July 31 is World Ranger Day, which celebrates the work rangers do for the natural world and commemorates those killed or injured in the line of duty. Among them was Anton Mzimba, head ranger at Timbavati Private Nature Reserve in South Africa, where he had served for 25 years. On July 26, 2022, Mzimba was shot dead outside his home by two men, allegedly in connection with his rhino protection work. Four years later, the case remains open, with no arrests made. “If a ranger of Anton’s standing and integrity can be killed for doing work that serves the greater good, and there are still no consequences for the people who perpetrated this crime, what confidence does that inspire in the men and women holding the line on the front lines of conservation?” John Jurko II, lead director of a documentary about Mzimba titled Rhino Man, told Mongabay by email. In 2024, Jurko II launched a “Justice for Anton Mzimba” campaign to help speed up the investigation. Mzimba’s killing is being investigated by the Hawks, a specialized unit within the South African Police Service. Hawks typically investigate organized crime and police murders, but took over Mzimba’s case because of its links to rhino poaching and an ongoing investigation, according to Nico J. Gerber, the police general who heads the Hawks in Mpumalanga province, where Mzimba was killed. Gerber told Mongabay by email the case “has progressed well” and the case file was submitted to the Director of Public Prosecutions, which decides whether…This article was originally published on Mongabay

Long-tailed macaques, monkeys native to Southeast Asia, have been listed as endangered on the IUCN Red List since 2022 after their populations declined by at least 50% over 30 years. Yet, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) has twice now declined to consider protecting the species under the domestic Endangered Species Act. The most recent decision was announced on July 14, 2026. Such a listing would have restricted the primate’s import for biomedical research, one of the biggest threats to its population. Mongabay asked FWS for comment but did not receive a response by publication. Long-tailed macaques (Macaca fascicularis) can live in a wide variety of habitats, from riverbanks and mangroves to rainforests and, even, cities. Despite their adaptability, populations of the medium-sized primates have declined sharply due to habitat loss, climate change, hunting and trade, primarily for biomedical research, according to the IUCN, the global wildlife conservation authority. A 2025 study found that macaques poached from the wild are likely supplementing the breeding farms in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam that supply laboratories abroad. Lisa Jones-Engel, chief scientific advisor for primate experimentation with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), said trapping macaques for medical testing is the biggest factor in their population decline. “Because habitat change, climate change — these animals are so fabulously adaptable, they could roll with that,” Jones-Engel told Mongabay in a video call. She said entire troops of long-tailed macaques are captured from the wild, including infants and breeding females, and sold to breeding…This article was originally published on Mongabay

Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) is investigating the deaths of 15 elephants in the Amboseli savannah ecosystem, near the border with Tanzania. KWS told Mongabay that some preliminary laboratory investigations have found a toxic substance in the dead elephants. The animals were found between June 24 and July 24, 2026, at the Kimana Sanctuary and Kuku Ranch, an area at the crossroads between three national parks in southern Kenya. “Ten elephants exhibited similar clinical signs, including partial paralysis that left them unable to stand before dying within one to two days,” KWS communications Director Duncan Wanyama said in a statement provided to Mongabay.  “The remaining five carcasses were too decomposed or had been scavenged, making it impossible to establish the cause of death. The condition primarily affected adult females and their calves, with only one adult male reported.” The University of Nairobi detected a toxic substance in the elephant samples they tested. However, test results from Government Chemist, a Kenyan national lab, were negative for toxic substances. “Further quantitative analysis is underway,” KWS stated. Some elephants were equipped with tracking devices, and authorities were alerted to the deaths when the tracked animals stopped moving, Wanyama told Mongabay in a phone call.  He said investigations, including analysis of water sources and other resources, were underway to determine if the elephants were exposed to a common source. “The condition observed is confined to the affected elephants, and there is no indication that it is transmissible to humans,” Wanyama said. Meanwhile, local leaders want…This article was originally published on Mongabay

A federal judge in Brazil has given the country’s government 24 months to recognize the traditional territory of the Kajkwakratxi-Tapayuna Indigenous people in the northwestern state of Mato Grosso. The court accepted evidence from federal prosecutors that detailed decades of government inaction following massacres, forced displacement and other human rights violations against the Kajkwakratxi-Tapayuna people. The ruling, issued on June 11 by Federal Judge Pablo Kipper Aguilar in Diamantino, Mato Grosso, also orders the federal government to issue a public apology and pay 10 million reais ($2 million) in collective moral damages. “It has been a very difficult journey,” Yaiku Suya Tapayuna, a leader of the Kajkwakratxi-Tapayuna people, told Operação Amazônia Nativa (OPAN). “It is a decision we have dreamed about, and we are now celebrating this victory.” In his decision, the judge drew upon decades of evidence of violence against the Kajkwakratxi-Tapayuna, beginning with a massacre in 1953 involving armed attacks and deliberate poisoning. A dictatorship-era report published in 1967 documented that a nearby rubber tapping business left a sack of sugar laced with arsenic on a riverbank in the Tapayuna area for the Indigenous community to consume. Another poisoning attack occurred in the 1960s with meat laced with tick poison. In 1969, a “poorly planned” official visit organized by the federal Indigenous affairs agency brought in the influenza virus, contaminating the Kajkwakratxi-Tapayuna people. An account given to national media at the time described, “Indigenous corpses decimated by the flu across the forest, and children nursing from the breasts…This article was originally published on Mongabay

The Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) has been accused of harassing co-petitioners in a case challenging the relocation of the Nairobi Animal Orphanage to make it part of the larger Bomas International Conference Complex. The proposal would carve out between 76 and 89 acres inside Nairobi National Park for upgrades to wildlife rescue and rehabilitation facilities. Conservationists are concerned that the facility, which will include parking for 1,300 vehicles, poses threats to a protected indigenous forest and habitat for the critically endangered black rhino. On July 16, the Environment and Land Court in Nairobi ordered its deputy registrar Vincent Kiplagat to visit the park in the presence of all parties to prepare and file a report about the proposed facility. The Nairobi-based NGO Save the Nairobi National Park (SaveNNP) said it was denied court-ordered access to the site. In a statement sent to Mongabay, SaveNNP condemned “threats and intimidation” by KWS personnel. In the same statement, SaveNNP and JustAct, another Nairobi-based NGO, accused the KWS of planning to “control the narrative and ensure the voice of Kenyans was not heard by the courts or the media while on site.” Similar claims were made by Friends of Nairobi National Park. Mongabay asked KWS spokesperson Duncan Wanyama for a comment and was referred to a local media report in which Wanyama said the visitors were not obstructed and that rangers were just enforcing standard protocols within the park. The activists said they were later allowed in, but “only once the court officers, KWS…This article was originally published on Mongabay

Sea salt sold in markets across Lombok Island, Indonesia, is contaminated with microplastics, according to a recent study. Microplastics are small plastic particles less than 5 millimeters in length that form when larger plastic waste breaks down. Microplastics have been found everywhere scientists have looked for them, including seafood and table salt, raising concerns for public health.  Much of the plastic waste generated on land ends up in the ocean where it can break down into microplastics. Because sea salt is created by evaporating salt water, it is particularly vulnerable to microplastic contamination when the source water contains suspended microplastics. Scientists estimate that there are millions of tons of plastic pollution in the ocean, by far the largest form of marine pollution.  The research team lead by Anna Ida Sunaryo Purwiyanto collected 20 salt samples from vendors at 10 markets across Lombok Island. They extracted potential microplastic particles from the samples and identified the particles using a stereo microscope. Every salt sample contained microplastics, “indicating widespread contamination across the surveyed markets,” the study notes. The researchers found some variation in microplastic contamination levels in different markets and in crystal versus fine sea salt. However, the results consistently showed that the source material for the salt, the ocean surrounding Lombok Island, is contaminated with microplastics. The researchers note that crystal sea salt had higher levels of microplastics than fine salt, likely because fine salt is washed and filtered, which removes some microplastic particles. They conclude that additional washing and filtering of salt…This article was originally published on Mongabay

Wildfires have burned thousands of hectares of forest and savanna in the Chacobo-Pacahuara Indigenous territory in the Beni department of northern Bolivia, according to satellite imagery and on-the-ground sources. The fires likely resulted from illegal burns in pastures surrounding the Indigenous territory. The fires hit Chacobo-Pacahuara in September and October 2025, the third consecutive year of unusually high fire activity in the Indigenous land, according to the most recent data released by Global Forest Watch, a platform that uses satellite data to track forest loss worldwide. The flames consumed Indigenous subsistence crops and homes. Locals also expressed worry for the safety of isolated Indigenous communities.  “We have Indigenous relatives who live in voluntary isolation, and we do not know what has happened to them because the forest and the forest islands where they lived burned,” Constantino Toledo Ortiz, a leader of the Chácobo people, told Mongabay in a voice message. “We think they may have crossed into Brazil.” According to a bulletin published by the Center for Legal Studies and Social Research (CEJIS), 1,141 heat hotspots, typically caused by fire, were recorded in the territory between Jan. 1 and Sept. 12, 2025. CEJIS recorded an additional 845 heat hotspots between Sept. 29 and Oct. 16, 2025. The sharp increase is in line with the Bolivian Amazon’s typical fire season, which usually peaks around August and September when the climate is at its driest. Chacobo-Pacahuara was the most affected Indigenous territory in the Bolivian Amazon in 2025. Map by Andrés Alegría/Mongabay. In 2024,…This article was originally published on Mongabay

The world’s largest meatpacking company, JBS, has scrapped two of its key environmental goals in its latest annual sustainability report. JBS’s “Net Zero by 2040,” which aimed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions throughout its supply chain, and zero deforestation targets were substantially rolled back compared to previous years, according to its 2025 Sustainability report, published July 8. Instead, the company redesigned its targets with a focus solely on its most direct emissions, called Scope 1 and Scope 2. Those include direct emissions from JBS factories, vehicles, and electricity provided to its facilities. Indirect emissions, called Scope 3, make up the vast majority of the company’s emissions and were dropped. Those include methane from cows, and transportation and deforestation emissions from supplier farms. “Backtracking on measurable targets doesn’t diminish the scrutiny JBS will face for its climate and nature-wrecking record of pollution, deforestation, land grabbing, human rights abuses and corruption,” Gemma Hoskins, global climate lead at U.S.-based environmental nonprofit Mighty Earth, wrote in a statement. Until 2025, JBS touted a commitment to “zero illegal deforestation in all Brazilian biomes by the end of 2025 for direct and indirect cattle suppliers,” Mongabay previously reported. JBS justified the change by saying it’s difficult to control indirect emissions. “Bold ambition is fine, but you now need to actually have really good, measurable, accountable goals. And that’s what we’re doing — we’re now setting goals that we believe where we have operational control,” Jason Weller, JBS’s chief sustainability officer, told the Financial Times. JBS operates more than 250 meat production facilities, mostly in Brazil and the U.S. It…This article was originally published on Mongabay

The European Union has dropped leather from its final list of products targeted under the bloc’s landmark antideforestation law. Experts say the July 13 decision is the result of industry lobbying rather than a true reflection of leather’s deforestation footprint. The EU deforestation regulation, or EUDR, mandates that companies selling commodities such as cattle, soy, palm oil and cacao in the European market must prove their supply chains aren’t sourcing from recently deforested land. The law is currently set to take effect at the end of this year, following two years of delays. It has faced a series of revisions that effectively weaken the law since it was first passed. “The decision to exclude leather from the EUDR is deeply disappointing. It ignores strong evidence linking European consumption of leather to deforestation in Latin America,” Fyfe Strachan, policy lead at U.K.-based watchdog organization Earthsight, wrote in an email statement. “It overlooks the voices of EU citizens from the recent public consultation and instead prioritizes the interests of industry lobbies,” she added. As Mongabay recently reported, the European Commission’s own research concluded that leather could account for up to 17% of the deforestation footprint linked to imports covered by the EUDR. Transparency records compiled by the nonprofit LobbyFacts revealed that leather industry groups met with lawmakers at least 22 times since 2021, and the EUDR was explicitly listed as a discussion topic in 11 of the meetings. The lobbying efforts were led by two Italian leather tannery unions, COTANCE and Unione…This article was originally published on Mongabay

In 2008, wildlife researchers surveying a massive, underexplored forested region in the Democratic Republic of Congo photographed a black monkey. That region eventually became Lomami National Park. And now, nearly 20 years later, the team has confirmed in a study that the black primate is a new-to-science species of colobus monkey. The monkey isn’t well known by local communities, but those who have encountered it call it likweli, said John Hart, study lead author and scientific director at the Lukuru Wildlife Research Foundation, which spearheaded the creation of Lomami. The researchers have given the monkey the scientific name Colobus congoensis. Both male and female likweli are almost entirely black. What makes the species easy to distinguish from other colobus monkeys is a prominent patch of pinkish to orange-cream bare skin surrounding the mouth, Hart told Mongabay in a video call. When the likweli was first photographed in 2008, it was one of several monkeys the researchers couldn’t identify. “They are not in our field guides,” Terese Hart, the Lukuru foundation director, wrote in a blog post in 2008. Another of those monkeys, locally named lesula, also turned out to be new to science and was scientifically described as Cercopithecus lomamiensis in 2012. With the focus on the lesula and conservation work in the area, the likweli went on the back burner, John said. It was only 10 years later, in 2018, that local field researcher Jean Pierre Kapale photographed likweli several times during surveillance patrols and surveys. Kapale insisted the…This article was originally published on Mongabay

In its most recent update to the Red List of threatened species, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) identified deep-sea mining as the biggest threat to a critically endangered deep-sea snail. Discovered in 2021, scientists named the mollusk Lirapex felix — the lucky lirapex — because of the luck it took to find the roughly 2.5 millimeter (0.1 inch) long sea snail. So far, only two individuals have been recorded in one location 2,000 kilometers (1,242 miles) south of Madagascar in the Longqi vent field on the Southwest Indian Ridge. “Luckily, these two specimens gave us just enough information on its morphology and DNA so we could describe it comprehensively and give it a name,” Chong Chen, the scientist who first described the species, told Mongabay via email. “This likely means this species is naturally rare, making it especially vulnerable to anthropogenic impacts like deep-sea mining.” The species was found in an area that overlaps with a 15-year exploration license for polymetallic sulfide mineral extraction. The license was issued by the International Seabed Authority to China and expires this year. If exploitation-phase mining goes ahead, sediment plumes could smother and kill vent communities, Chen said. Even though little is known about the Lirapex felix, it was classified as critically endangered. By assigning the highest risk category the IUCN has taken a precautionary approach and  recommends further research into mining impacts. It has also called for surveys to see if the species exists at other vent sites along the…This article was originally published on Mongabay

The European Union’s parliament voted decisively to end its logging oversight partnership with Liberia on June 17, marking the end of a long-running attempt to reform the country’s timber sector through foreign aid. The vote, which passed with 92% in favor, is expected to lead to a formal decision by the EU to terminate the agreement. The EU’s “Voluntary Partnership Agreement” (VPA) with Liberia was part of its signature effort to tackle illegal logging and deforestation in timber-exporting countries. It was designed to help overhaul Liberia’s logging industry, long associated with corruption and environmental mismanagement, and facilitate legal trade with the EU. Under the terms of the agreement, the EU provided funding for Liberia to set up tracking and transparency systems for timber shipments. Liberia committed to verifying that all logs shipped out of its ports were felled legally and to carve out space for local environmental groups to monitor its compliance with the agreement. Similar agreements were signed with eight other countries, including four in Africa. But more than a decade after the December 2013 agreement was implemented many of the EU’s expectations were unmet, including the development of a licensing system for Liberian logs to access EU markets, a centerpiece of the agreement.  After repeatedly missing deadlines, the licensing system was never implemented. Last year, the EU Commission recommended the VPA be canceled. Environmental groups opposed the commission’s recommendation, saying that despite the agreement’s weaknesses it had been invaluable in promoting local oversight of the notoriously opaque timber…This article was originally published on Mongabay

In Antarctica’s extreme cold, plants blanket small ice-free areas in bursts of green. These include two native species of flowering plants, 116 moss species, and several liverworts and lichens. Until now, however, none had been assessed for their extinction risk in Antarctica. For the first time, researchers have evaluated the conservation status of an Antarctic moss, Roaldia revoluta, and found it to be regionally endangered. For Peter Convey, study co-author and a veteran scientist with the British Antarctic Survey, this finding isn’t surprising. “As a field ecologist who has visited many parts of the Antarctic Peninsula over the last 38 years, and made many general moss collections (even though I am not a specialist bryologist) it is very clear that some of the species in the region are only encountered infrequently, or have geographically very restricted or sporadic distributions,” Convey said. “There are about 116 or so known moss species in Antarctica, and I think if this exercise was to be done more widely across these, I think we would get quite a few similar assessments.” Roaldia revoluta. Image © Sequoia Janirella Wrens via iNaturalist (CC BY-NC 4.0) Roaldia revoluta is a rusty-brown or yellowish moss found both in the Arctic and Antarctic, as well as in the colder, mountainous parts of Europe, Patagonia and New Zealand. Globally, the species is evaluated as least concern on the IUCN Red List. In parts of its range, however, it’s in decline: near threatened in Romania; critically endangered in the U.K.; and possibly…This article was originally published on Mongabay

Fifteen countries from Africa, Asia, Latin America and Europe adopted the Mombasa Declaration on June 17, 2026. Together, they committed to advance global fisheries transparency and strengthen efforts to combat illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing. The declaration was adopted during the 11th meeting of the international Our Ocean Conference, held in Mombasa, Kenya. Africa had the most countries signing on: Cameroon, The Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, the Republic of the Congo and Somalia. “In my country, our very existence depends on fish,” said Emelia Arthur, Ghana’s Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture, in a statement shared with Mongabay. “Sixty percent of our animal protein comes from fish, and ten percent of our population depends on the fisheries value chain for livelihood. Fisheries are a matter of culture and national security for us. I’m happy that Ghana is among the first countries to sign the Mombasa Declaration,” she added. Countries hope that by working together to harmonize regulations and share information on vessels operating in their territorial waters, they will become more effective in their fight against IUU fishing. “Illegal fishing perpetrators are getting more and more sophisticated in the way they are evading from one country’s laws and regulations by moving to another one,” Cephas Asare told Mongabay in a phone call. Asare is the West Africa regional manager for the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF), a British NGO working to combat illegal fishing. “This needs to end. That is why we need to address the issue together, to be more…This article was originally published on Mongabay

MIAMI (AP) — A cluster of storms along the Gulf Coast could become the first named tropical storm of the 2026 Atlantic hurricane season, the National Hurricane Center said. The storms threatened to bring heavy downpours that could lead to dangerous floods across southern states including Texas and Louisiana. The system was centered Tuesday afternoon about 55 miles (85 kilometers) south-southwest of Corpus Christi, Texas, according to a hurricane center advisory. National Hurricane Center director Michael Brennan said meteorologists are expecting the system to strengthen, possibly into a tropical storm by early Wednesday. But coastal areas could experience tropical storm conditions this week, even if the system doesn’t officially get a name, Brennan said. “The main hazard with these types of systems is largely the flooding from the heavy rainfall,” Brennan said. “And we could see potentially life-threatening flash and urban flooding across the Texas coast eastward into central Mississippi through Thursday. Prolonged rainfall may extend the flood threat into the weekend.” Tornadoes were possible from the upper Texas coast across southern Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and the Florida Panhandle, forecasters said. The storm’s maximum sustained winds were around 30 mph (45 kph) Tuesday, just shy of the 39 mph (63 kph) needed to be named a tropical storm. The system had a 70% chance of forming into a tropical cyclone over the next two days, the hurricane center said. Houston, where a World Cup match between Portugal and the Democratic Republic of the Congo is scheduled for Wednesday, has been under a flood warning since…This article was originally published on Mongabay

A Mexican long-tongued bat, featured above, flies into the blooms of an agave plant, a feeding and pollination technique used to reach nectar. The bats (Choeronycteris mexicana) have unusually long tongues to access nectar while their impact spreads pollen grains everywhere to pollinate nearby agave. Peter Hudson, a professor of biology at Penn State University, U.S., photographed the moment in 2019 in Arizona’s Sonoran Desert near the U.S.-Mexico border. The region is a biodiversity hotspot, home to native species including trogons and antelope jackrabbits (Lepus alleni). “These bats just go, like little kids on a sugar rush,” Hudson told Mongabay by phone. “They’re taking in so much of this rich sugar stuff that they’re flying about doing happy laps, as it were, in the sky.” The bats’ long tongues can extend nearly 8 centimeters (3 inches) from their body and are covered in hair-like protusions, papillae, that help it drink nectar from flowers. They primarily feed on agave nectar, cactus flowers, soft fruits and the occasional insect. Hudson used a movement trigger and flash to snap the moment. “It all happens so fast,” he said. “You have to get the bat as it’s coming into the plant and see if you can capture it as it hits the plant.” The agave plant is used to make tequila and mezcal, Mexico’s national spirit. As demand for export has increased, the country has experienced a more than 700% surge in mezcal production in the past decade. The jump in demand for Mexican…This article was originally published on Mongabay

The Bornean ferret badger is a small carnivore with the slinky body of a ferret and a face mask like a badger. A new study confirms that it lives only in the mountains of Sabah, a Malaysian state on the island of Borneo.  Ferret badgers are nocturnal carnivores, widespread across Southeast Asia, but the Bornean ferret badger (Melogale everetti) lives only in a narrow mountain range on the island of Borneo. A group of researchers from the Bornean Carnivore Programme, part of the University of Oxford’s Wildlife Conservation Research Unit (WildCRU), Sabah Forestry Department, and Sabah Parks set out to understand the Bornean ferret-badger’s distribution within Sabah. Between 2021 and 2024, the research team set up 188 camera-trap stations across Sabah’s western highlands and recorded the badgers more than 400 times, discovering a new population in the process. The new population in the Nuluhon-Trusmadi Forest Reserve of Malaysian Borneo, expanded the known range of the species, but photo-traps and habitat modeling showed that Bornean ferret badgers are only found within the greater Sabah’s Kinabalu-Crocker-Trusmadi mountain landscape.  “I grew up in Tambunan and had never seen or even heard of the Bornean ferret badger,” said Mohammad Aliyuddin bin Jaini, field manager of the Bornean Carnivore Programme in a press release. “I decided to place some camera traps around my family’s farm simply to see what wildlife might be there, and I was amazed when a Bornean ferret badger appeared in the photographs. To discover that an Endangered species found only in…This article was originally published on Mongabay

The rumble of ship traffic is drowning out the calls of long-finned pilot whales and potentially other marine species in the Strait of Gibraltar, a narrow strip of water between Morocco and Spain that separates the Atlantic Ocean from the Mediterranean Sea. Researchers who investigated this looked at near and long-distance communication between long-finned pilot whales (Globicephala melas), which are actually a species of large dolphin. They found the mammals were able to increase the volume of their calls used for short distances, but long-distance calling was more challenging, according to their recently published study. The dolphins may not be able to overpower noise pollution in the Strait of Gibraltar when calling pod mates far away, raising concerns that they could become lost and isolated from the group, the researchers said. Roughly 60,000 ships pass through the Strait of Gibraltar each year. “If they cannot communicate with one another, they may need to stay much closer together, or all that communication may become ineffective,” study co-author Renaud de Stephanis, director at the Spain-based organization CIRCE (Conservación, Información y Estudio sobre Cetáceos), told Mongabay by phone. Researchers focused the study on a small resident population of roughly 250 pilot whales in the strait. The team attached suction-cup recorders to the backs of 23 individuals. Later, they categorized more than 1,400 calls into four different categories. They found that pilot whales were able to adjust to the noise pollution for two types of calls, the high-frequency and short-pulsed calls, by simply raising…This article was originally published on Mongabay

Deforestation in Brazil’s Amazon biome fell by 23.5% in 2025 compared with 2024, according to a new report from MapBiomas, a Brazil-based land-use mapping project. Reductions in deforestation were recorded across the board in all of Brazil’s biomes, culminating in a 21% nationwide decrease in forest loss. In total, nearly 985,000 hectares (2.4 million acres) of forested land was cut down in 2025, the report found. Of this, 289,478 hectares (715,315 acres) was deforested in the Amazon. The decline in deforestation likely reflects a combination of stronger environmental enforcement, improved satellite monitoring and growing market demands for sustainable production, Nathalia Crusco, a researcher with MapBiomas, wrote to Mongabay. Only 5% of deforested land overlapped with enforcement actions or clearing authorizations in 2019, compared with 65% over the 2019-2025 period, she added, based on MapBiomas data. Deforestation also fell by nearly 17% in the Cerrado savanna, where agriculture expansion is most aggressive. More than half of the Cerrado’s native vegetation has already been cleared. And while the rate of deforestation in the Cerrado declined, the majority of forest clearing in Brazil, 55%, took place in the Cerrado savanna, the report said. Much of the reduction in deforestation was within Indigenous territories. Clear-cut deforestation on Indigenous lands in the Brazilian Amazon fell by 25% in 2025, according to a technical memo shared with Mongabay by Brazil’s Indigenous agency, Funai. Funai’s Remote Monitoring Center compiled the recent report. A total of 30,128 hectares (74,450 acres) of clear-cutting on Indigenous land was recorded last…This article was originally published on Mongabay

A field experiment in Kenya shows that dung beetles disappear when the African elephants they depend on for their fecal food and shelter also vanish locally. This is the first time that coextinction, the disappearance of one species leading directly to the extinction of another species, has been demonstrated in a large-scale field experiment, according to a recent study. In 2008, the researchers built a set of 10,000-square-meter (2.4 acres) exclosures in Mpala, Kenya. The exclosures were a fenced area of natural savanna habitat that kept out certain animals. Some exclosures kept out elephants, simulating what would happen if elephants went extinct from the landscape. The research focused on the connection between elephants and dung beetles, which bury and consume the feces of larger animals. Dung beetles provide an essential ecosystem service of ensuring feces doesn’t pile up to contaminate the land and water, which reduces the density of biting flies. The beetles also help with nutrient cycling, which keeps the soil and ecosystems thriving.  The researchers set out to see if removing elephant dung would affect the dung beetle community, and if it could lead to coextinction of some dung beetle species. The scientists, led by researcher Finote Gijsman, measured the dung preferences of 179 Kenyan dung beetle species and found that dung beetles love elephant dung. The team used modeling to predict that when elephants became locally extinct within the enclosures, 28% of dung beetle species would go extinct along with them. Their prediction was very close: 23%…This article was originally published on Mongabay