The focus of experts in global security tends to orbit familiar threats. War in Europe and the Middle East. Trade disruption and financial volatility. Technology shocks and threats to information integrity. But the most…
For farmers, sometimes the easiest way to save a crop or prevent catastrophic insect damage is to spray a pesticide. But this common practice is wreaking havoc on the soil,…
After her father’s death, Bigga-Helena Magga and her sister were determined that their ancestral homeland, Alttokangas, a Sámi boreal forest and peatland in Finland’s Inari municipality, would not be turned…
Britain’s national security thinking has traditionally been shaped by familiar concerns: hostile states, terrorism, energy supply, and, more recently, cyber threats. A new assessment from the U.K. government adds a…
In most forests, a visitor’s eye is trained on what can be reached. The trunk can be measured. The leaves can be plucked. A specimen can be pressed, labeled, and…
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)…
Smallholders produce significant quantities of Vietnam’s coffee, Indonesia’s palm oil, and Thailand’s rubber exported into the EU. Yet under the bloc’s upcoming deforestation-free regulation (EUDR), industry experts say small-scale producers…
In the second half of the 20th century, animal protection was often treated in public debate as a minor cause, sentimental at best and unserious at worst. It sat uncomfortably…
Founder's Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries. For much of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, peatlands sat awkwardly…
Sweden has granted the Australia-based battery anode and graphite company, Talga Group, the necessary permits to move forward with its Nunasvaara South graphite mine near Vittangi in northern Sweden. The…
A recent scientific review of forest maps used to ensure compliance with the European Union’s Regulation on Deforestation-free products, known as the EUDR, suggests that most may over- or underestimate…
OSTEND, Belgium — In late October, Storm Benjamin blew across Belgium and other parts of Western Europe, bringing strong winds and rain that knocked down trees and damaged homes. Powerful…
As the world desperately searches for a way out of its global climate change and plastic pollution crises, nations are increasingly turning to burning municipal waste to make fuel as…
The way the oceans are managed is meant to be like a successful medieval commons. Most medieval commons weren’t open-access, but commoners had distinct rights in law and committees organized…
An international team of scientists has issued a stark warning that current toxicology and chemical regulatory regimes are failing to protect public health and the environment from a host of…
The Norwegian government has granted permission for the construction and operation of the Nussir copper mine in Hammerfest, a municipality on the northwestern coast of the island of Kvaløya, in…
In the foothills of the western Alps in southeastern France, horned alpine ibex roam the limestone cliffs of a smaller mountain range known as the Dauphiné Alps, a region once…
The deep, dark forests of northern Europe supplied people with wood, timber and food for millennia. They gave rise to myths, legends and fairy tales, and offered refuge to the…
Ghana has become the first African country to win fast-lane access to European Union markets for its timber. A trading license negotiated with the European Commission over 16 years means…
ROME and GENOA, Italy — In the urban waters off Naples, shoals of bream, wrasses, as well as crustaceans, mollusks and bryozoans are returning after decades of absence to Gaiola…
Shark meat sold across Europe may be serving up more than seafood. Dangerously high levels of methylmercury, toxic to humans, were present in nearly a third of shark meat samples…
After years of being hunting to near-extinction, wolves are making a comeback in some of their historical ranges in Europe and North America. With their return comes a growing concern…
Each year since 2021, Pia Reveco and her husband have set sail from Puerto Montt to spend the Chilean summers navigating Patagonia aboard their sailboat. Last year, they traveled along…
This series, Voices from the Land, brings together opinion pieces led and written by Indigenous peoples from around the world. Through these commentaries, we share our lived realities and reflections…
The Białowieża Forest is unparalleled in the world. It harbors the best-preserved fragments of lowland deciduous and mixed forests in the European Lowlands, where natural processes, including all stages of…
Some 30,000 years ago, Stone Age people decorated a cave, today known as Cueva de los Casares, in central Spain with pictures of mating humans (most famously), geometric shapes, and…
In June 2023, after nearly two decades of negotiations, the international community adopted the “Agreement under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea on the Conservation and…
The Sustainable Biomass Program (SBP) is a leading global biomass certification scheme offering assurances to end users (especially nations in the EU and Asia) that biomass (especially wood pellets for…
A last-minute proposal to revise the European Union’s sweeping antideforestation law has conservationists worried about yet another delay to the law’s implementation and weaker oversight of supply chains. The EU…
The eastern Baltic cod has shrunk dramatically in size in recent decades due to rapid evolution — changes at the genetic level — caused by decades of intensive fishing, a…
From Shakespeare’s plays to William Wordsworth’s poetry to J.R.R Tolkien's fantasy realms, Britain’s lush green forests are described as a paradise of trees. Thousands of species have called these oak,…
ASTURIAS, Spain, and YUCATÁN, Mexico — On a mild February morning, Isaac Blanco quickly places half a sardine into each cage as his brother, Julio, steers their boat along the…
