Mongabay

SANTA FE, Peru — What happens when a glacier dies? In the community of Santa Fe, in Peru, water is disappearing, animals are dying due to a lack of pasture and rainfall has become sporadic. The community members know that climate change is affecting the apu,…

The Indianapolis Prize, a prestigious award that recognizes leaders in wildlife conservation, has awarded its second Emerging Conservationist Award to Mwezi Badru Mugerwa. A Ugandan researcher and conservationist who combines community work with technology,…

In 2003, Indigenous organizations petitioned the Peruvian government to create Yavarí Mirim, an Indigenous reserve on the Amazon border with Brazil and Colombia, spanning 1 million hectares (2.5 million acres), according to sources interviewed by Mongabay.…

ISIOLO, Kenya — A hot wind sweeps across the rocky brush of Camp Simpirre in northern Kenya’s Isiolo county. Baboons cross the pathway to the dinner hall; vervet monkeys patter across the tin roof that shades an assembled group of 47 researchers and…

JAKARTA, Indonesia — An Indonesian palm oil company suspended evictions of several hundred farmers from the northern Sumatra subdistrict of Aek Kuo following an eleventh-hour court reprieve.   On Feb. 20, a local court issued an eviction order authorizing…

JAKARTA — The Indonesian Supreme Court has upheld a government decision to curb the expansion of a multibillion-dollar oil palm plantation project in the country’s easternmost region of Papua. In its Dec. 2, 2024, ruling, the court rejected lawsuits filed…

Last November, Jakarta-based Muhamad Heychael, program director at nonprofit media organization Remotivi, began offering small grants to local journalists to report on the nickel mines and smelters proliferating in remote corners of Indonesia’s far east.…

ROBERTSPORT, Liberia — The sun was scorching hot in the town of Robertsport as James Dayougar shook debris from his nets, which he’d just returned from fishing with moments earlier. His eyes looked bloated, the nets disheveled. With just a few fish in his…

The Trump administration recently fired roughly 800 probationary employees from the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Former NOAA workers warn that these cuts will have global repercussions, affecting nations and industries that rely…

Researchers in Florida, U.S., have attached satellite transmitter tags on 15 crocodiles to learn more about their movement patterns in urbanized areas. Through the multi-year study, the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC), aims to better…

Journalist Alex Cuadros’s latest book, “When We Sold God’s Eye: Diamonds, Murder, and a Clash of Worlds in the Amazon” tells the story of how an Indigenous group in Brazil was forced to reckon with Western culture.

Indigenous peoples and local communities scored perhaps the most tangible progress as the 16th United Nations, or COP16 concluded after three days of final negotiations in Rome on Feb. 28, 2025. This completes the two-week session that began in Cali, Colombia,…

Delegates and observers applauded, with caveats, the delayed conclusion of the 16th United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, or COP16, in Rome on Feb. 28. The big takeaway was an agreement by the world’s nations to a multiprong pathway to raising…

Truly wild horses are rare today. But in India, small populations of feral horses, believed to be descendants of domestic horses, have made the wild their home. One such population can still be spotted in Dibru Saikhowa National Park in the northeastern state…

With the purchasing power of middle and working-class citizens shrinking as billionaires hoard ever more wealth, many people are searching for a new economic reality in line with their ecological values and planetary boundaries. “People are really hungry for…

A recent study in Ecological Solutions and Evidence shows just how complicated and challenging it is to achieve carbon sequestration goals through forest management — but not impossible. The research evaluates 10 years of a 14-year-long carbon project in…

“It’s amazing, it’s amazing! I have no other word to describe it.” That’s how biologist Marcos Roberto de Brito defines the thrill of seeing a jaguar up close for the first time. Brito is the lead author of a recently published study that discovered…

After Israel and the de facto government of the Gaza Strip, Hamas, agreed to a ceasefire beginning Jan. 19, Gaza’s olive farmers headed back to what’s left of their Khan Yunis and Rafah olive groves for an unprecedented January 2025 harvest. Bombing by the…

Nearly all deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon in the past year was illegal, a new report finds. Between August 2023 and July 2024, 91% of forest clearing in the Amazon lacked authorization, according to an analysis by the NGO Center of Life Institute (ICV).…

At least four people were killed and hundreds of thousands were left without water or electricity as Cyclone Garance flooded parts of the island of Réunion, a French territory in the Indian Ocean, late last week, reports say. The cyclone made landfall on Feb.…

In 2019, scientists set out to map the extent of seagrass in Seychelles, an island nation off the eastern coast of Africa. There, they hit upon a startling number: More than 90% of the country’s “blue carbon,” or the carbon stored in marine ecosystems,…

Sweden has issued licenses to hunters to kill 87 Eurasian lynx between March 1 and Apr. 15. Conservation organizations say the annual hunts of the medium-sized wildcat violate environmental legislation of the European Union, of which Sweden is a part. The…

There’s solid evidence that well-enforced marine protected areas (MPAs) that prohibit fishing benefit a wide variety of species within their borders. However, the impact outside their borders is a matter of debate, especially when it comes to highly sought…

Plastic is increasingly being used for fuel by much of the world’s urban poor, to the detriment of the health of local people and their environment, researchers argue in a new commentary. As of 2021, roughly 56% of the world lives in an urban area. At the…

From the Tibetan plateau to the African Sahel, pastoralism is one of humanity’s oldest ways of life. Moving livestock across vast landscapes in rhythm with seasonal change and environmental conditions, pastoralist cultures rely on freedom of movement and…

JAKARTA/TANGERANG, Indonesia — Joy was mending his nets when a reporter from Mongabay Indonesia visited him last October in the fishing village of Ketapang in Tangerang district, on the northwestern outskirts of Jakarta. He said he planned to go out to sea…

Central Asia hosts some of the world’s largest and still relatively interconnected yet fragile grassland and mountain ecosystems. These landscapes provide essential habitats for migratory and threatened species, including the snow leopard, saiga antelope,…

JAKARTA — The United Nations has called out Indonesia’s No. 2 palm oil company for alleged human rights and environmental abuses, the first time it has singled out a company rather than the industry. Various U.N. agencies and officials have long…

I’ve learned to speak some spider monkey over the years. As a conservationist working out of the Peruvian Amazon Rainforest, I’ve spent years of my life in the jungle. I sleep outdoors more nights than I do inside, so I see spider monkeys nearly every day.…

Dr. Ajith Kumar, a leading Indian wildlife biologist and educator, passed away on March 1, 2025, in Pachmarhi, Satpura Tiger Reserve while accompanying students on a field trip. He was 72. Kumar was a pioneering figure in wildlife research and conservation in…