Brazil’s offshore wind farms could sacrifice small-scale fishing in Ceará
A symbol of Brazil’s Ceará state and present on its official coat of arms since 1897, sail rafts known as jangadas are 80% of the fishing vessels in the state,…
Wind Power News
PHOTO ESSAY Wind-blown sand scouring life off a Southern African landscape
A nasty wind rips across Cornell’s Kop one afternoon in October 2024, driving professor emeritus Timm Hoffman and his team to abandon the hilly study site a few clicks west…
Brazil communities accuse companies of ‘green grabbing’ for wind energy
Jeane Da Gama Costa, 42, grew up in Umburanas, a small municipality of Bahia, in northeastern Brazil. Her family raised cattle for meat and grew crops like beans, corn and…
India’s Adani withdraws from controversial Sri Lanka wind power project
COLOMBO — In a dramatic turn of events, Indian tycoon Gautam Adani’s Green Energy Limited (AGEL) has withdrawn from the second phase of a proposed wind power project in northern…
Renewables won’t save us from climate catastrophe, experts warn; what will?
In 2022, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres declared that the “lifeline of renewable energy can steer [the] world out of climate crisis.” In saying so, he echoed a popular and tantalizing…
SE Asia renewables firms fall short on policies to protect environmental defenders
Widely regarded as a solution for climate change, renewable energy projects are booming in Southeast Asia. Installed solar and wind energy capacity across the 10 member states of the Association…
French court greenlights lawsuit against EDF over wind farm in Mexico
JUCHITÁN, Mexico – Indigenous farmers from southern Mexico angry over landscape damage and poor consultations associated with a massive wind power project have had their day in court in France,…
As wind, solar farms expand in Brazil, space for traditional communities shrinks
Labeled as a solution for global warming, renewable energy sources are receiving hefty incentives from both the public and private sectors. In Brazil alone, the installed wind energy capacity expanded…
Tribes turn to the U.N. as major wind project plans to cut through their lands in the U.S.
Last week, a United States federal judge rejected a request from Indigenous nations to stop SunZia, a $10 billion dollar wind transmission project that would cut through traditional tribal lands…
How a wind farm on Brazil’s coast erased a fishing village from the map
In the municipality of Camocim, on Brazil’s northeastern coast, the fishing village of Praia do Xavier was erased from the map. Or at least that’s how it appeared on the…
Surprise discovery of wind farm project in Philippine reserve prompts alarm
Conservationists have expressed alarm over the surprise discovery that a Singapore-based company has started construction of a wind farm inside the Philippines' Masungi Georeserve. The Masungi Karst Conservation Area (MKCA),…
Colombian wind farm end-of-life raises circularity and Indigenous questions
La Guajira, COLOMBIA — On Oct. 9, Colombia’s first wind farm, Jepírachi, officially reached its end of life after running for almost two decades in Uribia, in the northeastern region…
In Brazil, rural communities are caught in the eye of the wind farm storm
In Brazil’s semiarid Caatinga biome, wind power farms have brought dirt, noise and disruption to the livelihood of local communities.
For Caatinga’s last jaguars and pumas, wind farms are the newest threat
Between March 2017 and January 2018, researchers tracked the movements of a female puma as it prowled around the Boqueirão da Onça protected area complex in the north of Brazil’s…
Fair winds or fowl: Clean energy clashes with conservation in Brazil’s Caatinga
The Araripe manakin is a Brazilian bird so unique and so threatened that it has its own national conservation action plan. The species, Antilophia bokermanni, is endemic to the Chapada…
What’s black and white and spins? Wind turbines that don’t kill birds
Picture yourself driving down a local highway, passing familiar street signs and encountering typical traffic. Then, without warning, you find a cow standing in the middle of the road. You…
Mongabay’s What-To-Watch list for May 2022
In April, Mongabay spoke with Indigenous women in Brazil who have taken the lead in bold, innovative ways to raise awareness about their communities. Three young women from the Munduruku…
New age of sail looks to slash massive maritime carbon emissions
Ocean shipping is presently the world’s sixth-largest carbon emitter. But a push by entrepreneurs is addressing the climate crisis and trying to revolutionize the industry with a next generation of wind-powered vessels.
Analysis: Vietnam’s leadership flex shows how to drive electricity reform
Dealing with climate change should be a no-brainer, right? To paraphrase Greta Thunberg, the science is done and only denial, ignorance and inaction remain. Or is that really all? We…
In the Philippines’ Boracay, flying foxes are going, going, gone
BORACAY ISLAND, Philippines — The bats that swarmed Boracay's evening skies were once as iconic as the pristine white sand beaches that made this tiny island in the central Philippines…
New UN report takes stock of renewable energy’s decade-long growth spurt
Thanks to the nearly $280 billion invested in electricity generation from renewable sources last year — three times the amount invested in coal and gas-fired generation capacity combined — a…
Shift to renewable energy could have biodiversity cost, researchers caution
Climate change has widely reported negative consequences, including exacerbating severe weather patterns, harming wildlife and potentially worsening human conflict and migration. In an attempt to minimize these planetary changes, the…
Putting the Blue in the Green New Deal (commentary)
As the “Green New Deal” (GND) takes shape to decarbonize the economy, promote economic growth, and address environmental injustice, it is crucial to incorporate the key sectors of the blue economy…
Jammin’ at wind farms may help save bats
Wind turbines are a valuable source of renewable energy, but they’re eco-unfriendly in one particular way: the giant spinning blades frequently kill birds and bats. A new system that jams…
Decoding the language of bats key to their conservation
South American bats speak dialects different from those of their North American counterparts. In response, a group of scientists has developed the first artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm for acoustic identification…
Power lines killing the last remaining Great Indian Bustards in India
On Dec. 9, researchers discovered the remains of an extremely rare bird in India’s Thar Desert, in the northwestern state of Rajasthan. All that remained was a pile of bones,…
Temer uses controversial deforestation data in speech to UN
Representatives of more than 150 civil society organizations gathered in Brasilia on Tuesday (19 September) to protest over the speech made by Brazilian president Michel Temer on Monday (18 September)…
Bats and viruses: Beating back a bad reputation
A burned-out stump was all that remained by the time a team of virologists arrived in Méliandou in 2014. They had been hunting for the source of the deadly outbreak…
Renewable energy to power 139 countries? Scientists say it’s possible
Clean, renewable energy holds immense potential to help us tackle a rapidly warming climate. But until a major shift away from fossil fuels like coal, oil and natural gas, it…
Elusive seabird breeding grounds discovered in Chilean desert
In a search to locate the nesting grounds of the ringed storm-petrel (Oceanodroma hornbyi) a team of Chilean biologists didn’t rely on high-tech tracking devices or aerial mapping tools. Instead…
From black gold to wind and solar: How China is turning its back on coal
XI’AN, China — On bad air days, Cao Yiyang doesn't take his 3-month-old daughter out for a stroll. It's too dangerous. Staying inside, near the air purifier he recently bought,…
Bat threats difficult to anticipate on wind farms
Bats have seemingly always had a troubled relationship with wind farms. Giant whirling turbines scuttle their sensitive hearing and sonar, bringing down huge numbers in a way that only a…
Special series
Forest Trackers
- Narco airstrips beset Indigenous communities in Peruvian Amazon
- 15 illegal narco-trafficking airstrips found near Peru Indigenous communities
- Satellite data show bursts of deforestation continue in Indonesian national park
- Fires rip through Indigenous territories in Brazilian Amazon
Oceans
- Southeast Asia’s fisheries thrive despite decades of overfishing warnings: Study
- Peruvian fishers sue for additional compensation after big December oil spill
- Smuggling networks exploit migrant debt to fuel tiger poaching in Malaysia, study shows
- Community-based conservation cuts thresher shark fishing by 91% in Indonesia: Study
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
- ‘Colombia’s Amazon peoples provide solutions’: Interview with José Homero Mutumbajoy
- Should mining companies consider no-go zones where isolated Indigenous peoples live? (Commentary)
- Brazil sets a date to remove illegal miners from Munduruku land, more details await
- Peruvian logger loses FSC label after latest clash with isolated Mashco Piro
Endangered Environmentalists
- Environmental & rights activists flee and hide as M23 captures DRC’s cities
- Environmental journalist in Cambodia shot and killed by suspected logger
- Vietnam sentences yet another energy expert over renewables research
- Mother Nature Cambodia activists sentenced to prison — again
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
- An ‘ocean grab’ for a property megaproject leaves Jakarta fishers grounded
- 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
