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Conservation news

Environmental science and conservation news

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Soot: The super-pollutant choking a burning Earth, in...

Conservation news ·

2025/11/20

Burning fossil fuels and forests releases the well-known greenhouse gases that drive anthropogenic climate change. That burning also produces soot, a fine black particle that harms health and accelerates warming. A new photo series highlights the often overlooked consequence of burning. Award-winning photojournalist Victor Moriyama, in partnership with the Clean Air Fund and Climate Visuals, […]

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With COP30, Indigenous Brazilians strive for new...

Conservation news ·

2025/11/20

For many Brazilians, the country’s Indigenous peoples are considered the main protectors of nature. This is one of the key findings of a new Greenpeace survey published in October: according to the study, when it comes to caring for the forests, 80% of respondents trust Indigenous groups over any other national institution. Yet the global […]

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Next year’s UN climate talks set for Turkey, as...

Conservation news ·

2025/11/20

BELEM, Brazil (AP) — Turkey will host next year’s annual United Nations climate talks, as Australia late Wednesday bowed out of the race to host the conference after a protracted standoff. As Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva spoke at the U.N. conference, this year being hosted by Brazil, Australia’s Climate and Energy Minister […]

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Game of tiny thrones: Parasitic ants grab power by...

Conservation news ·

2025/11/20

Queens of some ant species have evolved an unusually hostile mode for colony takeover: they infiltrate colonies of other ant species and manipulate the worker ants into killing their own queen — their mother — then accepting the intruding queen as their new leader, according to a recent study. In the world of ants, where […]

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Amazon Indigenous groups fight soy waterway as Brazil...

Conservation news ·

2025/11/19

The Tapajós supported Indigenous people for millennia, but now vessels, pollution and waves may disrupt their lives.

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Mongabay founder Rhett Butler wins...

Conservation news ·

2025/11/19

Mongabay founder and CEO Rhett A. Butler has been announced a winner of this year’s Tällberg-SNF-Eliasson Global Leadership Prize. The annual prize is awarded to “outstanding leaders whose work is courageous, innovative, impactful, rooted in universal values, and global in perspective,” the organizers said in a press release. The prize was established by the Sweden-based […]

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‘The perfect ingredients’: WRI Africa deputy director...

Conservation news ·

2025/11/19

The quest to bring energy to Africans who need it often centers on the relatable electrical needs that arise in the home: lighting, phone charging, and a connection to what’s going on in the broader world through a radio or a television. Indeed, 40% of the continent’s population — around 600 million people — don’t […]

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Lethal dose of plastic for seabirds and marine...

Conservation news ·

2025/11/19

New research has found that even small amounts of plastic can be deadly to seabirds, sea turtles and marine mammals. While previous research has established that plastic can lead to mortality in many species, this new study identifies the types and amounts of plastic that pose the greatest danger, and estimates how likely an animal […]

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With military backing and oligarch allies, Indonesia...

Conservation news ·

2025/11/19

The Indonesian administration of President Prabowo Subianto is pushing ahead with a multibillion-dollar plan to build a vast string of plantations in South Papua province that it hopes will secure domestic supplies of rice as well as sugarcane, as the government seeks to ramp up production of biofuel as a means of weaning itself off […]

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Mongabay journalist Malavika Vyawahare honored with...

Conservation news ·

2025/11/19

Mongabay contributing editor Malavika Vyawahare has been awarded a 2025 SEAL environmental journalism award, which recognizes reporters covering the complexities of the environment and climate. “This award is a huge encouragement for me, as a journalist and as an exhausted toddler mom,” Vyawahare said. “It is also a recognition of the kind of work Mongabay […]

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Colombia slams international trade rules that punish...

Conservation news ·

2025/11/19

Colombian Environment Minister Irene Vélez Torres has called for reform of international arbitration tribunals, saying they’re “one of the greatest obstacles” to the energy transition and favor corporate interests over sovereignty. The investor–state dispute settlement system (ISDS), also called a “corporate court,” is an international trade mechanism that allows foreign investors, usually corporations, to sue […]

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Indigenous Dayak resist new southern Borneo national...

Conservation news ·

2025/11/19

BANJARMASIN, Indonesia — A growing coalition of Indigenous communities, students and civil society organizations from Borneo is rallying against fast-moving plans to establish a new national park in the remote Meratus mountain range. “The Meratus forest is our mother,” said Anang Suriani, a spokesperson for the Dayak Indigenous community from Kambiayin, a village in South […]

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Gayatri Reksodihardjo-Lilley, who helped Indonesian...

Conservation news ·

2025/11/16

Founder’s Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries. In the shallows off northern Bali, where the reefs flicker with life and the sea carries the rhythm of work and prayer, a quiet revolution took root. Women who once had few choices began tending tanks of clownfish […]

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Saalumarada Thimmakka, mother of trees, has died,...

Conservation news ·

2025/11/15

Founder’s Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries. Along a dusty road between Hulikal and Kudur in southern India, banyan trees rise like sentinels. Their thick roots grasp the earth, their canopies stretch wide, casting deep shade over the red soil. Travelers who pass beneath them […]

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UK court finds mining giant liable for decade-old dam...

Conservation news ·

2025/11/15

A U.K. judge has found that the Australian multinational mining company BHP is liable for a 2015 dam collapse in southeastern Brazil. The incident killed 19 people and unleashed at least 40 million cubic meters (1.4 billion cubic feet) of toxic mine tailings onto downstream towns and waterways for 675 kilometers (419 miles). In […]

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Mongabay Fellows share their ‘Letters to the Future’

Conservation news ·

2025/11/14

Uncertainty and hope — these sentiments prevail in a series of commentaries published by the latest cohort of Mongabay’s Y. Eva Tan Conservation Reporting Fellows as they conclude their program and forge new paths into environmental journalism. Uncertainty centers on the future of our planet, the journalists who cover it and the people who defend it. […]

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AI data center revolution sucks up world’s energy,...

Conservation news ·

2025/11/14

In 2024, the state of Querétaro in north-central Mexico suffered its worst drought in a century, impacting crops and communities. Seventeen of the state’s 18 municipalities were affected, putting drinking water access at risk for thousands of families, according to CONAGUA, Mexico’s National Water Commission. With freshwater already diminished due to worsening climate change, Querétaro […]

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Researchers find evidence of elephant poaching in...

Conservation news ·

2025/11/14

Communities living around a remote, mountainous forest in southeastern Bangladesh, close to Myanmar, have reported cross-border incidents of elephant poaching for years but there was no confirmed evidence. A new study has now documented the first known physical signs of elephant poaching in the forest. The Sangu-Matamuhuri Reserve Forest in southeastern Bangladesh, bordering Myanmar’s Rakhine […]

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Climate leaders warn of ‘overshoot’ into warming...

Conservation news ·

2025/11/14

BELEM, Brazil (AP) — After years of pushing the world to limit Earth’s warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius, climate leaders are starting to acknowledge that the target set by the 2015 Paris Agreement will almost surely be breached. But they’re not conceding defeat. They are hopeful that temperatures can eventually be brought back below that […]

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Massive turtle bust in Mexico reveals ‘Wild West’ of...

Conservation news ·

2025/11/14

In undercover raids carried out in late September, Mexican authorities discovered 2,339 wild-caught turtles crammed into bins in five locations in Jalisco and Baja California states. Along with the live reptiles, they found a massive stash of other illegal wildlife products that are coveted as delicacies in East Asia: 1,569 kilograms (3,459 pounds) of sea […]

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