Mongabay · Page 65

The European Union’s deforestation-free products regulation (EUDR) won’t affect the operations of Brazil’s paper and pulp industry, which has already traced its supply chains “from farm to factory” for more than two decades and doesn’t source from…

Zooming in on the Peruvian jungle, many hectares of deforestation can be seen amid the thick vegetation, like huge scars hidden among the foliage. They’re dispersed between the forests in the departments of Ucayali, Loreto, Huánuco, Madre de Dios, Pasco and…

The dense tropical forests, isolated mountain peaks and limestone karst caverns of the Greater Mekong region yielded a remarkable 234 new-to-science species in 2023, according to a new report compiled by WWF. A striking orange-and-black crocodile newt recorded…

High-class pool decks, furniture, floors, ceilings and boats. Those are some of the primary destinations of the valuable tropical timber that leaves South America in large containers to supply markets in Europe and the U.S. But consumers may be taking home the…

Small seabirds skim the open ocean at night, patting their legs on the surface as they hunt for small fish. Now, for the first time in more than 100 years, endangered Polynesian storm petrels (Nesofregetta fuliginosa) have returned to a far-flung island in…

Argan oil cooperatives in Morocco. Regreening Niger. Revitalizing a national park in Madagascar. Wildlife conservancies in Namibia. Cashew plantations in Burkina Faso. Beach management in Kenya. Agroforestry in Ghana. These are but a smattering of the many…

Cockfighting has been illegal in Costa Rica for more than a century, but this violent tradition persists underground across the country. To make the birds deadlier, their owners often tie razor-sharp blades to their legs, known as gaffs or cockspurs. Aside…

Pulling carbon dioxide directly from the air with giant vacuum-like devices is an enticing solution to the climate crisis, with governments and industry funneling billions of dollars into direct air capture (DAC) technology. But this would-be heavy-industry…

A recent proposal to protect the iconic orange-and-black monarch butterfly under the U.S. Endangered Species Act could make federal protections available to help the species avoid extinction and rebound. In a press release, Collin O’Mara, president and CEO…

Decades of artisanal and small-scale gold mining in the Tapajós River Basin have left a heavy environmental legacy in the Brazilian Amazon: rivers contaminated with mercury, and high greenhouse gas emissions. Researchers are now proposing recycling gold as a…

Extreme rainfall recorded in Sudan, Cameroon, Niger, Nigeria and Chad this year marks a heightened stage in Africa’s climatic vulnerability. According to research by World Weather Attribution (WWA), such floods, which killed roughly 2,000 people and…

Many species of mammals, either extinct in the wild or teetering close to it, have been successfully restored to parts of their range: the scimitar-horned oryx in northern Africa, black-footed ferrets in the United States, and Arabian oryx in Oman, to name but…

Foreign investors in Honduras enjoy “extraordinary privileges” that hinder the government’s ability to implement reforms that could benefit human rights and the environment, a report has found. These advantages allow corporations to sue the Central…

The Amazon River and its tributaries, which make up the largest freshwater basin in the world, are showing signs of recovery after dropping to record-low levels between September and November 2024. Abnormally low rainfall and high temperatures across the…

From late October to November this year, six consecutive tropical cyclones battered the Philippines, affecting 30 million people. Data analyses from two separate organizations now show they were intensified by human-induced climate change. International…

Biomass energy subsidies in South Korea and Japan are threatening Southeast Asia’s tropical forests, warns a new report by environmental NGOs. Of particular concern is the nascent but rapidly growing woody biomass industry in Indonesia, where rainforests are…

Policies designed to occupy and populate the Peruvian Amazon began about seventy years ago with the construction of a trunk highway connecting Pucallpa on the Ucayali River with Lima. Named after a Peruvian historian, the construction of the Carretera Federico…

“It seems like they intentionally neglected the ferry system just to create enough discontent so that people would accept construction of this bridge,” says Maria José Pacheco, executive secretary of the Bahia Fishermen’s Protection Council. Passengers…

NAIROBI — There are 22,000 buses on Nairobi’s crowded streets, the backbone of commuter transit for the Kenyan capital’s population of 5.3 million. The city’s matatus, privately owned public transport, are famously airbrushed with slogans and portraits…

KATHMANDU — The elusive snow leopard (Panthera uncia), often described as the “ghost of the mountains,” has captivated the imagination of researchers, the general public and mountain communities for centuries. Fables related to this enigmatic big cat…