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Camera traps installed high in the rainforest canopy in Malaysian Borneo have filmed a bounty of threatened primates, hornbills and a host of tree-dwelling animals feasting on figs. Biologists from Malaysia-based nonprofit 1StopBorneo Wildlife, along with Sabah Parks and local conservationists, scaled two enormous fig trees in Tawau Hills National Park in Sabah state to install 16 camera traps in their canopies in late June. The cameras have since amassed more than 10,000 images of wildlife. Among the fig foragers were Bornean orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus), helmeted hornbills (Rhinoplax vigil) — both critically endangered — binturongs (Arctictis binturong), gibbons, flying squirrels, and several species of leaf monkey. This is likely the first time camera traps have been used to document wildlife associated with fruiting fig trees in Malaysia, according to Shavez Cheema, founder of 1StopBorneo Wildlife. “The best was having three different primate species in the frame at the same time: the red leaf monkey [Presbytis rubicunda], gibbons [genus Hylobates], and the Sabah gray leaf monkey [Presbytis sabana].” During his nine years working in the national park, Cheema said, he’s only once glimpsed the gray leaf monkey, an endangered species endemic to Sabah. But the arboreal cameras captured them almost daily. The cameras also recorded activities otherwise hidden from view, such as a binturong pooping into a tree nook, showing its role as a vital seed disperser. Arboreal camera traps allow “cheaper, more accurate, longer, and verifiable sampling,” said Matthew Luskin, a conservation biologist at the University of Queensland, Australia, who wasn’t…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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MEXICO CITY — In 2017, as part of an international treaty, Mexico started phasing down mercury production and eliminating its use in gold mining, citing major environmental and public health hazards. The effort appeared to work: Between 2017 and 2018, the government reported that national mercury production had dropped from 442 metric tons to just half a metric ton. Over the following three years, it reportedly dropped to zero. But for some environmental groups, those numbers looked too good to be true. The government wasn’t reporting mercury smuggling during those years, they said, and had even left several key sections of its progress reports blank. Ultimately, the government would have to issue a correction to some official figures, clarifying that mercury was still being produced in the country. Today, mercury production persists in several states across Mexico, including in protected areas, and has turned the country into one of the main suppliers for the mercury used in gold mines across Latin America. “Mercury mining production is spinning out of control, with bursts of activity driven by mercury prices, increased violence and an alleged recent takeover of productive mines by a drug cartel,” the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) said in a recent report. Peruvian jungle devastated by wild cat gold miners in Madre de Dios, Peru. (Guadalupe Pardo/Pool Photo via AP) Mercury is considered one of the top 10 chemicals of major public health concern by the World Health Organization. Once released into an ecosystem, it can pollute soils and streams…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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Extinction is an overwhelming concept, difficult to grasp in its enormity and finality. Thousands of species are barreling toward that grim fate, unless we help. A comprehensive new study provides the clearest picture yet of Earth’s most imperiled species, and offers evidence that conservation can work. The study published in Nature Reviews Biodiversity found that 10,443 species are critically endangered, the worst threat category before extinct in the wild and, finally, extinct. Species qualify as critically endangered on the IUCN Red List when they meet strict thresholds such as rapid population declines, extremely restricted ranges, or having fewer than 50 mature individuals remaining. “It is surprising that more than 1,500 species, so 15% of the critically endangered species, are estimated to have fewer than 50 mature individuals remaining in the wild, a large number of those plants,” Rikki Gumbs, research fellow at the Zoological Society of London’s Institute of Zoology and co-author of the study, told Mongabay. A critically endangered gharial (Gavialis gangeticus) or fish-eating crocodile in Nepal. Image courtesy of  ZSL/ Rikki Gumbs “The good news is that it’s within our power as humans to [save them]. It’s our unsustainable behaviour driving these devastating declines — whether through deforestation or the introduction of invasive species and diseases — so we can turn things around and bring these species back from the brink.” Most critically endangered species, 77%, earned their status because they have extremely limited habitat remaining. Seven species, including three amphibians, three tortoises and the vaquita porpoise (Phocoena…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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Scientists recently estimated, for the first time, that the North Atlantic Ocean contains millions of tons of nanoplastics. To measure it, they used a detection method that picks up the chemical markers, or smell, of trace amounts of burned plastic. “Imagine you forget a plastic knife in the oven, and you turn it on and it starts to smell,” Dušan Materić, one of the authors of the study, told Mongabay in a video interview. “We are sampling that smell every second. For a knife in the oven, you can smell it in the house. For nanoplastics, it is traces, but our instrument can still detect it.” Scientists have speculated that the oceans hold significant amounts of nanoplastics, tiny plastic fragments about a thousand times smaller than microplastics. But no one had managed to quantify them until now. The research team, with scientists from both the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research and the Institute for Marine and Atmospheric Research Utrecht, estimated there’s roughly 27 million metric tons of nanoplastics in just the North Atlantic Ocean. Since nanoplastics are too small to see, the team detected the miniscule particles via their smell. Or more specifically, the smell of burned plastic. The testing method starts with filtering seawater samples to remove larger particles. The remaining water is dried and the residue is placed in a device and slowly heated. Clean air is pumped in, and the air that exits, containing the smell of whatever has burned, is measured. The measuring device can…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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For nearly two decades, Alejandro González has stood on the front lines of marine conservation in Mexico, from the coral-fringed reefs of Cabo Pulmo to the remote volcanic outposts of the Revillagigedo Archipelago. A biologist by training and a park director by trade, González has built a career navigating the tension between ambition and reality—between vast declarations on paper and the gritty, day-to-day work of enforcement at sea. “I fell in love with nature early on,” González says. “But as I studied more, I began to understand the ocean’s broader role in our lives… The more you understand the ocean, the more you realize how central it is to life on Earth.” Alejandro González next to a plaque commemorating the Revillagigedo Archipelago’s UNESCO World Heritage Site status. Courtesy of González. That realization would shape a trajectory that took him from a coastal resource advisor in Quintana Roo to leadership roles in three of Mexico’s most iconic marine protected areas (MPAs), culminating in his directorship of Revillagigedo National Park—the largest in the country, covering over 15 million hectares of ocean. Revillagigedo, a UNESCO World Heritage Site located hundreds of kilometers offshore, presented unusual challenges. “It was a very particular case,” González recalls. “In Mexico, we don’t have many oceanic national parks.” Isla San Benedicto, one the Revillagigedo Archipelago’s islands. Photo by Rhett Ayers Butler / Mongabay Isolated and under naval jurisdiction, operating in the archipelago required diplomacy as much as logistics. Establishing trust with the Mexican Navy was essential to enable…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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Cambodia’s Indigenous peoples have a deep relationship to forests, land and natural resources, which they traditionally manage in their cultural practices and everyday lives. There are 22 distinct Indigenous communities with an estimated 172,980 people, accounting for 1.11% of Cambodia’s total population. Indigenous peoples are well-known for being forest caretakers and passing down forest care from generation to generation through ancestral heritage. Forests, lands and natural resources are at the very heart of Indigenous culture and spiritual practices. Even though there are small portions of Indigenous peoples in Cambodia and across the globe, their ways of living have made significant contributions to the protection of forests and maintaining rich biodiversity and ecological systems, which contributes to the lessening of the impact of climate change. As much as 80% of the world’s biodiversity is conserved and cared for by Indigenous peoples worldwide. In Cambodia, Indigenous peoples are assumed to have traditionally maintained and relied on around 4 million hectares (about 10 million acres) of forestland. However, as of 2025, I personally believe that there will be a major shift in this customary management as economic land concessions continue to be granted to private companies within Indigenous communities. Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary is one of the largest remaining lowland evergreen forests in mainland Southeast Asia and is home to many Indigenous communities, but it is threatened by logging, mining and land grabbing. Image by Andy Ball for Mongabay. There is no doubt that Indigenous peoples play an important role in the conservation…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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Domestic cats are hugely popular as pets, yet little is known about their ancestor, the Afro-Asiatic wildcat. This species, Felis lybica, is the most widely distributed wildcat in the world, but experts still don’t know its exact population. The wildcat faces several threats to its survival, including interbreeding with domestic cats and the diseases they can transmit, Mongabay contributor Petro Kotzé reported in May. To date, the only long-term study conducted on the species’ behavior and population genetics was a four-year effort by Marna Herbst, now a regional ecologist for South African National Parks, who published her findings as part of her Ph.D. studies in 2009. At the time, Herbst spent 10-12 hours a night in the harsh Kalahari landscape of Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park, attempting to observe and catch the elusive wildcats, Kotzé wrote. She managed to catch and collar several wildcats, which are roughly the same size as domestic cats (F. catus) but with longer legs. Kotzé wrote that wildcats have faint tabby stripes or spots and varying colors, including reddish, sandy, tawny brown and grayish, depending on the region they come from. The species also has a slim tail marked with a dark tip and a distinct pinkish-orange tint on its ears, according to Herbst. Herbst learned that the Afro-Asiatic wildcats can easily adapt to their landscape, season and any available prey. Although they have a preference for small rodents, they also eat reptiles and invertebrates. Herbst even saw some of the male cats preying on hares as…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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In December 2024, Denmark embarked on an ambitious plan to cut carbon emissions and restore 250,000 hectares (617,763 acres) or almost 6% of the country into forested area. One local initiative is afforesting agricultural land in Aarhus municipality, home to the country’s second-largest city, where nature is being allowed to take its course — with some help. Biologist Peter Søgaard, Aarhus municipality’s afforestation project manager, told Mongabay that in Vilhelmsborg, an area south of Aarhus city, 300 hectares (741 acres) of municipal-owned agricultural land has been parceled out for rewilding. Existing trees on this land will be left to naturally disperse seeds and establish a new forest ecosystem, instead of traditional afforestation where seedlings are actively planted to create a new forest. Natural regeneration or afforestation by natural colonization is commonly used to restore degraded tropical forests or to forest abandoned agricultural land. But in Denmark it’s been “barely tested,” said Mikael Kirkebæk of the Danish Climate Forest Fund (Klimaskovfonden), a government initiative working with the municipality to fund and afforest the southern portion of the land. Researchers have found that natural colonization of previously cultivated fields in Denmark leads to more native, insect-pollinated and bird-dispersed tree species compared to land where trees are actively planted. In Vilhelmsborg’s afforestation, the first step was to allow water to return to the surface of the farmlands and create streams, Søgaard said. Denmark has a long history of converting wetlands into farms by draining the water out using an extensive network of underground…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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For India’s critically endangered gharial, a fish-eating crocodile with a slender snout that ends in a bulbous growth, heat is emerging as a major threat, reports contributor Sneha Mahale for Mongabay India. Nest temperatures are rising, researchers wrote in a new study, which could be skewing the sex ratio of hatchling gharials (Gavialis gangeticus) more toward females. The sex of gharial hatchlings, as with other crocodiles and sea turtles, is determined not by chromosomes but by nest temperatures during incubation. Temperatures at or close to 32° Celsius (89.6° Fahrenheit) produce males, while at temperatures at or below 31.5°C (88.7°F) and above 33.5°C (92.3°F), females dominate, Surya P. Sharma, study lead author and a scientist at the Wildlife Institute of India, told Mahale. “Since crocodilians, including gharials, have temperature-dependent sex determination, we suspected that rising ambient and nest temperatures, likely driven by climate change and habitat alterations, might be altering hatchling sex ratios and shifting population dynamics,” Sharma said. The researchers monitored 17 gharial nests over three breeding seasons between 2017 and 2019 in National Chambal Sanctuary in Madhya Pradesh state. The team inserted temperature loggers into the top, middle and bottom layers of each nest within 24 hours of a gharial laying eggs. The loggers continuously recorded temperature data over the eggs’ 60-day incubation cycle. The researchers used the recorded data to model how temperatures shifted during the critical incubation window between days 20 and 40 when the embryo’s sex is determined. Then they estimated the likely sex ratios of…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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For millennia, Indigenous peoples have cultivated diverse, adaptive and evolving food systems, rooted in deep relationships with land, water and ecosystems. Their traditional knowledge embeds agroecological principles, emphasizing balance with nature, circularity and intergenerational equity. Beyond managing and preserving some of the world’s richest ecosystems, Indigenous peoples are custodians of countless landraces and ancient species — from finger millet in the Himalayas, to açaí in the Amazon, and fonio in West Africa — each representing an underutilized reservoir of nutrition, climate resilience and environmental sustainability. Despite this, too often, Indigenous peoples are left out from the very systems meant to nourish and support communities. One example where this exclusion is particularly visible, but also highly addressable, is school meal programs. Integrating Indigenous foodways into these systems isn’t just about nutrition — it’s about rights, identity and economic opportunities. Evidence shows that school feeding programs grounded in Indigenous knowledge can strengthen cultural heritage, enhance dietary quality and support local economies. Brazil’s National School Feeding Program (PNAE) exemplifies this approach — offering culturally appropriate meals for Indigenous students while engaging Indigenous farmers as key suppliers through Home-Grown School Feeding schemes. The Andes are the birthplace of the potato, where Indigenous farmers have developed more than 3,500 varieties in Peru alone. Photo courtesy of Rene Gomez/International Potato Center. Science must support Indigenous peoples to make their voices heard, by listening to them, co-creating with them, and empowering them to drive food system transformation. A recent study led by the Alliance of Bioversity and…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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Environmental activist Hipólito Quispe Huamán was shot and killed Saturday night in the Madre de Dios region of southeastern Peru, in what authorities suspect was a targeted attack linked to his work defending the Amazon rainforest, AFP reports. Quispe Huamán was driving along the Interoceanic Highway when he was gunned down, according to local prosecutors. Karen Torres, a regional prosecutor, told reporters that investigators are considering his environmental advocacy as the likely motive. “This is a murder with a firearm of yet another defender of the Madre de Dios region,” she was quoted as saying by AFP. Quispe Huamán had served as an active member of the Tambopata National Reserve Management Committee and was a vocal opponent of deforestation and illegal land use in the Peruvian Amazon. His killing has sparked outrage from human rights and environmental organizations, which say the attack reflects a growing pattern of violence against Indigenous leaders and environmental defenders in the region. “We condemn the murder of environmental defender Hipólito Quispe Huamán in Madre de Dios, another victim of the growing violence against those who protect our territories and ecosystems,” said the National Coordinator for Human Rights (CNDDHH) in a statement posted on social media. “Not one more death!” Hipólito Quispe Huamán. Photo courtesy of CNDDHH (on X). Quispe Huamán’s brother, Ángel, called for accountability. “I demand justice for my brother’s death. This kind of thing cannot happen,” he told local media. The Ministry of Justice has pledged to support the legal defense of Quispe…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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BATANGAS CITY, Philippines — On a hot October afternoon near the largest oil and gas port in the Philippines, the roar of a nearby natural gas tanker drowned out conversations on the shore. Wilma Abanil and her husband, Joseph Vargas, have called Santa Clara, a fishing village on the shore of Batangas Bay, home for decades. Standing outside a neighbor’s house, the couple explained how their home was destroyed by a tropical storm, Trami, that passed through days before. Storms aren’t the only threat they face. They live in a shipping channel touted by the government as a superhighway for liquefied natural gas. Local officials have repeatedly asked them to leave, to allow for the LNG companies whose plants surround them to expand their operations. “They told me, ‘Do not be an obstacle to the development of this town,’” Abanil says. “We want a simple life, but they say we are an obstacle.” When Mongabay caught back up with Abanil and Vargas in May this year, they still hadn’t been able to save up enough money to rebuild their home. The couple and their seven children have all but lost their main source of income. “There are no fish to catch in this area because of the power plant,” Vargas says. About 20 kilometers (12 miles) away, fisherman Jaime Ulysses Gilera has seen his daily catch dwindle. Off the coast of Mabini, a peninsula world-famous for its muck diving, he says the health of corals has deteriorated since a nearby…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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“When I first saw this vegetation, I thought I was on another planet. It was all so different. … Not just the architecture of the plants, but the entire place. It seemed like a nanoforest.” Geraldo Fernandes was hooked by the spectacular landscape of rupestrian grasslands in 1980 during his studies to become a biologist. Since then, he has been working within the ecosystem, which is largely unknown to Brazilians. A pioneer of rupestrian grassland studies, Fernandes is a professor of ecology at Minas Gerais Federal University and a member of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences. His interest in insects led him to investigate the interactions between the flora and fauna here. His first field study was on cancer in plants. Just like humans and animals, plants develop cancerous cells due to causes like high temperatures, lack of water or nutrients, pollution and also a variety of organisms — mostly insects like flies and wasps — that genetically manipulate the plant so it will produce the cancer upon which they feed. These tumors, called galls, don’t all kill the plant. Some are even beautiful, looking like ornaments or flowers, but “inevitably, 90% of the plants found in rupestrian grasslands have some sort of cancer or other,” Fernandes says. This is due to the fact that most of them grow at the tops of mountains; the strong UV exposure and lack of resources create stress for these plants and, with their defense mechanisms debilitated, they are more susceptible to developing tumors.…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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COLOMBO — In a landmark ruling, Sri Lanka’s Supreme Court has ordered the owners and operators of the MV X-Press Pearl to pay $1 billion in compensation for the devastating environmental and economic damage caused by the ship’s sinking off the island’s western coast in 2021. Delivered in a detailed 361-page judgment by a five-judge bench led by outgoing Chief Justice Murdu Fernando, the decision is hailed as a milestone in holding corporate polluters accountable through domestic courts. “The verdict sends a strong message that environmental crimes cannot go unchecked, even when committed by powerful transnational actors,” said Dan Malika Gunasekera, an expert in maritime law who followed the X-Press Pearl proceedings closely. The X-Press Pearl, a Singapore-flagged container ship, caught fire in May 2021 and sank off Colombo after burning for nearly two weeks. Onboard were 1,486 containers, including hazardous chemicals and 78 metric tons of plastic nurdles — small resin pellets used in plastic manufacturing. An estimated 70-75 billion nurdles were released into Sri Lankan waters, blanketing the coastline and causing what experts have described as the world’s worst marine plastic spill. Cleaning operations to collect the nurdles spilled on the beaches still continue in Sri Lanka, as buried plastic pellets continue to wash over to the beaches. Image courtesy of the Marine Environmental Protection Authority (MEPA) World’s worst marine plastic spill The court also directed the ship’s owners and its local agents to pay compensation within a year, with the first instalment due by Sept. 23, 2025…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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In a world of quick wins and impatient headlines, Martin Goebel is playing the long game. Now Director for Mexico at LegacyWorks Group, a U.S.-based nonprofit, Goebel has spent five decades navigating the complicated terrain where conservation collides with community, politics, and development. Most of that time has been in Mexico, where he has witnessed—and helped shape—some of the country’s most ambitious environmental efforts. The challenges are as persistent as they are familiar: water scarcity, habitat loss, mismanaged tourism, frayed social trust. But Goebel and his collaborators are betting on a different kind of conservation—one that doesn’t begin with maps or mandates, but with conversations. The region he currently focuses on, the Pacific coast of Baja California Sur, may be among the most stunning and biologically rich stretches of North America. But it is also among the fastest growing. Coastal oases like La Paz and Todos Santos are rapidly morphing into tourism and retirement enclaves. With that growth come the usual pressures: overdrawn aquifers, degraded ecosystems, rising inequality. The solution, in Goebel’s view, lies not in top-down decrees but in patient, trust-based relationships with local communities. Satellite image of the East Cape region of Baja California. Photo courtesy of Legacy Works. LegacyWorks, where Goebel has worked since 2016, is not your typical conservation outfit. Originally founded to support watershed restoration in Wyoming, the organization now operates across five geographies in the U.S. and Mexico, stitching together a mix of environmental protection, rural development, and what it calls “community readiness.” In…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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Golden oyster mushrooms, known for their bright yellow caps and earthy flavors, are native to Asia. However, these prized edible mushrooms have gained popularity throughout North America, where they’re spreading across forests and displacing native fungal species, a recent study has found. Aishwarya Veerabahu, lead author and a doctoral student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, U.S., told Mongabay by email that the study was prompted by a growing number of wild golden oyster observations in North America across citizen science biodiversity databases. “[T]he public, mushroom enthusiasts, and community scientists were logging their observations of this non-native mushroom on online biodiversity databases like iNaturalist and MushroomObserver,” Veerabahu said. “Local mycologists (Drs. Anne Pringle and Todd Osmundson) were also increasingly noticing this mushroom that they knew to be introduced to the region and were alarmed at how rapidly it was multiplying and spreading.” By Dec. 31, 2023, observations of the mushroom had been reported from 23 states in the U.S. and Ontario, Canada. To find out how the golden oyster’s spread could be affecting native fungal species, Veerabahu and her colleagues examined 78 samples of wood from 26 dead elm trees near Madison. Half of the trees had golden oysters growing on them. The team then used DNA analysis to identify the different fungi that grew on each sample. They found that trees with golden oysters hosted about half as many native fungal species as those that didn’t have them. “Though we have yet to study downstream impacts, we suspect changes to…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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The Nature Of is a new podcast series from the nonprofit nature and culture magazine Atmos that speaks with prominent figures in conservation and culture about how humans relate to the natural world, and how they might heal and strengthen that relationship. On this episode of Mongabay’s podcast, its host and Atmos editor-in-chief Willow Defebaugh details the series’ resulting revelations and why her publication covers the environment through the lens of community, identity, arts and culture. “From the beginning, we knew that we wanted to invite creative storytellers and artists into this conversation alongside scientists and journalists,” she explains. Storytelling and the arts, she says, house rarely tapped potential for helping people place themselves in the context of nature: “I think that what we need is to be changing people’s hearts, not just minds.” In this podcast episode, Defebaugh explains why traditional Western science has often eschewed concepts such as empathy, which has led to a disconnect where humans perceive themselves as separate from nature, and even other humans. This, she says, is at the root of our current environmental challenges. The climate crisis is just one manifestation of this deeper problem, she says, and treating it in isolation isn’t a solution to humanity’s broken relationship with nature and spirit. “I really worry [that] without addressing the root causes … [problems] will just be replicated in other forms.” She explains that greenhouse gas emissions are but “a symptom of a deeper disconnect, where we’ve lost sight of the relationship that…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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Founder’s Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries. When flames overtook the hillsides above the Zagros and Hassanabad neighborhoods in the Abidar highlands of Iranian Kurdistan, there was no formal emergency response team. No firebreaks. No protective gear. Only a handful of local environmentalists—among them Hamid Moradi—stepped in, as they had so many times before, to fight the blaze. Moradi was not a firefighter by training. He was a lawyer by profession, the director of the environmental group Shnay Nawzhin Kurdistan, and a fixture in Sanandaj’s civil society. But in Kurdistan, environmental defense often falls to ordinary citizens. When the fire broke out on July 24, Moradi joined several others to contain it. By the time the flames were extinguished, he was dead. So too were two of his companions: Chiako Yousefinejad, a well-known athlete, and Khabat Amini, another longtime environmentalist. Their deaths marked a familiar tragedy in a region where environmental work is both essential and perilous. The fires that regularly consume Kurdistan’s forests and rangelands are not always natural. Many are suspected to be deliberately set—by developers seeking land, smugglers carving routes, or military actors asserting control. The state’s response is frequently delayed, sometimes absent, and occasionally hostile. Environmentalists work without support and often without recognition. Official media may refer to them as “activists” or “volunteers.” In truth, they are environmental first responders. Moradi was among the most committed. Born in Divandareh and based in Sanandaj, he spent years…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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Northern spotted owl numbers have continued to decline in North America’s Pacific Northwest, partly due to competition from barred owls considered invasive in the region. The spotted owl has been protected under the U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA) since 1990. To help the northern spotted owl (Strix occidentalis caurina) recover, some conservationists advocate for culling barred owls (S. varia). Others argue culling is too expensive and ineffective. A new study set out to estimate the relative cost of a targeted barred owl removal program and assess whether it could meaningfully support the northern spotted owl’s recovery. Northern spotted owls are native to the old-growth forests of the Pacific Northwest. Logging and competition from barred owls have contributed to their threatened listing under the ESA. The American Bird Conservancy estimates there are just 15,000 northern spotted owls left in the region. The medium-sized birds tend to mate for life, though they don’t necessarily breed every year. Barred owls are native to the eastern U.S. but changes in land use and the climate have created the right conditions for them to move westward into northern spotted owl habitats. Barred owls are larger and more territorial than spotted owls. They raise 2-3 chicks each year and have quickly outcompeted the native owls. In 2023, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service introduced a barred owl management strategy that aimed to kill some 450,000 barred owls in spotted owl habitat. The plan was met with pushback from a coalition of animal welfare groups that said,…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump’s administration has proposed revoking a scientific finding that’s long been the central basis for U.S. action to regulate greenhouse gas emissions and fight climate change. The proposed Environmental Protection Agency rule rescinds a 2009 declaration that determined carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases endanger public health. The “endangerment finding” is the legal underpinning of a host of climate regulations under the Clean Air Act for motor vehicles, power plants and other pollution sources. EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced the proposed rule change on a podcast ahead of an official announcement set for Tuesday in Indiana. Three former EPA leaders say Zeldin’s proposal would endanger the lives of millions of Americans. By Matthew Daly, Associated Press  Banner image: EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin attends a Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) Commission Event in the East Room of the White House, Thursday, May 22, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin, File)This article was originally published on Mongabay

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Brazil, the world’s top importer of shark meat, is feeding much of it to preschoolers, hospital patients, military staff, public workers and more via government procurements, Mongabay has found. This influx of shark meat into public buildings is exposing infants and other vulnerable groups to high levels of heavy metals like mercury and arsenic, which accumulate in sharks and can harm human health. We identified 5,900 public institutions named as possible shark meat recipients in 1,012 government tenders. The species to be acquired was almost always unspecified, raising concerns that endangered sharks and rays may be entering government meal programs. This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center’s Ocean Reporting Network, where Philip Jacobson was recently a fellow. Brazilian government agencies are bulk-buying shark meat and serving it in thousands of schools, hospitals, prisons and other institutions, raising serious environmental and public health concerns, a Mongabay investigation has found. Millions of children have likely been fed shark meat through Brazil’s National School Feeding Program, including infants and toddlers in more than 1,000 day cares and preschools, along with inmates at 92 São Paulo state prisons, the 43,000-strong military police force of Rio de Janeiro state and patients at dozens of hospitals, among others, documents show. Shark meat is high in heavy metal toxins like mercury and arsenic, which pose particular risks to young children and other vulnerable populations. But because shark meat is packaged and sold in Brazil under the generic name cação, rather than as tubarão, the Portuguese word…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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The tiger, once wide-ranging across Asia, has disappeared from much of its historic range. But thanks to concerted conservation efforts and communities willing to coexist with them, the majestic predator is making a comeback in some parts of the continent despite threats including habitat loss and poaching. South Asia continues to be a stronghold for tigers (Panthera tigris), but some other regions are also showing promise. On International Tiger Day, July 29, Mongabay presents three stories from the past year that offer hope for the big cat. Thailand’s tiger recovery Tiger numbers are rising in western Thailand’s Huai Kha Khaeng and Thung Yai (HKK-TY) wildlife reserves, which make up a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Since camera-trap surveys began there in 2007, the tiger population has more than doubled, Mongabay’s Carolyn Cowan reported in July 2024. There could now be up to 140 Indochinese tigers in HKK-TY. Thailand is now the last stronghold of the Indochinese tiger (P. t. corbetti). Researchers attribute the increase in tiger numbers in HKK-TY to long-term conservation actions like strengthening ranger patrols to control poaching and efforts to boost prey populations. “Tiger recoveries in Southeast Asia are few, and examples such as these highlight that recoveries can be supported outside of South Asia, where most of the good news [about tigers] appears to come from,” Abishek Harihar, tiger program director for the NGO Panthera, told Mongabay. Sumatran tigers surviving in unprotected forests In Indonesia’s Aceh province, researchers installed camera traps across the massive unprotected forests of…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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JAKARTA — Indonesia has launched a sweeping and militarized crackdown on illegal forest use, reclaiming millions of hectares of land — but civil society groups warn the campaign is displacing Indigenous peoples while sparing corporate offenders and entrenching land inequality. Under a regulation issued in January, President Prabowo Subianto established a task force to crack down on illegal activities inside forest areas, such as oil palm cultivation and mining. Illegal oil palm plantations alone occupy a combined 3.37 million hectares (8.33 million acres) of forests, or an area larger than Belgium, and account for a significant portion of palm oil output in Indonesia, the world’s top producer of the commodity. Since its launch in February 2025, the task force has reclaimed 2 million hectares (4.9 million acres) and handed over nearly half that land to a state-owned plantation company, PT Agrinas Palma Nusantara. This potentially creates what could be the world’s largest state-owned palm oil company by land area, and risks replacing private land monopolies with a state-owned one, critics say. Critics say the regulation makes no distinction between large-scale corporate activities and those of local communities, including Indigenous peoples who have historically faced tenure conflicts due to unilateral forest area designations. As a result, the crackdown has displaced Indigenous and local communities, while shielding large corporations, and transferred land to Agrinas without due process, according to an analysis by the country’s largest environmental NGO, Walhi. Illegal road leading to an oil palm plantation in Indonesia. Image by Rhett A. Butler/Mongabay. ‘Exploitative…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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Drought, irregular rainfall, deforestation, and the legacy of unsustainable human activities have left vast areas across the arid and semiarid regions of sub-Saharan Africa degraded, causing major challenges for the human population. According to environmentalists, one solution to this problem might be forest gardens. These “gardens” use regenerative agroforestry to revive patches of degraded agricultural land. In 2024, the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP) and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) selected a project led by Trees for the Future (TREES), a U.S.-based NGO, as one of seven world restoration flagships for its “forest garden approach” used in five countries in sub-Saharan Africa. These flagships promote restoration projects around the world that show potential to tackle challenges at scale and provide financial support. “Forest gardens promote healthy soil and diverse crops, leading to increased income and access to healthier food,” Enoch Makobi, country director for TREES in Uganda, told Mongabay. “Farmers are fighting climate change and can overcome poverty and hunger.” While NGO leaders say they’re optimistic about the outcomes of the project so far and their plans for expansion, some other conservationists have expressed skepticism, pointing to a lack of scientific evidence on impacts and the difficulty international NGOs face in tackling local problems and needs. A forest garden is a modern term for an ancient agroforestry model that mixes shrubs, herbs, vines, fruit and nut trees, and perennial vegetables, with the aim of supplying communities with food, medicine and animal feed. According to scientists, forest gardens can have significant…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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When BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico in 2011, it led to the largest oil spill in U.S. history, severely damaging marine ecosystems. Part of the settlement money that BP agreed to pay has since been used for a deep-sea restoration project that has achieved significant milestones in spawning corals through new innovative methods, Mongabay’s Liz Kimbrough reported in May. The eight-year, deep-sea Mesophotic and Deep Benthic Communities (MDBC) restoration projects, led by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and partner institutions, involve propagating coral, as well as mapping, assessing, protecting and managing deep ocean habitats across the Gulf of Mexico. The teams first use autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) and remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) to map and scan the seafloor. Their camera footage helps researchers identify locations with the most damaged coral species, allowing them to focus on areas where they can make the greatest impact. “We are mapping the Gulf to a level that is practically unprecedented,” Andrew Davies, a professor of marine biology from the University of Rhode Island, told Kimbrough. Since 2022, they’ve mapped 19,400 square kilometers (7,500 square miles) of the seafloor, nearly the size of the country of Wales. Once the maps are ready, the researchers use the ROVs’ mechanical arms to carefully collect small cuttings of healthy corals, avoiding damage the rest. Researchers then further cut these clippings into smaller pieces and mount them on a concrete rack. After just a few days, or sometimes hours, the racks…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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