It’s time to redefine business to save the planet (commentary)
During the summer, we were submerged in a thick blanket of smoke in California. Being evacuated alongside thousands of others as fire does its undeniable thing gives one a lot…
California News
Philanthropist Wendy Schmidt: ‘Solutions are always local’
This week, scientists from James Cook University in Australia announced the discovery of a previously unknown detached coral reef in the Great Barrier Reef. It was the first new reef…
Public lands and parks are our common heritage: Bruce Babbitt
Until recently, protecting the environment was a bipartisan issue for Americans. But in an era marked by bitter divides, this is no longer the case. Bruce Babbitt, former governor of…
Can an art museum drive sustainability? Q&A with MOCA’s Klaus Biesenbach
Contemporary art may seem tangential to environmental concerns for many people, especially those who are active practitioners of conservation, but The Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in Los Angeles is…
‘Off the chart’: CO2 from California fires dwarf state’s fossil fuel emissions
California is burning with a ferocity never seen before in the Golden State. So far this year, fires have burned through more than 1.4 million hectares (3.4 million acres) of…
In California, forest fires spark a babel of birdsong, study shows
A group of researchers mapped the sounds of the hermit warbler and found that the diversity of sounds increased in areas that had been affected by forest fires.
Bubbles, lasers and robo-bees: The blossoming industry of artificial pollination
In an episode of the Netflix dystopian sci-fi show “Black Mirror,” artificial bees have been deployed to pollinate the world’s plants after a massive pollinator extinction. A great idea, until…
Western monarch butterfly numbers critically low for second straight year
Monarch butterfly populations are at a critical low, according to the annual Western Monarch Count in California. In the fall and winter, western monarchs (Danaus plexippus plexippus) stop to roost…
2019: The year rainforests burned
2019 closed out a "lost decade" for the world's tropical forests, with surging deforestation from Brazil to the Congo Basin, environmental policy roll-backs, assaults on environmental defenders, abandoned conservation commitments,…
Heat stress is causing desert bird populations to collapse
As the Mojave Desert in California and Nevada becomes hotter and drier, birds need more water to stay cool. Species that can’t get enough water are rapidly declining in this…
How bioacoustics can transform conservation – Wildtech event in Palo Alto
Satellites have revolutionized forest monitoring, but there remains a major gap in biodiversity monitoring in forests since scientists can't directly measure factors like hunting, sub-canopy fires, the impact of invasive…
New toolkit identifies multiple species from environmental DNA
Researchers from the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and CALeDNA have developed a toolkit designed to quickly identify the species in a biological community by simultaneously analyzing the environmental…
Crab season to be cut short in California to protect whales and turtles
Whales and sea turtles off the coast of California will have less time to contend with possible entanglements in crab fishing gear in 2019, after a one-and-a-half-year lawsuit settlement shortened…
A nature and reptile enthusiast’s Southern California love story (insider)
I grew up in Southern California, just north of Los Angeles, and spent time in nature consistently throughout my childhood. I credit the under-the-radar natural wonderland of Southern California, as…
Should Trump be listening to indigenous people on fire management?
It was only a tweet, but the U.S. President again this week used an inaccurate statement about forest management to make a broader political point: Forest managers and ecologists have…
How Mongabay grew from a guy in his pajamas to a multinational media organization (insider)
As I described in the origin story post, Mongabay had a very modest beginning. I never had any intention of making a living, let alone a career, out of running…
The biggest rainforest news stories in 2018
2018 was a difficult year for the world's tropical rainforests. Below are of some of the biggest rainforest storylines for the year, but we couldn't cover everything, so if there…
Photos highlight evolving roles of AI, citizen science in species research
On a midsummer evening earlier this year, Tracy Pham was on a walk along Huntington Beach, California, an outing she usually made to photograph birds. This time, along the way,…
Fire and agroforestry revive California indigenous groups’ traditions
ORLEANS, California — Frank Lake stoops beside a low-growing shrub, cups one hand beneath a cluster of cobalt berries and swiftly claps it to his mouth. The purple-lipped grin he flashes…
Satellites and citizen science pinpoint migratory bird refueling stops
The millions of waterbirds that migrate each spring from South America to as far as the Arctic can’t do it in one trip. They stop to rest and refuel several…
Forests and indigenous rights land $459M commitment
A group of 17 philanthropic foundations has committed at least $459 million through 2022 in support of land-based solutions to climate change — including forest conservation and restoration — and…
Aligning forces for tropical forests as a climate change solution (commentary)
As governors of tropical forest states and provinces descend upon San Francisco for the Global Climate Action Summit and the annual meeting of the Governors’ Climate and Forests Task Force,…
Climate leadership means keeping fossil fuels in the ground in tropical forests and beyond (commentary)
Protecting tropical forests is key to mitigating climate change. When California Governor Jerry Brown convenes the Global Climate Action Summit next week, he should seize the opportunity to make an…
An anti-poaching technology for elephants that is always listening
Working under cover of night in parks as large as US states, poachers are skilled in avoiding detection. If they kill with silencers on their rifles, the animal’s death is…
California’s big climate change opportunity: tropical forests (commentary)
California Governor Jerry Brown has done nearly everything within his reach to solve climate change. When he hosts the Global Climate Action Summit in San Francisco in September, he can…
Scientists call on California governor to OK carbon credits from forest conservation
A group of prominent scientists is calling on California governor Jerry Brown to incorporate tropical forest conservation into the state's cap-and-trade regulation ahead of next month's Global Climate Action Summit,…
Backfire: How misinformation about wildfire harms climate activism (commentary)
When large wildfires in the forests of the western United States generate dramatic headlines, it can be particularly tempting for climate activists to adopt negative messages about wildfire and link…
Let there be light — but be mindful of the wildlife
Lighten up We’ve all seen insects fly toward light. Moths, for example, use moonlight to stay upright, fly straight, and remain oriented at night. Other groups of animals, including various…
eDNA may offer an early warning signal for deadly frog pathogen
When Colleen Kamoroff and her graduate advisor Caren Goldberg collected water samples to look for the DNA of non-native fish species, they could not have guessed the potential importance of…
How to build a Guardian: students learn about making technology work in the field
Hundreds of students from science and technology programs around the city of Los Angeles, California have begun participating in a hands-on effort to apply ingenuity and technology to protect the…
Videos unlock secrets of jellyfish as deep-sea killers
Scientists have for the first time captured extensive visual documentation of predation events that underpin deep-sea food webs. The research, which relies on hundreds of video observations captured over nearly…
Jane Goodall interview: ‘The most important thing is sharing good news’
This week’s podcast featured a discussion between Mongabay’s founder and CEO Rhett A. Butler and Jane Goodall, the world’s most recognizable conservationist and one of this media outlet’s esteemed advisory…
Special series
Forest Trackers
- 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
- Fires rip through Indigenous territories in Brazilian Amazon
Oceans
- Southeast Asia’s fisheries thrive despite decades of overfishing warnings: Study
- Peruvian fishers sue for additional compensation after big December oil spill
- Smuggling networks exploit migrant debt to fuel tiger poaching in Malaysia, study shows
- Community-based conservation cuts thresher shark fishing by 91% in Indonesia: Study
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
- ‘Colombia’s Amazon peoples provide solutions’: Interview with José Homero Mutumbajoy
- Should mining companies consider no-go zones where isolated Indigenous peoples live? (Commentary)
- 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
Endangered Environmentalists
- 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
- Mother Nature Cambodia activists sentenced to prison — again
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
