Myanmar is a country of extremes. From tropical forests, mangroves and wetlands to frost-bitten alpine mountain slopes and jagged limestone karst outcrops, it’s home to tremendous botanical diversity. Orchids alone…
NOUADHIBOU, Mauritania — On a busy weekday, the coastal strip of Bountiya in Nouadhibou, Mauritania’s second-biggest city, is eerily quiet. This was once the beating heart of the West African…
Over the past year, scientists at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, in the U.K., officially named 125 plants and 65 fungi. The new-to-science species include a parasitic fungus that turns…
A massive Amazonian fish yields the unique and once overlooked leather prized by luxury brands and Texas cowboys.
There are around 60,000 known tree species in the world, and they can do amazing things: store carbon, provide people with food and firewood, shelter creatures big and small, and…
Conservation often presents itself as a technical enterprise: how much land to protect, which species to prioritize, what policies deliver results. A recent paper in Nature argues that this framing…
In November, we joined more than 50,000 Indigenous and world leaders, diplomats, scholars and activists at the 30th United Nations Conference of the Parties (COP30) in Brazil. Some of the…
CAPE TOWN — Western leopard toads have been listed as endangered since 2016. Andrew Turner, scientific manager for CapeNature, the government body that manages protected areas and conservation in South…
In India, arguments about nature are often treated as friction in the path of progress. Madhav Gadgil insisted they were arguments about power: who gets to decide what happens to…
Environmental crime used to be treated as a niche concern, a worry for park rangers, customs officers and a handful of conservation lawyers. Not anymore. From Vienna to Belém, a…
After facing sustained pushback from environmental groups, Ghana revoked a 2022 law that had empowered the president to allow mining in the country’s forest reserves. In December, the Minister for…
They’ve been called “bubble chasers,” and “seep seekers,” though they sometimes call themselves “flare hunters.” They’re a small group of scientific specialists searching the world’s oceans for tiny streams of…
Between 2000 and 2023, more than 6,000 African primates were traded internationally in 50 countries, according to a newly published report. Endangered chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and critically endangered western gorillas…
MERANGIN, Indonesia — There wasn’t much Aris Adrianto felt he could do when the gold miners’ heavy vehicles broke into Bukit Gajah Berani, here in this remote pocket of Sumatra’s…
Why Mongabay is reporting on California’s biodiversity Mongabay’s coverage of biodiversity has long been associated with tropical forests and far-flung frontiers. Yet California—wealthy, populous, and intensively studied—presents a different…
MITÚ, Colombia — Beneath the rising sun, people from nearby Indigenous communities navigate across the Vaupés River in traditional wooden canoes toward Mitú, a rapidly expanding town in the Colombian…
A burnout pushed one woman to build a new, nature-friendly career in one of the rainforest’s most deforested cities.
VAUPÉS, COLOMBIA – As a baby, Elisa Fernández Sánchez’ mother would place her into the bow of the canoe and glide across the murky waters of the Vaupés River in…
In the Chico Mendes Extractive Reserve in the Brazilian Amazon, locals tap rubber and extract Brazil nuts from the rainforest for a living. It’s a way of life dependent on…
At the end of 2024, the Azores stood as a beacon of hope and a global leader in ocean conservation, having created the largest network of marine protected areas (MPAs)…
More than 145,000 African forest elephants roam the rainforests of Africa, according to a recent population assessment. Published in December by the African Elephant Specialist Group at the IUCN, the…
The death of a well-known wild animal is an odd kind of news. It is intimate, because so many people feel they have met the creature through photographs and video.…
Environmental and territorial defenders in Guatemala face a critical moment as violence targeting them increases across the country. In 2024, at least 20 such defenders were killed for their work,…
Extinction is rarely a moment. It is a process that unfolds offstage, marked by missed sightings, thinning records, and the slow reassignment of hope to footnotes. Discovery, too, is rarely…
Universities like to present themselves as durable institutions. They outlast governments, ride out recessions, and take pride in the slow accumulation of knowledge. In Australia, that confidence has been tested…
A transparent goby fish drifted through the darkness, its skeleton visible through paper-thin skin. Nearby, a sea slug wore yellow polka dots like a party dress, while an orange fish…
On a small airplane, José Manuyama, a professor, frowns and shakes his head with anguish while thousands of feet below, five dredges operated by illegal miners excavate the Nanay River…
In the forests of the Sierra Nevada, the black-backed woodpecker is without parallel. The bird appears almost born of fire, thriving on the flames that flicker through California’s coniferous forests…
Conservation philanthropy often favors urgency: campaigns, deadlines, the language of crisis. A smaller group of donors has worked differently, treating environmental protection as a problem of capacity and continuity. They…
MEXICO CITY — Throughout 2025, Latin America remained a battleground between efforts to conserve some of the world’s most valuable ecosystems and mounting pressure from organized crime and legal extractive…
On Feb. 17, 2016, the gears ground into life at the massive Belo Monte hydroelectric plant, on the “Large Curve” of the Xingu River, or Volta Grande do Xingu, in…
COLOMBO — Veteran environmental activist Hemantha Withanage of Sri Lankan NGO the Center for Environmental Justice has been a regular presence at United Nations climate conferences for years, repeatedly calling…
