A park ranger in the Democratic Republic of Congo survived an ambush that killed colleagues. In Cambodia, mines and dams are pressing against land set aside for wildlife. In the Amazon, illegal miners are changing tactics as authorities try to remove them from Indigenous territories. These are different places, with different problems documented by Mongabay, but they point to a question now confronting governments: How much protection does a protected area actually provide? That question will follow delegates to Yerevan, Armenia, for the U.N. Biodiversity Conference, COP17, from Oct. 19-30. In 2022, countries agreed to conserve at least 30% of land and inland waters and 30% of coastal and marine areas by 2030. The commitment, known as Target 3 or “30 by 30,” is not simply about drawing new boundaries on maps. It also requires conservation to work, ecosystems to remain connected and the rights of Indigenous peoples and local communities to be respected. COP17 will conduct the first collective review of progress under the agreement. Also read: As global 30×30 goal lags, Colombia shows how progress can be made A new Earth Insight analysis maps oil, gas and mining concessions overlapping protected and conserved areas across the tropics, highlighting threats to global biodiversity goals. Image courtesy of Earth Insight. The evidence arriving ahead of the meeting is sobering. A new study by Earth Insight, the IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas and other partners found that nearly 62 million hectares (153 million acres) of terrestrial protected and conserved areas…This article was originally published on Mongabay

Nigeria has scored a significant conservation victory with the closure of a major illegal gold mine near Gashaka-Gumti National Park, the country’s largest national park, according to National Park Service Ibrahim Musa Goni. An estimated 4,000 miners have been driven from the Kila mining area following an operation involving the National Park Service, the Nigerian military, state governments and conservation partner African Nature Investors (ANI). But Goni, conservator-general of Nigeria’s National Park Service, is under no illusion that the problem has been settled. The gold remains underground, and the miners could return. “There is a tendency the miners might come back,” he told Mongabay. For Goni, who has led the service since 2017, the Kila operation is one of the achievements of which he is most proud. He believes the approach could work in other Nigerian parks struggling with illegal mining and insecurity. Yet protecting these landscapes has come at a heavy price. Rangers have been injured and even killed confronting illegal miners and armed groups. Elsewhere, insecurity has forced the suspension of tourism in parts of Kainji Lake and Chad Basin national parks. Goni insists that 13 of the 17 national parks in Nigeria remain operational and active, even where access has become dangerous. Watch: Return to Gashaka-Gumti Read: Nigeria drove thousands of gold miners from a national park. But can it keep them out? There are other difficult questions. For example, what happens to the thousands of miners who have lost their livelihoods? Can the government keep them…This article was originally published on Mongabay

This week, thousands of delegates are gathered in Mombasa, Kenya, for the first Our Ocean Conference to be hosted on African soil. As expected, much of the conversation will focus on the global “30×30” target — protecting 30% of the world’s land, freshwater and oceans by 2030. Yet, far from the conference halls, the big pledges and state commitments, many of the people doing the daily work of marine conservation are community organizations operating on modest budgets along Africa’s coastlines. They often do so far from the spotlight, but their contribution is vital for the global ambition to conserve ocean spaces. The Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), under whose Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework the 2030 targets were adopted, highlights that success hinges heavily on community involvement. Across Kenya, Tanzania and Namibia, four such groups — Coastal and Marine Resource Development (COMRED), Action for Ocean, Mwambao Coastal Community Network and the Namibia Nature Foundation (NNF) — offer a window into what community-led marine conservation looks like in practice. Their work might be underfunded, uneven and sometimes slow, but are increasingly central to how marine protection is imagined on the continent. Marine ecosystems in Africa support fisheries, tourism, transport, carbon storage and coastal protection while sustaining millions of livelihoods from the Western Indian Ocean to Africa’s Atlantic and Mediterranean coasts. In East Africa in particular, mangroves, coral reefs, seagrass meadows and nearshore fisheries underpin food systems and local economies even as they face pressure from overfishing, habitat degradation, climate change and pollution.…This article was originally published on Mongabay

SALONGA NATIONAL PARK, Democratic Republic of Congo — Just before sunrise, while much of the rainforest remains cloaked in darkness, a team of researchers and trackers leaves the Inkomu research camp. Their destination is the previous night’s nesting site of a group of bonobos deep within the Salonga forest, located in the center of the DRC. Their mission is to persuade the bonobos (Pan paniscus) to accept human presence as a natural part of their environment. By earning the animals’ trust, researchers hope to create opportunities to better understand their behavior, ecology and health. This painstaking process, bonobo habituation, involves spending time near the apes day after day until they gradually become accustomed to people. It is a slow and demanding undertaking that can take years, requiring patience, consistency and thousands of hours in the forest. Long before dawn, often around 3 a.m., trackers — some of them former poachers whose knowledge of the forest has become an asset for conservation — begin making their way toward the previous night’s nesting site. They must arrive before the bonobos wake. Then begins an all-day pursuit through one of the most remote rainforests on Earth, following the apes from dawn until they build fresh nests for the night. “The whole idea of habituation is that you meet the group every day in a very friendly, non-interactive way so they accept you as part of the forest,” says Felix Bofeko, an assistant researcher working with a bonobo habituation program in Salonga National Park.…This article was originally published on Mongabay

As the Democratic Republic of Congo grapples with another Ebola outbreak, bats have once again come under scrutiny as a possible reservoir for the virus. But according to bat ecologist Paul Webala, there is no conclusive scientific evidence linking bats to Ebola and the natural reservoir remains unknown. The current Ebola outbreak is caused by the Bundibugyo strain, a variant for which there are currently no approved vaccines or treatments, according to the World Health Organization. In this interview with Mongabay, Webala discusses why bats are often misunderstood, details the important ecological services they provide, and explains why habitat destruction may pose a greater risk for zoonotic diseases that spill over between animals and humans than bats themselves. Webala is a wildlife biologist at Maasai Mara University in Kenya who has studied bats for more than two decades. Rousettus aegyptiacus, commonly known as the Egyptian fruit bat, a widespread species found across much of Africa. Photo courtesy of Paul Webala. Mongabay: Many people immediately think of bats whenever there is an Ebola outbreak. Are bats unfairly stigmatized? Paul Webala: Bats are the second-largest group of mammals after rodents. Roughly 25% of all mammal species are bats. They play extremely important roles in ecosystems and are an integral part of biodiversity. Remove them, and entire ecological systems could begin to collapse. Unfortunately, bats are associated with many myths and misconceptions. Some communities associate them with death, evil spirits or bad omens. Because of these longstanding beliefs, bats have often been persecuted.…This article was originally published on Mongabay

Global oil giant Shell continued operating a compromised pipeline in Nigeria’s Niger Delta despite knowing it posed a pollution risk in the surrounding coastal wetland environment, newly disclosed internal company communications reveal. The emails and memos, reviewed by Mongabay, show senior leadership knew of the poor conditions of the 97-kilometer (60-mile) Nembe Creek Trunk Line as early as 2008. Despite concerns it was operating outside technical integrity standards and proposals to shut it down, a top executive decided to keep pumping oil through the line. Carrying 150,000 barrels of oil per day to the export terminal at Bonny Island Rivers state, the Nembe Creek Trunk Line is a critical oil artery in Nigeria. Throughout the years, theft from the pipeline using illegal connections caused spills into the vast mangrove ecosystem of true (Rhizophora sp.) and flowering black (Avicennia sp.) tree species. An internal 2013 Shell document coded such tampered lines as “red,” requiring either their immediate shutdown or immediate action to remove all illegal connections. Locals from the nearby riverine Bille community said the oil spills killed about 2,000 hectares (4,900 acres) of mangrove swamps around the village while impacting an area of 13,200 hectares (32,600 acres). The contaminated waterways and degraded ecosystem, they told Mongabay, killed fish and other aquatic life. Satellite imagery surrounding the village shows massive degradation of the mangroves. “The aquatic life is gone. Our people can no longer go to the river and catch reasonable fish — they can’t even find the fish in the…This article was originally published on Mongabay

At a time when climate politics in the United States and globally remain deeply polarized, Will Hackman, a climate advocate and political operative, argues that the climate movement needs a new language — one rooted less in doom, guilt and abstract planetary crisis, and more in people’s everyday lives, health, safety, costs and communities. In his new book, Radically Reframing Climate Change: A Guide to Saving Ourselves, he makes the case that climate advocates have too often spoken to those who already agree with them, while failing to reach people who may be cautious, doubtful or simply disconnected from the issue. The challenge, he says, is not only scientific or technological. It is political, cultural and communicative. In the United States, climate change remains politically polarized, with surveys showing that Republicans are less likely than Democrats to view it as an urgent threat, making climate messaging particularly challenging across ideological divides. Mongabay spoke with Hackman over video call about climate messaging, grassroots activism, fossil fuels, political polarization, and why he believes the climate movement must rebuild, creating a broader and more hopeful constituency. Mongabay: You write in your book that much of climate messaging has been framed around fear, guilt and apocalypse. Is that still the right way to talk about climate change? Will Hackman: I think the nature-based messages — polar bears, melting glaciers, “there is no planet B,” “save the planet,” “world on fire” — work for people who already care about climate change. But they do not…This article was originally published on Mongabay