In 2002, a couple vacationing in Costa Rica, stunned by deforestation there, bought land and regrew a transitional cloud forest — a grassroots model worth emulating: Part two of a three-part Mongabay mini-series on island habitat restoration.
David Suzuki was one of the first voices to call for action to curb climate change, but he is probably best known as a broadcaster and prolific author of 52…
Two musical instrument makers wanted to save Hawai‘i’s rare koa tree. In the process, they restored a tropical forest on the slopes of the Big Island’s Mauna Loa volcano. Part one of a three-part Mongabay mini-series on island habitat restoration.
Ancient forest fires seem to have played a role in enhancing resistance to drought in the Amazon, a recent study suggests. The research, published in Frontiers in Forests and Global…
The dry season of 2015 was a devastating one for Indonesia, with around 100,000 fires engulfing thousands of hectares of tropical rainforests and carbon-rich peatlands on the islands of Sumatra,…
Marine heat waves have led to widespread population declines of Australian shallow reef species, particularly those associated with temperate reefs, new research suggests. In a new study published in Nature,…
KISUMU, Kenya — It is a little past 5 p.m. at the lakeside city of Kisumu, in the western part of Kenya. An hour later, the sun sets over the…
A pioneering global study published March 15 in the journal Nature showed that humid tropical forests recovering from degradation and deforestation have the potential to absorb a vast amount of…
New research finds that a record Arctic sea ice melt season in 2007 initiated a “regime shift” to thinner, more transient ice that may be “irreversible”; another study shows that atmospheric rivers from the south are warming the Arctic in winter.
MOCOA, Colombia — “We are experiencing a profound crisis, not only in the Amazon but throughout humanity,” said Campo Elías de la Cruz, a Catholic priest and environmental activist who…
It’s often been said that big cats don’t like water — but this mythological thinking isn’t entirely accurate. New research provides evidence that some male cougars (Puma concolor), or pumas,…
Like many beekeepers living in the vicinity of the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve, Alejandro Oliveros López has a wildlife problem. To keep ants at bay and provide water to their bees,…
Gorillas and chimpanzees, like humans, have long been known to get infected with malaria. But evidence of the parasite's effects on bonobos, one of humankind's closest genetic relatives, has been…
Overproduction of cash crops, vast monocultures of chemical-dependent grains and massive animal agriculture operations are putting major stress not just on U.S. farmland — where they’re contributing to soil erosion,…
THE HAGUE, Netherlands — A misty rain blows against my face as I follow Farah Obaidullah along Scheveningen Beach in the northwest part of The Hague. Despite the wind and…
Last year, farmer protests erupted throughout the Netherlands, riding a wave of rural anger at government plans to drastically halve nitrogen emissions by downsizing and closing farms. This quickly swept…
Carbon offset certifier Verra has suspended issuance of credits from an award-winning project in Kenya, Mongabay has learned, after serious questions were raised about its validation and methodology. Indigenous rights…
KATHMANDU — The South Col in the Sagarmatha (Mount Everest) region faces blasts of unrelenting winds that sweep away almost everything in their path, including snow. Located nearly 8,000 meters (26,000…
Humans must make “deep, rapid, and sustained” cuts to greenhouse gas emissions to avoid the worst effects of climate change, according to the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change…
Biofuels have long been held up as a viable high-tech climate solution, but in practice they’ve often not lived up to their promise, causing environmental harm and in some cases being more carbon-intensive than fossil fuels.
As biomass burning to make energy surges, nations are setting standards that fail to count carbon emissions at power plant smokestacks, worsening climate change even as those same countries dub biomass “carbon neutral.”
Scientists and activists have tirelessly campaigned for the protection of forests to mitigate rising global temperatures and preserve humanity’s future. For some local Amazonian communities, who depend on logging, mining…
Many of the people archaeologist Dulma Karunarathna interviews in rural Sri Lanka have never been interviewed before. And many of them, representing a variety of religions and languages, tell her…
KATHMANDU — When researchers last year confirmed the presence of the manul, the “world’s grumpiest cat,” on the world’s highest mountain, they immediately looked at past records of the elusive…
Several regions of the world are at risk of losing their ability to store carbon, which could result in the drastic transformation of ecosystems and accelerated climate change, one recent…
Insetting is a nature-based climate solution used by brands that rely on agriculture to reduce carbon emissions in their supply chains. Critics say self-monitoring and verification may be weak.
Jaguars have been feared and revered for centuries, inspiring rituals, cults, and, more recently, conservation concerns. Although jaguars’ known range extends from Mexico to Argentina, they’ve been eradicated from almost…
For the first time ever, researchers have plotted out the locations and tabulated the carbon stocks of more than 9.9 billion individual trees spread across the dry belt of land…
JAKARTA — Activists have lambasted the Indonesian government’s proposal to include gas in its clean energy transition program funded by industrialized countries. They said the inclusion of gas-fired power plants…
(Baca dalam Bahasa Indonesia.) In 2020, the Indonesian government set a goal of restoring 600,000 hectares, or nearly 1.5 million acres, of mangrove ecosystems by 2024. Progress toward that goal…