Glaciers are often treated as scenic features or scientific curiosities. In fact, they are critical infrastructure. Though they cover roughly a tenth of the Earth’s land surface, meltwater from glaciers…
JAKARTA — Indonesia has reclaimed more than 4 million hectares (9.9 million acres, about the size of Switzerland) of land nationwide that had been used for plantations, mining or other…
After years of uneven progress, deforestation in Indonesia is poised to accelerate, owing to widespread logging, expanding plantations and mining. In December, Indonesia’s forestry minister, Raja Juli Antoni, indicated the…
Marine heat waves have become longer and more frequent along the U.S. West Coast, as elsewhere in the world. But heating doesn’t always lead fish to change their location. A…
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…
It was 27 December 2004. I was sitting at my computer in my office in Jakarta, Indonesia, my mind busy with plans for the New Year party I had organized…
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…
JAKARTA — The Indonesian government has announced what it describes as a sweeping, science-based effort to reassess environmental governance, zoning and corporate accountability in the wake of floods and landslides…
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…
JAKARTA — Best known as the home of the world’s rarest great ape, the mountainous Batang Toru forest landscape on the island of Sumatra has become a test case for…
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)…
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,…
In 2019, Bangladesh set a target to end the use of traditional bricks and switch to concrete blocks in all government construction works by June 2025. Aimed at preventing the…
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…
