Brazil’s antitrust regulator, CADE, on Sept. 30 decided to suspend the Amazon soy moratorium from Jan. 1, 2026. Depending on the probe’s course of action, this could dismantle one of the nation’s most important private sector pacts credited with slowing deforestation of the tropical rainforest for soy plantations.

Initiated in 2006, the Amazon soy moratorium is an agreement between soy traders, industry groups and environmental organizations to not purchase soy grown on land in the Amazon cleared after 2008. Its signatories include commodity-trading giants Cargill, Bunge, Cofco and Louis Dreyfus. CADE suspended the moratorium in August this year, but a federal court reinstated it one week later.

At a hearing on Sept. 30, CADE’s councilors voted 4-2 to postpone the suspension by three months until Dec. 21, 2025. The two in favor wanted an immediate suspension. According to José Levi, a CADE councilor who supported the delay, the three-month window would allow time for private parties and public officials to engage in dialogue.

CADE president Gustavo Augusto said at the hearing that the decision is focused on preventing unilateral decisions by multinational companies. “We cannot allow foreign multinationals to regulate a product essential to human life, because we are talking about food. Soy is protein … meat depends on soy.”

The Brazilian Confederation of Agriculture and Livestock (CNA), a lobby group representing soy farmers, said in a statement the moratorium pact is illegal because it goes beyond Brazilian law and harms farmers who have farms legally cleared after 2008.

“CNA reiterates that the agreement is illegal, harms rural producers, and is confident that the moratorium will be terminated no later than Jan. 1, 2026,” the statement said.

Farmer lobby groups also accused the trading companies of sharing information about growers. But Abiove, the association representing the multinational grain traders, denied this. 

“The moratorium is a source of national pride. It is the world’s leading model of an agreement that protects the environment while enabling economic growth,” Francisco Ribeiro Todorov of Abiove said.

CNA’s Amanda Flávio de Oliveira said at the hearing that the moratorium had caused 4 billion reais ($750 million) in losses to farmers from 2018-2021.

According to a 2024 joint report including Abiove, soy production in the Amazon increased by 4.5 times since 2008, while deforestation was cut by 69% in the 124 municipalities that were monitored.

“The moratorium is not illegal because [Brazilian law] sets a floor, not a ceiling, for environmental protection,” Daniel Gustavo Santos Rocha, a federal prosecutor for IBAMA, the federal environmental agency, said at the hearing. “Brazil’s international climate commitments set an even stricter standard, aimed at zero deforestation.”

Cristiane Mazzetti, forest coordinator for Greenpeace Brasil, wrote in a statement that the NGO remains vigilant to ensure the moratorium remains active in 2026. “Without additional initiatives, we will not reach zero deforestation” or meet Brazil’s emissions reduction goals.

Banner image: Tractor harvesting soy in Brazil. Image by charlesricardo via Pixabay.

From the forests of northeast India’s Arunachal Pradesh state, researchers have described a new-to-science species of fungus with “exceptionally large” fruiting bodies that can hold the weight of a person. The species is named Bridgeoporus kanadii in honor of Indian mycologist Kanad Das for his contributions to Indian macrofungi.

The researchers led by Arvind Parihar, from the Botanical Survey of India (BSI), unexpectedly came upon the fungus during a survey of mushrooms in Arunachal Pradesh during the monsoon season, reports Mongabay’s Divya Kilikar.

They found clusters of at least 40 fruiting bodies of an unfamiliar fungus growing on the trunks of coniferous trees, primarily old-growth fir trees (Abies spp.). What stood out was the sheer size of some of the fungal fruiting bodies: the largest was more than three meters (10 feet) in radius. “It is so large that I could sit on it, and it remained firmly attached to the tree,” Parihar said.

Although new to science, B. kanadii is known to local community members, but they don’t harvest it as it’s inedible and not economically valuable, Parihar added.

The researchers brought some of the fungi specimens back to dry and preserve. They then analyzed its morphology in detail, including its color, size, shape, thickness, length and width. They also sequenced the fungus’s DNA, compared it with recorded genetic data of other fungal species, and finally confirmed that it was indeed a new-to-science species of Bridgeoporus.

There were previously only two other known species within the genus: B. nobilissimus, a critically endangered species, grows on fir trees in North America, and its fruiting bodies have been recorded to measure up to 1.5 m (5 ft) wide; the other species, B. sinensis, grows on trees like the Ussuri poplar (Populus ussuriensis) in the forests of China, and was described in 2017. However, Parihar said B. sinensis was eventually moved to another genus, Oxyporus, making B. kanadii from Arunachal Pradesh the second species known in the genus.

Bridgeoporus fungi play a vital role in forest regeneration by helping to decompose dead wood. Most of the B. kanadii the researchers spotted in Arunachal Pradesh were growing on dead fir trees. “Wood rotting fungi are an important group of fungi which play an indispensable role in the intricate tapestry of carbon and nutrient cycling, because of their unique capacity to degrade cellulose and lignin,” they write in the study.

“The lens with which we look at fungi is far too limited,” Parihar said. “Most people only ask: is it poisonous or edible? But all fungi silently work to maintain our ecosystems. Without fungi, forests will be full of debris, logs and leaf litter left undecomposed.”

Read the full story by Divya Kilikar here.

Banner image: Newly described B. kanadii growing on a fir tree in a forest in Arunachal Pradesh in northeast India. Image courtesy of Arvind Parihar.

On Bikar Atoll and Jemo Islet of the Marshall Islands, seabirds are returning, forests are regrowing and coral reefs are recovering. And it all stems from the removal of a single invasive pest: rats.

Rats were once so abundant on Bikar and Jemo that they “utterly dominated the lower levels of the forest,” Paul Jacques, project manager with the nonprofit Island Conservation (IC), told Mongabay by email. “It was impossible to walk more than twenty metres [65 feet] without seeing a rat,” he added.

As omnivores, rats feasted on all that the islands had to offer, including coconut crabs, a key food for local communities, as well as the seeds and seedlings of native trees like Pisonia grandis, halting forest regeneration. They also ate the eggs and young of turtles and seabirds, devastating their populations.

In 2024, IC launched a rat eradication campaign on Bikar and Jemo using drones to deliver “conservation bait,” a poison designed specifically for rats.

The results have been dramatic, Jacques said.

There were no Pisonia grandis seedlings in 2024; now, thousands are sprouting. The trees provide vital nesting habitat for seabirds, including red-footed boobies (Sula sula), white terns (Gygis alba) and black noddies (Anous minutus).

Seabirds are flocking back. In Bikar, for example, conservationists have observed a colony of about 2,000 sooty terns (Onychoprion fuscatus) feeding hundreds of chicks. Previously, there were none. At Jemo, white terns were seen “having a bumper nesting season” with dozens of small chicks, Jacques said.

The increasing seabird population can bring far-reaching benefits to both land and sea. Seabirds bring nitrogen-rich guano from the sea to land, fertilizing the very trees they need for habitat. Some excess nutrients leach back to sea, feeding kelp, sponges and the symbiotic algae that feed coral.

“Studies show that coral reefs around rat-free islands with abundant seabirds grow up to 4 times faster than those around rat-infested islands, and they also recover more quickly from the bleaching events caused by ocean warming,” Jacques told Mongabay.

Studies also show that removing rats and the commensurate increase in bird populations can boost carbon storage on such islands, helping to mitigate climate change. On Palmyra Atoll in the central Pacific, native trees increased by 5,000% in just four years of rat removal.

Local fish populations also benefit. Fish biomass near rat-free, seabird-rich islands can be nearly 50% higher than that near rat-infested islands. The fish in turn graze on mats of algae that could otherwise smother coral. With coral dying off globally amid increased warming and ocean acidification, Jacques said removing rats is key to improving the resiliency of coral atolls.

“Restoring islands is a crucial nature-based solution to the existential threat posed to atolls by rising sea levels and warming oceans.”

Banner image: A white tern chick. Photo courtesy of Bren Ram/ Island Conservation.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Environmental Protection Agency faces challenges during a government shutdown. The agency’s mission to protect health and the environment is at risk without a federal budget. Former EPA officials express concerns that polluters may exploit the situation with an agency that has already seen massive staff cuts and dramatic shifts in policy. During the shutdown, the agency plans to halt non-criminal pollution inspections, new grants, and most scientific research. Essential staff will continue to work, but many functions will cease. That could lead to increased pollution risks and halted cleanup efforts, raising concerns about public health and safety.

By Seth Borenstein, Associated Press

Banner image: The Kyger Creek Power Plant, a coal-fired power plant, operates April 14, 2025, near Cheshire, Ohio. (AP Photo/Joshua A. Bickel, File)

The world’s largest-known population of Taita falcons has been recorded in Mozambique’s Niassa Special Reserve, where researchers estimate up to 76 breeding pairs live among its isolated island of rocky hills and woodlands, Mongabay contributor Ryan Truscott reported.

The vulnerable Taita falcon (Falco fasciinucha) is smaller than a pigeon and has been called a “stunningly cute little raptor.” With fewer than 500 breeding pairs globally, it is one of the rarest and most specialized birds of prey, but human degradation of their habitat has caused their populations to dwindle across their range in eastern Africa, from southern Ethiopia to northeastern South Africa. Most known Taita falcon sites today host fewer than 10 breeding pairs.

“Finding Niassa as a [Taita] stronghold still, where hopefully there’s still good genetic diversity, is quite encouraging,” Hanneline Smit-Robinson, co-author of the recently published study and head of conservation at BirdLife South Africa, told Truscott.

In 2021, the research team surveyed 35 potential Taita territories within a 75-kilometer (46-mile) radius of Niassa’s administrative camp to confirm the presence of the falcon, reaching some sites by foot and others by helicopter.

They found 14 breeding pairs and combined that information with remote-sensing data to model other potential nests across the 4.2-million-hectare (10.4-million-acre) reserve. They estimate between 68 and 76 breeding pairs live in the area.

With this discovery, the Niassa Special Reserve hosts the world’s biggest-known population of the Taita falcon, challenging some assumptions scientists had about the birds.

“Our [Niassa] survey has led us to rethink what we consider typical Taita falcon habitat,” another co-author, Christiaan Brink, told Truscott in 2022, shortly after the team discovered the stronghold.

Their compact, muscular bodies are built for speed in the river gorge systems near waterfalls where they usually live. But the sharp rock islands of Niassa allow them to mimic the same hunting behaviors and give them an edge in the woodland ecosystem.

Taita falcons are found in two other main breeding sites in the region, the Batoka Gorge between Zambia and Zimbabwe and South Africa’s Blyde River Canyon. However, population records show that their numbers are falling fast.

In the Blyde River Canyon, only four out of 11 Taita falcon territories are still active, and just one produced chicks, according to the last survey. In the Batoka Gorge, the species may have already gone locally extinct; the last record of an active nest is from 2006.

“Fortunately, large tracts of intact [Niassa] woodland, close to many identified and predicted Taita falcon breeding sites, remain relatively distant from human settlements. For now,” David Lloyd-Jones, a behavioral ecologist at the University of Cape Town, who was not part of the study, told Truscott.

Read the full story by Ryan Truscott here.

Banner image: A young Taita falcon in South Africa. Image courtesy of Anthony van Zyl.

GENEVA (AP) — Switzerland’s glaciers have faced “enormous” melting this year with a 3% drop in total volume — the fourth-largest annual drop on record — due to the effects of global warming, top Swiss glaciologists reported Wednesday.

The shrinkage this year means that ice mass in Switzerland — home to the most glaciers in Europe — has declined by one-quarter over the last decade, the Swiss glacier monitoring group GLAMOS and the Swiss Academy of Sciences said in their report.

“Glacial melting in Switzerland was once again enormous in 2025,” the scientists said. “A winter with low snow depth combined with heat waves in June and August led to a loss of 3% of the glacier volume.”

Switzerland is home to nearly 1,400 glaciers, the most of any country in Europe, and the ice mass and its gradual melting have implications for hydropower, tourism, farming and water resources in many European countries.

More than 1,000 small glaciers in Switzerland have already disappeared, the experts said.

The teams reported that a winter with little snow was followed by heat waves in June — the second-warmest June on record — which left the snow reserves depleted by early July. Ice masses began to melt earlier than ever, they said.

“Glaciers are clearly retreating because of anthropogenic global warming,” said Matthias Huss, the head of GLAMOS, referring to climate change caused by human activity.

“This is the main cause for the acceleration we are seeing in the last two years,” added Huss, who is also a glaciologist at Zurich’s ETHZ university.

The shrinkage is the fourth-largest after those in 2022, 2023 and back in 2003.

The retreat and loss of glaciers is also having an impact on Switzerland’s landscape, causing mountains to shift and ground to become unstable.

Swiss authorities have been on heightened alert for such changes after a huge mass of rock and ice from a glacier thundered down a mountainside that covered nearly all of the southern village of Blatten in May.

By Jamey Keaten, Associated Press

Banner image: Rhone Glacier near Goms, Switzerland, on June 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Matthias Schrader, File)