Environmental headlines

In Bolivia, the infamous “Death Road” has become a haven for life. Once the only route north from La Paz, the narrow and treacherous old road to the Yungas claimed…

Since the downfall of Sri Lanka’s former president, Gotabaya Rajapaksa, in mid-July, some commentators have blamed the economic crisis and social unrest that precipitated his departure on his nominal experiment…

For years, seabird ecologist Jennifer Lavers longed to survey the colonies of short-tailed shearwaters on Figure of Eight Island off the coast of Western Australia. She’d identified this remote island…

Deforestation in Earth's largest rainforest is on track to rival last year's 15-year-high according to data released today by the Brazilian government. INPE, Brazil's national space research institute, today published…

The dramatic expansion of rare earth mining in northern Myanmar in recent years is fueling human rights abuses, destroying forests, and bankrolling groups linked to the military regime that ousted…

Trees play a critical role in supporting life on Earth, and over the past few years, everyone from governments to companies to celebrities has been talking about tree planting as…

Antarctic krill — tiny, filter-feeding crustaceans that live in the Southern Ocean — have long existed in mind-boggling numbers. A 2009 study estimated that the species has a biomass of…

As freshwater “Day Zero” looms for the climate change-stressed Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipality, home to 1.28 million people, officials face a difficult choice: risk failure of short-term groundwater supplies or seek long-term solutions.

CHINESE LANDING, Guyana – When first entering the territory of the Carib Indigenous community in Chinese Landing, northwest Guyana, there are no signs of environmental destruction. At first glance, it…

The declining population of non-human primates, like monkeys, apes, tarsiers or prosimians, mainly due to deforestation and habitat loss, has long been a concern for researchers. At least 68% of…

JAKARTA — The Indonesian government has abandoned a plan to contract out long-term fishing rights to companies, following intense criticism from small-scale fishers and experts that the move would effectively…

KATHMANDU — When Nepal's Supreme Court recently canceled government plans to build an international airport in Nijhgad in the country's south, the project's environmental impact assessment report, or EIA, was…

Travelling by train from central London, it doesn’t take long before the city gives way to a patchwork of mostly agricultural fields. But one of these fields is special. The…

COT GIREK, Indonesia — Nestled between a vast palm oil plantation and the Sumatran rainforest is Alue Buloh, a hamlet in Cot Girek village, North Aceh district. To reach it,…

PHNOM TAMAO, Cambodia — Prime Minister Hun Sen has stepped in to cancel all development projects slated for the Phnom Tamao forest, near the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh, following…

DJERBA, Tunisia, and SICILY, Italy — On the deck of the Ghanem, which in Arabic means “winner,” sit eight boxes crawling with life. Blue legs and claws teem with each…

JAKARTA — Seagrass meadows are the fishing grounds of choice for many households in four Indo-Pacific countries, according to a new study that calls for better-informed management of these often-overlooked…

Gunshots, grassland and a tiny population of critically endangered gorillas coexisting with nearby human populations in southwestern Cameroon: a new study analyzes a complex set of factors to help understand…

Since March, bulldozers have opened around 40 kilometers, or 25 miles, of dirt road running north from the village of Kopongo in Cameroon across a forestry concession and into the…

The community of Deus é Pai (“God is our Father”) sits by the Tefé River in Brazil’s Amazonas state. As children play in a creek on a sunny afternoon, a…

COT GIREK, Indonesia — Saleh Kadri, a young farmer from Leubok Pusaka village in North Aceh district, was on his way to his plantation when he spotted eight elephants on…

Next month BirdLife International, a global partnership of 115 organizations working to protect birds and their habitats, will mark its 100th anniversary by holding the BirdLife World Congress in London.…

KATHMANDU – The Sherpa Indigenous community in Nepal has lived in the lap of the world’s tallest mountains for centuries. Ever since Sherpa mountaineer Tenzing Norgay and New Zealand climber…

Lawmakers in Brazil have approved a bill that allows extensive ranching and tourism in protected areas of the Pantanal, the world’s largest tropical wetland. The move by the legislature in…

DHAKA, Bangladesh — In the early hours of July 19, a herd of wild elephants came down from the hills to a crop field located in Rangunia, in Bangladesh’s Chattogram…

In this episode of the Mongabay Newscast, Brett Scott, author of Cloudmoney: Cash, Cards, Crypto and the War for our Wallets, gives a brief history of blockchain technology and cryptocurrency.…

COT GIREK, Indonesia — Junaidi, the leader of an elephant patrol team in this Sumatran village, has a daunting task. The large animals, with their forest habitat destroyed, often enter…

KATHMANDU — Thousands of farmers in Nepal's fertile southern plains, the country’s rice bowl, face a double whammy of a fertilizer shortage and inadequate monsoon rains. This is likely to…

The Iguaçu Falls, the largest in the world, sit on the border between Brazil and Argentina and are protected by national parks in both countries. Located in Brazil’s Paraná state,…

Ultra-strong fibers, multi-legged robots, pain relievers — all are human innovations inspired by spiders. Now, conservationists in Indonesia are rehabilitating coral reefs using what’s known as the coral spider technique.…