president, the regulation will require that new infrastructure projects must include wildlife crossings in the earliest stage of development and budgeting. Costa Rica’s National Environmental Technical Secretariat will be responsible for confirming such plans are sufficient and appropriate before they grant approval for new projects.

Existing roads may also require new wildlife crossings if the government is presented with information showing they are necessary.

“Anyone can contribute scientific data to show that a bridge is needed,” Rebecca Cliffe, the founder and director of the Costa Rica-based Sloth Conservation Foundation, told Mongabay in a video call.

Cliffe is planning a citizen science project to compile data from rescue centers and community reports in the South Caribbean and request bridges where they are needed.

Costa Rican roads are dotted with bright yellow wildlife crossing signs featuring sloths, tapirs and coatis. But a 2025 study from Brazil found such signs do little to actually slow down drivers.

Cliffe said these signs amount to “greenwashing” in Costa Rica. “No one’s slowing down when they see those signs.”

In contrast, wildlife crossings — which can include bridges, culverts, tunnels and ropes for arboreal species — are known lifesavers. Beyond saving animals, and drivers, from a collision, wildlife crossings also connect habitat. Without them, roads and development can fragment forests and prevent wildlife from accessing necessary space, mates and food.

At least 59 species have already been documented using wildlife bridges in Costa Rica. The most common users include monkeys, sloths, kinkajous (Potos flavus), and opossums.

The type of wildlife crossing can vary depending on the environment and local wildlife. For example, in some coastal areas of Costa Rica, crabs migrate annually from land to sea to lay their eggs. Many get killed while crossing roads on the way.

“When I first came here, 17 years ago, there were so many crabs that you couldn’t drive along the road. You had to dodge the crabs and there were just crabs everywhere for a few weeks of the year. Now there’s none,” Cliffe said.

A tunnel could help avoid casualties in areas where crabs still migrate, Cliffe said.

Costa Rica is a global biodiversity hotspot, and each year millions of ecotourists flock to the country, driving on the roads that imperil the wildlife they’ve come to see.

“Coexistence is so important for Costa Rica because it relies so heavily on ecotourism. So getting this balance right between development and conservation is essential,” Cliffe said.

Banner image: A white-faced capuchin (Cebus imitator) using a wildlife crossing. Image courtesy of Panthera/MOPT.

A new report published by U.S.-based think tank the Oakland Institute warns that the rush for critical minerals comes with massive implications for the world, especially African countries.

The report, “RUSH: Global Scramble for Minerals Wages War on People and Planet,” challenges the popular narrative that an expansion of mining operations is necessary for the global green energy transition.

“The intensification of mineral extraction has already had devastating consequences around the world, destroying land, livelihoods, and waters,” Oakland Institute policy director Frederic Mousseau told Mongabay in an email. He added the projected expansion of mining to meet global mineral demands will only perpetuate this devastation.

Global demand for critical minerals is projected to increase drastically over the next two to three decades. Between 2000 and 2024, nickel production rose by 187%, rare earth extraction by 329%, and lithium production by 1,602%. According to projections by the International Energy Agency, demand for six key minerals — copper, graphite, lithium, cobalt, rare earth elements, and nickel — will further skyrocket in the coming decades.

The IEA forecasts that total mineral demand from clean energy technologies will at least double by 2040.

However, the Oakland Institute report found that currently, most of the critical minerals produced end up in industries unrelated to the green energy transition. Solar, wind, battery storage, and power networks for renewables together make up around a fifth of the demand, while defense and aerospace, conventional transport, AI data centers, and construction account for the rest.

In Africa, home to 30% of the world’s known mineral reserves, the stakes are particularly high. Currently, the continent’s mineral-producing countries process less than 15% of their mineral output domestically. Most of the value-added processing takes place outside the country, though some governments are pursuing more local processing and industrialization.

However, one of the questions the report raises is whether the increase in control over mining and processing will actually lead to more value generation for local communities and create jobs on the ground.

“Where will equity be if extraction takes place against the will of the people living on the land that is destroyed, drinking water that is contaminated, and breathing toxic air,” Mousseau asked.

He pointed to Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo as two countries that illustrate the risks of intensifying extraction on the continent.

In Zambia, copper mines consume more than half of the country’s electricity, while only 43% of households are connected to the national grid. According to the report, in the DRC, mining operations consume more than 60% of generated electricity, while less than a fifth of the population has access to electricity.

“The plan is to massively expand copper and cobalt mining in countries where decades of extraction have translated into land grabbing, massive pollution of waterways, and destruction of livelihoods,” Mousseau said.

Banner image: The price paid for cobalt is the main determinant of artisanal miners’ incomes and livelihoods. Image by Afrewatch 2020/The International Institute for Environment and Development via Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.)

A group of environmental organizations announced their intent to sue the United States National Marine Fisheries Services (NMFS) for failing to consider protections for Eastern Pacific gray whales under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).

Gray whales (Eschrichtius robustus) are experiencing a potentially catastrophic population decline, a sharp reversal from what had been considered a conservation success.  In 2019, there were roughly 20,500 gray whales; by 2023, the population had declined to just 14,526 individuals, “nearly 30% of the entire population” gone in four years, according to nonprofit Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER).

Like many whale species, gray whales are being killed by ship strikes and entanglements, but scientists attribute most of the recent mortality to climate change and disruptions to the Arctic food web on which the gray whales depend. They “seem to be starving” to death, PEER said.

The whale’s population was greatly reduced by a century of whaling, but in 1973, ESA protections helped the species recover and they were delisted in 1994. Given the recent population collapse, environmental groups petitioned NMFS in 2025 to relist the whales, which would afford them additional protections. The agency should have published a 12-month finding by Aug. 24, 2026. They didn’t, so the group has sent a notice of intent to sue for violations of the ESA.

“The Trump administration has once again broken one of the nation’s bedrock environmental laws — the ESA — by failing to respond to our August 2025 petition to list gray whales under the Act,” Rick Steiner, founder of Oasis Earth, said in a news release, referring to U.S. President Donald Trump. “NOAA’s own science shows the gray whale population to be in grave danger due to Arctic climate change and other threats, and the government is now required to afford the whales all additional protections provided by the ESA.”  

Mongabay requested a statement from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which oversees NMFS, on the delay. In an email spokesperson Michael Milstein said, “Our policy is not to comment on litigation matters.”

“The sudden collapse of the gray whale population has come as a shock,” said Mark J. Palmer, associate director of the International Marine Mammal Project in the release. “This catastrophic decline may result in the loss of the entire population in as soon as 10 years if current conditions continue. Listing the species is an important step in marshalling support for the grays.”

 Banner image: Of a gray whale. Image courtesy of Robin Gwen Agarwal via iNaturalist (CC BY NC 4.0).

BENGALURU, India (AP) — Scientists say a deadly flash flood in Nepal on Wednesday was likely caused by a glacier chunk breaking off and temporarily damming a river. This may have led to a surge of water downstream, killing at least 353 people and leaving over 1,300 missing. The U.S. Geological Survey reported a magnitude 5.2 glacier collapse, causing catastrophic debris flow. Researchers are still analyzing satellite and ground-level data to understand the event. Experts say it’s too early to directly link the disaster to global warming, but note that rising temperatures increase such risks, especially in the rapidly warming Himalayan region.

By Sibi Arasu, Associated Press 

Banner image: Earthmovers clear the debris of flash flooding in Nepal’s Nuwakot district, Thursday, Aug. 27, 2026. (AP Photo/Niranjan Shrestha)

In a coastal village on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, an oil palm and pineapple grower named Harisyah is fighting rapid coastal erosion.

The region’s northern coastline, which sits on carbon-rich tropical peat soils, is losing ground to the sea at a rate of more than 6 meters (20 feet) annually. Researchers attribute the retreat to a combination of subsiding drained peatland and the loss of mangrove forests cleared for charcoal production, aquaculture, and oil palms.

Harisyah’s hands-on activism began in 2011 after he attended an aquaculture training course in the Meranti Islands, off the eastern coast of Sumatra, reports contributor Suryadi for Mongabay Indonesia. He spent the next few years learning how to restore mangrove forests, from raising seedlings to organizing community volunteers.

In 2018, when he became the head of Tanjung Kuras village, on the Sumatran mainland, he used local funds to kick-start mangrove restoration efforts around his village. In 2024, after leaving office, he partnered with local and international nonprofits to scale up restoration in Tanjung Kuras, aiming to revive 25 hectares (62 acres) of degraded mangrove forest.

A key part of Harisyah’s current strategy is involving local youths to ensure long-term stewardship. One of the restoration sites is near an elementary school, and  local schoolchildren and residents joined him to plant seedlings along the riverbanks.

“This new generation will grow up close to mangroves, and they can learn more about them through playing and activities,” Harisyah said.

The replanting efforts highlight a shift from unmet national targets toward locally led action. The Indonesian government in 2020 pledged to rehabilitate and protect 600,000 hectares (1.5 million acres) of mangroves by 2024, but missed that goal, the Peat and Mangrove Restoration Agency acknowledged.

“This isn’t only about planting,” said Mulyadi, director of the nonprofit Yayasan Gambut, with which Harisyah collaborates. “There’s also a series of capacity-building and economic alternatives, such as nipah palm sugar production.

“If these kids already in their phase of growing up learn about mangroves, hopefully they’ll start caring for the natural environment in their village in the future,” Mulyadi added.

Local leaders are seeking to compound these community actions through new regulations that tackle river pollution and mangrove conservation, according to the current Tanjung Kuras village head, Badaruddin.

“This mangrove planting is for the future — for our children and grandchildren,” said Hendri Yadi, an official with the Sungai Apit subdistrict, where Tanjung Kuras village is located.

Though the fragile seedlings planted along rivers face ongoing threats from local oil spills, logging, and erratic weather, Harisyah remains undeterred. “We keep going,” he told Mongabay Indonesia. “Even if you’re by yourself, keep going.”

Read the full story by Suryadi here.

Banner image: Students from Tanjung Kuras participate in a mangrove-planting effort. Image by Suryadi for Mongabay Indonesia.