Mongabay

The EIA is an integral (high-profile) component of regulatory process that has evolved over the last couple of decades to extend ‘upstream’ into the planning process and ‘downstream’ into the licensing procedure, so that the state (and civil society)…

This May, divers found stony coral tissue loss disease on corals in Laughing Bird Caye National Park, Belize, for the first time. The team from Fragments of Hope, a nonprofit, regularly monitors the site. A month previously there had been no sign at all of the…

Herpetology has long navigated through tangled terrain in Papua New Guinea, where species mislabeling and sparse sampling have clouded scientific understanding. But a recent revision has brought rare clarity—and four unexpected discoveries, reports Akhyari…

On May 19, the head of IBAMA, Brazil’s federal environmental agency, overrode the technical opinion of the agency’s licensing department and issued a decision allowing proposed oil drilling in the FZA-M-59 drilling block in the mouth of the Amazon River to…

Banks in Latin America are under increasing pressure to develop financial policies that support the transition to a greener economy. Emerging regulations are targeting industries tied to carbon emissions, deforestation and biodiversity loss — but many banks…

Sending scuba divers down to survey corals is time-consuming and expensive. In recent years, scientists have developed other methods to determine what kinds of corals are down there just by collecting water samples, sometimes right from the surface. These rely…

Before 1988, Brazil had no contingency plans for unexpected encounters with Indigenous peoples living in isolation. If government officials, developers or explorers accidentally stumbled upon a camp, the protocol was to make contact — a move that can upend…

Fires raged across the Amazon rainforest, annihilating more than 4.6 million hectares of primary tropical forest—the most biodiverse and carbon-dense type of forest on Earth. That loss, which is larger than the size of Denmark, was more than twice the annual…

At least 200 people have been confirmed dead and 500 more remain missing after flash floods devastated a Nigerian market town, media reported. Torrential rain started early on May 29, and within just a few hours caused intense flooding in the town of Mokwa,…

In December 2024, a camera trap installed in Dehing Patkai National Park in northeast India’s Assam state captured a rare scene: a clouded leopard with a Bengal slow loris in its mouth. Both species are extremely elusive, so the photograph is rare…

KLAMATH, California — The Pacific Ocean fog hung densely over the narrow mouth of the Klamath River in this coastal rainforest in northern California. Redwood, Douglas fir and alder disappeared into the mist. Seals bobbed nearby, hungry and waiting. An…

In June 2019, an early morning flash flood swept through the Bien La commune in northwestern Vietnam, ravaging crops and farmlands belonging to 60 families. The cause: the Su Pan 1 small hydropower dam, about 12 km (7 miles) upstream of the commune, where…

Researchers behind an incentive-based fisheries program in Indonesia have reported a drop in shark and ray bycatch, but also warned of an unexpected rise in the intentional capture of these threatened species. The program pays some small-scale fishers in Aceh…

Nurul Nazipah’s favorite dish to cook is one that involves going into the Muaro Jambi forest to pick from among 120 different types of herbs and edible greens that grow wild. To the untrained eye, they could be weeds in the Sumatran forest, but to Nazipah…

RANGAN, Indonesia — Every night for three decades, Marwati would worry about snakes crawling out of the walls of her house near the east coast of Borneo. Today, a small rooftop solar panel powers a 3-watt bulb, illuminating the interior of her timber home in…

Increased carbon dioxide emissions since industrialization have accelerated climate change, and its widespread negative impacts have been reported worldwide. But the rising concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere are also making some parts of our planet…

The Philippine eagle is considered one of the world’s rarest birds of prey, with roughly 400 breeding pairs left in the wild. Amid ongoing threats from logging and hunting, Indigenous forest rangers are helping conservationists protect the species’ nests…

The Kasawari gas field, off the coast of Malaysian Borneo, was discovered in 2011 and has been seen as a lifeline for the country’s energy dreams. Malaysia has long depended on oil and gas exports for economic expansion and government revenue, and this new…

In recent years, we’re learning more about how fungi work, what they can do, and how they can help mitigate the climate crisis. They play a crucial role in balancing ecosystems, and keeping carbon out of the atmosphere. Innovative researchers are also…

Year after year, a colony of elephant seals arrives in Jackson Bay, on the islands of Tierra del Fuego at the southern tip of Chile, to molt and breed. However, in 2023, an outbreak of avian flu devastated the region, and the colony’s population dropped by…