The UK and EU were the primary users of woody biomass for energy. But Japan and South Korea have drastically stepped up their burning of wood pellets — potentially threatening forests, biodiversity, and the climate.
Pollution is currently responsible for at least 9 million premature deaths a year worldwide, accounting for one in six deaths, according to a new report. Published in Lancet Planetary Health,…
COLOMBO — Amphibians evolved from a fish ancestor that had functional lungs and bony lobed fins, which helped them become the first vertebrates to conquer land. Keeping these earlier trails,…
In the cool of the desert night, the small gray-furred creature emerges from the safety of its burrow in search of food. The bilby (Macrotis lagotis) has a surprising combination of…
A new book by Wake Smith, “Pandora’s Toolbox,” explores controversial ideas for artificially cooling the planet. Smith discusses the hopes and hazards of geoengineering in an exclusive Mongabay interview.
Training cattle ranchers in Brazil to recover degraded pastures could curb carbon dioxide emissions, scale down deforestation for agriculture in the Amazon and Cerrado biomes, and increase their income, according…
Japan and South Korea are increasingly burning biomass, such as wood pellets, to make energy, with potentially adverse impacts on the global climate, deforestation and biodiversity.
COLOMBO — The Knuckles mountain range in central Sri Lanka is a UNESCO-declared World Heritage Site that’s home to a rich diversity of wildflowers. Among them are plants in the…
In 2019, researchers sailed to a sprawling seamount off the coast of South Africa, and lowered hydrophones to the seafloor. They picked up all kinds of noises: waves, the crackling of…
In March this year, headlines across the United States announced the rare sighting of an elusive creature in Yellowstone National Park: the wolverine. In the accompanying photographs, a lumbering, blackish-brown…
COLOMBO — When a study published in January flagged the risks to Himalayan forests from excessive atmospheric nitrogen pollution, it relied on an often-overlooked member of the ecosystem to assess…
No matter where on Earth you live, this is a time of year when birds are very busy migrating, singing, breeding, and nesting. So on today’s episode of the Mongabay…
Primates and other tropical wildlife are increasingly being exposed to pesticides pharmaceuticals, plastics, nanoparticles and other synthetic materials, but adverse impacts on these animals have been little studied.
China’s distant-water fishing fleet eclipses that of other nations, and so does its rap sheet, according to the authors of a recent report based mainly on data released by China.…
With national borders created for geopolitical rather than ecological reasons, it’s unsurprising that the ranges of more than half of all terrestrial mammals, birds and amphibians cross at least one…
How do you keep an eye on the expansive ocean? You could hop on a boat and get really close to the water. You could do it from tens of…
A reassessment by an international group of scientists finds that human-caused destabilization of the water cycle is seriously impacting global soil moisture, with knock on effects for forests and other ecosystems.
The seventh and final episode of the Mongabay Explores podcast series about New Guinea examines the growing galip nut industry and the many social, economic and environmental benefits this agricultural…
COLOMBO — Crows have long had a reputation as a nuisance and a pest, even though it’s widely recognized that they’re among the most intelligent of birds. In Sri Lanka,…
Human transgressions of the biodiversity, land-use, pollution and climate planetary boundaries are altering gut microbiomes across species, impacting human health and ecosystems. But there’s hope.
COLOMBO — For decades, the small population of Indian pangolins found in Sri Lanka has faced a single consistent threat: the domestic meat market. Pangolin meat is considered a delicacy…
KATHMANDU — When Nepali ornithologist Hem Bahadur Katwal reviewed the existing literature to prepare a proposal for his Ph.D., he came across a subject barely explored, not just in Nepal,…
As hot and muggy as most tropical rainforests are, you only need to leave their florid confines and step onto a recently razed plot of land to feel an immediate…
While at university studying chemical ecology and aquaculture, Andy Rhyne picked up a job at an aquarium shop to raise money for a cross-country bike trip. Though he didn’t know…
When you look at a tropical rainforest, the landscape is usually dominated by shades of green and brown. But every now and then, the trees erupt into flower all at…
Trees and soils keep a lot of carbon trapped in the forest, pulling it from the atmosphere, where it can do more harm than good. In fact, roughly 30% of…
While trying to put together a review of what happened to Venezuela’s environment in 2021, conservationists ran into a problem. The government publishes virtually no statistics on things like deforestation,…
It may be a straw man argument to suggest a distinction between an amateur and professional naturalist (a word that may still mean something). "Natural history" was once like history…
Slice through a tree trunk, and you’ll find a series of rings that tell a story of how that tree grew over the course of its life. These rings are…
In the past, ocean carbon data was sparse, mostly gathered by ships. But the future of monitoring belongs to robot floats that deliver real-time data across vast oceans — even in the remote Antarctic Southern Ocean.
