Mongabay · Page 53

Hundreds of tortoises have died following severe floods at a sanctuary in southwestern Madagascar that houses and protects more than 12,000 of the critically endangered animals. On Jan. 16, Tropical Cyclone Dikeledi swept through the Atsimo-Andrefana region,…

The World Bank has cancelled a $150 million project to boost tourism to Tanzania’s Ruaha National Park, following allegations of human rights abuses by park authorities. Under the Tanzanian government’s plans to expand Ruaha, 21,000 local people could be…

Over the course of just eight years, the forests surrounding Indonesia’s Lake Poso, an ecological and evolutionary “gem” on the island of Sulawesi, have been whittled away, satellite data and imagery show, while flooding has intensified, and traditional…

The first biodiversity survey ever conducted in one of northwestern Cambodia’s last forest frontiers has found potentially new-to-science species and recorded direct threats to what conservationists call a “small but precious” ecosystem. Spanning roughly…

On Dec. 22, 2024, Turkish customs officers conducting a random search of a plane’s cargo hold found a surprise stowaway inside a small wooden crate with holes: a malnourished baby gorilla dressed in a soiled T-shirt. The Turkish Airlines flight was headed…

GALÁPAGOS ISLANDS — Marco Andres Vizcaino Garcia is probably the most qualified naturalist guide a person could hire during their visit to Galápagos National Park and its adjacent marine reserve. Born into a fishing family that’s lived here for…

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil – In September 2024, Vida Livre Institute, a wildlife rescue center, received an unusual call from the Rio de Janeiro Botanical Garden staff. They were sending over two monkeys who were behaving strangely and had to be assessed by the…

Shaken, not stirred: That’s how fictional secret service agent James Bond prefers his martini. And now there’s a lizard in the Caribbean that shares his name: the James Bond forest lizard, found close to where author Ian Fleming wrote his iconic Bond…

The southern states of the U.S. are facing a winter storm this week that will bring heavy snow and ice to a region that rarely experiences such conditions. More than 220 million people are expected to be affected from Texas to South Carolina. Several states,…

Intense protests flared up last December in communities opposed to Ecuadorian President Daniel Noboa’s plans to build two maximum-security prisons in sensitive ecosystems and Indigenous territories without consulting local populations. In the canton of…

As forests continue to be cleared and forested landscapes degraded by human activity, their loss can significantly affect the trees left standing, potentially changing the structure of forests, a recent study has found. In this case, faster-growing trees, with…

In Nagasaki prefecture, on the southern Japanese island of Kyushu, J-Power, the operator of the aging Matsushima coal-fired power plant, has an idea to keep the unit operating despite the country’s no-coal pledge: gasification. “Japan considers coal…

Several years ago, I took a solo trip to the Huánuco region of the central Peruvian Amazon. After traveling five hours from the nearest town by car, boat and tuk-tuk, I reached the Comunidad de la Naranjal on the banks of the Yamiria River, a tributary of the…

In the quiet Swiss town of Davos, Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain unfolds as young Hans Castorp’s brief visit to a sanatorium turns into a seven-year exploration of ideas, intrigue, and debates. The story ultimately becomes a metaphor for Europe’s…

Cacao cultivation is a major threat to the Congo Basin rainforest, with new research showing just where expanding cultivation could imperil the region’s rich wildlife. “We found areas within the central parts of the Congo Basin to be at high risk of…

Nearly all of Antarctica’s iconic wildlife, from penguins to seals and whales, depend on krill, tiny crustaceans that make up the base of the food chain. Krill are also sought after by humans, who scoop them up using massive fishing boats, potentially…

KATHMANDU — When Pasang Nuru Sherpa recalls his childhood in the quiet village of Pangboche, in the foothills of Sagarmatha, the Nepali name for Everest, his memories take him back to the gentle hum of daily life: the swishing of prayer flags, the calls of…

At Uganda’s Queen Elizabeth National Park, violent enforcement of wildlife laws leaves broken families behind and damages the relationship between conservation authorities and local communities, reports Mongabay’s Ashoka Mukpo. In October 2023, Mukpo…

PEMBA ISLAND, Tanzania — Pemba Island’s Ngezi Forest Reserve, a complex of moist evergreen and coastal forests, mangroves and heathland in the Zanzibar archipelago, is the last refuge of the Pemba blue duiker . But are there any of these tiny antelopes…

The people living around the Ngezi Forest Reserve on Pemba Island, off the coast of Tanzania, depend on its resources for many things: timber for building materials, a place to gather firewood and hunt animals for food, and sometimes pasture for cows or goats.…