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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Updated on Jan 2, 2026 with final 2025 figures In 2025, Mongabay published more than 7,300 stories across eight languages. The volume reflects a newsroom that has expanded geographically and…
This was a big year for the Mongabay Video Team. We leaned into solution-focused stories, in collaboration with the Solutions Journalism Network, highlighting the people, communities and projects making a…
2025 saw a mix of news sweep through Indigenous communities around the world, touching on issues both new and old. Efforts to increase direct funding to support Indigenous peoples’ land…
The world still holds its secrets. Hidden under wet rocks, in the ocean's twilight crevices, and in the minutiae of the genetic code are creatures unknown and unnamed by the…
Conservation debates are usually framed by damage already visible. Forests are cleared, fisheries decline, protected areas invaded, and budgets cut. Developments that have not yet hardened into crises tend to…
The story of the world’s tropical forests in 2025 was not one of dramatic reversal, but one shaped by accumulated pressure. In several regions, deforestation slowed. In others, loss continued…
The year 2025 might be seen as one of backsliding when it comes to tackling the environmental crises that face our planet. Political leadership in places like the U.S. and…
2025 was a key year for ocean policymaking, marking the midway point in the U.N. Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development. The past 12 months brought landslide multilateral wins…
In 2025, environmental journalism faced a familiar paradox. The evidence was clearer than ever, but attention was harder to hold. Governments softened commitments and cut funding for programs many hold…
With 2025 drawing to a close, Mongabay’s flagship podcast has added more than 40 episodes over the course of the year. From professors and authors to Mongabay staffers, conservationists and…
As the world grapples with climate change, biodiversity loss and resource scarcity, Indigenous and local communities (IPLCs) remain at the forefront of conservation, yet are often sidelined in global environmental…
I write short obituaries for people who spent their lives protecting parts of the natural world. I work on them in the margins of other responsibilities, yet they have become…
For much of the second half of the 20th century, the American outdoors attracted a particular kind of devotee. They moved easily between disciplines, took seasonal work without much…
Founder's Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries. For a movement so often framed by loss—and confronting a particularly difficult moment—conservation…
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…
The arrival of generative artificial intelligence has unsettled journalism in familiar ways. Traffic models look fragile. Copyright is contested. The marginal cost of producing words has collapsed. It is tempting…
COP30 has come and gone, leaving behind a familiar mix of new commitments and renewed political promises. But amid the declarations of progress, one issue that received almost backhanded attention…
Earlier this year, a spate of deaths in Florida caused by Vibrio vulnificus, known as the flesh-eating bacteria, made headlines. Infections of this kind are troublingly on the rise as…
Diego Cardeñosa always knew he wanted to study sharks. But when he started his Ph.D., he had to make a choice: tagging sharks in the field — the “fun,” typically…
Southeast Asia’s Mekong River is one of the world’s most diverse and productive freshwater ecosystems, home to more than 1,000 fish species, including both the critically endangered Mekong giant catfish…
A global system dubbed the “internet of animals,” which tracks wildlife via satellite, is one step closer to becoming a reality. Project ICARUS, an initiative that taps into advances in…
News about the poaching and smuggling of threatened species often centers on products like tiger bone, rhino horn or pangolin scales. But much of the world’s illegally sourced wildlife products…
Gyatso Bista remembers the sacks of kutki. As a child learning to become a healer in Nepal's kingdom of Lo Manthang, Bista would watch as heaps of the bitter-tasting herb,…
When a new treaty to protect biodiversity in international waters, or the high seas, takes effect in January, there’s an open question about how it will interact with the regional…
Far more manta and devil rays die in fisheries than previously understood, with annual deaths surpassing 259,000 individuals, a new study has found. It suggests that fishing pressure on these…
Another major scientific warning about the planet’s accelerating decline landed this week, and once again, the numbers are sobering. Released at the U.N. Environment Assembly in Nairobi, the seventh Global…
