Mongabay · Page 24

The once-common beach morning glory vines (Ipomoea pes-caprae) have slowly been disappearing from Cox’s Bazar beach in southeastern Bangladesh, especially at the more popular tourist destinations like Laboni, Kolatoli and Sugandha beach points. Experts and…

In November 2023, at 4 a.m., four snow leopards made their way into Mingmar Gurung’s livestock corral in Dhakmar village, Mustang district, Nepal. Hearing the goats’ commotion so early in the morning, Mingmar ran toward the corral. The scene was…

Vulture populations in Southern Africa are dwindling, yet the birds could bring large economic benefits to the region, according to a recent report by the NGO BirdLife. Assessing the “value” of vultures in Botswana, Zambia and Zimbabwe, researchers found…

Europe’s smallest bird of prey, the Eurasian pygmy owl, has now been confirmed in Spain for the first time, marking a westward expansion from the bird’s usual range. Researchers first captured the sounds of the Eurasian pygmy owl (Glaucidium passerinum) in…

JAKARTA — Nearly half of Indonesia’s peatlands are vulnerable to flooding due to degradation caused by unchecked exploitation, with 6 million hectares (15 million acres) — an area twice the size of Belgium — classified as highly vulnerable, according…

Ancient Egypt’s feline gods, embroidered tigers on Chinese textiles, lions in Southern Africa’s San cave paintings and jaguars symbolizing military prowess in Mesoamerican cultures — all of them show how wildcats have penetrated human folklore and…

Nigerian officials have arrested a Chinese national suspected of masterminding a transnational smuggling operation of pangolin scales, Netherlands-based nonprofit Wildlife Justice Commission (WJC) said in a press release last week. The arrest is linked to the…

Brazil is facing an alarming surge in forest fires. Last year, the country registered 237,000 fires and over 30.8 million hectares of vegetation were consumed by flames—an area the size of Italy. This represented a 79% increase in areas…

Villagers in Cameroon have denounced the use of tear gas by authorities to break up their protest on March 25 against the replanting of oil palm trees by the plantation company Socapalm on disputed land in the country’s southwest. Residents of the village of…

Global demand for lithium is expected to increase by nearly 500% over the next few decades, as countries invest more in batteries and electric vehicles meant to reduce their carbon footprint. But lithium also brings its own environmental concerns, putting…

RISARALDA, Colombia — “Before, anyone who wanted to grow cacao at 1,200 or 1,500 meters [3,900 to 4,900 feet] altitude was considered crazy,” says Orlando Quintero Gonzales, an agronomist in Colombia’s Eje Cafetero, or the Coffee Axis. “Today, with…

Earlier this year, U.K. media reported an increase in humpback whale sightings in British and Irish waters. Between December 2024 and January, The Guardian reported some 17 sightings of humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) from the Isles of Scilly in…

The wetlands of West Bengal in eastern India are one of the country’s best habitats for the fishing cat, a species vulnerable to extinction. But a significant population of these fish-eating, mid-sized wildcats lives outside protected areas, putting them at…

Founder’s Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives, and story summaries. Few apes have done more to unsettle human certainties than Kanzi the bonobo. He wasn’t the first nonhuman primate to use…

Yams are considered one of the world’s most important crops. A starchy, nutrient-rich root vegetable of the genus Dioscorea, the yam thrives in a tropical belt across West Africa, with outliers in the Caribbean and some Asian countries such as Japan. In…

Following intense outcry nationwide and abroad, Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court has recently removed the proposal to open up Indigenous territories to mining and economic activities from a controversial bill that critics say violates the Constitution.…

Rita grew up in a small village in Uttarakhand with mountains forming the backbone of her childhood. In a recent call with her sister, she laughed, repeating a little rhyme they used to recite as school-going children: January mein jarjar, February mein farfar…

Banking on the capacity of global forests to continue storing huge amounts of carbon could put the Paris Agreement climate targets out of reach and incur huge economic costs. That’s the warning expressed in a new modeling study which finds the ability of…

A village on Nepal’s border with India has found a way to reduce conflicts with wild Asian elephants in recent years: By switching their crops from rice and maize, which elephants love to eat, to tea and lemon, the farmers of Bahundangi are now seeing fewer…

Microplastics are a growing ecological and human health crisis: Scientist have found the tiny plastic particles everywhere they’ve looked for them, including human placentas and brains. In a new documentary, Plastic People, filmmakers Rick Smith and Peter…