Mongabay

Next spring, California condors will soar in northern California for the first time in a century. Four young condors will be released in Redwood National and State Parks, reintroducing this critically endangered species to what was once only the middle of a…

New study addresses the effects of fires on biodiversity loss in the world’s largest forest during the last two decades. Researchers measured the impacts on the habitats of 14,000 species of plants and animals, finding that 93 to 95% suffered some…

Planting trees seems to be a simple solution to the climate crisis. As trees photosynthesize, they capture carbon dioxide and lower the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, cooling the planet. But in some places, planting trees darkens the…

There was a time when tiger expert Dale Miquelle wasn’t sure if there’d ever be a substantial population of Amur tigers (Panthera tigris altaica) in China again. In the 1990s, Miquelle and his colleagues estimated there to only be about eight of these big…

“I believe that those who used to buy soursop juice will stop buying it,” says José Marcondes Puyanawa. “They will stop buying it because they have it in their own garden now.” Puyanawa lives in the Poyanawa Indigenous Land, located on the right bank…

Most people are familiar with the world’s “big cats”: Lions, tigers, leopards, jaguar, puma, and cheetah. But far fewer people know about the much larger number of small cat species, which range from the ancestors of domesticated house cats to the…

A study at the University of Zurich in Switzerland shows that a large proportion of existing medicinal plant knowledge is linked to threatened indigenous languages. In a regional study on the Amazon, New Guinea and North America, researchers concluded that 75%…

They were once considered the most threatened bird in the world: with just four remaining individuals on the island in 1974, the Mauritius kestrel (Falco punctatus) seemed doomed to extinction. Now, it’s a conservation marvel, acting as an example for the…

All seven sea turtle species are already endangered. Now humanity’s overshoot of planetary boundaries — climate change, ocean acidification, pollution and more — is upping the ante. Can turtles, people and conservation adapt?

Every October, at least 10 million straw-colored fruit bats (Eidolon helvum) arrive in Kasanka National Park in Zambia from the rainforests of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Besides its spectacular 2,000-kilometer (1,200-mile) migration, the species has the…

Efforts to protect wildlife and landscapes have generally been shifting away from “fortress conservation” — where local people are excluded from the lands they’ve traditionally managed — toward more inclusive approaches. Among these latter approaches…

As deforestation and the violation of Indigenous land rights continue to be an ever-present part of the global supply chain, many consumers (and even investors) are calling for transparency on sustainability practices and on the ties of financial institutions…

Though September sea ice extent appeared to offer a short-term recovery this fall, “that’s not the full story,” says one Arctic scientist, with low ice concentration seen in 2021, and lack of multiyear ice setting a new record.

Scientific literature is rife with accounts of desolate reefs bereft of corals, drained of color and sea life. A meta-analysis published Sept. 17 shows that these are not isolated incidents — coral cover today is half of what it was 70 years ago. “Over the…

The recent killing of 1,428 white dolphins in the Faroe Islands has brought renewed scrutiny to the island nation’s long-held tradition of driving cetaceans into shore and butchering them for their meat. Less than a week after the controversial hunt, Faroese…

JAKARTA — When the STS-50 was seized in Indonesian waters for illegal fishing in April 2018, it became the poster child for global efforts to reveal the true identity behind vessel ownership. The STS-50 had gone by other names in the past: Sea Breeze, Andrey…

It happened eight years ago: Elicarlos Ferreira da Silva and his family were returning home one afternoon from the town of Caetité in Brazil’s Bahia state when they were stopped by workers from the West-East Integration Railway (FIOL) project near their…

Peering back over the last 120,000 years, scientists have uncovered where chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) rode out past periods of global change, providing insights into how they might be affected by future climate change. The recent findings, published in the…

JAKARTA — A long-delayed bill on Indigenous rights continues to languish in parliament because most lawmakers have business interests that are threatened by the acknowledgement of Indigenous land rights, activists say. The bill, a perennial priority for…

Camera traps bring you closer to the secretive natural world and are an important conservation tool to study wildlife. This week we are meeting the common hippo. Common hippos (Hippopotamus amphibius) live in sub-Saharan Africa and are the third-largest living…