Community-based Conservation
Mongabay’s Conservation Potential series investigates: Where do we need to protect biodiversity?
From microbes to meerkats, the wealth of species on Earth is the glue that holds the cycles of life together: producing food, regulating climate, building soil, maintaining ecosystems and more. Tropical forests are some of the most diverse ecosystems on the planet, and scientists estimate that they have only described a small percentage of the […]
Can a country have too many tigers? Nepal is about to find out
KATHMANDU — As the world prepares to mark International Tiger Day on July 29, officials in Nepal are putting the finishing touches on a report that’s expected to show a much-anticipated doubling in the population of the big cats in the Himalayan country since 2010. Nepal is one of 13 tiger range countries, and the […]
Winter sanctuary in Nepal proves a killing field for yellow-breasted buntings
KATHMANDU — Ornithologist Hem Bahadur Katwal, who studies farmland birds, says he’s excited about an upcoming trip to visit Nepal’s plains when the monsoon rains end in September. This is the time when the cold starts creeping in over the lands farther north — Russia, Mongolia, China — and thousands of migratory birds flock to […]
Report clears Kenyan conservancy of community abuse, but advocates cry foul
A report accusing Kenya-based conservation group the Northern Rangelands Trust (NRT) of involvement in extrajudicial killings of pastoralists was rejected on June 9 in an independent review commissioned by the trust’s donors, which include The Nature Conservancy, USAID and the European Union. The review’s author, Kanyinke Sena, director of the Indigenous Peoples of Africa Co-ordinating […]
‘Protecting snow leopards benefits other species’: Q&A with Rinzin Phunjok Lama
KATHMANDU — Think of big cats in Nepal, and you’ll probably picture a Bengal tiger. And while the country is famous for the Panthera tigris that prowl its southern plains — and for its efforts in doubling their population over the past decade — there’s another, lesser-known, big cat in the country’s north, lurking high […]
Globally acclaimed community forest groups in Nepal say new rules threaten their autonomy
KATHMANDU — Nepalis whose livelihoods rely on access to the country’s community forests have suspended planned protests against a new law they say will threaten their autonomy and force their groups to work under various bureaucratic mechanisms. The move by the Federation of Community Forest Users Nepal (FECOFUN), which has been protesting the proposed changes […]
Mongabay’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 […]
Mexican 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 […]
Camera trap study shows conservation efforts ‘are working’ on Costa Rica’s Osa Peninsula: Video
After she collected a set of camera traps from the ridgeline above Corcovado National Park, conservation biologist Eleanor Flatt said that scientists, staff, and tourists all huddled around her computer at the Punta Marenco Lodge to see what images were captured. Camera traps, remote cameras triggered by motion, can be set off by something as […]