New space lasers offer best 3D look at global forests yet
Researchers and forest managers working to record and reduce the rapid loss of forests are now armed with a new tool to monitor vegetation across the globe. In December 2018,…
Mapping News
Can satellite data help monitor sustainable rural development?
Spatial data from satellites are now fine-scale enough to provide land use and vegetation cover information at the level of individual farms. An international team of researchers examined the potential…
Protecting India’s fishing villages: Q&A with ‘maptivist’ Saravanan
CHENNAI, India — In a small fishing hamlet, one of thousands dotting India’s 7,500-kilometer (4,660-mile) coastline, a community leader opens his smartphone and searches his contacts for “Map Saravanan” to…
Machine learning tool helps prioritize plants for conservation
If you know the animals in your neighborhood but not the plants, you’re not alone. Scientists have documented nearly 400,000 plant species and expect to identify many more. But unlike…
10 ways conservation tech shifted into auto in 2018
You can now speak into your mobile phone and have it produce written text. Then have Google translate your words into Japanese, or Hindi. In two seconds. These examples of…
2018’s top 10 ocean news stories (commentary)
1. The race is on to map the seafloor Is it true that we have explored the moon and Mars more thoroughly than the bottom of the ocean? Embarrassingly, yes.…
Illegal mining in the Amazon ‘not comparable to any other period of its history’
Illegal mining has become an “epidemic” in the Amazon rainforest, destroying naturally protected areas and threatening indigenous territories, according to a new joint study by six Amazonian countries. The crux…
Photos highlight evolving roles of AI, citizen science in species research
On a midsummer evening earlier this year, Tracy Pham was on a walk along Huntington Beach, California, an outing she usually made to photograph birds. This time, along the way,…
One map to rule them all: Indonesia launches unified land-use chart
JAKARTA — The Indonesian government has published a long-awaited map that, for the first time, unifies all land-use data from a host of disparate sources. The fractured nature of the…
In pursuit of the rare bird that vanishes for half the year
KATHMANDU, Nepal — As dawn peeks through the morning mist on an early spring day in Nepal's Koshi Tappu Wildlife Reserve, a duck-sized bird flaps its wings and throws itself…
Panama, Namibia plan to reveal fishing fleet data via online map
NUSA DUA, Indonesia — In a bid to beef up fisheries security, Panama and Namibia have announced their intentions to make information on the location of fishing boats in their…
Radar helps Kenya map mangroves and other cloud-covered forests
Most of Kenya is arid, and lengthy droughts can lead to livestock loss, illegal grazing in protected areas, and violent interactions between nomadic herders and other landowners. Less known are…
Satellite technology unites Kenyans against bush fires
NYERI, Kenya - It took nine hours for Margaret Wanjugu and neighbors to put out a fire that razed Gathorongai forest near her home in central Kenya, in 2016. She…
The iNaturalist species data sharing platform reaches one million users
The iNaturalist species data- and image-sharing platform reached a milestone earlier this month with its one millionth observer. The platform consists of a mobile app and corresponding website that help…
Real-time plantation map aims to throttle deforestation in Papua
JAKARTA — The developers of a new interactive map hope to shine a light on deforestation in Indonesia’s easternmost region of Papua, where industrial-scale agriculture threatens one of the world’s…
Study games out oil palm development scenarios in Borneo
Although expansion of oil palm plantations appears to be inevitable, regulators have options when deciding what land may be converted into the world's most widely planted vegetable oil crop. A…
Indonesian mine watchdog sues government for concession maps
JAKARTA — Environmental activists are suing the Indonesian government for the release of records of mining licenses and concessions, in a move seen as crucial to bringing greater transparency to…
DNA database helps Nepal’s officials monitor tigers, punish poachers
In December 2015, officials from Nepal's Central Investigation Bureau had a hunch that something was amiss with the country’s tigers. The bureau, in the past few months, had seized more…
Underwater tech unlocks the secrets of The Bahamas’ Exuma Sound
Researchers at the Cape Eleuthera Institute (CEI) have been mapping the deep waters at the northern end of the Bahamian archipelago for many years, but their efforts got a boost…
Indonesia’s ‘one-map’ database blasted for excluding indigenous lands
JAKARTA — International Day of the World’s Indigenous Peoples was marked on Aug. 9 in Jakarta by musical performances and traditional cuisine. But the festive mood was tempered by news…
Industrial fishing fleets traveling farther to reel in fewer fish
Industrial fishing fleets are traveling ever-farther across the globe in pursuit of a dwindling haul of fish, a new study finds. Researchers with Sea Around Us, a research initiative spearheaded…
Combining aerial imagery and field data estimates timber harvest and carbon emissions
Selective logging—where specific high-value trees are cut—in tropical forests affects biodiversity, forest structure, and carbon storage. According to a 2009 study, timber was removed from over 20 percent of the…
Global marine wilderness has dwindled to 13 percent, new map reveals
Humans have wiped out most of the pristine parts of the world’s oceans, a new study has found. In the first global mapping of human impacts on marine environments, a…
Southeast Asian deforestation more extensive than thought, study finds
Deforestation in Southeast Asia is greater than previously recorded, according to authors of a recent analysis of satellite image data. The researchers highlight in particular the extensive but previously unrecorded…
Indigenous peoples control one-quarter of world’s land surface, two-thirds of that land is ‘essentially natural’
A new study makes a significant contribution to the growing body of research showing that recognizing the land rights of and partnering with indigenous peoples can greatly benefit conservation efforts.…
Online mapping tool tracks land-use changes down to the farm
Online mapping platform MapHubs has recently launched a new service, MapHubs Forest, which combines automated forest change visualization and alerts with tools for making maps online, analyzing spatial data, producing reports…
There’s now an app for mapping seagrass, the oceans’ great carbon sink
The launch of an online crowdsourcing database for seagrass hopes to breathe new life into efforts to conserve the underwater flowering plants, which act as both important habitats for marine…
Mongabay discusses technology’s role in conservation at Seattle event [VIDEO]
Last month, Seattle Audubon hosted a panel discussion featuring Mongabay staff and colleagues about the ever-growing applications of technology for conservation. Mongabay Founder and CEO Rhett A. Butler moderated the…
Global Forest Watch offers mapping and data visualization fellowships
Global Forest Watch and the World Resources Institute have launched a new fellowship for individuals working to reduce deforestation within 23 countries in South America, Central Africa, and Southeast Asia.…
One-stop shop for digital global maps launched
How does a country’s per capita Gross Domestic Product relate to its forest or biodiversity intactness? Where do areas of deposits of minerals or fossil fuels coincide with the singular…
Unified land-use map for Indonesia nears launch, but concerns over access remain
JAKARTA — An effort by the Indonesian government to compile a single map of land-use cover across the vast archipelago is nearing completion seven years after it began, but continues…
Tech and collaboration are putting indigenous land rights on the map
Dwarfed both in size and fame by the Amazon rainforest, the Gran Chaco, South America’s second largest vegetation complex, is a diverse mix of thorny dry forest and palm savannahs…
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
- As tidal power rides a wave of clean energy optimism, pitfalls persist
- 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
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
