Agriculture
The country’s biggest solar farm is coming to one of the coal-friendliest states
How one small farming community in Indiana came to embrace a massive solar project.
Read MoreFarmers in Brazil’s Cerrado cotton on to the benefits of agroecology
At the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, 46 cotton-farming families in Brazil’s Minas Gerais began practicing agroecology, a sustainable farming approach that works with nature.
Read MoreTo get rural Americans involved in climate crisis, see them for who they are
Despite stereotypes, there’s really only one characteristic they all share: They hate being told what to do.
Read MoreAs its topsoil washes away, the Corn Belt is losing yields — and carbon
Chances are, if you live in North America, you’ve eaten corn from the Corn Belt, a region in the United States Midwest that produces 75% of U.S. corn. Scientists have found that around 35% of the region has lost its most fertile A-horizon soil, more commonly known as topsoil, since European colonization in the 1800s, […]
Read MoreMongabay’s top Amazon stories from 2021
The world’s greatest tropical rainforest continued to come under pressure in 2021, due largely to the policies of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro. Deforestation rates hit a 15-year-high, while fires flared up again, combining to turn Brazil’s portion of the Amazon into a net carbon source for the first time ever. But the rainforest as a […]
Read MoreTop 15 species discoveries from 2021 (Photos)
With humans sending probes to explore Mars and the sun, one might think we’ve already explored the full extent of our own planet. But scientists say we’ve only begun to find and describe the riches here on Earth. “I think most people believe that we know most species on Earth … but in the best-case […]
Read MoreMexican firm profits from reforestation, empowers Indigenous people
Local stories in Michoacán tell how, when the Spanish invaded what would later be known as Mexico in the 1500s, they found Indigenous communities tapping pine trees and using the resin in sizzling-bright torches and lamps that lit the Aztec Empire capital of Tenochtitlan, today’s Mexico City. The Spanish appropriated the resin to use as […]
Read MoreFrench deforestation database pressures Brazilian soy traders to clean up supply chain
France is taking new steps to ensure that products imported from Brazil aren’t contributing to deforestation in vulnerable forests and savannahs. The French government published a new risk analysis platform earlier this month that shows how much activity by soy traders is causing tree cover loss. The tool is intended to implement more rigorous oversight […]
Read MoreMongabay reporter sued in what appears to be a pattern of legal intimidation by Peruvian cacao company
In November 2020, Peruvian cacao company Tamshi filed a lawsuit against Mongabay Latam staff reporter Yvette Sierra Praeli for “aggravated defamation” over her reporting of a government investigation into the firm’s activities in the Peruvian Amazon. While the case was formally dismissed by a Peruvian court last month, it wasn’t the first time that Tamshi […]
Read MoreIn southern Colombia, Indigenous groups fish and farm with the floods
At the very southern tip of Colombia, Indigenous communities practice a sustainable food system that involves artisanal fishing and rotating crop structures within cycles of flooding periods. This has allowed them to live sustainably in an extremely biodiverse part of the Amazon that has remained largely untouched by commercial agriculture. The Tikuna, Cocama and Yagua […]
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