Gibbons are famed for their graceful agility high in the forest canopy. Swinging effortlessly from branch to branch, their bodies spilling through the trees, the small apes seem to defy…
In the aftermath of Typhoon Yagi, communities in northern Thailand’s Chiang Rai province are taking stock of the toll wreaked by heavy rains and rising rivers. At least 33 people…
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…
The energy sector is the single largest source of human-caused greenhouse gas emissions, spurring plans the world over to transition the sector away from fossil fuels and toward renewables. While…
Major banks operating in Thailand and Vietnam aren’t doing enough to address the environmental and human rights consequences of their investments in large-scale hydropower dams along the Mekong River, according…
JAKARTA — The tropics continue to lose primary forest at an alarming rate, with an area of tree cover half the size of Panama disappearing in 2023, new data from…
It’s a hot and humid afternoon in Vientiane, the capital of Laos. Our contact at Burapha Agro-Forestry welcomes us to an empty boardroom full of maps. The meeting goes smoothly,…
Shifting monsoonal climate patterns that affect the availability of water in the Mekong River Basin are raising questions among experts about the sustainability of hydropower as a long-term energy solution…
Southeast Asia is home to the third-largest expanse of tropical rainforest in the world, making it a pivotal region for global efforts to address the biodiversity crisis and climate change.…
While attending a recent United Nations forum, Toto, a Lao environmental activist, had an opportunity to meet with a U.N. special rapporteur in person. In the end, he decided not…
As the government of Laos continues to prioritize a hydropower-heavy agenda to generate export revenues while striving toward greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets, it may be overlooking soaring carbon emissions…
Crucial industries and supply chains worth billions of dollars are threatened by impacts from hydropower development along the Mekong River, according to a new report from WWF. The report reveals…
A landmark EU anti-deforestation regulation that entered into force in June 2023 could come down hard on smallholder farmers in mainland Southeast Asia who produce a significant proportion of the…
A court in northern Thailand has agreed to hear a citizen-led lawsuit filed against the government for inaction to address air pollution that experts say reduces people’s life expectancy and…
A thick-thumbed bat, a color-changing lizard, and a Muppet-looking orchid are just a few of the 380 new-to-science species found and described in the Greater Mekong region of Southeast Asia…
This is the second article in a Mongabay series focused on changes to the ecology and hydrology of the Mekong River. Read Part One. Niwat Roykaew, an environmental activist based…
This is the first article in a Mongabay series focused on changes to the ecology and hydrology of the Mekong River. Read Part Two. The Mekong River carves a vast…
The COVID-19 pandemic, which began spreading in a seafood and poultry market in Wuhan, China, shone a spotlight on zoonotic diseases and the risks that markets selling wild meat can…
Wide-eyed, slow-moving and roughly the bulk of a small loaf of bread, pygmy lorises seem fairly unassuming at first glance. They spend their slow, nocturnal lives meticulously picking through the…
STUNG TRENG, Cambodia — A long-dormant plan to build a mega dam on the mainstream of the Mekong River in Cambodia’s northeastern Stung Treng province appears to have been revived…
SIEM PANG, Cambodia — “I remember seeing a buffalo, its head tied to a floating barrel, drifting down the river,” says Pheng Sisuwath, gesturing to the Sekong River from his…
Tigers and clouded leopards are two of Southeast Asia’s most threatened and enigmatic big cat species. With the numbers of both in sharp decline across the region, leaving their remaining…
Rosewood trees are a mainstay of tropical forests across parts of Asia, Africa and Latin America. But their future looks bleak. Their fragrant, red-hued heartwood is prized by makers of…
CHIANG KHAN, Thailand — In the rustic old town of Chiang Khan on the Mekong River, a tourist haven in northeastern Thailand’s Isaan region, local fishing communities now live in…
Anything goes in a Laotian “Special Crime Zone,” a haven for illegal wildlife, narcotics and human trafficking. Asia’s wild tigers remain imperiled, say conservationists, as “tiger farming” continues in Asia.
Known only by his identity code, ID#35 was the last individual of a doomed subpopulation of freshwater Irrawaddy dolphins (Orcaella brevirostris). He was the sole occupant of a deep pool…
The Annamite Mountains are a series of jagged peaks and secluded valleys that run between Laos and Vietnam south to Cambodia’s northern plateau. Over the past three decades, researchers have…
When scientists described the Popa langur (Trachypithecus popa) as a species new to science in 2020, it was already staring extinction in the face. Fewer than 260 of the fluffy…
Over the past decade, the European Union entered into collaborative agreements with tropical timber-producing countries to fight forest crime and verify the legality of wood imported into the EU. Within…
Acting on a tipoff, Vietnamese police pried open a basement door in Nghe An province and flicked on the light switch. Videos from the August 2021 raid show officers filing…
After forests are logged, felled trees are typically sent to sawmills, where they’re processed into boards, or lumber. It’s in this processed form that wood typically enters the international commodity…
Nestled amid the mountains of northern Laos, the picturesque ancient capital of Luang Prabang is under siege from a dam-building fever along the Mekong River, with a Thai developer now…
