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Conservation news

Environmental science and conservation news

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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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Donovan Kirkwood, protector of South Africa’s rarest...

Conservation news ·

2025/08/29

In late August, high in South Africa’s Jonkershoek Mountains, a small group of botanists picked their way across steep ground in search of one of the world’s rarest plants. They were surveying Penaea formosa, a critically endangered shrub thought to number fewer than 50 individuals. Donovan Kirkwood, curator of the Stellenbosch University Botanical Garden, was […]

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Tracking rhino horn trade: Interview with...

Conservation news ·

2025/08/29

How are rhinos faring around the world? As per new findings, it’s a “mixed bag.” According to a report published by the nonprofit International Rhino Foundation, the number of Javan rhinos, on the Indonesian island of the same name, have plummeted as a result of poaching. On the other hand, the numbers of black rhinos […]

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Newly hatched Socorro dove chicks bring hope to...

Conservation news ·

2025/08/29

Eight Socorro dove chicks hatched at Chester Zoo in Albuquerque, New Mexico, this year. These brown floofs represent a significant milestone for a species that is extinct in the wild. Socorro doves (Zenaida graysoni) once lived fearlessly on Socorro Island, located 400 kilometers (250 miles) southwest of Mexico’s Baja California coast. Old reports describe birds […]

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As forest elephants plummet, ebony trees decline in...

Conservation news ·

2025/08/29

In 2017, when Vincent Deblauwe joined the Cameroon-based Congo Basin Institute (CBI) to study African ebony (Diospyros crassiflora) — economically valuable pitch-black, dense wood — the Indigenous Baka people accompanied him on his field trips. As they sat around campfires and trekked through the rainforests, Deblauwe tapped into their knowledge of flora and fauna, especially […]

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Data debunks spike in Sri Lanka’s elephant killings,...

Conservation news ·

2025/08/29

COLOMBO — In recent months, elephants have stolen the spotlight yet again in Sri Lanka’s mainstream and social media. The surge in attention to them began when a series of deadly train collisions killed several elephants, followed by the agonizing death of the iconic tusker Bhahiya, whose final days were made into emotional videos. Bhahiya’s […]

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Liberian communities await justice at Salala rubber...

Conservation news ·

2025/08/29

Five months after the World Bank’s private investment arm submitted its action plan to address community grievances against a rubber plantation it funds in Liberia, affected residents are still waiting for its implementation. The case goes back to a 2019 complaint filed by four Liberian NGOs with the internal watchdog of the International Finance Corporation […]

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Brunei built Southeast Asia’s longest bridge. What...

Conservation news ·

2025/08/29

For local communities in Brunei, the longest bridge in Southeast Asia does more than connect remote eastern areas to the country’s urban capital; it also opens up access to rainforests teeming with unique biodiversity and protected species. Ethnic groups in the remote, eastern Temburong region have historically relied on hunting for sustenance, with low impacts […]

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‘It doesn’t make sense’: Marine biologist on Kenya’s...

Conservation news ·

2025/08/29

Kenya is in the process of building its very first nuclear power station. According to forecasts by the Kenya Nuclear Power and Energy Agency (NuPEA), construction is due to start by 2027 and will produce 1,000 MW of power. The town of Uyombo, in Kilifi county on the Kenyan coast, is one of three sites […]

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