Learning to live with — and love — bears and eagles in Colombia’s cloud forest
Mayra Parra presses play on her laptop, and the video on the screen comes to life for the Perez family in the town of Abriaquí, Colombia. As a spectacled bear…
Environmental headlines
Reader-supported news and inspiration from nature's frontline. Mongabay is a non-profit.
Illegal settlements, hunting and logging threaten a state reserve in Mexico
In the Yucatec Maya language, Balam-Kú means “jaguar temple.” That’s the name of the biggest state reserve in Campeche, in southern Mexico. Part of the Maya rainforest, this area is…
Fishers confirm scientists’ warning: Brazil’s Belo Monte dam killed off the river
When it comes to the Belo Monte dam complex on the Xingu River in the Brazilian Amazon, biologists and fishers agree on one thing: this hydroelectric power plant, theoretically the…
A mega-highway threatens South America’s vulnerable Gran Chaco
The Gran Chaco, South America’s second-largest forest after the Amazon, has been steadily replaced by croplands and cattle ranches for decades. Now, the semiarid lowland faces a new threat: the…
China’s Qinghai-Tibet ecosystem legislation is a landmark, but for whom? (commentary)
In April, the National People's Congress, China's legislative branch, passed the "Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (QTP) Ecosystem Protection Act" (hereafter referred to as the QTP Act). The QTP Act is China's first…
Africa’s land and forest restoration initiative gathers pace in Malawi
In front of his rural home in the district of Thyolo in southern Malawi, Douglas Tana grows maize on a tenth of a hectare, or a quarter acre. Before 2010,…
A Southeast Asian marine biodiversity hotspot is also a wildlife trafficking hotbed
A new report has highlighted the maritime border zone between Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines as a hotbed for the illegal wildlife trade, and called for urgent intergovernmental action to…
Intense fires threaten water supply and habitats in Mexico’s Pico de Orizaba
Pico de Orizaba National Park is one of the most important protected areas in central Mexico. The park spans 19,000 hectares (47,000 acres), is home to a pine forest with…
The geography of environmental degradation in the Amazon
The Pan Amazon spans approximately 825 million hectares, of which approximately ninety million hectares have been lost to deforestation; this corresponds to ~13% of the original forest cover. At first…
Mechanized destruction of Brazil’s Amazon is rising, but not inevitable
In April, South Korean conglomerate Hyundai announced that it would prevent its excavators from being used in illegal mining in the Brazilian Amazon. This followed a recent Greenpeace report that…
Award-winning community group in Sumatra cleans up lake
JAMBI — A quintet of Jambi residents gathered one morning in May at the home of Leni Haini, an Indonesian environmental activist who last year received a prestigious award from…
Experts, activists unite to blast Indonesia’s U-turn on sea sand exports
JAKARTA — Environmental activists and marine experts have criticized the Indonesian government’s decision to lift a 20-year-old ban on exporting sea sand, saying the policy will exacerbate ecological damage for…
Warfare for wildlife: Q&A with Rosaleen Duffy
Rosaleen Duffy has long drawn the ire of those who support a forceful “guns and gates” approach to protecting wildlife. A professor of international politics at Sheffield University in the…
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…
U.S. conservation investment routed to eucalyptus expansion in Brazil’s Cerrado
Mark Wishnie felt pleased when he heard the news: Joe Biden announced his support of a $50 million debt investment for the timber farmland project he heads at Latin America’s…
Extreme reforestation: Baobab planters confront fires, loggers, cattle and more
BELO-SUR-MER, Madagascar — The situation was dire in Kirindy Mite National Park during a visit in November 2022. The previous year, a huge tract of forest had been ravaged by…
Militarized conservation: Insecurity for some, security for others? (commentary)
The past decade has seen a wave of academic and activist writings criticizing the use of militarized conservation to protect nature. In this commentary piece, we argue that the use…
Illegal fishing for fish meal widespread in Ecuador marine reserve
PUERTO CAYO and PUERTO LÓPEZ, Ecuador — Luis Torres had just finished unloading the day’s catch in Puerto Cayo when he agreed to speak to Mongabay Latam. It was a…
License to Log: Cambodian military facilitates logging on Koh Kong Krao and across the Cardamoms
This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network where Gerald Flynn was a fellow. *Names have been changed to protect sources who said they feared reprisals from…
Sumatra Indigenous community displaced by Samsung palm oil unit await justice
TALANG PARIT, Indonesia — For more than two decades, the residents of this Indigenous community in Riau province, on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, have watched as their lakes dried…
Citizens demand sustainable solution to haze crisis in northern Thailand
A court in northern Thailand has agreed to hear a citizen-led lawsuit filed against the government for inaction to address air pollution that experts say reduces people’s life expectancy and…
Boosted with fresh donations, Amazon Fund reboots stalled projects
With Lula taking office early this year, the fund was resumed and should get new donations from the U.K. and the United States.
Tap African knowledge and culture for Congo Basin forest conservation (commentary)
When growing up in the Congo Basin forest, I witnessed the consequences of forest destruction by logging and industrial agricultural plantations. In some areas, Indigenous communities used to live alongside…
Soil carbon in urban parks important in fighting climate change, study shows
Urban green spaces — parks, gardens and other green areas where people can go to enjoy some fresh air — are more than just pretty places to relax. New research…
Global study of 71,000 animal species finds 48% are declining
A survey of all five vertebrate groups — mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians and fish — plus insects, found nearly half of populations are shrinking, while just 3% are increasing, overwhelmingly due to human pressures.
Peatlands, Indonesia’s carbon trove, are mostly unprotected, study finds
JAKARTA — Most peatlands in Indonesia that need protection are currently not protected, a new study has found. It identifies 5.65 million hectares (13.96 million acres) of peatlands — an…
Sumatra’s young primate whisperer brings bullhorn to macaque conservation
SIBAGANDING, Indonesia — After Abdulrahman Manik's father passed away in 2019, the young man inherited a duty to protect wild monkeys here in the north of Sumatra Island. Years later,…
Latest environmentalist arrest shocks Vietnam’s battered civil society
Police in Vietnam have detained prominent environmentalist Hoang Thi Minh Hong, known as Hong Hoang, on tax evasion charges frequently used against critics of the government’s environmental policies. Hong, who…
‘Shocking’ levels of pangolin deaths from electric fences (commentary)
“South Africa loses between 1,000 and 2,000 pangolins each year to fence electrocutions. This far overshadows the number of individuals that are illegally poached and trafficked,” says Dr Darren Pietersen,…
Majority of Brazil’s Congress votes to restrict Indigenous land advances
SÃO PAULO — On Tuesday, Brazil’s Lower House of Congress overwhelmingly voted and approved a bill to restrict the legal recognition of Indigenous territories throughout the country. Among many changes,…
