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Conservation news

Environmental science and conservation news

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The need for success stories in conservation...

Conservation news ·

2025/09/11

The gorilla should have vanished. In the late 1980s, the mountain gorilla clung to survival in the misted borderlands of Rwanda, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Poaching, snares, and civil conflict made extinction feel like a timetable. What changed was not a miracle but a grind: rangers risking their lives to keep snares […]

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An elusive deer species clings to survival in Sri...

Conservation news ·

2025/09/11

GALLE, Sri Lanka — The hog deer is Sri Lanka’s rarest and most elusive deer, and was thought to be extinct a few decades ago. Classified as critically endangered within the nation, it now survives only in fragmented patches along the island’s southwestern coastal belt, making it a species of urgent conservation concern. Unlike the […]

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Researchers describe three new-to-science snailfish...

Conservation news ·

2025/09/11

In 2019, researchers surveying the seafloor off the coast of California came upon three unusual species of small fishes with large heads: one with bumpy pink skin, and the other two both black in color. The team collected the fish using underwater research vehicles and later analyzed their DNA and bodies. Their analysis showed that […]

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Indonesia’s giant Java seawall plan sparks criticism...

Conservation news ·

2025/09/11

Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto has set up a new authority to build a massive seawall along the north coast of Java, a project aimed at shielding millions of residents from flooding and sinking land, but observers reject it as a true solution while highlighting risks, elite bias and lack of consultation. The president on Aug. […]

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Scientists are breeding rare and endangered animals...

Conservation news ·

2025/09/11

WUHAN, China (AP) — A dozen sleek grey Yangtze finless porpoises glide inside a vast pool at the Institute of Hydrobiology in Wuhan as scientists find ways to protect and breed the rare mammals in China’s longest river. The Yangtze River is one of the busiest inland waterways in the world with 16 major ports. […]

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Vian Ruma, Indonesian activist, found dead. Aged 30.

Conservation news ·

2025/09/10

He taught mathematics in a small state school on Flores and organized the parish youth group on weekends. Numbers ordered his days; community gave them purpose. In recent years, he also helped mobilize opposition to plans to tap the island’s restless geology for power. On Sept. 5, 2025, Vian Ruma was found dead, hanging from […]

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Controlling wildlife crime saves more than species...

Conservation news ·

2025/09/10

Despite concerted efforts to control illegal wildlife trafficking globally, more than 13 million items of wildlife parts were seized and reported in 162 countries in just the last seven years, according to the World Wildlife Crime Report 2024 by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). These wildlife parts came from more than […]

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In southeast Nigeria, pangolins hunted for meat, not...

Conservation news ·

2025/09/10

When headline after headline highlights tons of pangolin scale seizures in Nigeria, it’s easy to presume that most pangolin poaching in the country is driven by the international demand for the scales. A recently published research, however, finds that in Nigeria’s Cross River state, pangolins are hunted for their meat — much-prized locally — rather […]

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In Argentina, lithium exploration proceeds amid...

Conservation news ·

2025/09/10

For more than 15 years, members of Atacama and Kolla Indigenous communities near Argentina’s abundant lithium reserves say, their rights to a healthy environment and self-determination have been ignored. Located in the Salinas Grandes and Laguna de Guayatayoc saltwater basin in northwestern Argentina, arguments over proper consultation started cropping up as mining companies expressed an […]

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Brazil’s market-based forest fund gets new endorsers...

Conservation news ·

2025/09/10

Brazil is betting big on future rewards to save tropical forest, but critics fear nature will receive a “price tag.”

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Lithium mining leaves severe impacts in Chile, but...

Conservation news ·

2025/09/10

A new report on the impact of lithium mining in South America’s lithium triangle has found that methods used by companies in the rush to extract the mineral in Chile’s Salar de Atacama has led to an “irreversible” and “unrecoverable” loss of water. Nearby Indigenous Colla peoples, whose land has not yet been exploited, told […]

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Death of activist critical of geothermal project...

Conservation news ·

2025/09/10

JAKARTA — The mysterious death of Vian Ruma, a 30-year-old activist opposing a geothermal project on Flores Island, has intensified calls for stronger protection of environmental defenders in Indonesia, where attacks against them have more than doubled this year. Vian was found dead in Nagekeo district on Sept. 5, hanging from a rafter inside a […]

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Maluku coconut growers cry crisis as Indonesia...

Conservation news ·

2025/09/10

SOUTH WASILE, Indonesia — Rudy said South Wasile district police officers visited his home with PT Arumba Jaya Perkasa staff three times in June to recommend he take the company’s 20,000 rupiah offer, around $1.22, per square meter of his coconut grove. “But I didn’t want to do that,” Rudy, whose name has been changed, […]

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Tourism surge and climate change threaten Nepal’s...

Conservation news ·

2025/09/10

Since the completion of an all-weather road eight years ago, Nepal’s remote Mustang region has become a mass tourism destination, reports Mongabay’s Abhaya Raj Joshi. The surge in tourists, combined with the impacts of climate change, could put the fragile Himalayan region at greater risk of future disasters. Previously, Mustang was a destination for foreign […]

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Cambodian irrigation dam construction threatens...

Conservation news ·

2025/09/10

BANGKOK — Forest clearance has begun to make way for a new irrigation dam deep in the heart of the Cardamom Mountains, in Cambodia’s western province of Pursat, Mongabay has learned. The dam, which officials say will safeguard against floods and secure water for agriculture, looks set to clear more than 7,300 hectares (18,000 acres) of […]

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Top court delivers a ‘huge’ climate win for island...

Conservation news ·

2025/09/09

The recent advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) on states’ obligations regarding climate change was celebrated globally for providing clarity on countries’ legal obligation to prevent climate harm, but was also appreciated by island nations for its additional certainty on their maritime boundaries remaining intact regardless of sea level rise. This week […]

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On Java’s Mount Slamet, two former trappers find new...

Conservation news ·

2025/08/31

BANYUMAS, Indonesia — As youngsters, Ari and Junianto would clamber over the upland above Sambirata village, gathering sap to glue-trap the birds nesting below Java’s Mount Slamet. “If it gets wet it’ll lose its stickiness, so you’d have to place it during the day,” Junianto, now in his mid-30s, told Mongabay Indonesia as he pressed […]

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Cruise industry expansion collides with Cozumel’s...

Conservation news ·

2025/08/30

Villa Blanca Reef off Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula is home to emblematic and endangered species, and is the site a coral restoration project with 35 platforms growing different species of coral. Now, it’s ground zero in a fierce local battle — one that pits residents of the island of Cozumel and scientists against cruise ship developers […]

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Kafue River Transect

Conservation news ·

2025/08/30

From its source in the wetlands near Zambia’s northwestern border, through the industrial zones of the Copperbelt, to where it plunges through a steep gorge toward the Zambezi, the Kafue River sustains some of Southern Africa’s richest ecosystems, vital to communities, wildlife, and energy production. Mongabay contributor Ryan Truscott joined an initiative exploring the river’s […]

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Cape Town faces backlash over proposal to kill baboons

Conservation news ·

2025/08/29

In Cape Town, South Africa, an ongoing conflict between people and baboons has escalated to the point that local authorities are considering culling 117 animals from four troops, roughly a quarter of the local population. The 45-kilogram (100-pound) primates sometimes raid homes for food and have injured people, but local conservationists argue killing them isn’t […]

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