Mongabay News

• Corals keep a record of pollution, pointing to a new monitoring method: Study

  Maui, an island in the isolated Hawaiian archipelago, isn’t in one of the world’s most heavily developed or polluted coral-reef regions. Yet even there, human activity leaves an imprint in the very tissue of corals, altering their biochemistry, a recent study shows. The study, published in July in the journal Nature Communications, found 25 contaminants […]

• A millennium of evidence reveals colonial roots of Australia’s wildfire vulnerability

  A 1,000-year ecological reconstruction reveals that Australia’s ongoing wildfire crisis stems from the colonial disruption of Indigenous fire management rather than climate change alone, according to a study published in Nature. For more than 800 years prior to British colonization in 1788, the Indigenous Gunaikurnai people maintained stable, open eucalypt woodlands across southeastern Australia using […]

• 5 million Nigerians gain clean cooking access annually, but it’s not enough, experts say

  UYO, Nigeria — Before dawn, Happiness Emmanuel is already at the fire. She crouches beside a three-legged metal stand outside her home in Uyo city, southeastern Nigeria, splashing kerosene over damp firewood before striking a match. By sunrise, she is selling akara, a popular bean fritter, to commuters and schoolchildren stopping at her roadside stall. […]

• International Gibbon Day: Stories of threats and survival  

  Twenty species of gibbons swing through the tropical forests of Asia, all are threatened by human activities like deforestation, hunting and trafficking baby gibbons for the exotic pet trade. In recognition of International Gibbon Day on Oct. 24, here are three recent Mongabay stories about the threats gibbons face and the people working to protect […]

• Sri Lanka mourns iconic tusker amid renewed calls to address human-elephant conflict

  COLOMBO – The death of Kavantissa, one of Sri Lanka’s most iconic wild tuskers (Elephas maximus maximus), following a gunshot injury triggered an extraordinary wave of public grief, political attention and criticism of wildlife authorities.The elephant’s final days brought together politicians, Buddhist monks, wildlife enthusiasts and veterinarians in a collective effort to save a giant […]