Community-led wetland restoration may hold key to Harare’s water crisis
HARARE — By 6 a.m. on Sunday, the line at a water well in Harare’s Budiriro suburb is already long. It snakes all the way into a nearby street, and…
Habitat Degradation News
Combined effects of human activities increase risk to ecosystem services
The combined effects of humanity’s actions are making ecosystems less resistant to change, and threatening the vital ecosystem services humanity relies upon, according to a study published in Nature Geoscience.…
Cambodian fishers-turned-citizen scientists monitor marine mammal deaths
SIHANOUKVILLE, Cambodia — Cambodia has a marine mammal problem. Dolphins, dugongs and other species are caught and killed in fishers’ nets or wash up dead on beaches regularly, but no one…
Government inaction leaves Nepal without strategy to tackle invasive species
KATHMANDU — Nepal ranks as one of the countries most vulnerable to invasive species, yet still hasn’t finalized a management strategy to address the issue. A draft of the strategy,…
On heavily dammed Mekong, tracking study tries to find where the fish are going
Key migratory fish species travel hundreds of kilometers along the Mekong River, including through several active and planned hydropower dam projects in Laos, a recent Researchers outfitted hundreds of fish…
Where Javan leopards thrive, so do other wildlife, study shows
JAKARTA — A new study on Javan leopards has found that areas with higher numbers of the endangered subspecies have richer wildlife diversity than those from where the elusive big…
In Peru, conservationists and archaeologists unite to save a threatened gecko
LIMA — For more than two decades, José Pérez Zúñiga, a researcher at Cayetano Heredia University in Lima, has set out at night to search by the light of a…
Frog ‘saunas’ may help threatened frogs fight off deadly fungus
Researchers have developed simple, sun-heated shelters that allow frogs to raise their body temperatures and fight off infections. These frog “saunas” may bring hope for populations threatened by a deadly…
It’s the bee’s needs: Study finds best plants for bee health, conservation
What's on the menu for a healthy bee? A team of researchers has delved into the world of bee nutrition, analyzing pollen to identify the best food sources for these…
In Brazil, conservationists try to save one of the world’s most endangered cats
The Pampas grasslands, spanning southern Brazil, Uruguay, and northeastern Argentina, are home to a wildcat so rare that researchers consider it the most endangered of its kind in the Americas,…
Can Vietnam’s forests survive the spread of acacia and eucalyptus plantations? (commentary)
Vietnam is a mountainous country, with three-quarters of its land area covered by mountains and hills. However, according to the Vietnamese Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, forest cover was…
Elusive jaguarundi inspires biologists to share data across Latin America
Few scientists exclusively study the jaguarundi, Latin America’s least studied wildcat. So those that do are reaching out to other researchers, governments, NGOs and even via social media to pool data, model it, and conserve the species.
Small-scale fishers lose out to trawlers in race to catch Cambodia’s last fish
This is the first part of a Mongabay series about challenges faced by Cambodia’s small-scale fishers along the coast. Read Part Two and Part Three. KOH KONG, Cambodia — At…
Mysterious, at risk, understudied flat-headed cat lacks conservation focus
Southeast Asia’s endangered flat-headed cat is rarely seen or photographed, and not a lot is known about it, making conservation planning difficult. Using eDNA and other new tools may help change that.
On World Otter Day, an uphill struggle for these creatures in Nepal
KATHMANDU — In September 2023, Nepali conservationists celebrated the rare sighting of a smooth-coated otter in Chitwan National Park, the first one had been spotted there in some two decades.…
Saving Asia’s fishing cat means protecting threatened wetland habitat
Asia’s water-loving fishing cat is one of the world’s better-known small wildcats, which has inspired the creation of a closely linked network of conservation groups — all intent on fishing cat and wetland conservation.
Borneo and Sumatra megaprojects are carving up clouded leopard forests
Sunda clouded leopards spend most of their lives in the leafy shade of the forest canopy. Equipped with exquisite camouflage, superb climbing skills and outsize canines, they’re formidable arboreal predators.…
Indonesian capital project finally gets guidelines to avoid harm to biodiversity
JAKARTA — The Indonesian government has rolled out what it calls a “biodiversity management master plan” amid mounting criticism of the environmental and social threats posed by the construction of…
On the trail of Borneo’s bay cat, one of the world’s most mysterious felines
Few researchers have ever seen this elusive wildcat and it is known primarily from a few camera trap photos. Which raises the question: How do you conserve an endangered species about which we know almost nothing?
Unseen and unregulated: ‘Ghost’ roads carve up Asia-Pacific tropical forests
Roads are being built at an unprecedented rate across the globe. Some 25 million kilometers (15.5 million miles) of paved roads are expected to be built in just the four…
As a megaport rises in Cameroon, a delicate coastal ecosystem ebbs
Since he was old enough to work, Sam Elong has been a fisherman in Kribi, a coastal town of more than 90,000 inhabitants that stretches along the shore of the…
Tanzania’s ‘mountain of millipedes’ yields six new species
Scientists have recently described six new species of millipedes, including one from an entirely new genus, in Tanzania’s Eastern Arc Mountains. This brings the number of new species found in…
New ecoregion proposed for Southern Africa’s threatened ‘sky islands’
There is an “inland archipelago” of mountains stretching across southern Malawi and northern Mozambique — a chain of hard granite inselbergs lifted high above the surrounding landscape as it weathered…
Cambodia sea turtle nests spark hope amid coastal development & species decline
PHNOM PENH — In late December 2023, on a remote island in Preah Sihanouk province, off the southwest coast of Cambodia, a team of conservationists uncovered nine nests belonging to…
Conservationists aim to save South America’s super tiny wild cat, the guina
For more than 200 million years, the ancient Valdivian Temperate Forest in southwestern Chile has been a refuge for plant and animal species found nowhere else on Earth. This global…
Illegal gold mining threatens Indus River water and biodiversity in Pakistan (commentary)
Illegal placer gold mining along the scenic Indus River in the area of Nizampur, District Nowshera, has escalated to alarming levels, posing a dual threat to national assets and the…
Camera-traps help identify conservation needs of Thailand’s coastal otters
Otters, with their gleeful yikkering, playful presence and sinuous underwater grace, are emblematic of the joy and resilience of nature in many parts of the world. But they aren’t among…
Nature-based recovery needed for Ukraine’s damaged protected areas (analysis)
As winter closes in, Ukraine is facing demoralizing news. Western support for the war is faltering, Ukrainian troops in the east are being pushed onto the back foot amid a…
Shining a spotlight on the wide-roaming sand cat ‘king of the desert’
The sand cat is small, elusive and adapted to life in some of Earth’s most inhospitable deserts — that makes it hard to study and conserve, with lots of unknowns about its behaviors and populations across its range.
Vizzuality data set aims to give companies full view of supply chain impacts
A new collection of global maps and data sets aims to help companies better monitor their environmental impact along every step of the supply chain, and forecast future impacts as…
New platform offers toolkit for companies to prove their eco claims
A new platform allows companies and landowners to monitor the ecosystems in their supply chains, as governments around the world increasingly consider regulations that require businesses to account for biodiversity.…
As U.S. insurers stop covering prescribed burns, states and communities step up
On the first day of a 2021 prescribed fire in south-central Oregon, all went to plan as firefighters slowly burned areas in Fremont-Winema National Forest. They created a deliberate mosaic…
Special series
Forest Trackers
- In Brazil’s Amazon, land invasions — and fires — threaten a protected reserve
- A Guatemalan reserve turns from civil war refuge to deforestation hotspot
- Narco activity takes heavy toll on Colombia’s protected forests, satellite data show
- Photos confirm narcotraffickers operating in Peru’s Kakataibo Indigenous Reserve
Oceans
- Plan for close season rings alarm bells for Liberia’s artisanal fishers
- Lab-grown corals resisted bleaching during Caribbean’s worst marine heat wave
- Six months after first Houthi ship sinking, attacks slick Red Sea with oil
- $35m debt-for-nature deal aims to protect Indonesia’s coral reefs
Amazon Conservation
- ‘World’s largest’ carbon credit deal in the Amazon faces bumpy road ahead
- New conservation model calls for protecting Amazon for its archaeological riches
- Brazil dredges Amazon rivers to ease drought isolation, raising environmental concerns
- ‘We need white men on our side to save the Amazon from destruction,’ 92-year-old Indigenous Chief Raoni says
Land rights and extractives
- Peruvian logger loses FSC label after latest clash with isolated Mashco Piro
- In the DRC, a government commission is taking funds owed to people relocated by mines
- A national park and its rangers in Bolivia endure persisting road construction, illegal mining
- Can nations ever get artisanal gold mining right?
Endangered Environmentalists
- Vietnam sentences yet another energy expert over renewables research
- Mother Nature Cambodia activists sentenced to prison — again
- Mongabay video screening at Chile’s Supreme Court expected to help landmark verdict in Brazil
- Indonesian activist freed in hate speech case after flagging illegal shrimp farms
Indonesia's Forest Guardians
- On a Borneo mountainside, Indigenous Dayak women hold fire and defend forest
- Fenced in by Sulawesi national park, Indigenous women make forestry breakout
- In Borneo, the ‘Power of Mama’ fight Indonesia’s wildfires with all-woman crew
- Pioneer agroforester Ermi, 73, rolls back the years in Indonesia’s Gorontalo
Conservation Effectiveness
- How effective is the EU’s marquee policy to reduce the illegal timber trade?
- How sharing and learning from failures can transform conservation (commentary)
- Is planting trees as good for the Earth as everyone says?
- Failure in conservation projects: Everyone experiences it, few record it
Southeast Asian infrastructure
- Study: Indonesia’s new capital city threatens stable proboscis monkey population
- Indonesia’s new capital ‘won’t sacrifice the environment’: Q&A with Nusantara’s Myrna Asnawati Safitri
- Small farmers in limbo as Cambodia wavers on Tonle Sap conservation rules
- To build its ‘green’ capital city, Indonesia runs a road through a biodiverse forest
