In Limpopo province, in the far north of South Africa, where much of the population lives in rural areas, environmental conservation is often not considered very often. Instead, the residents spend much of their time trying to make a living either from the forestry around them or from fishing in the Mutale and Limpopo rivers. But for Mutale resident Tshilidzi Mulugana, degradation of the local environment is a concern, as it will affect the community and endanger biodiversity. Mulugana is the founder of the Niani Youth Development organization whose mission is to educate local youth. He wants to make a change in the community, to help residents conserve the environment. Mulugana is afraid the next generation may not live to know indigenous tree species — yet these trees serve as traditional medicine. He noted several threats to indigenous species such as baobab (Adansonia genus), leadwood (Combretum imberbe), mopani (Colophospermum mopane) and marula (Sclerocarya birrea): recurring floods, the movement of elephant herds from neighboring Zimbabwe or Mozambique through the area, and traders who cut the trees to sell as firewood. In 2019, Mulugana began a grassroots conservation initiative focused on planting indigenous trees. One day, an official from Kruger National Park (KNP) — a walkable distance from where he lives — came across Mulugana, attracted to his project. The official later invited a representative from the forestry and fisheries department, and in 2024, the two groups funded the project. Mulugana also hoped to recruit community members to help with the work,…This article was originally published on Mongabay
For generations, the Kahoon Valley in Pakistan’s Chakwal district in northwestern Punjab has thrived as a rich ecological haven. Its fertile soil has yielded lush, historical loquat orchards, while the surrounding scrub forests have provided vital refuge to diverse wildlife, including local peacock populations and rare mountain deer species. At the center of this landscape sit the Katas Raj Temples, an ancient Hindu pilgrimage site anchoring the region’s profound spiritual heritage. However, the unchecked expansion of mega cement factories in the early 2000s transformed this natural sanctuary into a toxic industrial zone. Relentless industrial pumping reportedly caused the water table to crash from 36 meters (120 feet) to 122 m (402 ft). This extreme depletion withered the famous loquat trees and displaced native birds, also draining the sacred Katas Raj pond. Determined to save his homeland from erasure, Raja Waseem Ahmed, an environmental activist, brought together residents from neighboring villages to establish the Kahoon Protection Committee to defend the Kahoon Valley against the extreme ecological and social damages caused by heavy industrialization. Waseem utilized environmental legislation and led a forensic legal campaign that exposed the manipulated environmental approval documents eventually driving the Supreme Court of Pakistan to intervene on its own accord, resulting in a historic verdict that banned factories from draining local groundwater and slapped the industry with huge fines. In retaliation for his activism, Waseem was struck by unjustified anti-terrorism lawsuits, temporarily exiled from his native district by local authorities, and subjected to stress so harsh that it…This article was originally published on Mongabay
Myanmar experienced a military coup in February 2021. In the aftermath, widespread repression by the military regime fueled the emergence of armed resistance movements across the country, pushing an ongoing conflict to its most intense level in decades. Starting from 2024, the military’s conscription law has further threatened the lives and futures of young people, forcing thousands to leave the country. Meanwhile, environmental degradation continues to worsen. People are facing multiple crises, including environmental destruction caused by the overexploitation of natural resources, natural disasters, armed conflict, and human rights violations by the military regime. The democratic freedoms that used to exist during the five years of semi-civilian government before the coup have disappeared. Within this context, environmental activism and conservation efforts have widely faded. Yet, against this backdrop, the environmental group Clean Mountains was established in 2024 and is based in the conflict-affected states of Karenni (Kayah) and Karen (Kayin), areas controlled by resistance forces. The organization — funded through grants and donations — is a small, women-led team of four members between the ages of 22 and 28. The group’s founder, Ou Ou, 27, leads Clean Mountains in implementing community-based conservation in conflict-affected mountainous regions, focusing on waste management, water conservation, sustainable agriculture and forest conservation. Ou Ou, founder of Clean Mountains, attends an awareness session on waste management in Bago region, 2025. Image courtesy of Clean Mountains. Through both her previous organization and Clean Mountains, waste management systems have been established in more than 130 villages, including 15…This article was originally published on Mongabay
The bear came out of the forest with enough force to kill him. It mauled the hunter badly and cost him an eye. He spent three months in a hospital recovering. There, he began asking himself questions that had not troubled him much before. Why was he hunting? Why was he killing? Hunting had come to him through his family. His father and grandfather were known around Sreemangal, in northeastern Bangladesh, for killing leopards, wild boars, and other animals that threatened people or crops. As a boy, he accompanied his father into the forest. After his father died, he continued hunting. He became a gunsmith and a guide, familiar with animal tracks, forest paths, and the habits of creatures that most people encountered only by accident. Sitesh Ranjon Deb holds a pair of jungle cats in his house in Sreemangol, Bangladesh. Image via Agence France-Presse (AFP) After the bear attack, Sitesh Ranjan Deb, who died on July 14th, gave up hunting. He began capturing injured animals, removing snakes from houses, treating wildlife recovered from traffickers, and returning animals to the forest. The grounds of his home became a treatment center. It eventually developed into the Bangladesh Wildlife Service Foundation, one of the country’s best-known privately established wildlife-rescue institutions. The center remained closely tied to his household. Its patients occupied bedrooms, courtyards, cages, and improvised treatment spaces. Jungle-cat cubs, pythons, slow lorises, monkeys, birds, and other animals passed through. Those requiring constant attention stayed close to the family. Deb kept photographs…This article was originally published on Mongabay
South Africa’s free-roaming cheetah population is much smaller than previously thought, according to the first coordinated national census of the species living outside protected areas. Over three and a half years, between 2022 and 2026, researchers from Ashia Cheetah Conservation, the Cheetah Outreach Trust (COT) and the University of Groningen in the Netherlands surveyed almost 100,000 square kilometers (38,610 square miles) of habitat across South Africa’s northern border. Wild cheetahs that inhabit the unprotected areas of South Africa are considered “free roaming.” Using camera traps, GPS collars, landowner surveys, genetic analyses, scat sampling and public sighting records, they compiled the Free-Roaming Cheetah Census (FRCC), which they described as the most comprehensive assessment yet of South Africa’s free-roaming cheetahs. During this time, they recorded only 83 mature adults, and 119 individual animals in total, which is 70% less than previous, smaller-scale studies suggested using model-based estimates. A young cheetah investigates a monitoring site in North West Province. Image courtesy of Ashia Cheetah Conservation. “Finding fewer than 100 mature adults is an extremely strong indication of how dramatically smaller the population has become within South Africa over the years,” Marna Smit, director of Ashia Cheetah Conservation, told Mongabay. Because of a high mortality rate in young cheetahs, which can be up to 90% for wild animals, mature adults — the breeding population —- are important for the survival of the species. Cheetahs in South Africa are currently managed in four separate systems: The free-roaming population, the semi-protected population in Kruger National Park…This article was originally published on Mongabay
In the villages of India’s Western Ghats, some of the oldest and tallest trees do not grow inside a national park. They grow in sacred groves, small patches of old, mostly untouched forest that local communities have protected for generations, because they believe the trees belong to their deities and ancestors. A new study published in the journal PLOS One found that young trees regenerate far more successfully in these groves. Seeds dropped by fruit-eating birds are much likelier to survive and grow there than in surrounding farms and villages. India has more than 100,000 sacred groves, which are recognized as essential to community-based conservation. The Western Ghats is a mountain range that runs about 1,600 kilometers (nearly 1,000 miles) down India’s west coast, across six states. The study began there by chance. A team from the Applied Environmental Research Foundation (AERF), which runs a giant-tree program, had signed up a man in Vanzole village with a huge Terminalia bellirica (beheda) tree in his yard. Visiting, they saw giant trees all over the village. “It sparked a series of questions,” study co-author Kevin Matteson, associate director of Project Dragonfly at Miami University in the U.S. state of Ohio, told Mongabay in an email. How many giant trees were hiding in plain sight, and were birds like hornbills really using trees in such busy places? To find out, the team walked the whole village with two local experts, Namdev and Anant Shivgan, who mapped the land, identified the trees and led…This article was originally published on Mongabay
Forest canopies create the conditions for an extraordinary diversity of life to thrive. By casting shade and retaining moisture in the air and soil, they generate cool and stable understory environments. In the tropics, this regulating effect is particularly crucial for countless species that otherwise would be unable to survive in the extreme heat of surrounding open landscapes. However, forest scientists are increasingly concerned that the combined pressures of global warming and habitat degradation could undermine forests’ critical thermal buffering capacity. New research from Southeast Asia predicts forests across the region will experience unprecedented peak temperatures over the next three decades. Heat levels beneath the canopy could hit new highs even within currently intact ecosystems by 2050, the study found, potentially exposing forest-dwelling animals, plants and fungi to severe levels of heat stress. “Our findings show that climate change is not only warming the atmosphere globally, but also reshaping the local conditions that species experience inside forests,” said Erone Ghizoni Santos, who led the study while he was a Ph.D. student at the University of Helsinki in Finland. Clouded leopards are one of many forest-dependent mammals that could be impacted by shifting understory microclimates. Image by Rhett A. Butler/Mongabay. Region-wide warming Prior research in Malaysian Borneo has demonstrated that when forests are degraded, such as through logging, they become more affected by climate shifts in the surrounding landscape. Depleted canopies allow more sunlight to reach the ground and trap less moisture, allowing heat to permeate the ecosystem. What was missing,…This article was originally published on Mongabay
The forests of the Brazilian Amazon are, by any measure, among the most important ecosystems on Earth. They absorb carbon on a planetary scale, regulate rainfall across South America, and shelter biodiversity that science is still cataloging. International negotiations, carbon markets, and diplomatic agreements all rest on the assumption that these forests will remain standing. Yet while the Amazon spans nine Brazilian states, the three whose territory is most overwhelmingly forest — and which therefore carry the heaviest share of the conservation burden — are among the poorest and most fiscally dependent in the country. The states of Amapá, Acre, and Amazonas operate on budgets so dependent on federal transfers that they have almost no fiscal room to act on their own. That is not a coincidence. It is a design flaw in Brazil’s fiscal constitution, and it is getting worse. The argument here is simple: Brazil cannot credibly lead global climate diplomacy while its Amazonian states remain fiscally trapped. The forest will not protect itself. And the states responsible for protecting it do not have the money to do so. Tropical forest near Atalaia do Norte, Amazonas, Brazil. Image by Gloria Pallares for Mongabay. What the budgets show Amapá is larger than Ecuador. Nearly three-quarters of its territory is classified as federally protected land — national parks, Indigenous reserves, and conservation units — that the state is legally obligated to maintain but receives no specific compensation for. In 2025, more than 60% of its entire state budget came from…This article was originally published on Mongabay
How do you spot polar bears in the vast, and often dark, wilderness of the Arctic? Enter Bear-dar. This AI-driven radar system scans the landscape to spot approaching polar bears. The technology was developed by the nonprofit Polar Bears International in collaboration with U.S.-based security firm Spotter Global in a bid to mitigate encounters between the animals and people. “We wanted to add another tool to the polar bear safety toolbox,” Alysa McCall, director of science at Polar Bears International, told Mongabay in a video interview. “With an early-warning detection system, there’s less chance of a bear getting killed because it surprised somebody.” Climate change is the biggest threat to the survival and existence of polar bears (Ursus maritimus). As sea ice melts in the Arctic, these threatened species are rapidly losing their habitats. As a result, they move on to land in search of food, where they risk coming into close contact with humans. With Bear-dar, scientists and conservationists say they hope to help manage such encounters and conflicts. The early-warning system uses radars and cameras that keep a watch on the landscape, looking out for motion in its field of vision. The radar panels, each about the size of an iPad, look at a distance ranging from a few hundred meters to 1.2 kilometers (0.75 miles). The AI algorithm in the radars was trained to detect polar bears from zoo-held animals at Assiniboine Conservancy Park in the Canadian city of Winnipeg. “There’s not a ton of polar bear…This article was originally published on Mongabay
BANGKOK — Schemes funneling Chinese tour groups through illegal wildlife shopping sites in Laos appear to be persisting and even expanding in spite of some law enforcement action by authorities, Mongabay has learned. In July 2025, a joint Mongabay investigation identified up to 21 illegal wildlife shopping sites embedded in package tours catering to Chinese nationals in the Laotian cites of Luang Prabang and Vientiane. Typically masquerading as cultural centers, restaurants, jewelry stores and the like, or as stores embedded in such venues, the shopping sites typically only showcase their products to Chinese-language tours run by Chinese and Laotian operators, while barring entry to anyone else. Since then, the number of these shops appears to have nearly doubled, according to multiple groups investigating these operations on the ground. Mongabay has seen evidence suggesting that as many as 35 shops are now operating in Luang Prabang and Vientiane, with 22 in the former and the rest in the latter. When Mongabay asked the Laotian Department of Forestry about the first 21 shops in mid-2025, a spokesperson suggested that at least some of them were not registered as retail shops and that they would investigate. Since then, authorities have made seizures of suspected illegal wildlife products at several shopping sites in Vientiane and Luang Prabang, including of nearly 50 kilograms (110 pounds) during inspections of 17 unnamed locations In November and December, and of more than 57 kg (126 lbs) at an unnamed location on June 13, according to local media reports.…This article was originally published on Mongabay
POTIGUAR BASIN, Brazil — On the estuary beaches where the Atlantic Ocean mixes with freshwater rising from mangrove soils, the shorebird known as the red knot has a single goal: to feed. While one member of the flock keeps watch, the others use their specialized, tireless beaks to capture clams, oysters, snails and earthworms that inhabit the muddy soils. Soon the time to migrate will come, and the birds must double their weight to endure the long trip. Each May, after spending the previous eight months in the coastal wetlands of Brazil’s shoreline and in Argentina’s Tierra del Fuego, at the far south of South America, red knots (Calidris canutus) begin a long return flight to the Northern Hemisphere. Their final destination is the cold, desert-like Arctic tundra. It’s there, during the northern summer, between June and August, that they breed. Even before the journey starts, on the beaches of Macau, Guamaré and Galinhos — coastal municipalities dotted throughout Brazil’s Potiguar Basin — observers can see a sign of their preparation: the birds’ chests display a reddish color typical of nuptial plumage. Among migratory birds, the red knot is one of the longest-distance travelers. It flies for about six days and six nights without sleeping, eating or drinking. After leaving Brazil, it will cover roughly 8,000 kilometers (5,000 miles) to its next stop: Delaware Bay, on the northeastern coast of the U.S. From there, the journey continues toward the Arctic; over a year, the round trip may cover 30,000 km (nearly 19,000…This article was originally published on Mongabay
Malasen Hamida, a Nubian Muslim woman from Kibera, in Nairobi, is an aspiring politician and an environmental activist with more than 25 years of advocacy behind her. Kibera, which was named by Nubians, meaning “land of forests,” is Kenya’s largest informal settlement and sits on land that the British colonial government allocated to the Nubian community after their forebears served as soldiers in the King’s African Rifles. That allocation once covered 1,698 hectares (4,197 acres). Today, due to urbanization, forced evictions, land-grabbing and successive government projects, only 116 hectares (288 acres) remain under Nubian ownership, with no compensation ever offered. Through the Mazingira Women Initiative, Hamida has spent those years organizing around waste management, smart farming, land rights and women’s leadership. (“Mazingira” is a Swahili word for environment or nature.) She is also a three-time parliamentary candidate for the Kibera constituency and intends to run again in 2027. Hamida spoke with Mongabay on a cold Saturday afternoon, just as she was leaving the largest mosque in Kibera constituency. Her offices are a short walk away. As we moved toward them, several people stopped to greet her. She responded to each, “salaam aleikum,” paused to chat, and cupped a small girl’s face in her hands. She led me through a corrugated iron gate into a quiet compound of mud-walled, iron-roofed houses. The area was noticeably clean, with no stagnant water or litter in sight, unlike the typical sight in Kibera. We settled on the veranda of her home. Malasen Hamida addresses…This article was originally published on Mongabay
His nephew recalled that the children were taught to chant, “Hyenas are beautiful!” as often as possible. On visits to Kruger National Park, he got them out of bed at midnight to look for bushbabies and again at five in the morning to search for big cats. Wildlife was often most active at inconvenient hours, and he expected anyone accompanying him to adjust. Michael “Gus” Mills, who died on July 13th, spent more than 40 years studying Africa’s large carnivores, especially hyenas, wild dogs, and cheetahs. He published more than 150 scientific papers, chapters, and reports, advised conservation bodies, and trained younger researchers. Much of his working life was spent in a vehicle on a sandy track, waiting beside an animal that might sleep for most of the day. Gus and Margie Mills. Sourced via the Endangered Wildlife Trust At school he had seemed an unlikely future scientist. He described himself as a “very bad student,” failed South Africa’s high-school leaving examination, and was told that science was beyond him. After passing the examination on a second attempt, he joked that he had earned an MA: “Matric Again.” Three years of psychology persuaded him that he did not want to be a psychologist. Zoology held his attention. A visit to Kruger in 1954, when he was eight, had already pointed him toward field biology. “It did something to me,” he said. From then on he wanted to work in the bush. After studying at the University of Cape Town and…This article was originally published on Mongabay
From its nests high in the canopy of the Amazon, the harpy eagle depends on — and is critical to — the health of the forest around it. The species controls the numbers of animals such as sloths and monkeys that, unchecked, could consume too many leaves and turn the canopy into lace. But the massive loss of trees in the world’s largest rainforest has hampered the survival of the harpy eagle (Harpia harpyja). Too few tall trees in the vicinity of their nests means fledgling chicks don’t have enough safe places to land as they learn to fly. Habitat loss, along with hunting, has led to the bird’s listing as vulnerable by the IUCN. Removing it entirely could accelerate the demise of the entire ecosystem, conservationist Harvey Locke told Mongabay in an interview, which could have knock-on effects such as diminished rainfall on farmland in the region. “The harpy eagle is not just an amazingly cool bird,” said Locke, the co-founder of the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative based in Canada. “It’s not a luxury in that biome. It’s vital to it.” Just as other keystone species, such as elephants, beavers and bison, play similar roles in their respective environments, harpy eagles help hold together even heavily impacted ecosystems, Locke said. “If we pull these pieces out, it unravels,” he added. Research shows keystone species, such as the harpy eagle (Harpia harpyja) pictured here with a tufted capuchin (Cebus apella), play essential roles in maintaining the health of the…This article was originally published on Mongabay
Off the coast of Timor-Leste, fishers are building something many countries still lack: A clearer picture of how small-scale fishing nourishes people. For six years, fishers have logged their trips and recorded the gear used, the habitats visited and the catch brought home in a digital system built with the government of Timor-Leste. More than 77,000 trips later, that data has produced a study that urges governments to change how they think about fisheries management. The value of a catch is not just measured in kilos; where people fish and the gear they use can shape the nutrients that end up in local diets. Small pelagic fish can be rich in iron, calcium, zinc and omega-3s, while marine invertebrates gathered by hand, often by women and usually overlooked in official statistics, can also be nutritionally important. That matters because fisheries are too often managed around what is landed and sold, not who is nourished. A session during the Our Ocean conference in Mombasa, Kenya. Image by Malavika Vyawahare/Mongabay. After the first Our Ocean Conference held on African soil, this evidence feels especially timely. That event in Mombasa in June put Africa’s ocean future in the global spotlight, but the real test now is whether new commitments help countries build the systems needed to manage aquatic foods for people and not just for production, trade and conservation. Now the question is what those commitments will deliver. For decades, fisheries management has been built around one question: How many tons were landed?…This article was originally published on Mongabay
By some accounts, in the Philippine reefs of the 1970s, large groupers appeared every 50 feet or so. Some seemed as large as Volkswagen Beetles. Around them were snappers, fusiliers, wrasses, turtles, and corals, along with fish whose identities were still uncertain. A young biologist could spend his days diving and still feel he had only begun to understand what was there. Kent E. Carpenter arrived in the Philippines at 22, soon after graduating from the Florida Institute of Technology. The Peace Corps assigned him to the Philippine Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources and put him in charge of coral-reef research. He later called it “the best job there ever was or ever will be in the Peace Corps.” It gave him access to reefs across the archipelago and set the direction of his career. Carpenter was shot dead at his home in Sibulan, Negros Oriental, on July 12th. He was 73. According to police, three men entered the house late at night. A special task group was formed to investigate, and no motive had been established when his death was announced. Kent Carpenter. Image via Old Dominion University Pollution and destructive fishing were already damaging Philippine reefs during his early years there. The large predators he had seen so often became harder to find. He spent much of the next half-century recording marine life in increasing detail: which species lived where, how they were related, how populations changed, and what made them vulnerable. After completing a doctorate in…This article was originally published on Mongabay
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