NOUADHIBOU, Mauritania — On a busy weekday, the coastal strip of Bountiya in Nouadhibou, Mauritania’s second-biggest city, is eerily quiet. This was once the beating heart of the West African…
There are around 60,000 known tree species in the world, and they can do amazing things: store carbon, provide people with food and firewood, shelter creatures big and small, and…
Conservation often presents itself as a technical enterprise: how much land to protect, which species to prioritize, what policies deliver results. A recent paper in Nature argues that this framing…
CAPE TOWN — Western leopard toads have been listed as endangered since 2016. Andrew Turner, scientific manager for CapeNature, the government body that manages protected areas and conservation in South…
After facing sustained pushback from environmental groups, Ghana revoked a 2022 law that had empowered the president to allow mining in the country’s forest reserves. In December, the Minister for…
Between 2000 and 2023, more than 6,000 African primates were traded internationally in 50 countries, according to a newly published report. Endangered chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and critically endangered western gorillas…
The death of a well-known wild animal is an odd kind of news. It is intimate, because so many people feel they have met the creature through photographs and video.…
In 2018, researchers from Bat Conservation International, Cameroon's University of Maroua and the American Museum of Natural History entered abandoned mining tunnels in Guinea’s Nimba Mountains as part of an…
KILWA, Tanzania — For some fishers in Tanzania’s Kilwa district who were among the first to receive fishing boats under a government-sponsored program, the vessels are proving to be a…
From the shores of Sanita Kitole’s quiet coastal town of Uyombo in southern Kenya, one can see dolphins bobbing in the water from time to time. The environmental activist has…
The world’s most expensive plant, saffron, is as delicate as it is valuable. Each purple flower blooms for less than three weeks a year, and only its three tiny, fragile…
The history of conservation in West Africa is often written as a record of loss: wildlife depleted, institutions stretched thin, and well-intended projects undone by conflict or poverty. Less often…
The story of the world’s tropical forests in 2025 was not one of dramatic reversal, but one shaped by accumulated pressure. In several regions, deforestation slowed. In others, loss continued…
The agriculture sector’s adaptation to climate change in Africa remains severely underfunded, say stakeholders after the U.N. climate talks came to a conclusion in November 2025. Despite an increase in…
Many observers see industrialization as the key to boosting clean electricity access for people living in Africa and across the Global South. They argue that building up economies with industry…
Founder's Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries. In recent years, one of the loudest ideas in environmental policy has been…
BONTHE, Sierra Leone — On the island of Sherbro in Sierra Leone, as in much of the country, there’s limited access to vital services needed to make ends meet. “Here…
Founder's Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries. In much of Africa, conservation is discussed in the language of landscapes and…
Abijata-Shalla National Park, ETHIOPIA — Under the scorching midday sun in the upper catchment of Ethiopia’s Abijata-Shalla National Park, a local youth group toils along the edges of a deep…
Protected areas (PAs) are cornerstones of global biodiversity conservation strategy, yet their social impacts remain contentious. The prevailing narrative often pits global benefits, like biodiversity protection and carbon sequestration, against…
Elephants are considered a sacred totem by many in northwestern Zimbabwe, but they also frequently raid villagers’ crops near harvest time, says Agripa Ngorima, who has studied attitudes toward conservation…
As anti-poaching techniques have improved over the years, poachers have increasingly used technology to evade detection by patrols and park rangers. Now, conservationists are rising to the challenge of the…
Dominique Bikaba’s family was once displaced from vibrant rainforests in the Congo Basin to make way for a sweeping national park. Today, a conservationist who also champions the protection of…
In the vast savanna grasslands of sub-Saharan Africa towers the giraffe, draped in mosaics of brown and tan patches. Long regarded as a single species, this iconic African megafauna was…
A 22-year-old woman is the subject of celebration after she hugged a tree continuously for 72 hours amid fluctuating temperatures and rainfall on the foot of Mount Kenya. Truphena Muthoni’s…
Southeast Asia’s Mekong River is one of the world’s most diverse and productive freshwater ecosystems, home to more than 1,000 fish species, including both the critically endangered Mekong giant catfish…
A study published in Nature Reviews Biodiversity in September describes the extensive environmental toll of mining for minerals needed for a transition to green energy. The direct, site-level impacts are…
For Mariame Condé, the seed-collecting work came at a critical time. In January 2022, she was pregnant and nearly out of food. Her husband had left their village to search…
Across many parts of Africa’s Atlantic coastline, the sea is advancing several metres inland each year, destroying homes, infrastructure, farmland and heritage sites. Many coastal communities have already been erased…
Pastoralists in rural Tanzania have been recognized globally for applying a blend of local knowledge and new technology in efforts to restore degraded land and provide pasture. The community-led project…
BWEYEYE, Rwanda — Josephine Irandwanahafi sits in a small, musty provisions shop off the main road in Bweyeye, a border town that marks the entrance from southern Rwanda into Burundi.…
MONROVIA — In Liberia, a country where small-scale fishers number in the tens of thousands, fishers go missing at sea every year. Some, like a crew of four rescued 54…
