The following is Mongabay’s annual recap of major tropical rainforest storylines. This year, the list is more concise than in the past. Previous year-in-reviews: 2022 | 2021 | 2020 |…
Southeast Asia is home to the third-largest expanse of tropical rainforest in the world, making it a pivotal region for global efforts to address the biodiversity crisis and climate change.…
KATHMANDU — Nepal’s much-lauded achievement of nearly tripling its tiger population between 2010 and 2022 made headlines all over the world. Officials hailed the milestone as proof that with concerted…
JAKARTA — Since its inception in 2017, the Jakarta-based Sustainable District Association, or LTKL, has brought together district governments and other stakeholders to take collective action toward greater sustainability, mainly…
Once roaming across Southeast Asia, the Javan rhino today persists on a single peninsula off the western-most coast of Java in Indonesian. There, in Ujung Kulon National Park, around 70…
As 2023 draws to a close, so, too, does the first full year of Mongabay’s Conservation Reporting Fellowships. Launched at a time of unprecedented planetary upheaval, the program aims to…
On Oct. 17, a mugger crocodile (Crocodylus palustris), also zoologically known as a marsh crocodile, was recovered from the Bhubaneswar River in Bangladesh’s south-central Faridpur district, creating much excitement among…
KATHMANDU — A rich diversity of life abounds across Nepal, from iconic big cats like the tiger and the snow leopard, to less celebrated creatures like vultures and macaques. And…
JAKARTA — Kuntoro Mangkusubroto was a rare breed of Indonesian bureaucrat: a visionary policy leader with a love for nature, someone who for decades built bridges between environmentalists and Indigenous…
With its iconic skylines and waterfront vistas, Singapore is today a bustling city-state with one of the highest population densities in the world. Two centuries ago, before the British chose…
KATHMANDU — A year after nearly tripling its population of tigers (Panthera tigris) in just 12 years, Nepal’s conservation authorities and stakeholders decided in 2023 to change their approach from…
In 1862, German naturalist Eduard von Martens was part of a multiyear expedition to what was known then as the Far East. That July, he found himself in a fish…
TACLOBAN, Philippines — “I can’t walk but I can fish,” says 68-year old Rodolfo Deliva, a lifelong fisherman. For nearly two decades he’s relied on his crutches to get around…
The world’s two worst nuclear accidents, in Ukraine and Japan, along with the human exclusion zones around them, are informing scientists about radiation effects, and how ecosystems evolve with less pressure from people.
Nepal’s community forestry program has been hailed as a success for helping increase the country’s forest cover from 26% to 45% in 25 years. As part of the program, pioneered…
PHNOM PENH — Two new hydropower dams approved by Cambodian authorities on Nov. 21 look set to bring further fragmentation to the dense rainforests of the Cardamom Mountains. If built…
While attending a recent United Nations forum, Toto, a Lao environmental activist, had an opportunity to meet with a U.N. special rapporteur in person. In the end, he decided not…
LIMBUNG, Indonesia — Sarijan struggled to understand why they had come to arrest him. His mother tongue was Javanese, and he could parse only bits and pieces of Indonesian as…
JAKARTA — The Indonesian government has postponed the enforcement of a new fisheries policy that drew little support from fishers and widespread criticism from experts and watchdogs. The quota-based fisheries…
LOMBOK, Indonesia — Suhardi, 43, glides across a technicolor coral garden. Freediving down to the seafloor, he scoops up a handful of sand that he sprinkles over the reef. The…
LIMBUNG, Indonesia — Tall brush has taken over the land that Sarijan farmed for decades here on the island of Borneo. At the height of Indonesia’s 2019 wildfire crisis, the…
VERDE ISLAND, Philippines — Working together to lift an outrigger from the clear, teal water onto a white sand beach, a group of fishers had just returned home to Verde…
JAKARTA — A coalition of civil organizations has launched a tool to support local NGOs and community groups in Southeast Asia to secure financing for nature-based solutions projects. The tool…
PHNOM PENH — “This book won’t stop deforestation, but it can show what’s at stake, what we will lose if we lose Prey Lang,” said Nerea Turreira-Garcia, assistant professor at…
As the government of Laos continues to prioritize a hydropower-heavy agenda to generate export revenues while striving toward greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets, it may be overlooking soaring carbon emissions…
JAKARTA — Most of the habitat of the Javan hawk-eagle is protected, but threats of forest degradation and isolation loom over the surviving population of Indonesia’s national bird, a new…
The sand cat is small, elusive and adapted to life in some of Earth’s most inhospitable deserts — that makes it hard to study and conserve, with lots of unknowns about its behaviors and populations across its range.
JAKARTA — Environmental activists have slammed one of Indonesia’s biggest palm oil producers for a report that they say glosses over its alleged violations and ignores concerns raised by local…
IIJIMA, Japan – Since the last ice age, a butterfly species called the Reverdin’s blue (Plebejus argyrognomon, known as miyamashijimi in Japanese), has survived in the nation’s grasslands maintained by…
JAKARTA — Indigenous people in Indonesia’s easternmost South Papua province have lambasted a court’s decision to reject their lawsuit that seeks to overturn an environmental permit for a palm oil…