Thai court rules gold mine liable, but villagers face uncertain justice
BAN KHAO MO, Thailand — On March 24, 2026, residents of this small community achieved a landmark legal victory. Ten years into a class action suit against the Chatree gold…
American Samoa said ‘no’ to deep sea mining, Washington heard ‘faster’ (commentary)
At 7:45 a.m. one recent January day in American Samoa, a delegation from Greenpeace and Pacific Island partners sat in a small radio studio explaining why we had traveled thousands…
A ‘big book’ documenting Cameroon’s sharks & rays fills critical conservation gap
BUEA, Cameroon — To his fishing peers, Ojah Alfred, 45, is a fisher like they are. But to Cameroon’s scientific community, he is also a scientist — a citizen scientist.…
Working together, Indigenous peoples & researchers describe new Amazonian palm
In 2025, botanists Rodrigo Cámara-Leret and Juan Carlos Copete embarked on a two-hour boat ride down the Vaupés River in the Colombian Amazon, followed by a two-hour hike to the…
‘Sharing is off the table’ as drought reshapes the culture of Ethiopia’s pastoralists
JIJIGA, Ethiopia — The land here used to speak. At dawn in Kebribeyah district, Somali Regional State, eastern Ethiopia, the plains stretch wide beneath a pale sky, with dusty shades…
State fishing village plan in Indonesian Papua sparks Indigenous opposition
Indigenous leaders in Indonesia’s South Papua province have rejected a government plan to build a state-backed fishing settlement on their ancestral land, highlighting growing tensions between national development programs and…
Oil surge sharpens calls for Indonesia to shift away from fossil fuels
JAKARTA — As the U.S.-Israel war on Iran drives oil prices above $100 a barrel and disrupts global supply routes, Indonesia is once again confronting the costs of its dependence…
What ‘paper parks’ reveal about the limits of conservation policy (commentary)
Conservation has no shortage of ambitious policy. Marine protected areas now cover roughly 8% of the world’s oceans. Protected lands account for nearly a fifth of the planet’s terrestrial surface.…
An invasive guava is muscling out Madagascar’s forests — and lemurs are helping
Madagascar is renowned for its lemurs, which are threatened due to hunting and deforestation. Restoring native forests to ensure their survival is critical, but once damaged, forests in Madagascar are…
Peru-Brazil Bioceanic Railway brings too much risk to the Amazon, experts warn
The idea of a railway line stretching across the width of South America — from Peru on the Pacific coast to Brazil on the Atlantic — has gained steam since…
Indonesia reviews firms in river basins after latest floods affect 7% of Bornean province
BANJAR, Indonesia – Indonesia’s government continues to review mines and plantations in the river basins of southern Borneo, months after more than 7% of the population there was impacted by…
‘Ancient’ carbon venting from lakes in the Congo Basin peatlands: Study
Across the central Congo Basin lies a bastion of carbon that scientists are just beginning to understand. First mapped only about a decade ago, the Cuvette Centrale peatlands are the…
With high seas treaty in place, West African countries plan for protected area
With the High Seas Treaty coming into force in January, efforts to establish protected areas in the marine spaces that lie beyond countries’ jurisdiction are gaining momentum — including one…
Conservation depends on rangers. Their wellbeing is often an afterthought
The gunfire began just before six in the morning. At first, Christine Lain thought it might be a drill. Upemba National Park had run exercises like this before. Rangers…
Decades after poaching drove them extinct, rhinos are back in the wild in Uganda
Forty-three years after the last free-ranging rhinos were seen in the country, the Uganda Wildlife Authority has welcomed four southern white rhinos to Kidepo Valley National Park, in the country’s…
In Peru, Indigenous women work to save an ancestral potato from disappearance
Kashiri, the Moon, saw the young woman through a window. The celestial body descended from the sky and found her eating soil molded into the shape of a tubercle. “What…
Sri Lanka sweats in scorching heat, but reasons ‘unlikely due to El Niño’
COLOMBO — Amid the hustle and bustle of Pettah, one of the busiest marketplaces in the Colombo district, Sri Lanka’s commercial region, Sandya Jayasekara was busy cutting king coconuts…
Singapore resort said to halt controversial dolphin sourcing, breeding
SINGAPORE — The Resorts World Sentosa casino and entertainment complex in Singapore has halted sourcing dolphins from the wild for its aquarium, Mongabay has learned. The resort’s Oceanarium has also…
As traditional forest governance erodes in Peru, ‘ghost permits’ fill the vacuum
HONORIA, Peru — Jacqueline Flores sits cross-legged on a wooden platform inside a dim Asháninka maloca, the Indigenous longhouse where her dress, painted with geometric patterns, seems to merge with…
Marine flyways are the missing map we can use to boost seabird conservation (commentary)
Last week, governments, conservationists and civil society from around the world gathered in Brazil for the 15th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Migratory Species (CMS-15). In a…
Asia now hub of growing illegal wildlife trade across 100+ countries, study shows
Wildlife trade is decimating the planet’s biodiversity, driving declines in more than 31,500 wild species and spreading infectious zoonotic diseases that jump between wildlife, livestock and humans. In addition to…
Koala on the road? AI signs could alert drivers in real time
A new AI-powered camera system could potentially make road crossings less of a nightmare for koalas. Scientists have developed a camera that can be incorporated into smart road signs to…
Global warming already impacts daily lives around the globe, study finds
As a grueling March heat wave batters the U.S. West with dangerous temperatures, and the world girds itself for what could be another sizzling record-smashing Super El Niño, a team…
Brazilian settlers turn to reforestation in ambitious land recovery plan
PONTAL DO PARANAPANEMA, Brazil — Sugarcane fields undulate across the landscape as a line of water stretches to the horizon. We travel along a dirt road in western São Paulo,…
Local conservationists sustain research on threatened heron amid Myanmar instability
Community-led bird surveys have confirmed that one of the world’s most threatened bird species, the white-bellied heron, still survives in northern Myanmar’s Kachin state. As few as 50 mature white-bellied…
Traditional protection proves more successful for clams in American Samoa
For coastal Indigenous communities in American Samoa, giant clams are deeply rooted in fa‘a Sāmoa (the Samoan way of life) and local food systems. According to the findings of a…
Extinction—or just unseen? What Centinela reveals about biodiversity data gaps
In 1991, botanists Calaway Dodson and Alwyn Gentry advanced a striking proposition. Surveying a rapidly deforested ridge in western Ecuador, they suggested that dozens of plant species known only from…
Open-air markets: hotspots for a lethal virus infecting macaws and parrots
In October 2025, environmental officers arrived unannounced at the Parangaba Fair that takes place every Sunday in Fortaleza, in northeastern Brazil. The market, also known as the Bird Fair, had…
A South African reserve shows how carbon can catalyze rewilding conservation
TSWALU KALAHARI RESERVE, South Africa — From high on a promontory in the Korannaberg Mountains, a mountain zebra (Equus zebra hartmannae) peers down to the west across the green-dappled plain…
Investigation of permit violations in South Africa’s shark fishery pending
Following an October 2025 Mongabay report of the shark fishing vessel Zanette violating the conditions of its permit to catch endangered sharks, the South African Department of Forestry, Fisheries and…
Climate change tests Nepal’s wild and domesticated yaks
KATHMANDU — In the rugged mountains of the Dolpo region in western Nepal, Youngdung Jhama Lama spent her childhood herding nagton (domesticated yaks) across the vast alpine pastures. Two decades…
In Nepal, calls for reform grow louder in buffer zones
BARDIYA, Nepal — Mewa Lal Pulami, along with other residents from his village on the fringes of Banke National Park in western Nepal, abstained from voting in the recent parliamentary…
Special series
Forest Trackers
- Satellite data show burst of deforestation in Myanmar rare earth mining hotspots
- Narco airstrips beset Indigenous communities in Peruvian Amazon
- 15 illegal narco-trafficking airstrips found near Peru Indigenous communities
- Satellite data show bursts of deforestation continue in Indonesian national park
Oceans
- New strategy to reverse Kenya’s shark decline tries to bring fishers on board
- Mongabay shark meat exposé wins national journalism education award in Brazil
- Indigenous concerns surface as U.S. agency considers seabed mining in Alaskan waters
- Methane chasers: Hunting a climate-changing gas seeping from Earth’s seafloor
Amazon Conservation
- Researchers eye jaguar conservation wins under Brazil Indigenous stewardship project
- ‘World’s largest’ carbon credit deal in the Amazon faces bumpy road ahead
- New conservation model calls for protecting Amazon for its archaeological riches
- Brazil dredges Amazon rivers to ease drought isolation, raising environmental concerns
Land rights and extractives
- As traditional forest governance erodes in Peru, ‘ghost permits’ fill the vacuum
- What’s happening with the global treaty to trace critical minerals?
- In the race for DRC’s critical minerals, community forests are on the frontline
- Lithium mining may threaten a precious resource — water: Voices from the land (commentary)
Endangered Environmentalists
- José Albino Cañas Ramírez, a defender of Indigenous territories, aged 44
- A killing with precedent: Kaiowá man’s murder fits a pattern in Brazil
- Environmental & rights activists flee and hide as M23 captures DRC’s cities
- Environmental journalist in Cambodia shot and killed by suspected logger
Indonesia's Forest Guardians
- On a Borneo mountainside, Indigenous Dayak women hold fire and defend forest
- Fenced in by Sulawesi national park, Indigenous women make forestry breakout
- In Borneo, the ‘Power of Mama’ fight Indonesia’s wildfires with all-woman crew
- Pioneer agroforester Ermi, 73, rolls back the years in Indonesia’s Gorontalo
Conservation Effectiveness
- How effective is the EU’s marquee policy to reduce the illegal timber trade?
- How sharing and learning from failures can transform conservation (commentary)
- Is planting trees as good for the Earth as everyone says?
- Failure in conservation projects: Everyone experiences it, few record it
Southeast Asian infrastructure
- Flores’ geothermal ambitions collide with justice, culture & local resistance
- An ‘ocean grab’ for a property megaproject leaves Jakarta fishers grounded
- Study: Indonesia’s new capital city threatens stable proboscis monkey population
- Indonesia’s new capital ‘won’t sacrifice the environment’: Q&A with Nusantara’s Myrna Asnawati Safitri
