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Conservation news

Environmental science and conservation news

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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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Carbon offset markets are unfair to communities in...

Conservation news ·

2025/08/29

I write this while waiting for my tablet to die. Tomorrow, I’ll return to air-conditioning, stable WiFi and refrigeration, but here in Long Moh, deep in the remote Upper Baram region of Sarawak, there has been no electricity for two weeks. The fans sit useless and mocking in the corners, and a sudden downpour is […]

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Despite pledge, Colombia still has ways to expand...

Conservation news ·

2025/08/29

Over the last several years, the Colombian government has taken steps to end oil and gas drilling in the Amazon. It pledged to stop issuing new exploration licenses and signed onto treaties to phase out current production, which has shown some signs of decline. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that oil drilling will stop altogether, […]

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A ‘sea war’ brews off Gambia as desperate local...

Conservation news ·

2025/08/29

BANJUL, Gambia (AP) — A “sea war” is brewing off the West African nation of Gambia as desperate local fishermen attack foreign commercial fishing vessels, and each other. The fight is driven by market forces and foreign seafood appetites that are far beyond their control. The Associated Press exclusively obtained video of one attack that […]

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Climate change is driving fish stocks from countries’...

Conservation news ·

2025/08/29

Fish and other marine organisms, though deeply affected by human activities, don’t respect human borders. The ranges of many commercially important species in fact straddle the borders of countries’ exclusive economic zones (EEZs) and international waters, known as the high seas. This arrangement, which makes fisheries management difficult, is set to get even more complicated […]

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As plastics treaty talks break down, are there paths...

Conservation news ·

2025/08/29

Events this August raise a critical question: Can the United Nations process to combat global plastic pollution ever reach agreement? Or is some other way forward necessary? The Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee on Plastic Pollution (INC) set a goal in 2022 of a legally binding treaty by the end of 2024. But the INC missed its […]

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Scientists decode the unusual silver-blue color of an...

Conservation news ·

2025/08/29

Most plants get their coloration from pigments, but an endangered South African cycad gets its unique silvery-blue hue from wax crystals and an underlying chlorophyll-rich layer, according to a recent study. Researchers say understanding how such layers work could pave the way for creating materials that protect from UV and water exposure. Cycads, sometimes described […]

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Nepal’s Supreme Court halts industrial development in...

Conservation news ·

2025/08/29

KATHMANDU — Whenever Chandra Prakash Pathak visits neighboring farms in his hometown of Lumbini, in southwestern Nepal, he sees a thick blanket of black smog. The problem is more severe in winter, when the country doesn’t receive much rainfall. “The farmland is also covered in dust from the manufacturing plants and industries in the area,” […]

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Indonesia’s fish farm expansion to absorb D.C.-sized...

Conservation news ·

2025/08/29

WEST JAVA, Indonesia – A billion-dollar push to expand fish farming on the island of Java to support Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto’s free school meals program will absorb protected forests nearly the size of Washington, D.C., according to the country’s largest environmental group. “This area would become one of the largest releases of protected forests […]

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