Mongabay

Indonesia’s marine ministry has approved one of Java’s largest coal plants to use vast amounts of seawater for cooling, prompting concerns from marine experts over the impact of heated discharge on coastal ecosystems and fisheries. The Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries on July 22 issued a permit for the utilization of seawater for non-energy purposes (ALSE) to PT Bhimasena Power Indonesia (BPI), the operator of the Batang coal-fired power plant in Central Java. The permit makes the Batang facility the first power plant in Java and the second in Indonesia to be legally authorized to manage seawater for industrial activities, the ministry said in a statement. The ministry said the Batang plant utilized approximately 3 billion cubic meters (106 billion cubic feet) of seawater annually, primarily for cooling purposes, and such large-scale seawater use requires accountable management in accordance with government regulations. The ALSE permit regulates the use of seawater for non-energy industrial purposes, such as cooling, potable water production or other uses, according to the ministry. “This effort also supports transparency and accountability in sustainable marine industries,” Frista Yorhanita, the ministry’s director of marine resources, said in the statement. Unfavorable coastal conditions in Batang, Central Java, have made it increasingly difficult for fishers to operate. Image by Wulan Yanuarwati/Mongabay Indonesia. The Batang thermal coal plant began full operations in 2022 with a 2,000-megawatt capacity. As one of Java’s main power sources, it was built to boost Indonesia’s energy supply and support local economic growth. However, instead of improving…This article was originally published on Mongabay

From Conservation news via this RSS feed

Founder’s Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries. The eastern reaches of the Democratic Republic of Congo are no strangers to tragedy. Yet the loss of two Virunga National Park rangers in a surveillance plane crash near Ishango on July 23 underscores once again the mortal risks faced by those charged with defending one of the world’s most biologically rich landscapes. Pilot Claude Nguo and ranger Daniel Kakule were on an aerial mission to protect ground teams during an operation near Lake Edward when their Bat Hawk reconnaissance aircraft went down. The cause of the crash remains under investigation. “The craft went down as the two men sought to ensure the safety of [ICCN] agents operating in the park,” the Congolese Institute for Nature Conservation (ICCN) said in a statement. Both men leave behind young families. Their deaths add to a long and grim toll. More than 220 rangers have died in Virunga over the past two decades—an attrition rate that makes it one of the most dangerous conservation jobs on Earth. The park’s location in a conflict zone, where armed groups such as the Rwandan-backed M23 control swathes of territory, renders even routine tasks perilous. Founded in 1925 by royal decree during Belgium’s colonial rule, Virunga—then known as Parc National Albert—was Africa’s first national park, created to protect mountain gorillas and other rare wildlife from human encroachment. Today it is a UNESCO World Heritage Site spanning nearly 2 million acres,…This article was originally published on Mongabay

From Conservation news via this RSS feed

A few years ago, Maria Suryanti Jun had idea little idea of what an environmental defender was. Nor did she have any intention of becoming one. But since December 2022, when a geothermal project was approved for her community in Poco Leok — which sits on an active volcano in the Indonesian province of East Nusa Tenggara — Maria, now 46 years old, stepped up to advocate for her hometown. In a series of demonstrations against the project, funded by German development bank KfW, Maria and other Indigenous residents have protested what they feel is a lack of transparency from the project developers. This includes scant consultation with the community about the project and its environmental and cultural impacts. Today, Maria is one of the most prominent faces of the Poco Leok movement. But, as a woman and an Indigenous person, she has encountered numerous obstacles in her journey as an activist. Indigenous communities face disproportionately high levels of poverty and are also likely to be disproportionately affected by extractive projects, due to poverty, social marginalization and cultural and economic links to nature. In Southeast Asia, the rights and status of Indigenous communities are often not fully recognized by national governments. Women, meanwhile, are often doubly disadvantaged within and outside of their communities, due to traditional gender roles and limited opportunities for education or self-development. Maria and other women from Poco Leoka are at the forefront of opposing is an expansion of the controversial Ulumbu geothermal plant. Image courtesy of…This article was originally published on Mongabay

From Conservation news via this RSS feed

Mangroves are an important lifeline for biodiversity, climate and coastal communities. Yet they are disappearing 3-5 times faster than total global forest losses, according to UNESCO. On July 26, celebrated as the International Day for the Conservation of the Mangrove Ecosystem, we present recent stories by Mongabay’s journalists on emerging threats to these critical ecosystems and the women who are leading mangrove restoration efforts across the world. Risks from tropical cyclones A recent study found that mangrove forests globally could face severe risk from climate change-intensified tropical cyclones and rising sea levels, Mongabay contributor Elizabeth Fitt reported in June. Mangroves, which typically grow in the tropics and subtropics, have evolved to be resilient against tropical cyclones. They even serve as buffers for coastlines against the resulting storm surges and strong winds. In the process, they may suffer damage, but they tend to bounce back when the storms don’t occur frequently. The study estimates that with climate change, tropical cyclones are likely to occur so frequently that mangroves won’t have enough time to recover. Mangroves are already being cleared or degraded due to pollution, agriculture and infrastructure. The added risk from climate change is a problem because the ecosystem is responsible for an estimated $65 billion worth of annual flood protection across the world while 775 million people are considered “highly dependent” on such coastal ecosystems, the study says. “The mangrove ecosystems providing the highest levels of benefits to people … are also at the highest levels of risk,” study lead researcher…This article was originally published on Mongabay

From Conservation news via this RSS feed

Scientists have measured the amount of nanoplastics in the open ocean for the first time and found they make up the vast majority of marine plastic pollution. Plastic debris in the ocean can be of varying sizes. Nanoplastics are the tiniest, about 1,000 times smaller than the smallest microplastics — small enough to go through cell membranes, including the barriers of the human brain. The new study estimates that the North Atlantic Ocean holds approximately 27 million metric tons of nanoplastics, around nine times the amount of larger plastic debris in all of the world’s oceans. “The pollution is quite advanced,” co-author Dušan Materić, a researcher at the Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research Utrecht, told Mongabay in a video interview. “Just 10 years ago, there was speculation about whether nanoplastics existed, and that brought concern because if they existed in the environment, they would be much more toxicologically potent than their microplastics counterpart.” The researchers found nanoplastics at all three depths they sampled — right from the sea surface to the ocean floor — across 12 stations located across the North Atlantic, indicating widespread contamination. Previously, nanoplastics were missing from calculations of how much total plastic is in the ocean. The millions of tons of nanoplastics found in the recent study, Materić said, fills that gap. “To me, [the amount of nanoplastics we found] is a bit more than I expected,” Materić said. “We are closing that budget with nanoplastics. So, in a sense, we discovered the missing pollutant.”…This article was originally published on Mongabay

From Conservation news via this RSS feed

BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) — Peruvian customs officials have seized a record-breaking shipment of illegal mercury, exposing a cross-border smuggling network fueling illicit gold mining in the Amazon. The 4-ton haul, discovered in June at the port of Callao, was hidden in gravel bags and bound for Bolivia, officials said on Thursday. Experts say it could have produced over $170 million in illicit gold. The seizure highlights the growing role of mercury trafficking in environmental crime across Latin America and comes amid calls for tighter international controls and the closure of mercury mines in Mexico.This article was originally published on Mongabay

From Conservation news via this RSS feed

When Abebayehu Aticho first visited the flat terrains and floodplains in the Gambella region for his Ph.D. research in 2014, he was captivated by the rich biodiversity and bird varieties that inhabited the region. Tucked in western Ethiopia, bordering South Sudan, the Gambella region is home to various bird species like the colorful kingfisher that locals trail to find fish and the black-crowned crane whose calls signal seasonal changes. For the traditional pastoralist Nuer people, who seasonally migrate within Ethiopia’s plains and Africa’s largest wetland in South Sudan, the Sudd, these birds are gaatkuoth, “sacred children of God.” In a recent study co-authored by Aticho and published in People and Nature, researchers dived deep into this human-bird interaction in western Ethiopia and explored the cultural and spiritual connection between the birds and the tribe. They identified 71 culturally important bird species that the community utilizes in several ways, including in traditional medicine, indication of fish abundance for fishers and of coming seasons, and bushmeat. They also use them to make amulets for protection against danger and as omens and messages, besides appreciating their scenic beauty. “The connection between these birds and people is not just spiritual. The Nuer people depend on them to forecast weather and follow birds to find fish stocks and species in the wetlands,” says Aticho. Birds in wetlands, Gambella, Ethiopia. Image courtesy of Abebayehu Aticho. According to the locals, certain species are seen as messengers bringing them blessings, omens or bad luck. They commonly name children,…This article was originally published on Mongabay

From Conservation news via this RSS feed

In the aftermath of Hurricane Maria’s assault on the Caribbean island of Dominica in 2017, researchers made a heartbreaking discovery: dead and dying hummingbirds scattered across the forest floor. Among them were purple-throated caribs (Eulampis jugularis), the specialized pollinators of the island’s Heliconia plants. This single storm threatened an evolutionary partnership millions of years in the making, killing three-quarters of the hummingbird population and leaving their flowering partners without their primary pollinators. The disaster on Dominica exemplifies a threat that scientists are only beginning to understand: how natural disasters can drive vulnerable species toward extinction. A study identified 2,001 species (834 reptiles, 617 amphibians, 302 birds and 248 mammals) that have at least 25% of their habitat in areas experiencing high impact from hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and tsunamis. Hurricane Maria makes landfall in 2017. Animal populations weakened by human activities are at greater risk from storms and other natural hazards. MODIS/Terra Satellite image posted by Antti Lipponen (CC BY 2.0) “This is the first attempt to provide a global map of species at risk of extinction due to natural hazards,” lead author Fernando Gonçalves, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Zurich, told Mongabay. The study analyzed approximately 50 years of historical data on these four kinds of natural hazards. Hurricanes pose the greatest threat, affecting 983 of the high-risk species, followed by earthquakes (868 species), tsunamis (272 species) and volcanic eruptions (171 species). The highest concentrations of at-risk species were found along the Pacific Ring of Fire, a…This article was originally published on Mongabay

From Conservation news via this RSS feed

MOCOA, Colombia — From the air, the forests in Putumayo, Colombia’s southwestern Amazonian department, look scarred. Light brown lines snake through the canopy. In the eastern part of Putumayo’s Puerto Guzmán municipality, about 80 kilometers (50 miles) of irregular roads, mostly dirt tracks, cut through the forests, according to the report. Many of them are flanked by bare land where trees once stood. From October 2024 to March 2025, more than 11,000 hectares (about 27,000 acres) of forest have been lost in Putumayo. Colombia’s southwestern department is one of the seven areas featured in a new report documenting recent expansion of deforestation in biodiversity hotspots, driven especially by illicit crops and illegal roads. The areas chosen have higher historical levels of deforestation than other regions in the Colombian Amazon. According to Colombia’s Inspector General’s Office, between October 2024 and March 2025, 88,808 hectares (about 219,400 acres) were deforested across Río Naya, Meta-Mapiripán, Vista Hermosa-Puerto Rico, Triple Frontera (Guaviare), Llanos del Yarí – northern Chiribiquete, Caquetá and Putumayo. The Inspector General’s Office monitored an area of about 3.3 million hectares (8.1 million acres), roughly the size of Belgium. The report, supported by data from the Foundation for Conservation and Sustainable Development (FCDS), a Colombian environmental conservation nonprofit, also highlights 1,107 km (688 mi) of irregular roads associated with forest loss: 782 km (486 mi) were identified by the General Inspector’s Office between March 2024 and March 2025 and are subject to verification by local authorities; the remaining were identified by FCDS…This article was originally published on Mongabay

From Conservation news via this RSS feed

The government of Chad has signed a 10-year deal with the U.S.-based NGO Sahara Conservation to manage the Ouadi Rimé-Ouadi Achim Faunal Reserve (OROAFR), the group announced July 11. The OROAFR is the largest protected area in Chad, at nearly 80,000 square kilometers (almost 31,000 square miles), around three times the size of Rwanda.  “It’s obviously very big, and its value is not only in its biological value, but in its cultural value as well with the human dimensions of the reserve,” Tim Woodfine, CEO of Sahara Conservation, told Mongabay by phone.  The deal adds to a growing list of public-private partnerships managing protected areas in Africa. The South Africa-based NGO African Parks has agreements to run nearby Ennedi Natural and Cultural Reserve in northeastern Chad and Zakouma National Park in the southern part of the country. The OROAFR is a mix of grasslands and desert ecosystems and hosts several endangered species, including the African wild dog (Lycaon pictus) and scimitar-horned oryx (Oryx dammah). Drought and settlement expansion are some challenges it’s faced in recent years. Founded in 2004, Sahara Conservation largely focuses on Chad and neighboring Niger. The group was the driving force behind the reintroduction of scimitar-horned oryx into the OROAFR, which had previously been poached to local extinction. Starting in 2016, the NGO worked with zoos and private owners in the United Arab Emirates to bring 300 oryx into the reserve, a population that’s since grown to 600. In 2023, the IUCN, the global conservation authority, changed…This article was originally published on Mongabay

From Conservation news via this RSS feed

The world’s top court has issued a landmark advisory opinion saying that countries are legally obligated to protect the environment and present and future generations from the impacts of climate change. This obligation, the U.N.’s International Court of Justice (ICJ) said on July 23, is grounded in existing environmental and human rights treaties. It also said states that fail to prevent climate harm and continue to support the use of fossil fuels may open themselves to future legal cases for reparations by vulnerable nations. “If states have legal duties to prevent climate harm, then victims of that harm have a right to redress,” Sebastien Duyck, senior attorney at the Center for International Environmental Law (CIEL), said in an emailed statement. “In this way, the ICJ advisory opinion does not only clarify existing rules, it creates legal momentum. It reshapes what is now considered legally possible, actionable, and ultimately enforceable.” The ICJ’s opinion was prompted by a historic hearing in December 2024, when representatives from more than 100 countries and organizations argued before a 15-judge panel on what legal obligations major greenhouse gas-emitting nations have under international law to address climate change, and how they can be held accountable for the harms they’ve caused. Small island nations like Vanuatu, Timor-Leste and Tuvalu emphasized that climate change threatens their very existence. They pointed out that a handful of industrialized nations have caused the climate crisis while expanding their fossil fuel extraction and use. Major emitters like the U.S., U.K., Germany, Saudi Arabia…This article was originally published on Mongabay

From Conservation news via this RSS feed

The energy landscape is a shifting terrain, full of twists and turns, according to statistics in the latest report by the International Energy Agency (IEA). While some countries are backtracking on phasing out fossil fuels, others are leaning in. While investment in renewables is surging beyond investment in fossil fuels, companies are repeatedly pulling out of climate commitments. Questions of energy security, stability, inflation, war and domestic politics are all influencing these trends, economists say. Amid this volatile landscape is Colombia, a major oil-producing country where government officials say they will stay the course on their fossil fuel pledges. Since 2023, the government has halted all new oil and gas exploration contracts. And during a U.N. forum on Indigenous issues, the ministry of environment announced it will submit a resolution for a binding global agreement on due diligence of critical minerals, elements used to power renewable technologies. The country’s goal is to progressively move away from oil and gas while strengthening local renewable energy and storage capacity. Lena Yanina Estrada, the new environment minister and first Indigenous person to hold the position, argues that it’s a model that helps bring long-term stability in a turbulent world. “Colombia, like other Andean-Amazonian countries, is highly vulnerable to the impacts of the climate crisis. Persisting in the expansion of the fossil frontier will not help to diminish these impacts; instead, it will deepen dependence on volatile economies,” Estrada says. “Dynamics in the international market show that dependence on the volatility of oil prices…This article was originally published on Mongabay

From Conservation news via this RSS feed

When it comes to sleeping, few animals are as fastidious as orangutans. Each evening, as twilight approaches, the tree-dwelling great apes meticulously weave a cup-shaped nest out of branches, twigs and leaves, line it with comfortable soft foliage, and bed down for the night. The nest secures them high in the forest canopy and allows them to grab up to 12 or 13 hours of shut-eye per night. For more than a decade, researchers studying a group of Sumatran orangutans (Pongo abelii) in the forests of Indonesia’s Aceh province had observed individuals also taking daytime naps in more makeshift nests. They wondered whether the napping orangutans were catching up on poor sleep the previous night, in much the same way humans might flop down in an armchair or sofa for a quick power nap. In a new study published in Current Biology, the researchers show that the orangutans do indeed compensate for a poor night’s sleep by napping more the following day. They found the shorter an individual’s sleep period overnight, the longer its cumulative nap period the next day. “We were always wondering over many years, is this really what is happening? Are they really napping more when they had a shorter night’s sleep?” Caroline Schuppli, study co-author and group leader at the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior at the University of Konstanz in Germany, told Mongabay in an interview. “To see it materialize in the data was really nice.” The findings are based on 14 years of…This article was originally published on Mongabay

From Conservation news via this RSS feed

JAKARTA — Two of Indonesia’s most prominent environmental experts are facing a lawsuit that activists say is part of a wider trend of silencing scientists who testify against environmental violators. Bambang Hero Saharjo and Basuki Wasis, both veteran forensics experts whose testimonies have helped convict major polluters, are being sued by PT Kalimantan Lestari Mandiri (KLM), a palm oil company they helped hold accountable for massive fires in Central Kalimantan province on the island of Borneo. Their expert testimony and damage assessments have proved crucial in securing rulings against environmental offenders. By calculating the cost of ecological destruction, they help judges assign real value to environmental losses — evidence often used to prove corporate liability or even corruption. Bambang has testified as an expert in more than 500 environmental destruction cases, and is currently assisting in more than 15 cases — from fires that spew toxic haze, to mining-caused floods and landslides. The KLM case stems from 2018, when the Indonesian government sued the company for fires that burned 511 hectares (1,263 acres) of its concession in Central Kalimantan. Those fires contributed to the toxic haze crisis that routinely blankets parts of Indonesia and neighboring countries during the dry season, causing widespread respiratory illness, school closures and flight cancellations. Peatland fires in particular release massive amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, making them a major driver of greenhouse gas emissions and regional air pollution. A court found KLM liable for the fires and ordered it to pay 89 billion…This article was originally published on Mongabay

From Conservation news via this RSS feed

A last-minute proposal to revise the European Union’s sweeping antideforestation law has conservationists worried about yet another delay to the law’s implementation and weaker oversight of supply chains. The EU deforestation-free products regulation, or EUDR, is scheduled to go into effect at the end of this year, imposing new restrictions on imports linked to forest loss. But some officials want to simplify a section of the law to make trade easier — a hazardous delay tactic, some critics say. “Further attempts to delay the application of the regulation or to undermine its well thought through architecture will damage the credibility of the EU and frustrate the efforts of companies and third countries that have invested in reaching compliance,” said Together4Forests, a campaign of more than 220 environmental groups. The EUDR requires producers — including those in European countries — to prove cattle, cocoa, coffee, oil palm, rubber, soy and wood weren’t sourced from land that was deforested after Dec. 31, 2020. Technically, the law took effect in 2023 but allowed countries an 18-month transition period to give producers time to meet the new trade regulations. Last year, the transition period was extended by another 12 months, citing producers’ lack of preparedness. It’s now due to go into force on Dec. 30 this year. Corn and soy fields in Brasilia, Brazil. (AP Photo/Eraldo Peres) The rigor of the regulations each country faces is based on a benchmarking system that categorizes them as either high, standard or low risk. This has been…This article was originally published on Mongabay

From Conservation news via this RSS feed

Political will is among the most important factors in preventing tropical deforestation, according to a group of experts surveyed for a new study — with strong political commitment often arising out of long-term “public pressure” and civil society advocacy for forest protection. The research, published July 22 in the journal Conservation Letters, turns the question of what causes the loss of tropical forests “on its head,” looking instead at what prevents it, says co-author Rachael Garrett, a professor of conservation and development at the University of Cambridge in the U.K. Brazil and Indonesia have managed to slow deforestation rates amid pressure from rapidly expanding agriculture, leading the team to ask, “Why do these places still have so much forest?” Garrett says. Deforestation rates in Brazil, home to more tropical rainforest than any other country on Earth, dipped substantially between 2004 and 2012. And while annual forest loss there climbed back up in the 2010s, it has dropped again in recent years. Similarly, in Indonesia, the expansion of oil palm plantations devastated large swaths of forest in the past, but those rates, too, have slowed. Deforestation for an oil palm plantation in Borneo, Indonesia. Image by Rhett A. Butler/Mongabay. Because Brazil and Indonesia boast so much forest, much research has focused on how to stop deforestation there. Often, those studies look at the impact of specific policies and mechanisms (such as Brazil’s Forest Code or Indonesia’s sustainable palm oil certification effort) and their relationship to deforestation declines measured by satellite analysis,…This article was originally published on Mongabay

From Conservation news via this RSS feed

MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay (AP) — Uruguay’s iconic palm trees are under attack by the invasive red palm weevil, a pest from Southeast Asia. First detected in 2022, the insect has already destroyed thousands of trees, including half of the 19,000 palms in the capital Montevideo. Authorities are waking up to the threat of the voracious insect as fears grow that the country’s beloved palms could be wiped out. The pest threatens not only decorative Canary palms but also native species in Uruguay’s UNESCO biosphere reserve. Officials fear the infestation could spread across South America, devastating landscapes and ecosystems. By Matilde Campodónico, Nayara Batschke, Associated Press This article was originally published on Mongabay

From Conservation news via this RSS feed

Honduras is currently facing a total of $19.4 billion in lawsuits from corporations, an amount equivalent to roughly 53% of the country’s GDP in 2024, according to new data by the Institute for Policy Studies, Transnational Institute, Honduras Solidarity Network and TerraJusta. More than $1.6 billion of the claims are from the energy sector alone, most of which are investors or companies involved in renewables. The lawsuits, most of which are tied to controversial investments made after the 2009 coup, undermine government efforts to implement reforms aimed at protecting the environment and human rights, the organizations say. Companies and investors are using these tribunals to resist government measures to protect natural resources and human rights, such as the rollback of policies that favor privatization and expensive private energy contracts, according to Karen Spring, a coordinator for the Honduras Solidarity Network and author of a 2024 report by the same organizations that released the new figures. “The companies do not like these re-negotiations and refuse to sit down with the government of one of the poorest countries in the western hemisphere to negotiate, and with greed and arrogance, appeal to these neocolonial international arbitration tribunals to force Honduras to give them what they want – consistent corporate profits at the expense of the public good,” Spring told Mongabay over email. X-Elio’s Solar Energy Park in Choluteca, Honduras. Image by Jen Moore. The $19.4 billion is a jump from the $14 billion reported by the same organizations in 2024, with two new…This article was originally published on Mongabay

From Conservation news via this RSS feed

Sri Lankan authorities, locals and environmentalists say they’re deeply concerned about the possible impacts on the country’s marine ecosystem and coastal communities from the sinking of a container ship off the southern coast of India in May, Mongabay contributor Malaka Rodrigo reported in June. The Liberia-flagged ship MSC Elsa 3 sank on May 25 about 38 nautical miles (70 kilometers) off the coast of India’s Kerala state, reportedly due to ballast system failure. Indian authorities said they were able to contain the spill of the more than 450 metric tons of fuel oil on board. But among the cargo ship’s 640 containers were hazardous materials, including calcium carbide, used in steelmaking, which reacts violently with water to form flammable gases and poses a risk to the local marine ecosystem. The cargo also contained nurdles, small pellets used in plastic manufacturing, that soon started appearing on the beaches of India and Sri Lanka. At the time of Rodrigo’s reporting, nurdles had been spotted on Sri Lanka’s northern shores. Since then, more have washed up on the southern shores, near Colombo, Sri Lanka’s capital. Padma Abeykoon, additional secretary at Sri Lanka’s environment ministry, told Rodrigo that Indian authorities initially alerted the Sri Lankan government about the plastic debris drifting toward its shores because of ocean currents. The pellets arrived on the coast of Mannar, a town in northern Sri Lanka, within a day of the ship’s sinking. Plastic nurdles washed ashore on Sri Lanka’s northern coast. Image courtesy of the Marine Environmental…This article was originally published on Mongabay

From Conservation news via this RSS feed

After years of delay, the deep-sea mining plans of Canadian firm The Metals Company (TMC) now appear to be progressing as it pursues a controversial new path to securing a license to mine in international waters under U.S. jurisdiction. Yet critics and some industry observers question how smoothly TMC’s ambitious plans might unfold, citing the likelihood of litigation and strained relations with global partners over the company’s unconventional path to licensing, among other issues. Adding to the critics’ unease are TMC’s connections to other deep-sea mining ventures, both past and present. Figures in these companies have attracted controversy over the years, which Mongabay is exposing in fresh detail. TMC, however, has brushed away such concerns. “[W]e stand firmly behind our record of transparency, science-based decision-making, and responsible project development,” the company said in a statement to Mongabay. This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center’s Ocean Reporting Network, where Elizabeth Claire Alberts is a fellow. It is part one of a three-part investigation into TMC, its investors, partners and business strategies. Standing behind the lectern at the Nasdaq MarketSite Studio in Times Square, New York City, on Sept. 17, 2021, Gerard Barron slammed his palm down on a button. A bell jangled as a shower of black, white and metallic gold confetti fell from above. Barron and the crowd of people around him, which included the president of the Pacific island nation of Kiribati, Taneti Maamau, and Margo Deiye, then-ambassador of another Pacific nation, Nauru, to the International Seabed Authority,…This article was originally published on Mongabay

From Conservation news via this RSS feed

Before pivoting her focus to the Arctic, Alysa McCall worked extensively in the grassland ecosystem. There, the interventions required for ecosystem restoration and wildlife protection were much less complicated. You could introduce more water in case of a scarcity. Or put up a fence to protect animals. The Arctic, however, was a whole other ballgame. “We can’t grow more ice. We can’t put a fence up,” McCall, director of conservation outreach and staff scientist at the nonprofit Polar Bears International, told Mongabay in a video interview. “The conservation approaches, management and planning are just so different.” Since then, McCall has worked with her colleagues to study and protect the Arctic and its native species, such as polar bears (Ursus maritimus) and beluga whales (Delphinapterus leucas). One of the organization’s long-running projects, called Beluga Cam, uses boats in the Churchill River in Hudson Bay, Canada, to gather footage of the annual migration of about 57,000 beluga whales. The initiative is part of a larger citizen science project that brings people from around the world to help researchers identify belugas from the visuals and make observations about them. This year, the project got an upgrade with the use of a new boat that houses the cameras and other equipment during the course of the migration season. Beluga whales as captured on the Beluga Cam in 2025. Image courtesy of Kieran Mclver. “We have also been able to, over time, actually identify individuals,” McCall said. “To see that whale come year after year…This article was originally published on Mongabay

From Conservation news via this RSS feed

Founder’s Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries. In the final months of her life, Sharon Haussmann could still be found walking fence lines, coordinating antipoaching patrols, and debating the finer points of dehorning protocol with field rangers and policymakers alike. The work was unrelenting, the stakes immense. But for Haussmann, the head of the Greater Kruger Environmental Protection Foundation (GKEPF), conservation was never a calling one answered from a desk. It was done in the bush, in boots, often before dawn, always among the people and creatures whose fate she had chosen to share. South Africa’s white rhinos (Ceratotherium simum) had in her one of their fiercest modern champions. As poaching syndicates turned increasingly militarized and the costs of protecting wildlife soared into the tens of millions of dollars, Haussmann helped lead one of the most ambitious rewilding operations in recent memory: the relocation of 120 southern white rhinos from a controversial breeding program into safer private reserves on the edge of Kruger National Park. “They are literally ecosystem engineers,” Haussmann previously told Mongabay. “We need white rhinos.” Each rhino was sedated, dehorned, and fitted with surveillance, the last steps in a fraught, hopeful journey back to the wild. Haussmann was not only a strategist, but a scientist. Her fascination with hyenas, an animal often dismissed or reviled, led her to spend more than 3,000 hours at den sites. She published two papers on their behavior, offering a glimpse into…This article was originally published on Mongabay

From Conservation news via this RSS feed

A bacterial probiotic helped slow the spread of a deadly disease on great star coral, one of the largest and most resistant corals still surviving in the Florida Reef Tract, a 560-kilometer (350-mile) barrier reef off the coast of Florida, U.S., a recent study found. The treatment involved sealing live great star coral (Montaststraea cavernosa) colonies inside large, weighted plastic bags filled with a probiotic seawater solution, creating a temporary aquarium. The corals treated in this way lost an average of 7% of their tissue, compared with 35% in untreated control corals. “It’s important to understand that this is the very beginning,” lead author Kelly Pitts, a researcher at the Smithsonian Marine Station, told Mongabay by phone. “This is definitely not a cure-all, but we’re definitely moving in the right direction.” Stony coral tissue loss disease (SCTLD) has caused extensive death for more than 30 species of reef-building corals in Florida’s coral reef and is now spreading to other reefs in the Caribbean Sea. Pillar coral (Dendrogyra cylindrus), a species known for its finger-like spires, is now considered functionally extinct in Florida due to SCTLD. Other species have lost up to 97% of their colonies. Researchers had tested two delivery methods to combat its spread with probiotics: a paste and the seawater solution. Both used a bacterial strain called McH1-7, which was isolated from a healthy coral and cultivated in a lab. The paste treatment, where divers applied the probiotic directly onto infected tissue and then spread it by hand…This article was originally published on Mongabay

From Conservation news via this RSS feed

“I was making a joke and in my head I said, ‘I smell a threadsnake,'” Justin Springer, Caribbean program officer for the NGO Re:wild, recalled. “I just had a feeling, but I couldn’t be sure because we turned over a lot of rocks before that and we saw nothing.” Springer’s intuition proved correct when his colleague, Connor Blades, pried a rock loose from under a tree root. There, in the soil of central Barbados, they found both an earthworm and the world’s smallest snake. Scientists had been searching for the Barbados threadsnake (Tetracheilostoma carlae) for more than a year. Before this day, the tiny snake, which measures just 7.5-10 centimeters (3-4 inches) long and is about the width of a spaghetti noodle, had not been observed by scientists for 20 years. Barbados threadsnake photographed on a coin in 2005. Image © Blair Hedges, Penn State, via Wikimedia Commons. “Barbados threadsnakes are blind snakes, so they’re very cryptic,” said Blades, a project officer with the Barbados environment ministry, referring to the tendency of blind snakes to spend most of their time underground. “They’re quite rare also, it seems. There have only been a handful of confirmed sightings since 1889, so there are not many people who have ever seen it, unfortunately.” The expedition was conducted in March by the environment ministry and Re:wild as part of the Conserving Barbados’ Endemic Reptiles (CBER) project. On an island where many endemic species have been driven to extinction, finding this rare snake is a…This article was originally published on Mongabay

From Conservation news via this RSS feed

The Trump administration’s proposed 2026 budget for the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) cuts funding for several critically important national laboratories and observatories. On the chopping block is Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawai‘i, which has been recording atmospheric carbon data every day for nearly 70 years. Mauna Loa Observatory sits atop a volcano on the Big Island of Hawai‘i. At an elevation of 3,397 meters (11,135 feet), it rises above more polluted air near the ground to collect atmospheric data with minimal influence from human activity and vegetation. Mauna Loa has been collecting atmospheric carbon dioxide data since 1958, the longest continuous record of atmospheric CO2 levels in the world. Famously, the observatory provided data for the Keeling Curve, a graph that shows annual CO2 levels for the past seven decades. The graph starts in 1958, when the observatory recorded atmospheric CO2 concentrations of 315 parts per million (ppm). By 2024, that number had steadily climbed to nearly 427 ppm. The last time Earth experienced that much CO2 was roughly 3 million years ago, when sea levels were more than 24 m (80 ft) higher than today. NOAA operates three other observatories that collect CO2 data to create a global picture of atmospheric CO2 trends. All four observatories will be closed if President Trump’s budget is adopted. In all, more than a dozen observatories, national labs and institutes are on the chopping block in the budget. The facilities monitor extreme weather events and air pollution, information that can…This article was originally published on Mongabay

From Conservation news via this RSS feed