Not MPAs but OECMs: Can a new designation help conserve the ocean?
In 2022, the world’s nations committed to protecting 30% of their land and sea by 2030 (the so-called “30x30” initiative). At sea, this will require a massive buildup of marine…
Mongabay series: Conservation Potential
Leaders and decision-makers are increasingly recognizing the urgency of protecting the world’s remaining biodiversity, but investing in conservation requires these actors to have access to reliable and actionable information about ongoing conservation projects. Mongabay's “Conservation Potential” series investigates conservation efforts in high-priority biodiversity areas of tropical forests across the globe.
First Nation and scientists partner to revive climate-saving eelgrass
MALIKO’MIJK, Canada — Decades ago, the sea around Maliko’mijk Island was an expansive green carpet of eelgrass, the meadows so thick that members of the Pictou Landing First Nation had…
Tien Hai Nature Reserve latest battleground in Vietnam’s push for development
In mid-April, the government of Thai Binh province on Vietnam’s north-central coast quietly issued a decision that has since spawned growing controversy. The decision removed protection from almost 90% of…
Can agroforestry chocolate help save the world’s most endangered rainforest?
In Ecuador’s Jama-Coaque Reserve (JCR), nearly every surface is encased with life: moss, ferns, epiphytes and orchids — a kaleidoscope of green in three dimensions. Amid the green, chestnut-headed oropendola…
‘Owls are valuable only when alive’: Q&A with conservationist Raju Acharya
KATHMANDU — Nepal’s owls are perhaps the least-studied birds in the country, often overlooked by researchers more focused on the rarer vultures and cranes. Yet owls also face the same…
Nepal’s BP Highway threatens endemic, critically endangered lizard
KATHMANDU — On a hot and humid day in Bardibas, a town in the lowlands of Nepal, the sun beats down on the dusty roads where vans, cars and motorcycles…
The value of mountains: Q&A with Tanzanian herpetologist John Lyakurwa
Tanzanian herpetologist John Lyakurwa was born and raised in a village at the base of Mount Kilimanjaro. The chameleons he and his family encountered on their coffee farm sparked his…
Can the EU’s deforestation law save Argentina’s Gran Chaco from soy?
Large-scale soy production for European markets has long been associated with deforestation in South America’s forests, including in the continent’s second-largest, but lesser-known, forest, the Gran Chaco in Argentina and…
Fires threaten Afromontane forests’ ‘whole new world’: Q&A with Martim Melo
Afromontane forests occur at high altitudes across Africa. They’re thought to be relics of former glacial periods in Africa. Studying genetic data from birds living in these moist temperate forests,…
‘Anthill tiger’: Putting one of Africa’s rarest wildcats on the radar
Every night, somewhere unseen across the vast, semidesert and dry savanna habitat of Southern Africa, the continent’s deadliest cat emerges to hunt. Black-footed cats (Felis nigripes) are ideally suited for…
Inaugural Indigenous women’s forum spotlights Congo Basin conservation
On May 8, the first forum of Indigenous women and local communities from Central Africa and the Congo Basin opened in Brazzaville, the capital of the Republic of Congo. This…
The U.S. has cataloged its forests. Now comes the hard part: Protecting them
Environmental groups doled out general praise, with caveats, for a new inventory by the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) that identified 112.8 million acres (45.6 million…
Saving forests to protect coastal ecosystems: Japan sets historic example
Reliant on its fisheries, Japan has long known the importance of maintaining healthy forest watersheds so as to protect coastal fisheries. It’s a lesson other nations could benefit from as the global environmental crisis worsens.
Could biodiversity be a key to better forest carbon storage in Europe?
As bison, lynx and other wildlife return to European forests, conservationists debate whether biodiversity-enhancing reintroductions add to carbon storage and ecosystem resilience against climate change.
In Ecuador, communities protecting a ‘terrestrial coral reef’ face a mining giant
INTAG VALLEY, ECUADOR — Hundreds of moths land on a white sheet, lit like a false moon in the still, dark forest. Elegant silver ones, fist-sized moths with spots on…
Mongabay’s Conservation Potential series investigates: Where do we need to protect biodiversity?
From microbes to meerkats, the wealth of species on Earth is the glue that holds the cycles of life together: producing food, regulating climate, building soil, maintaining ecosystems and more.…
Special series
Forest Trackers
- Bolivia’s El Curichi Las Garzas protected area taken over by land-grabbers
- Authorities struggle to protect Bolivian national park from drug-fueled deforestation
- Poverty and plantations: Nigerian reserve struggles against the odds
- Logging, road construction continue to fuel forest loss in Papua New Guinea
Oceans
- Caribbean startups are turning excess seaweed into an agroecology solution
- Global coral beaching now underway looks set to be largest on record
- In Java Sea, vigilantism and poverty rise as purse seine fishing continues
- As a megaport rises in Cameroon, a delicate coastal ecosystem ebbs
Amazon Conservation
- Brazil boosts protection of Amazon mangroves with new reserves in Pará state
- Cross-border Indigenous efforts in Peru & Brazil aim to protect isolated groups
- A short walk through Amazon time: Interview with archaeologist Anna Roosevelt
- Alis Ramírez: A defender of the Colombian Amazon now living as a refugee in New Zealand
Land rights and extractives
- Hyundai ends aluminum deal with Adaro Minerals following K-pop protest
- Brazil’s illegal gold trade takes a hammering, but persists underground
- Maluku bone collector unearths troubling consequence of coastal abrasion
- New FPIC guide designed to help protect Indigenous rights as mineral mining booms
Endangered Environmentalists
- Indonesian activists face jail over FB posts flagging damage to marine park
- Vietnamese environmentalist sentenced to 3 years in prison for tax evasion
- Son of slain Quilombola leader will still strive for community’s rights
- Video: Five Tembé Indigenous activists shot in Amazonian ‘palm oil war’
Indonesia's Forest Guardians
- Fenced in by Sulawesi national park, Indigenous women make forestry breakout
- In Borneo, the ‘Power of Mama’ fight Indonesia’s wildfires with all-woman crew
- Pioneer agroforester Ermi, 73, rolls back the years in Indonesia’s Gorontalo
- After 20 years and thousands of trees planted, Kalimantan’s veteran forester persists
Conservation Effectiveness
- The conservation sector must communicate better (commentary)
- Thailand tries nature-based water management to adapt to climate change
- Forest restoration to boost biomass doesn’t have to sacrifice tree diversity
- How scientists and a community are bringing a Bornean river corridor back to life
Southeast Asian infrastructure
- Study: Indonesia’s new capital city threatens stable proboscis monkey population
- Indonesia’s new capital ‘won’t sacrifice the environment’: Q&A with Nusantara’s Myrna Asnawati Safitri
- Small farmers in limbo as Cambodia wavers on Tonle Sap conservation rules
- To build its ‘green’ capital city, Indonesia runs a road through a biodiverse forest
