Archive for December 2021

The lush rainforest stretches for miles across the Terra do Meio Ecological Station, in Brazil’s northern state of Pará. Near the edge of the vast protected reserve, a makeshift road slices through the thick emerald canopy. Flanking it are swaths of freshly cleared land, spanning hundreds of hectares. Further south, forest is being replaced by […]

2021 was a year where tropical forests featured more prominently in global headlines than normal thanks to rising recognition of the role they play in addressing climate change and biodiversity loss. The following is a brief look at some of the major rainforest storylines from 2021. Previous year-in-reviews: 2020 | The 2010s | 2019 | […]

This is part two of a three-article series on industrial fishing in Madagascar’s waters. Part one focuses on offshore fishing; part three looks at changes to the near-shore trawling sector.   NOSY FALY, Madagascar — For decades, tensions have simmered between Madagascar’s small-scale fishers and the industrial trawlers that operate near the country’s coast. In 2017, […]

Mongabay’s journalism provides boundless visual storytelling opportunities that reach audiences who don’t consider themselves environmentalists or know much about conservation with information derived from our original news reporting. This year Mongabay videos included some of the most pressing environmental issues  of 2021. These included video series about how climate change affects agriculture and food security […]

Cadets from the Nevada Civil Air Patrol will have an opportunity soon to hear from NASA astronauts aboard the International Space Station.

JAKARTA — In 2020, residents of Suka Mukti village in southern Sumatra paid 10 million rupiah each, about $700, to a government agency to obtain titles to their land — a process that is officially supposed to be free. This year, the same agency declared the certificates illegal because, it says, the land falls inside […]

1. The ocean-climate nexus The presence of the ocean was felt more strongly than ever at this year’s U.N. Climate Change Conference (COP 26), held Oct. 31 to Nov. 12 in Glasgow, Scotland. In fact, the COP designated an entire day as “ocean day.” Importantly, the negotiating language explicitly mentioned the ocean for the first […]

In May 2014, the Kenya Wildlife Services (KWS) seized a consignment of wood at the port of Mombasa. Shipping records listed the cargo only as “wood” headed for Hong Kong: in fact, the MV Kota was carrying 646 metric tons of Malagasy rosewood (Dalbergia spp.), worth up to $13 million. KWS deemed the consignment illegal. A […]

This Arizona national park was founded to protect the saguaro cactus, a keystone species of the Sonoran Desert and an iconic symbol of the Southwest, where the climate is becoming warmer and drier.

Over the course of the holiday season, Americans asked themselves why many of their favorite consumer items became difficult to obtain, from board games to apparel to bicycles. Amid pandemic concerns, labor shortages, supply chain bottlenecks, clogged ports and shipping backups, some even suggested avoiding the purchase of physical gifts altogether, and buying streaming TV […]