How Southern African farmers & elephants can both adapt to coexist (December 19, 2025)
https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/how-southern-african-farmers-elephants-can-both-adapt-to-coexist/
- In Southern Africa, people live alongside elephants, but not always peacefully.
- The growing reports of human-elephant conflict have triggered calls for elephant culls in some countries, like Zimbabwe.
- But conservation groups are working hard to promote coexistence, using technology that can warn farmers about approaching elephants or link farmers to more lucrative markets to offset the cost of living with one of Africa’s most charismatic mammals.
- In all of this, adaptation is the key: Farmers are adapting the way they farm, while elephants are learning to move at night and stick to specific routes through populated areas to avoid conflict.
Tsunami veteran rescue elephants mobilized for Indonesia cyclone disaster relief (December 19, 2025)
https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/tsunami-veteran-rescue-elephants-mobilized-for-indonesia-cyclone-disaster-relief/
- The number of people killed by flash floods after Cyclone Senyar made landfall over Sumatra on Nov. 26 increased to 1,059 on Dec. 18. In Pidie Jaya district, on the north coast of the semi-autonomous region of Aceh, officials assigned a team of four rescue elephants, veterans of the recovery operation after the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami that killed more than 200,000 people in Aceh.
- The Aceh conservation agency said the elephants were uniquely able to help remove fields of logs carried down valleys by the worst flash floods to hit the region in years, with the scale of debris fields impassable to heavy machinery.
- “They are trained and experienced elephants,” the head of Aceh’s conservation agency told Mongabay, while emphasizing that officials went to great lengths to ensure the Sumatran animals’ welfare.
- At least one Sumatran elephant was presumed killed in flash floods caused by Cyclone Senyar, after residents in a village neighboring the rescue elephants’ workplace discovered the animal’s body Nov. 29.
Tech alone won’t stop poaching, but it’s changing how rangers work (December 19, 2025)
https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/tech-alone-wont-stop-poaching-but-its-changing-how-rangers-work/
- New conservation technologies are being developed and deployed worldwide to counter increasingly sophisticated poachers.
- A new alliance between two of the biggest open-source conservation technology platforms combines real-time data collection and long-term data analysis, with proven success.
- Free, open-source tools can help remove barriers to adoption of conservation technology, particularly in the Global South.
The value of journalism in the AI era (December 18, 2025)
https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/the-value-of-journalism-in-the-ai-era/
- Generative AI has disrupted journalism, but Mongabay is seeing increased engagement, with chatbot users clicking through and spending more time on reported stories.
- AI cannot observe, verify, or make accountable judgments, making journalism’s core functions—provenance, verification, and editorial judgment—more valuable in an era flooded with low-quality AI content.
- As quick visual cues for detecting synthetic material fade, audiences increasingly rely on trusted institutions, transparent sourcing, and original reporting to understand what is real.
- This piece is a reflection by Mongabay founder and CEO Rhett Ayers Butler on how AI is reshaping news consumption and reinforcing the importance of journalism.
Congo’s communities are creating a 1-million-hectare biodiversity corridor (December 18, 2025)
https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/congos-communities-are-creating-a-1-million-hectare-biodiversity-corridor/
- The NGO Strong Roots Congo is securing lands for communities and wildlife to create a 1-million-hectare (2.5-million-acre) corridor that spans the space between Kahuzi-Biega National Park and Itombwe Nature Reserve in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
- The effort requires multiple communities to register their customary lands as community forestry concessions under an environmental management plan, which, piece by piece, form the sweeping corridor.
- To date, Strong Roots has secured 23 community forest concessions in the area, covering nearly 600,000 hectares (1.5 million acres) of land.
- The corridor aims to rectify a historical wrong in the creation of Kahuzi-Biega National Park, which displaced many families, by engaging communities in conservation. Advocates say the project has had a positive impact so far despite challenges, but persistent armed conflict in the eastern DRC is slowing progress.
Photo tourism threatens rare galaxy frog population in India’s Western Ghats (December 18, 2025)
https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/photo-tourism-threatens-rare-galaxy-frog-population-in-indias-western-ghats/
- A population of rare galaxy frogs disappeared from India’s Western Ghats after photographers overturned logs, trampled vegetation and handled animals improperly, a new study reports.
- Researchers suggest managing photography tourism with measures such as restricting animal capture and handling, limiting the use of high-intensity lights, avoiding habitat disturbance, training licensed guides in ethical practices and imposing penalties for violations.
- The Western Ghats, an ancient mountain range running parallel to India’s western coast, harbors exceptional biodiversity found nowhere else on Earth.
- Galaxy frogs are the only member of their genus on the evolutionary tree of life, making them one of the world’s most unique threatened species.
As storms surge & the sea rises, Belgium builds dunes for protection (December 18, 2025)
https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/as-storms-surge-the-sea-rises-belgium-builds-dunes-for-protection/
- Belgium is trialing “dune-by-dike” systems as a nature-based defense against storm surges and sea-level rise, using engineered sand dunes in front of existing dikes to create a double buffer along vulnerable stretches of coast.
- There are four dune-by-dike pilot sites in Belgium, including a 750-meter site in Raversijde, a neighborhood in the coastal city of Ostend, which Mongabay visited in late November.
- The Raversijde dune-by-dike project was established in 2021 with grids of vegetation that collected sand as the wind blew, helping build up the dunes.
- While experts said they believe dune-by-dike systems could protect large portions of the Belgian coast, they said building and maintaining the dunes relies on dredging sand from the sea to replenish adjacent beaches.
When abandoned conservation projects are counted as progress, what are we protecting? (commentary) (December 18, 2025)
https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/when-abandoned-conservation-projects-are-counted-as-progress-what-are-we-protecting-commentary/
- An issue that receives little attention from conservationists and funders is the quiet abandonment of conservation projects after their high-profile launches.
- New evidence suggests that over one-third of conservation initiatives are abandoned within a few years of launch; if these eventual failures are not reported, they tend to be assumed to remain active.
- “Conservation must be reframed as a long-term commitment. Until the community confronts the uncomfortable truth that starting new projects holds no value unless existing ones are sustained, billions of dollars will continue to be spent on initiatives that provide the illusion of progress while nature continues its decline,” a new op-ed argues.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.
New study splits giraffe experts on future wild captures for zoos (December 18, 2025)
https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/new-study-splits-giraffe-experts-on-future-wild-captures-for-zoos/
- Hybridization of captive giraffes in North American zoos may impact conservation, given the recent scientific consensus that giraffes are four distinct species, not a single species as previously thought.
- The study recommends international collaboration in future breeding programs, in which giraffes would be captured from the wild in Africa and moved to North American zoos to essentially start a captive-breeding program of genetically pure individuals.
- But giraffe conservationists say the study’s recommendations would be detrimental to wild conservation, arguing that capturing giraffes for zoos would deplete wild populations.
Marine heat waves and raw sewage combine to put human health at risk (December 18, 2025)
https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/marine-heat-waves-and-raw-sewage-combine-to-put-human-health-at-risk/
- Climate change is fueling an increasing number of marine heat waves across the globe.
- When this intensifying heat is coupled with pollution — especially sewage, nitrogen fertilizer agricultural runoff, wildfire soot and possibly plastics — waterborne bacterial pathogens can multiply, raising human health concerns.
- These connections are exemplified in the escalating spread of Vibrio, a group of naturally occurring bacteria whose numbers are multiplying and undergoing global distribution shifts due to complex relationships between marine heat waves and pollution.
- Vibrio infections can range in severity but can result in sickness and death. One notorious Vibrio species is known as the flesh-eating bacteria; another causes cholera.
In Brazil, a new label gives more visibility to deforestation-free beef (December 18, 2025)
https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/in-brazil-a-new-label-gives-more-visibility-to-deforestation-free-beef/
- A new certification for deforestation-free beef in Brazil, the first of its kind, aims to bring more transparency to existing protocols for monitoring deforestation in meat supply chains.
- The Beef-on-Track (BoT) label has four tiers of certification to guarantee that certified beef meets certain socioenvironmental requirements.
- The label was created to meet demands from China, but it could also help with EUDR compliance, as its highest tier meets EUDR requirements for a deforestation-free supply chain.
- Brazil’s meat industry has not yet embraced the BoT certification, but companies are expected to get on board, as demand for BoT-certified beef grows among exporters, retailers and other actors.
Tapanuli orangutan, devastated by cyclone, now faces habitat loss under zoning plans (December 18, 2025)
https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/tapanuli-orangutan-devastated-by-cyclone-now-faces-habitat-loss-under-zoning-plans/
- A proposed zoning overhaul in Indonesia’s North Sumatra province could strip legal protections from nearly a third of the Batang Toru ecosystem, threatening the last remaining habitat of the critically endangered Tapanuli orangutan.
- The proposal came just before a powerful cyclone triggered floods and landslides that may have killed or displaced dozens of Tapanuli orangutans and severely damaged thousands of hectares of forest.
- The changes would weaken scrutiny of mining and plantation projects, including a planned expansion of a nearby gold mine, by removing the area’s “provincial strategic” designation.
- Conservationists say rolling back protections now would be a “nail in the coffin” for the species, calling for emergency protections and expanded conservation measures to prevent population collapse.
Kenyan woman hugs tree for 72 hours in protest against loss of beloved trees (December 18, 2025)
https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/kenyan-woman-hugs-tree-for-72-hours-in-protest-against-loss-of-beloved-trees/
- A Kenyan woman, Truphena Muthoni, beat her own world record, hugging a tree continuously for 72 hours at the foot of Mount Kenya.
- Her “silent protest” was meant to hold authorities and a complacent public to account for irresponsible tree cutting, forest land use change and inadequate protection of water catchment areas.
- Muthoni represents an emerging younger generation of environmentalists coming up with more engaging ways to shift conservation from an abstract to a real-time issue.
Tiny Caribbean island brings hope for critically endangered iguana (December 18, 2025)
https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2025/12/tiny-caribbean-island-brings-hope-for-critically-endangered-iguana/
Over the past decade, Prickly Pear East, a small, privately owned island in the Caribbean, has become a beacon of hope for a critically endangered lizard. The islet, near the main island of Anguilla, a British territory, is one of just five locations where the lesser Antillean iguana (Iguana delicatissima) is breeding and thriving, protected […]
‘Neither appropriate nor fair’: Ecuador ordered to pay oil giant Chevron $220m (December 18, 2025)
https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2025/12/neither-appropriate-nor-fair-ecuador-ordered-to-pay-oil-giant-chevron-220m/
Indigenous and rural communities in Ecuador’s Amazon have condemned an international arbitration ruling that ordered Ecuador to pay more than $220 million to U.S. oil giant Chevron. The sum is to compensate the company for alleged denial of justice in a trial that found Chevron, operating through its predecessor Texaco, guilty of widespread environmental damage […]
The lab-in-a-backpack busting illegal shark fins: Interview with Diego Cardeñosa (December 18, 2025)
https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/the-lab-in-a-backpack-busting-illegal-shark-fins-interview-with-diego-cardenosa/
- Diego Cardeñosa chose lab-based DNA research over fieldwork during his Ph.D. on sharks, betting it could deliver greater conservation impact despite being less glamorous.
- He developed a portable, rapid DNA test — like the kits used during the COVID-19 pandemic — that allows inspectors to identify shark species from fins on the spot, solving a key bottleneck that let illegal shipments slip through.
- The tool has evolved from identifying a handful of protected species to distinguishing among more than 80 sharks and rays in a single test.
- Now deployed across multiple countries, the relatively low-cost kit is expanding through grant support, with plans to adapt the technology to other trafficked wildlife beyond sharks.
Costa Rica’s ‘shocking’ wildlife crisis: Nation must move to prevent animal electrocution (commentary) (December 17, 2025)
https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/costa-ricas-shocking-wildlife-crisis-nation-must-move-to-prevent-animal-electrocution-commentary/
- Costa Rica is renowned for its comprehensive laws that safeguard forest cover and wildlife, protecting its status as a biodiversity hotspot that attracts millions of tourists every year.
- Yet wildlife rescue centers persistently point out that the level of care that authorities have promised has not yet been fully realized on multiple issues, including the issue of increasing electrocution deaths of sloths, kinkajous, monkeys and other animals traversing exposed electricity transmission lines after their forests have been cut.
- Many of these NGOs recently came together to form a coalition to bring awareness to the fact that most of the nation’s electrical infrastructure is installed aerially and without insulation, laying deadly traps for all arboreal animals.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.
A rare right whale spotted off Ireland resurfaces near Boston (December 17, 2025)
https://news.mongabay.com/short-article/2025/12/a-rare-right-whale-spotted-off-ireland-resurfaces-near-boston/
In a rare sighting, a critically endangered North Atlantic right whale, first photographed in 2024 off the coast of Ireland, was recently reidentified near Boston, U.S., on Nov. 19. This is the first time a North Atlantic right whale (Eubalaena glacialis) was initially documented in Irish waters; before that, it was unknown to scientists. The […]
Earth’s freshwater fish face harsh new climate challenges, researchers warn (December 17, 2025)
https://news.mongabay.com/2025/12/earths-freshwater-fish-face-harsh-new-climate-challenges-researchers-warn/
- Climate change is rapidly altering freshwater ecosystems — raising temperatures, altering flood pulses and oxygen levels — and driving complex, region-specific changes in how fish grow, migrate and survive.
- Long-term U.S. data show sharp declines in cold-water fish as streams and lakes warm, while warm-water species gain only slightly. Some cold-adapted species are now disappearing as deep waters cease being a cold refuge.
- From Africa to the Arctic, impacts are emerging, including stronger lake stratification, declining fisheries and rivers turning orange as thawing permafrost releases toxic metals. Declining freshwater fisheries increasingly put food security at risk, especially affecting diets and health in traditional and Indigenous communities.
- Scientists say management and conservation techniques rooted in past conditions no longer work. New approaches must anticipate shifting baselines as climate change rapidly accelerates.
Orangutans rescued from the wildlife trade undergo intensive re-training to return to the wild (December 17, 2025)
https://news.mongabay.com/video/2025/12/orangutans-rescued-from-the-wildlife-trade-undergo-intensive-re-training-to-return-to-the-wild/
NORTH SUMATRA, Indonesia. Welcome to jungle school—where orphaned orangutans are learning the basics for survival that they will need for life in the wild. At the Orangutan Information Centre (OIC) in North Sumatra, vets and biologists are rehabilitating orangutans who have been confiscated from the illegal wildlife trade. Once they have mastered the basics of […]