Environmental headlines

September 24 marks World Gorilla Day, when humanity celebrates one of its closest relatives, sharing 98 percent of our DNA as we do, plus we also have a common ancestor…

The most popular stories from our Spanish-language service, Mongabay-Latam, followed trafficking of jaguar parts in Peru and Bolivia, a strategy to limit cattle ranches in Colombia, and liberated macaws in…

MEDELLIN, Colombia — Keeping an eye on what is going on out in the vast countryside of Colombia’s palm oil plantations is a challenge. But that may be about to…

Every year, millions of baby birds leave the security of their nests, flying off into the uncertainty of the outside world. A single chick’s fledging takes just a moment, and…

The London-based Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) is sounding the alarm over what it calls a “shadowy agreement” made by the Myanmar government to allow the logging and export of 5,000…

Tropical forests People settled Madagascar thousands of years before previously thought, meaning the island’s first human inhabitants didn’t cause the extinction of the elephant bird (Science Magazine). Nestlé, one of…

Marine ecologists have described a bright-red species of coral from Panama that’s new to science. The researchers found the coral growing at a depth of 45 to 50 meters (148…

Researchers say they have discovered the conditions that determine whether deep soil acts as a source of carbon emissions, releasing heat-trapping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, or as a sink,…

JAKARTA — Indigenous rights activists in Indonesia have expressed concern that the government is stalling the passage of a long-awaited bill on indigenous rights by tangling the legislative process in…

When it comes to the multi-billion dollar global illegal wildlife trafficking market, security experts note a "threat convergence" where trafficking and organized crime meet. Because of that convergence, trafficking in illegal…

This is the first article in our four-part series “The Rhino Debacle." It’s hardly the most likely place to meet a Sumatran rhino. But as you enter Zimmer Hall at…

Around 40,000 African elephants are illegally killed for their tusks every year. But catching ivory poachers, and successfully convicting them, has remained incredibly hard. In 2016, for instance, Kenyan businessman…

Indonesian President Joko Widodo has signed a moratorium on new licenses for oil palm plantations. The presidential instruction, signed on Sept. 19, will remain in place for no more than…

PALEMBANG, Indonesia — For those worried about the plight of the Sumatran tiger, of which only a few hundred remain, concern typically flows from a sense that all life is…

New research finds that the mass bleaching event that led to the death of 30 percent of shallow-water corals on the Great Barrier Reef in 2016 also had a substantial…

Turtles were once a tough group of animals. Sea turtles survived the extinction event that wiped out the dinosaurs some 65 million years ago. But the modern descendants of this…

Traditional communities in Brazil’s savannah, lacking land deeds, have been displaced by large-scale soy growers, and forced to resettle in impoverished cities like Campos Lindos.

MAUMERE, Indonesia — A newly inaugurated governor in Indonesia has called a time-out on mining in his province, citing a lack of benefits for residents from the extractive industry. “We…

Insects already eat between 5 and 20 percent of the most important grain crops produced around the world — and new research finds that they could be responsible for even…

On this episode, we take a look at how the social sciences can boost conservation efforts. Listen here:   Our guest is Diogo Verissimo, a Postdoctoral Fellow with the University…