The military family that kept a pet orangutan in Indonesia
KABANJAHE, Indonesia — Zulbaidah used to take her family’s pet orangutan on road trips. He’d ride in the back with the kids. “He was like my own son,” the 55-year-old…
Anti-poaching News
Q&A with director of short film on The Black Mambas anti-poaching unit in South Africa
In 2016, filmmaker Dan Sadgrove went to South Africa to visit the world's first all-female anti-poaching unit, The Black Mambas, who operate in the Balule Nature Reserve. Last month, Sadgrove…
Increased use of snares in Southeast Asia driving extinction crisis, scientists warn
An extinction crisis is emerging in Southeast Asia due to an increase in snares that are wiping out wildlife in unprecedented numbers, according to an article published in the journal…
Innovative technology creates safe haven for rhinos
An innovative new technology might be able to protect rhinos like never before. Unveiled last week, the new system integrates a set of technologies — Wi-Fi, thermal cameras, biometrics, closed-circuit…
Off-the-shelf hobby drones are helping save elephants in Tanzania
A new study finds that small unmanned aerial vehicles — also known as UAVs or drones — can help reduce the kinds of human-wildlife conflict that often lead to the…
Elephant poaching costs African nations $25 million a year in lost tourism revenue
Every year, poachers kill around 30,000 African elephants for the illegal wildlife trade. The insatiable demand for ivory, mainly to supply Asian markets, has resulted in elephant population declines of…
China considers a huge national park for Amur tigers and leopards
t is rare to spot an Amur tiger (Panthera tigris altaica) in the wild, according to Yang Jun, director of the Hunchun Forestry Bureau’s wildlife protection department. However, on July…
Poaching in Africa becomes increasingly militarized
n January 29, a 37-year-old Englishman and ardent conservationist named Roger Gower was piloting a helicopter over Tanzania’s Maswa Game Reserve when he spotted the corpse. With safari guide Nick…
Calls for increased anti-poaching efforts to protect African forest elephants
An editorial published in Nature yesterday argues that more attention needs to be paid to anti-poaching efforts for African forest elephants due to their slow population growth and greater risk…
END LOOP: Coding to end wildlife trafficking
What’s coding got to do with conservation? The first ever Zoohackathon will convene this October 7-9 across six zoos in the US, Europe, Asia and Pacific. Organized by the US…
Can helping women achieve financial freedom help the environment, too?
raditional gender roles in the global south often involve men taking charge. So perhaps historic conservation efforts can be forgiven for neglecting an entire gender in looking to men as…
Three murders highlight troubles of Iran’s park rangers
ne June 23 Mohammad Dehqani and Parviz Hormozi, two park rangers with a combined 35 years on the job, were patrolling a nearly impassable section of southern Iran’s Geno Biosphere…
Can camera traps help stop wildlife crime?
Forest destruction and degradation have had a severe impact on biodiversity in the Asian tropics in recent decades, leading to the creation of several protected areas to help conserve threatened…
Two businessmen arrested for ivory trafficking
In an operation led by the Lusaka Agreement Task Force (LATF) between July 28 and August 2, wildlife enforcement teams arrested two businessmen in the Republic of Congo believed to…
Wildlife Law Enforcement in Sub-Saharan African Protected Areas: A Review of Best Practices
“Across Africa, illegal killing and trade in wildlife, especially of iconic species such as elephants and rhinos, has now reached crisis proportions. Illicit wildlife trafficking now comprises the fourth largest…
CITES proposals by African countries aim to end the ivory trade
Twenty-nine African countries are hoping to put an end to the ivory trade through a series of proposals to CITES that would grant African elephants the highest protections under international…
PHOTOS: On a Chinese mountain, an aging anti-poaching hero ponders the future
Other stories in Mongabay’s series on changing forest practices in China: China’s Wanglang panda reserve, once an ecotourism model, faces new threatsChinese villagers turn from logging to forest patrols, bees,…
e-Eye of the tiger: Complex surveillance system extends watch over India’s wildlife sanctuaries
A new set of eyes is keeping watch over tiger reserves across India. They're electronic, but they seem to have hawk-like observational faculties. And they may be related to how…
International treaty targeting illegal fishing takes effect
United Nations treaty aimed at preventing illegal fishing will enter into force this Sunday, June 5, with 29 countries and the European Union as parties to it. Illegal, unreported, and…
Now Swaziland has submitted a proposal to CITES to legalize trade in rhino horn
The southern African kingdom of Swaziland has filed an eleventh-hour proposal to legalize international trade in rhino horn, less than a week after South Africa abandoned a similar proposal. In…
Eavesdropping on Cameroon’s poachers to save endangered primates
ameroon’s Korup National Park is home to elephants, chimpanzees, red colobus monkeys, drill, and a myriad of noisy species, whose squawks, squeals and howls fill the forest air. For more…
Fiery end for the last of the toothfish pirates
aptain Siddharth Chakravarty said he tracked the Viking for two months before he could guess where it might go next. “We detected the ship and determined it was moving in…
Getting SMART about Wildlife Crime
From Laos to Belize, forest personnel use the Spatial Monitoring and Reporting Tool (SMART) to more efficiently anticipate and combat wildlife crime.
Thailand’s efforts to protect wild tigers starting to pay off, but recovery slower than expected
In 2005, the government of Thailand stepped up patrolling and law enforcement efforts to protect the country’s largest source population of wild tigers, in Huai Kha Khaeng Wildlife Sanctuary, which…
Forest rangers killed in Cambodia while patrolling for illegal loggers
Sieng Darong, a Forestry Administration ranger, and Sab Yoh, a police officer, were shot and killed while patrolling a protected forest in Cambodia on Saturday morning. A third ranger wounded…
Most wanted elephant poacher and ivory trafficker in Tanzania arrested
Tanzania’s most wanted elephant poacher, Boniface Matthew Mariango, referred to by law enforcement officials as “The Devil” (or “Shetani” in Kiswahili), has been arrested after a manhunt that lasted for…
U.S. House passes ‘Global Anti-Poaching Act’ that puts wildlife trafficking on par with drug and weapons trafficking
The U.S. government has stepped up its fight against wildlife trafficking. On Monday, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Global Anti-Poaching Act, which aims to “support global anti-poaching efforts, strengthen…
In defense of wildlife: the realities of using drones for anti-poaching
A security expert explains drones for different conservation missions.
How can conservationists match high-tech design with on-the-ground realities?
Wildlife poaching has grown in recent years to unprecedented levels and now threatens the existence of several iconic and ecological valuable species in Africa. Of these, the endangered white and…
Demystifying Drones: UAS’s in Wildlife Anti-Poaching Efforts
Despite the attention paid to the potential for drones to reduce wildlife crime, there are few data on their actual success in anti-poaching activities. Security expert Dr. Nir Tenenbaum gives a brief history and assessment of using drones for anti-poaching.
Special series
Forest Trackers
- Satellite data show bursts of deforestation continue in Indonesian national park
- Fires rip through Indigenous territories in Brazilian Amazon
- Monitoring group cracks down on deforestation in Cameroon gorilla sanctuary
- Western Kenya’s most important water-capturing forest is disappearing, satellites show
Oceans
- Conservationists see progress for swordfish, problems for sharks at Atlantic fisheries summit
- As tidal power rides a wave of clean energy optimism, pitfalls persist
- Plan for close season rings alarm bells for Liberia’s artisanal fishers
- Lab-grown corals resisted bleaching during Caribbean’s worst marine heat wave
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
- Brazil sets a date to remove illegal miners from Munduruku land, more details await
- Peruvian logger loses FSC label after latest clash with isolated Mashco Piro
- A national park and its rangers in Bolivia endure persisting road construction, illegal mining
- Can nations ever get artisanal gold mining right?
Endangered Environmentalists
- Vietnam sentences yet another energy expert over renewables research
- Mother Nature Cambodia activists sentenced to prison — again
- Mongabay video screening at Chile’s Supreme Court expected to help landmark verdict in Brazil
- Indonesian activist freed in hate speech case after flagging illegal shrimp farms
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
