Dam puts wild coffee species at risk of extinction
Coffee may be one of the world's most popular hot (and cold) drinks, however few coffee drinkers may know that there are dozens of different coffee species in the world…
Ant surprises on Murciélago Islands in Costa Rica
Murciélago Islands as seen by Google Earth. The Murciélago Islands are seven small islands off the northwest coast of Costa Rica in the Area de Conservación Guanacaste (ACG), home to…
Best way to count white-tailed deer populations in tropical forests
Getting accurate estimates on wildlife populations is difficult in any habitat, but especially tricky in tropical forests where even large mammals are capable of melting into the foliage like ghosts.…
How do Lebombo ironwood trees fare against elephants and fire?
The woody savannah of Gorarezhou National Park as seen by Google Earth. A new study in mongabay.com's open access journal Tropical Conservation Science found that Lebombo ironwood (Androstachys johnsonii) forests…
Over 80 percent of urban Congolese eat bushmeat
Bushmeat is one of the major threats to wildlife in parts of Africa: large and medium-sized animals are vanishing from regions in a trend dubbed by biologists the 'empty forest…
Amazon still neglected by researchers
Terra Incognito? Venezuela's Amazon rainforest (a portion of which is viewed here by Google Earth) has been almost wholly ignored by researchers. Andean forests even less represented in research than…
What’s behind the 85% decline of mammals in West Africa’s parks?
A recent, well-covered study found that African mammals populations are in steep decline in the continent's protected areas. Large mammal populations over forty years have dropped by 59% on average…
Leaf harvesting impacts Amazon palm
Overexploitation of wildlife doesn't just threaten animals such as bluefin tuna, pangolins, and parrots, but plants as well. Leaves from the carana or puy palm (Lepidocaryum tenue) are used for…
New land snail invading Singapore requires swift action
An African land snail Limicolaria flammea has been discovered by researchers in six locations in Singapore, perhaps heralding a new invasion of alien land snails in Southeast Asia. Although snails…
Logged forests in Vietnam retain significant biodiversity, including dipterocarp trees
Little remains of Vietnam's primary forest: as of 2005 only 12% of Vietnam forest was classified as primary. While deforestation rates have lessened since the end of the 1990s, survival…
Counting orangutans: the best way to survey the great apes
How do you count orangutans when they are difficult to spot in the wild given that they are shy, arboreal, and few and far between? To find a solution, biologists…
Cloud forest dung beetles in India point to ‘fossil ecosystem’
In the cloud forests and grasslands of India's Western Ghats, known as sholas, researchers have for the first time comprehensively studied the inhabiting dung beetle populations. The resulting study in…
Biodiversity and slash-and-burn agriculture in Papua New Guinea
As pressures increase on the rich forests of Papua New Guinea, how will biodiversity fare? A new study in mongabay.com's Tropical Conservation Science attempts to answer this question by looking…
Lack of price premium for certified palm oil endangers sustainability initiative
The palm oil industry's sustainability initiative is making considerable progress toward improving its environmental performance, but needs to do more to accelerate the adoption of responsible practices, argue researchers writing…
Using water bodies to track Asian elephants
One would think that it would be easy to track Asia's largest land animal, but in fact Asian elephants (Elephas maximus) are generally shy, mostly nocturnal, and stick to the…
The hair-snare: non-invasive animal research technique makes good in Mexico
It's not easy or cheap to catch an elusive wild cat, and trapping such an animal can prove harmful to the individual. With such factors in mind, researchers are consistently…
Climate change could cut premontane forests of Argentina and Bolivia in half
A new study in mongabay.com's open access journal Tropical Conservation Science finds that the premontane forests of Argentina and Bolivia are susceptible to large-scale shifts due to climate change, losing…
Local rules trump regulations imposed by outsiders in Madagascar
Unwritten rules and social norms can be an effective means to manage protected areas in rural parts of Madagascar, reports a new study published in mongabay.com's open access journal Tropical…
Forest fragment climate not driven by edge-effect
Examining ten forest fragments in Brazil's Atlantic Forest, researchers have undercut the theory that the climate of forest fragment' is driven by the edge-effect. Writing in mongabay.com's open source journal…
Could industrial interests ruin payments for environmental services?
One of the biggest ideas in the conservation world over the past decade is Payments for Environmental Services, known as PES, whereby governments, corporations, or the public pays for the…
Ugandan forest being stripped for fuel wood
A new study in the open access journal of Tropical Conservation Science finds that the Kasagala forest reserve in central Uganda is losing important tree species and suffering from low…
Nearly half of the world’s wetlands used for crops
Wetlands used for crops have expanded significantly over the past eighty years. According to a new study in the open-access journal Tropical Conservation Science, wetlands being utilized for crop production…
The effect of forest regeneration strategies on beetles
As conservationists attempt to find the best way to re-establish forests in abandoned areas, a new study in the open-access journal Tropical Conservation Science compares the impacts on bess beetles…
Threatened on all sides: how to save the Serengeti
Tanzania's plan to build a road through the Serengeti has raised the hackles of environmentalists, conservationists, tourists, and wildlife-lovers worldwide, yet the proposed road is only the most recent in…
Tigers successfully reintroduced in Indian park
Poachers killed off the last Bengal tiger in India's Sariska Tiger Reserve in 2004. Four years later, officials transferred three tigers from Ranthambhore National Park to Sariska in an attempt…
Financial crisis pummels wildlife and people in the Congo rainforest
Spreading over three central African nations—Cameroon, Central African Republic, and Republic of Congo—the Sangha tri-national landscape is home to a variety of actors: over 150,000 Bantu people and nearly 20,000…
Indian carnivore eats mostly fruit
When is a carnivore no longer a carnivore? A new study in mongabay.com's open access journal Tropical Conservation Science has found that the brown palm civet (Paradoxurus jerdoni), a cat-sized…
Menanam Pohon Ara dapat Selamatkan Spesies Terancam di Borneo
Di salah satu hutan yang paling terpencil dan tak terganggu di Borneo, Lembah Maliau di kota Sabah, Malaysia, peneliti memilih sebuah pohon ara (Ficus caulocarpa) dan mensurvey spesies yang makan…
Photos: researchers uncover top priority areas for Bolivian primates
Employing a predictive model, researchers have located two areas in need of protection to ensure the survival of Bolivia's primate species. The study, published in Tropical Conservation Science, identified the…
Planting figs could save endangered species in Borneo
In one of the most remote and undisturbed forests of Borneo, the Maliau Basin in the Malaysian state of Sabah, researchers picked a single fig tree (Ficus caulocarpa) and surveyed…