Photos: Top new species from 2025
The world still holds its secrets. Hidden under wet rocks, in the ocean's twilight crevices, and in the minutiae of the genetic code are creatures unknown and unnamed by the…
Angola News
Scientists chart a new source, and length, for Africa’s famous Zambezi River
A new study suggests that the Zambezi River, Africa’s fourth-longest, is 11% longer than previously thought, with its most distant source lying in Angola, not Zambia. While the finding leaves…
Discovery of dazzling blue butterfly underscores peril facing Angola’s forests
Francis’s gorgeous sapphire — a new-to-science species of butterfly — has just been described in the high-altitude evergreen forests of western Angola. The identification of Iolaus francisi, with its shimmering…
Pandemic-era slump in ivory and pangolin scale trafficking persists, report finds
A recent report surveying seizures of pangolin scales and elephant ivory over the past decade has found a sharp decline following the COVID-19 pandemic. Using data from media reports, public…
26 elephants from Namibia moved to Angola’s only private conservation area
Cuatir Conservation Area, ANGOLA — On Sept. 2, a team from Namibia’s Okonjati Game Reserve completed the last of four arduous translocations, taking a total of 26 elephants across the…
Jumbo collaring effort reveals key elephant movement corridors
The first time Robin Naidoo mapped GPS data points to track elephant movement in Southern Africa, he was in for a surprise. Across the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA), one…
Meet the Miombo, the largest forest you’ve never heard of
Growing up in the village of Domboshava in central Zimbabwe, Edwin Tambara, the African Wildlife Foundation’s director of global leadership, recalls how the surrounding Miombo woodland was a pharmacy, hardware…
As southern African freshwater fish & fisheries struggle, collaboration is key (commentary)
Scientists, communities and government officials from five African countries agree that the freshwater fish stocks in the Kavango and Zambezi River systems are in severe trouble. Delegates representing all three…
All conservation is local: Interview with Angolan conservationist Kerllen Costa
MOUNT MOCO, Angola — Kerllen Costa was raised in Angola with a love of nature and the outdoors. He started his career by volunteering on an Angolan sea turtle conservation…
Tracing Africa’s ‘fading biological fingerprints’ in Angola’s threatened forests
MOUNT MOCO, Angola — “Another one incoming,” shouts ornithologist Michael Mills to his colleague crouching a few meters away on the flanks of Mount Moco, Angola’s highest mountain. “Oh heck,…
A forest restoration project brings birdsong back to Angola’s highest mountain
MOUNT MOCO, Angola — On the slopes of Angola’s highest mountain stands the gray jagged stump of a once mighty tree. It’s the remnant of a Guinea plum (Parinari excelsa),…
Analysis of largest elephant surveys ever shows stable population, but disturbing trends
Ten years ago, says Mike Chase, the Kavango Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area was one fluid contiguous elephant habitat. “An elephant could be in Botswana in the morning, midday in Zimbabwe…
Count, connect, conserve: Southern Africa elephant survey points the way (commentary)
In the more than 10 years since Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe signed a 2011 treaty to create the Kavango Zambezi (KAZA) Transfrontier Conservation Area – the world’s largest…
New study pushes for protection of one of Africa’s ‘least understood treasures’
The Indigenous residents of the highlands of southeastern Angola have long lived there with a light touch. Ironically, with the end of the country’s civil war and the slow return…
Forests & finance: Fears for forests in Angola, flashes of hope from Kenya & Ghana
Ghanaian researchers diligently working to save two endangered tree species Ghanaian scientists are cultivating seedlings of two critically endangered tree species while searching forests across the country for surviving Talbotiella…
Forests & Finance: Wood export bans and short-staffed regulators
Uganda announces ban on timber exports KAMPALA — The Ugandan government has banned the export of timber from the East African country. In a directive issued at the end of…
Fires threaten Afromontane forests’ ‘whole new world’: Q&A with Martim Melo
Afromontane forests occur at high altitudes across Africa. They’re thought to be relics of former glacial periods in Africa. Studying genetic data from birds living in these moist temperate forests,…
Forests & finance: Protection and restoration in Cameroon and Senegal, fire threat in Angola
‘New world’ in Angola’s relic forests threatened by fires: scientists NAMBA MOUNTAINS, Angola — Remote pockets of species-rich afromontane forest in Angola’s Namba Mountains will be lost if nothing is…
CAPS, new gas megaproject, aims to power Central Africa, but at what cost, critics ask
More than 60% of people in Central Africa have no access to electricity. An ambitious proposal aims to change that with a network of pipelines, refineries and gas-fired power plants…
Study: Online trade in arachnids threatens some species with extinction
When John Midgley dug a golden brown tarantula out of its burrow in the remote woodlands of southeastern Angola, he felt he had found “one of the most astonishing animals…
Protecting the peatlands and woodlands in Angola’s ‘source of life’
It’s a stunning landscape with a prophetic name: Lisima lya mwono, or “the source of life” as it’s known in the language of the local Luchazi people. But that’s not…
The mine leak was bad. The DRC and Angola’s response are no better, report says
The July 2021 rupture of a tailings dam at a diamond mine in Angola killed off much of the aquatic life in the Lova, Tshikapa and Kasai rivers. Twelve people…
An environmental ‘catastrophe’ in Southern Africa lingers with few answers
What happens when an environmental catastrophe takes place in an isolated area at the periphery of the world’s attention? The last six weeks in the Democratic Republic of Congo and…
Toxic spill at Angola diamond mine pollutes Congo River tributary in DRC
On Aug. 12, authorities in the Democratic Republic of Congo's Kasaï province noticed the Kasai River had turned red. Witnesses said the bodies of hippos and dead fish were seen…
Angola pledges $60m to fund landmine clearance in national parks
The Angolan government has pledged $60 million to clear landmines in two national parks that form part of southern Africa’s highly biodiverse Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area. The country’s environment minister,…
New species of skink from Angola has waited over 70 years to be described
Researchers have finally described a new species of skink from Angola, specimens of which have lurked on museum shelves for more than 70 years. Belgian herpetologist Raymond Laurent first suspected that…
180 years of herps: Q&A with Luis Ceríaco on Angola’s atlas of life
All the amphibian and reptile species that have ever been recorded in Angola have now been included in a comprehensive atlas. Covering published records from 1840 to 2017, the atlas…
Tracking elephant movements reveals transboundary wildlife corridors
Data from satellite tracking tags deployed on elephants in Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and along the border of Angola and Zimbabwe have revealed that the Kavango Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA…
Earless African pygmy toad discovered on remote mountain in Angola
In 2016, a group of researchers set out to explore Serra da Neve Inselberg, an isolated mountain and Angola’s second-highest peak, in search of frogs and toads. Now, they have described…
This new primate is a ‘giant’ among tiny bush babies
In the forests of north-western Angola, scientists have discovered a new species of primate -- a greyish-brown dwarf galago or bushbaby, larger than all previously known dwarf galagos. The newly…
Measuring the Heartbeat of the Delta
Traversing the Okavango Delta with NatGeo explorers to bring the beauty and wonder of the African wetland wilderness to the public through open-source and real-time data.
Big increase in little farms is whittling away Angola’s woodlands
New research finds that an increasing demand for agricultural land and a growing population could change the structure and composition of the embattled African country's remaining southeastern forests.
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
- Methane chasers: Hunting a climate-changing gas seeping from Earth’s seafloor
- Scientists call for stronger action to save Indonesia’s vanishing seagrass meadows
- Antarctic conservation summit closes with stalemate on MPAs & krill fishing rules
- Norway’s proposal to double krill harvests raises tension at Antarctic conservation summit
Amazon Conservation
- ‘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
- ‘We need white men on our side to save the Amazon from destruction,’ 92-year-old Indigenous Chief Raoni says
Land rights and extractives
- Lithium mining may threaten a precious resource — water: Voices from the land (commentary)
- Indigenous guardians successfully keep extractives out of Ecuador’s Amazon forests
- Amid Venezuela’s illegal gold heist are armed groups, gangs & elites, report says
- Indigenous women in Peru use technology to protect Amazon forests
Endangered Environmentalists
- 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
- Vietnam sentences yet another energy expert over renewables research
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
- 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
- Small farmers in limbo as Cambodia wavers on Tonle Sap conservation rules
