This Mongabay Explains episode is part of a four-part Mongabay mini-series exploring the latest technological solutions to support reforestation. Read Part One, Part Two , Part Three and Part Four. “Plant…
How had we missed this until now? An undersea mountain as tall as three Eiffel Towers. DDT contamination spread across an area of the seabed as large as San Francisco.…
In 2017, a camera installed on the fringes of Corbett Tiger Reserve in northern India photographed an unsuspecting woman. The local forest staff had set up the device discreetly to…
Debbie Saunders’s quest to make wildlife tracking more efficient started in the early 2000s. The wild ecologist was studying swift parrots (Lathamus discolor) in Australia and found it challenging to…
Drones flying above the treetops of a limestone forest on the border of Vietnam and China are helping conservationists develop plans to recover one of the world’s rarest primates: the…
Seed-sowing drones and the latest biotechnology could help restore degraded forests at an unprecedented scale — a high-tech nature-based climate solution already at work, and one that shows tremendous promise.
Climate change has generated a rush in tree planting, with many hurried initiatives failing. But high-tech solutions — artificial intelligence, robotics, satellites and sensors — can help tree-planting projects succeed every step of the way.
SINGAPORE — A huge drone hums and hovers above the canopy of a tree. Just as one might start to think that the show is over, the action begins. Slowly,…
SINGAPORE — Macaques look on from trees as a round of applause breaks out. After repeated attempts, a team has managed to fly a drone and drop a sensor platform…
When Hurricane Dorian blazed its trail of destruction through the Bahamas in 2019, it ravaged the country’s mangroves. Almost overnight, coastal communities were deprived of a natural barrier that protected…
SINGAPORE — It’s been a hectic few weeks for Kevin Marriott. On a humid May morning in Singapore, he shuttles between two locations at the city’s Windsor Nature Park. At…
Studying primates in the wild has historically been a tough task. Alexander Piel knows the challenges too well. Since 2005, the biological anthropologist has been studying primates in countries like…
Conservation apps have emerged in recent years as an efficient and cost-effective way to get citizens to monitor and document wildlife across the world. But an Australian initiative is going…
During what scientists have named the “Sixth Mass Extinction” (the fifth one wiped out the dinosaurs), conservationists are racing against the clock to carry out critical monitoring as quickly as…
How do you keep an eye on the expansive ocean? You could hop on a boat and get really close to the water. You could do it from tens of…
Tropical forests across the world are hurting. Climate change is intensifying drought and wildfires worldwide, and deforestation continues to challenge conservation efforts to save intact forests. This means scientists need…
The fire season in Chiang Rai, Thailand’s northernmost province, lasts from February to April every year. During these months, dry weather causes ordinarily green vegetation to turn dry and flammable.…
MANNAR, Sri Lanka — With reddish-pink, brushstroke-like smudges on its wings, legs and large downward-curved beak, the greater flamingo is a stunning bird to watch, particularly in flight as part…
Threats to wildlife and wild places abound. Waters warming due to climate change threaten coral reefs more frequently and with greater intensity than ever before; the expansion of agriculture, infrastructure,…
In 2016, during the height of the rhino poaching war, field rangers in Kruger National Park in South Africa saw sobering scenes day after day. The field reports showed just…
In some places in North America, the sound of buzzing above fields and forests may no longer foretell trouble, but rather, an innovative solution to a centuries-old problem. Drones are…
Teaching Indigenous communities in the Amazon to tap on remote-monitoring technologies during forest patrols can reduce illegal deforestation, a new study has found. Researchers, whose work was published July 12…
A total of 33 teams spanning 16 countries from Brazil to India have been chosen to advance to the next stage of a five-year, $10 million competition aimed at preserving…
When Sellemah was a girl, in the days when the Tl’ches archipelago was still inhabited, the tide pools were full of urchins. The Songhees Nation elder, who also goes by the…
ANTANANARIVO, Madagascar — To achieve its ambitious large-scale reforestation goals, Madagascar is turning to the sky. The country will use drones to plant trees in isolated areas. The plan is…
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…
In March 2020, just prior to COVID-19 being a pandemic, I spent a few days in the tri-border region of Brazil, Colombia, and Peru. There I used a drone to…
While I've written about use of drones in conservation since 2012 — a Mongabay story was the first to use the term "conservation drones" — 2019 was the first year…
ROCHESTER, New York and RANOMAFANA NATIONAL PARK, Madagascar — Tom Snyder wants to change the way people see trees. Specifically, he wants to help donors to Seneca Park Zoo in…
RANOMAFANA and ANTANANARIVO, Madagascar — While many U.S. travelers dream of the fabled forests of Madagascar, for Malagasy conservationist Mahandry Hugues Andrianarisoa, 28, it was the verdant landscape of upstate…
