Celine van Bijsterveldt and her team had traveled to Central Java’s mangrove forests to investigate efforts to restore them. But when the researchers saw plastic trash strewn throughout the swamps,…
After a series of coal-slurry spills into the Malinau River in Indonesian Borneo, locals and environmental groups are calling for tougher sanctions, and for national banks to divest from the…
Selangor, on the western coast of peninsular Malaysia is the country's most populous and prosperous state as well as one of its most highly urbanized. Amid this sprawl, just 25…
For the past several years, the Colombian Amazon has been hit harder by deforestation than any other region in the country, according to the Institute of Hydrology, Meteorology, and Environmental…
Indigenous communities in Latin America and the Caribbean have consistently asserted that they are the best guardians of their forests. Now, a recent U.N. report has mainstreamed this argument, adding…
Mongabay caught up with Igarapé Institute co-founder Robert Muggah this week to discuss Ecocrime, a new data visualization platform that combines visual storytelling with access to raw data on environmental crime…
MISAMIS ORIENTAL, Philippines — The southern Philippines is home to the world's rarest and most endangered crocodile species: the freshwater Philippine crocodile (Crocodylus mindorensis). After decades of sliding toward extinction,…
Consumption patterns, especially in wealthier countries, are eating away at forests in some of the world's most biodiverse regions. In the U.S., the thirst for coffee drives forest loss in…
At the start of 2021, Mongabay connected with Sjoerd Panhuysen, lead author of the biennial Coffee Barometer report for Ethos Agriculture, to discuss the present and future of sustainable coffee.…
Two new species of tiny screech owls from the Amazon and Atlantic rainforests in Brazil have been described by science. "They're cute little owls, probably five or six inches long…
It was 11:30 in the morning on Feb. 4 this year. A gray sky threatened heavy rains. Everything was calm as usual at the front gate of the Brejão Farm,…
Swarms of locusts tens of kilometers wide have threatened to devastate crops in East Africa since late 2019, putting some 32 million people at risk of going hungry. The desert…
In March 2020, a massive migration began when an international travel ban to curb COVID-19 brought Thailand’s tourism industry to a sudden halt. Elephant camps, which use more than 2,700…
March was a big month for Mongabay video, and we want to share some of the highlights from our latest global coverage. If you’re looking for what to watch in…
“It started when some people from the government came around the community telling us that we were illegally occupying the land,” Chhae Kimsrour said in June 2020. “I’ve lived here…
A recent investigation by Mongabay demonstrated that oil palm plantations in the Amazon do not appear to be ‘green’ as the Brazilian government terms them, but rather are associated with…
A forestry company in Gabon has built new roads to log a forest in the northeastern province of Ogooué-Ivindo. Villagers had applied to the government last August to reclassify this…
LAKE ALAOTRA, Madagascar — Madagascar’s environment minister, Baomiavotse Vahinala Raharinirina, celebrated World Wetlands Day last month by planting native reeds and sedges along the shore of sprawling Lake Alaotra in…
In 2012, researchers described a teensy, aspirin-sized chameleon, Brookesia nana, from a thin slice of rainforest in northern Madagascar. The species, which experts believe is the smallest reptile in the world, grabbed plenty…
As Earth continues to lose forests and biodiversity, many have called for an expansion of protected areas. But protected status is not a silver bullet. Designating land as a protected…
As the planet warms, it isn’t just humans who are feeling the heat — trees are too. Rising temperatures are disrupting a primary engine of life on Earth: photosynthesis. A…
So far, the Sumatran serow has eluded Pungky Nanda Pratama. Some villagers tell him the animal, a type of goat-antelope, sleeps in the trees hanging by its horns, or scales…
No one was sure exactly what near-term impact the global pandemic would have the world’s forests in 2020. Some expected lockdowns and economic shocks to dampen deforestation rates; others thought…
Stretching along the narrow spit of land that connects the Malay peninsula to the rest of mainland Southeast Asia, Myanmar’s Tanintharyi region is home to a confluence of animals and…
This past December marked the 5th anniversary of the landmark Paris Agreement. Soon after, the Biden Administration rejoined the Paris Agreement as one of their first actions in office. And…
More than a decade after the Planetary Boundaries framework was first proposed by top scientists, we are no closer to changing our destructive trajectory — but 2021 gives us three opportunities to act.
African swine fever is seeing a resurgence in Indonesia’s southern East Nusa Tenggara province, government officials say, undermining food security and fueling fears that the viral disease could jump to…
Rare camera trap video footage from Costa Rica’s Osa Peninsula captured a tense standoff: For several minutes, an ocelot stares, motionless, into the face of a coati. The coati, cornered…
PALAWAN, Philippines — In a span of six months, Philippine environmental authorities have seized 150 tons of giant clam shells from a string of operations across the island province of…
The science journal Biological Conservation published a special issue this month with a series of reports on the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on biodiversity. Among the articles selected is one by…