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Previous reports of drastic declines in the elusive angelshark in Wales, U.K., may be overestimated and may be partly explained by changes in fishing trends throughout the past decades, according to a recent study. The angelshark (Squatina squatina), listed as critically endangered on the IUCN Red List in 2006, is a bottom-dwelling shark that can grow up to 2.4 meters (8 feet) long. It was once a common predator in the sandy habitats of the Northeast Atlantic Ocean, Mediterranean Sea and Black Sea. However, over the past 50 years, the shark is reported to have declined dramatically in Wales — by as much as 70% between 1970 and 2016 — as it would often be caught as bycatch in nets used on the seabed to catch shellfish and other bottom-dwelling animals. Most data on the angelshark have come from chance encounters with it as bycatch, the authors write. But it is important to consider how socioeconomic fishing practices have evolved and influenced historical sightings and records of the angelshark, they add. To address this, researchers from the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), Natural Resources Wales and Welsh fishing organizations interviewed 27 Welsh commercial, recreational and charter fishers who actively fished within the Welsh Zone between 1968 and 2019. All of them recalled catching angelsharks incidentally, sometimes while fishing for thornback rays (Raja clavata), before the year 2000. One fisher told the researchers that angelsharks were a “nuisance” since they didn’t have commercial value and would damage fishing gear. However, over…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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The climate crisis demands urgent action by governments to reduce emissions and to transition to new renewable energy systems for people. This means that fossil fuel corporations must be forced to stop polluting and end their decades of destruction. I am writing this from the heart of the Ecuadorian Amazon, where the struggle of Indigenous and frontline communities offers a warning to the world: there is a dark legacy of devastation caused by the fossil fuel industry that must not be forgotten. Climate justice cannot be achieved so long as corporate impunity reigns. Chevron’s crimes in Ecuador are well documented. For nearly four decades, the transnational corporation extracted oil from our lands with utter disregard for life, intentionally dumping more than 60 billion liters (16 billion gallons) of toxic waste into rivers and leaving 880 open pits of poison across 480 hectares (nearly 1,200 acres) of rainforest. The company made tens of billions in profits from this devastation, and when it finally seemed like it was going to be held accountable, packed up and fled the country. Chevron on the run After years of legal struggle led by affected communities, Ecuador’s courts ordered Chevron to pay $9.5 billion to clean up its mess and compensate those harmed. Instead of honoring the ruling, Chevron launched a global campaign to escape accountability — one that reveals how today’s legal and financial systems are rigged to serve corporate interests, not human rights. Chevron has filed dozens of retaliatory lawsuits against Indigenous leaders, lawyers,…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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Founder’s Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries. A decade ago, Rwanda had more crowned cranes in living rooms than in the wild. They were brought back from the brink by a coordinated effort of conservation and public outreach, reports Mongabay contributor Musinguzi Blanshe. Just 10 years ago, Rwanda’s gray crowned cranes (Balearica regulorum) were vanishing. Once a familiar sight in wetlands across East Africa, their numbers in Rwanda had collapsed, driven by habitat loss and capture for the exotic pet trade. By 2017, there were more cranes in private homes than in the wild. That grim picture has changed, thanks largely to the work of Olivier Nsengimana, a veterinarian and founder of the Rwanda Wildlife Conservation Association (RWCA). His group has led a national campaign to rescue captive cranes, rehabilitate them and reintroduce them to the wild. Rather than punishing bird owners, RWCA offered amnesty — an approach that led to a wave of voluntary handovers. Their efforts have paid off. Rwanda’s crane population has nearly tripled since 2017. Wetlands, which are crucial breeding grounds, are now better protected through community involvement. RWCA trains local residents to monitor wetlands, raise awareness and reduce pressures on the habitat. Most of the organization’s 270 staff come from these communities. Nsengimana’s work has also expanded across borders. Cranes do not recognize national boundaries, so RWCA is partnering with groups in Uganda, Tanzania and, soon, Burundi to track and protect birds that migrate regionally. Uganda’s…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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Founder’s Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries. In the summer of 2024, searing ocean temperatures devastated much of Mesoamerica’s corals. But in Honduras’s Tela Bay, a reef known as Cocalito remains improbably intact — dominated by elkhorn corals so robust they scrape the water’s surface. The survival of this reef is baffling. Elkhorn coral (Acropora palmata), once common across the Caribbean, has declined by up to 98% in many areas due to warming seas, disease and pollution. Yet in Tela Bay, fed by a river heavy with fertilizer and waste, these corals not only endure, they flourish. Scientists have taken notice, reports contributor Fritz Pinnow for Mongabay. A team from the University of Miami in the U.S., suspecting the corals harbor heat-resistant algae or unique genetic traits, collected samples to crossbreed with Florida’s nearly extinct elkhorns. Early findings suggest Cocalito’s coral hosts an unusually resilient symbiont. Still, results are preliminary, and other theories abound. Some point to environmental quirks. Coastal currents may shield Cocalito from sedimentation and heat. Others cite human behavior: the reef’s shallow waters deter fishers, perhaps allowing a healthier ecological balance to persist. Whatever the explanation, Cocalito’s persistence stands in stark contrast to the regional picture. Tela Bay’s other reefs were not spared from the global bleaching event, now affecting 84% of reefs worldwide. Local conservationists have long been working to mitigate stressors — fighting pollution, managing tourism and monitoring reef health — but even they are…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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Several people have been killed after heavy rains hit parts of Asia over the past week, brought by the latest in a series of typhoons that scientists warn are growing more frequent under climate change. Typhoon Wutip started out as an area of convection west of Micronesia, according to a June 5 weather advisory from the U.S. Joint Typhoon Warning Center. It developed into a low-pressure area the next day, causing heavy rains and fueling the southwest monsoon in the Philippines. At least three people drowned after attempting to swim across an overflowed spillway in the province of Misamis Oriental. As Mongabay has previously reported, scientists say climate change is making such extreme weather events in the Philippines more common. By June 9, the storm had developed into a tropical depression over the South China Sea. It intensified into Tropical Storm Wutip on June 11 and flooded parts of Vietnam, where at least seven people were killed. The number of deaths caused by disasters in Vietnam tripled in 2024 compared to the year before. More than 100 houses were damaged and at least 70,000 hectares (173,000 acres) of farmlands were flooded. A number of roads were also flooded, including parts of a national highway. Rescue operations were still underway for missing people over the weekend, local media reported. The bad weather forced the Miss Vietnam beauty pageant to reschedule its final event, which was supposed to be held outdoors. By June 14, Wutip had intensified into a typhoon and made…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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MEXICO CITY — In 2024, six Latin American countries were in the top 10 nations with the highest loss of tropical primary forest, according to recent data from the University of Maryland, U.S. Topping the list were Brazil and Bolivia, in a year that saw the record-breaking loss of 6.7 million hectares (16.6 million acres) of forest, 80% more than in 2023. In the Amazon, forest loss jumped by 110% compared to 2023, the biggest increase since 2016. Although tropical forest loss rose globally, some countries, like Indonesia and Malaysia, saw improvements. In Latin America, however, even countries that had previously curbed forest loss, such as Brazil and Colombia, experienced dramatic losses. Wildfires encroach on tropical forests In 2024, wildfires burned five times more tropical primary forest than the year before. Brazil, Bolivia and Mexico saw particularly high numbers of wildfires. “The rapid loss of forest is very sad news at a time when we need our forests more than ever,” says Marlene Quintanilla Palacios, director of research and knowledge management at Bolivian conservation NGO Fundación Amigos de la Naturaleza (Friends of Nature Foundation). Last year was also the hottest year on record, with Latin America experiencing intense droughts due to a strong El Niño, a recurring climate pattern marked by warmer Pacific waters. “Climate change is accelerating all of this,” Quintanilla Palacios says. Hotspots show areas in Latin America that were newly affected by fires in 2024. Source: Global Forest Watch. If wildfires become the main driver of tropical…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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Poaching has decimated rhino populations across Africa, but a new study finds that dehorning the animals, or surgically removing their horns, drastically reduces poaching. The study focused on 11 reserves in the Greater Kruger ecosystem that sprawls across the border of South Africa and Mozambique. Poachers killed nearly 2,000 rhinos here, 6.5% of the reserves’ population, from 2017-2023, reducing populations of both black (Diceros bicornis) and white (Ceratotherium simum) rhinos, according to Tim Kuiper, study lead and conservation scientist at Nelson Mandela University. Poachers target rhinos for their keratin horns, incorrectly believed in traditional Asian medicine to hold medicinal properties. To deter poachers, many African reserves have tried dehorning, a procedure where veterinarians tranquilize rhinos and saw off their horns, leaving only a stump behind. In eight of the 11 reserves the study examined, park authorities and researchers (some involved in the study) have dehorned rhinos in batches since 2017. This allowed the researchers to compare the impact of dehorning on poaching rates over time, against the three reserves where rhinos weren’t dehorned, and against conventional measures implemented prior to dehorning. The study found a 78% reduction in poaching rates in the parks after dehorning — and it was cost-effective, too. From 2017-2023, the reserves spent $74 million on antipoaching measures, including rangers, tracking dogs, cameras, better fences and access control. But dehorning accounted for just 1.2% of the budget, the study found. “So, it’s very clear that our study demonstrated massive declines in poaching in response to dehorning,” Kuiper…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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Which provides more shelter for species biodiversity: a large, continuous tract of forest, or a number of small forest fragments that add up to the same land area? This question has divided the scientific community for more than 50 years, and a recently published study led by a Brazilian scientist has brought the topic back to the table. “It’s a debate dating back to the 1970s when researchers were trying to define the best way to plan conservation units [protected areas] so they would protect biodiversity,” says Thiago Gonçalves-Souza, a biologist at the University of Michigan, U.S., who authored the study together with more than two dozen other researchers from eight different countries. Some scientists say a region with many small forest fragments can be just as rich or richer in species diversity than a single large tract of forest. This is because each of these fragments has unique characteristics that favor the development of the different species living there. When added together, the sum is greater than that found in a large, continuous green space. “Those who defend this thesis say that, even with the loss of species on a local scale, the increase in heterogeneity between the different fragments would increase biodiversity in that region overall,” Gonçalves-Souza says. Very few large tracts of the Atlantic Rainforest remain, making it one of Brazil’s most deforested biomes. Image courtesy of Zig Koch/Fundação SOS Mata Atlântica. However, his study supports the hypothesis that conservation of large tracts of forests is actually…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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GENEVA (AP) — Swiss authorities cleared a village in the country’s east over a potential rockslide, three weeks after a mudslide submerged a vacated village in the southwest. Residents of Brienz/Brinzauls, about 40 kilometers (25 miles) southwest of Davos, were being barred from entering the village because a rock mass on a plateau overhead has “accelerated so rapidly that it threatens to collapse,” a statement from local officials said Monday. Farm work in the area was also being halted, and livestock owners moved their animals out of nearby pastures due to early warning signs on Sunday. Authorities said the region is closely monitored by early-warning systems in the town, which is no stranger to such evacuations: Villagers had been ordered out of Brienz/Brinzauls in November and in June two years ago — before a huge mass of rock tumbled down the mountain, narrowly missing the village. The mountain and the rocks on it have been moving since the last Ice Age. While glacier melt has affected the precariousness of the rocks over millennia, local authorities say melting glaciers due to “man-made” climate change in recent decades hasn’t been a factor. The centuries-old village straddles German- and Romansch-speaking parts of the eastern Graubünden region and sits at an altitude of about 1,150 meters (about 3,800 feet). Today, it has under 100 residents. Banner image: View of the village Brienz and the “Brienzer Rutsch”, taken in Brienz-Brinzauls, Switzerland, May 12, 2023. (AP Photo/Arnd Wiegmann, File).This article was originally published on Mongabay

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A recent report surveying seizures of pangolin scales and elephant ivory over the past decade has found a sharp decline following the COVID-19 pandemic. Using data from media reports, public documents, and criminal intelligence and investigations, analysts at the Wildlife Justice Commission (WJC) found authorities seized more than 370 metric tons of pangolin scales and 193 metric tons of elephant ivory between 2015 and 2024. Seizures began to ramp up in 2015, peaked in 2019, and then declined sharply in 2020. The report found that the pandemic disruption to trade and travel, coinciding with increased enforcement based on intelligence, prompted these declines. Post-pandemic, the decline in trade has continued to hold as countries intensify law enforcement and intelligence gathering. “The report was motivated by a need to present up-to-date findings and offer a current assessment of the evolving criminal dynamics surrounding ivory and pangolin scale trafficking,” Olivia Swaak-Goldman, WJC’s executive director, told Mongabay by email. “From our investigations, we knew there had been some major changes since our last reports … so it was timely to publish updated analysis and highlight these shifts.” Pangolin scales act as armor to protect their body. The WJC report estimates that the 370 tons of pangolin scales seized over the past decade would have come from anywhere between 100,000 and a million pangolins. Image by flowcomm via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0). Pangolin scales, used in traditional medicine, are in high demand in East Asia. Over the past decade, as Asian pangolin numbers plummeted,…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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Indonesia’s state-owned power utility has backed away from promises to rapidly expand its use of renewable energy, opting to focus instead on building more power stations that burn fossil fuels. The country’s electricity monopoly, PLN, will expand by more than one-fifth how much electricity it generates from gas and coal by the middle of the next decade, according to the company’s Ten-Year Supply Development Plan (RUPTL). While PLN also intends to triple how much electricity it gets from renewable sources, most of the expansion in green energy will need to wait until the early 2030s as the utility struggles to first meet soaring demand for electricity. Indonesia’s grid is, for now, unable to accommodate on-again-off-again renewable energy, the company has said. The question for PLN is “how can renewables, which are indeed variable, and fossil fuel-based power plants be sewn together?” Darmawan Prasodjo, PLN’s president director, told a parliamentary commission last month ahead of the release of the supply blueprint. PLN unveiled a slide presentation of its RUPTL late last month, foreshadowing a massive buildout of solar and other renewable energy over the next 10 years. The biggest initial focus, though, will be new gas- and coal-fired power plants between now and 2029. Renewables will comprise a slightly smaller share of the planned expansion until the end of this decade. But on June 3, the utility published the full version of its 1,200-plus-page electricity supply blueprint which underscored doubts for some analysts that PLN would countenance the country’s shift to…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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This is part five of a series on the operation to evict illegal gold miners from Munduruku Indigenous territories. Read part one, part two, part three, and part four. “We’re sicker than before.” This is how Indigenous leader Hidelmara Kirixi described health conditions in Munduruku communities despite the Brazilian government’s recent raids to halt illegal mining that caused widespread mercury contamination. “Pregnant women are no longer able to have a child by normal delivery because of this.” A wide range of diseases linked to pollution and ecological destruction caused by illegal gold mining spread in her community in the Amazonian state of Pará, she said. They include diarrhea, itchiness, flu, fever, childhood paralysis and brain problems. “Children are also born with these diseases,” Kirixi, one of the coordinators of the Wakoborũn Munduruku Women’s Association, told Mongabay in a video interview. In November 2024, the federal government launched an operation to oust illegal gold miners from the Munduruku Indigenous Territory. Authorities destroyed 90 mining camps, 15 vessels, 27 units of heavy machinery and 224 motorized pumps, and imposed fines totalling 24.2 million reais ($4.3 million). However, there was little government action to address the health issues in the aftermath of the destruction wrought by the gold mines, Indigenous leaders and experts say. “They didn’t bring any public policies to the territory, they didn’t bring health [programs], they didn’t bring food, they didn’t bring anything,” Alessandra Korap, a Munduruku leader and president of the Pariri Indigenous Association, told Mongabay on the sidelines…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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Brazil is a country shaped by highways. The transportation model adopted by President Juscelino Kubitschek in the 1950s has been expanded by successive administrations across the political spectrum since then, involving substantial investments in road construction, maintenance and incentives for the automotive industry. This long-standing preference for cars, buses and trucks contributed to the decline and eventual scrapping of Brazil’s railway system. Experts say this philosophy helped increase logistics costs in Brazil, a country with continental proportions and long distances. Several officials have pledged to rebuild the railway system and lower shipping costs, but these promises faded as railroads proved expensive and often not lucrative for private investors. This explains why President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s administration is so enthusiastic about the plan to build a 3,000-kilometer (1,864-mile) railway using Chinese technology and funding, connecting the Atlantic and the Pacific. This new megaproject is a central piece of Brazil’s infrastructure strategy to streamline the export of agricultural and mineral commodities to China via Pacific ports, cutting shipping times by up to 10 days compared with the current route across the Atlantic. Brazilian officials also view the railway as an opportunity to expand exports, promoting hundreds of other products in the Asian market. Ferrovia de Integração Oeste-Leste (Fiol 1) em Sussuarana/BA – (02/09/2021). Image courtesy of Vinícius Rosa/Governo Federal. In May, Brazilian and Chinese authorities, including Presidents Lula and Xi Jinping, discussed the proposed rail link connecting Brazil’s Ilhéus Port on the Atlantic coast to Peru’s new Pacific-facing Chancay Port,…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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Glaciers melting rapidly, fields of moss expanding, water streaming off ice shelves once frozen solid: these are just a few of the impacts of climate change observed by a team of 57 researchers during a 70-day voyage around the Antarctic coast on the Russian icebreaker Akademik Tryoshnikov. The expedition also revealed the presence of microplastics on the southern continent, and that the salinity of the Southern Ocean has decreased due to melting ice. The icebreaker Akademik Tryoshnikov. Image courtesy ICCE/Anderson Astor and Marcelo Curia. Antarctica is Earth’s fifth-largest continent and a key climate regulator. Together with the much smaller Arctic region, Antarctica redistributes the heat absorbed in the equatorial zone, balancing thermal energy. In other words, the ice masses in these two extreme locations of the planet are part of a huge circulatory machine that regulates energy, affecting the global climate. Led by Brazilian glaciologist Jefferson Cardia Simões, from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul’s Polar and Climate Center (CPC–UFRGS), the International Antarctic Coastal Circumnavigation Expedition (ICCE) took place in 2024. A total of 57 researchers from seven countries traveled 29,000 kilometers (about 18,000 miles), circling Antarctica and collecting snow, ice samples and seawater, to understand how the microbial life that inhabits this region is responding to climate change. An ice core collected for analysis. Image courtesy of ICCE/Anderson Astor and Marcelo Curia. The team drilled into the ice, collecting samples that will shed light on the nature of the atmosphere at different times in history, as well…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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Brazil’s red-tailed amazon parrot is a rare success story for reviving a species heading toward extinction, Mongabay Brasil’s Xavier Bartaburu reports. By the end of the 20th century, the population of the red-tailed amazon (Amazona brasiliensis) had dwindled to fewer than 5,000 individuals in Brazil’s Atlantic Forest, one of the most endangered biomes in the world. The birds depend on guanandi trees for their fruit and natural trunk hollows for nesting. However, along with 88% of the Atlantic Forest, many of the trees were cut down and harvested for their sturdy wood. The red-tailed amazons themselves were, and still are, targeted for the illegal wildlife trade and local consumption. In remote areas such as Rasa Island, off the southern state of Paraná, locals put glue on trees to catch the parrots for sale or to eat, local fisherman Antonio da Luz dos Santos told Bartaburu. The Society for Wildlife Research and Environmental Education (SPVS) identified Rasa Island as an ideal location for conservation as it hosts both resting and breeding habitat for the birds. However, SPVS was initially not welcome by many residents. “I was one of those against SPVS here on the island. I said that if they came here, I’d shoot,” said Eriel “Nininho” Mendes. His trees full of fruit were being eaten by the parrots, and many people didn’t want to be barred from hunting. Nonetheless, SPVS began conservation efforts on the island, employing local people to address the limited number of guanandi by building artificial nests…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center’s Ocean Reporting Network, where Elizabeth Claire Alberts is a fellow. NICE, France — James Marape, the prime minister of Papua New Guinea, voiced his government’s rejection of seabed mining at the 2025 United Nations Ocean Conference that took place between June 9 and 13, in Nice, France. His position stands in sharp contrast to the situation unfolding in the country’s New Ireland province, where local authorities are paving the way for foreign companies to begin mining the seabed, despite long-standing, community-led opposition to these developments. “As a country, we don’t want any deep-sea mining in Papua New Guinea,” Marape told Mongabay in an exclusive interview on the sidelines of the U.N. Ocean Conference (UNOC) on June 10. He said his country would uphold its moratoria against the industry — one of which was announced in 2019, and another in 2023. The main reason for this position, he said, is that the seas around Papua New Guinea (PNG) are “sensitive and fragile” and are home to important fisheries. “Our waters are very fertile in as far as marine life is concerned,” he said, adding that scientific evidence on how mining might affect marine ecosystems is scant. A recent brief from the U.N. secretary-general’s scientific advisory board warns of “irreversible” potential impacts on sea life due to the destruction of seafloor habitat, sediment plumes and the release of toxins by deep-sea mining. While Marape publicly asserted his opposition to the nascent industry, a proposed project…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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COLOMBO – During the Ice Ages, there was a decrease in global sea levels, creating a land bridge between Sri Lanka and India, only to have the then-warmer interglacial periods reverse this, isolating the Indian Ocean island. This triggered cycles of connection and separation that enabled gene flow with the mainland, followed by periods of isolation that drove speciation resulting in the rich biodiversity Sri Lanka harbors today. A recent study is offering fresh insights into how human-induced climate change may be reversing this evolutionary success story. The very species that evolved as endemics during these ancient climatic shifts are today among the most at risk. “We analyzed 233 endemic vertebrate species, including amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals” says Iresha Wijerathne of Guangxi University, lead author of the study. While Sri Lanka is home to 370 endemic vertebrates, including 101 amphibians, 154 reptiles, 34 birds and 20 mammals, only 233 had sufficient data for modeling. The researchers used species distribution modeling (SDM) techniques to project the impacts of climate change by 2100. Leaf-nosed lizards (Ceratophora tennentii) are found in the wet tropical montane cloud forests of Sri Lanka’s Knuckles Mountain Range at elevations of 760–1,220 meters (2,490–4,000 feet). Image courtesy of Sanoj Wijayasekara. SDM uses environmental variables like temperature, rainfall, elevation and vegetation to predict how suitable habitats for a species may shift over time. These projections are critical for habitat-specific species with limited ranges, particularly endemics. Globally, climate change is expected to alter species distributions through rising temperatures, shifting…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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Sarus cranes typically live most of their lives as a male-female duo, singing tightly coordinated duets. At a glance, the male and female, both standing 1.5-1.8 meters (5-6 feet) tall, are difficult to tell apart visually. They’re both gray-bodied with red necks and head. But researchers have found a way of distinguishing between the sexes through the notes they sing in their songs, reports Mongabay India’s Kartik Chandramouli. Being able to accurately tell between a male and a female of a species, such as the sarus crane (Antigone antigone), a species considered vulnerable to extinction, is crucial for understanding several aspects of its life: from the sex ratio of its populations and the sex-specific roles the individuals play in the wild, to how human activities influence the two sexes, all of which can ultimately help inform conservation actions. So, for more than six months, researcher Suhridham Roy spent his time in agricultural fields in the Indian states of Gujarat, Haryana and Uttar Pradesh, observing and recording 215 duets from 136 breeding bird pairs of sarus cranes. Roy and his colleagues analyzed the recorded duets as graphs called spectrograms. Each duet consists of an introduction, trill and the main section. The analysis, published in a recent study, showed that the male and female portions within each section — cross-referenced with careful field observations — varied significantly and had distinct acoustic signatures. Male notes tended to be longer, lower-pitched, with wider modulation. Female notes were brief, higher-pitched, and sharper. “Identifying sex is…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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Some coastal wolves in Alaska, U.S., have toxic levels of mercury in their bodies after shifting from a terrestrial diet of deer and moose to a marine diet heavy with sea otters, new research finds. Mercury is a naturally occurring heavy metal found in the Earth’s crust. However, human activities like burning coal and fossil fuels release mercury into the atmosphere, where it can travel hundreds of miles from its source. When mercury enters aquatic ecosystems, it’s converted into methylmercury, a potent neurotoxin that “moves efficiently through a food web,” Ben Barst, study co-author and assistant professor with the University of Calgary, Canada, told Mongabay in a video call. Methylmercury “biomagnifies,” accumulating in larger amounts higher up the food chain, making it dangerous for predators like wolves and sea otters. Large sea otters (Enhydra lutris) daily eat roughly 11 kilograms (25 pounds) of invertebrates like mussels, clams and sea urchins, all known to accumulate methylmercury. Gretchen Roffler, the study’s lead author and a research biologist with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, first learned of mercury poisoning in wolves (Canis lupus) when she investigated the death of an emaciated collared wolf from another study. Roffler’s tests revealed “unprecedented” levels of mercury in the animal’s liver. So, she sent samples to Barst’s lab for further testing. The mercury concentration in those samples were so high, “at first we thought the instrument was malfunctioning,” Barst said. Once mercury levels were confirmed — on par with those observed in polar bears, an apex marine…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — More than 2 million acres of federal lands would be sold to states or other entities under a budget proposal from Utah Republican Sen. Mike Lee. The draft provision in the GOP’s sweeping tax cut package comes after after a similar proposal was narrowly defeated in the House. Montana Sen. Steve Daines said in response that he opposes public land sales. Lee says the sales would target isolated parcels that could be used for housing or infrastructure. Conservation groups reacted with outrage, saying it would set a precedent to fast-track the handover of cherished lands to developers. Banner image: A view of the suburbs of Las Vegas from atop the Stratosphere tower looking west down Sahara Ave., towards the Spring Mountains, Feb. 9, 2005. (AP Photo/Joe Cavaretta, File)This article was originally published on Mongabay

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At the landmark Paris climate agreement, nearly every country in the world pledged to a goal to limit warming to well below 2° Celsius (3.6° Fahrenheit) above preindustrial levels by 2100, and work toward a more ambitious goal to limit warming to 1.5°C (2.7°F). The hope is that such a limit will help Earth avoid the most catastrophic effects of climate change. However, a recent review suggests that even the more ambitious ceiling of 1.5°C may be too warm for the planet’s polar ice sheets and trigger massive sea level rise. Researchers looked at paleoclimate data to see what the sea level was when Earth in the past was at a temperature comparable to the present. They combined that information with modeling data and more recent observations to then assess how much ice loss can be expected with 1.5°C of warming. The world is currently about 1.2°C (2.2°F) warmer than it was before humans began emitting massive amounts of warming fossil fuels, or pre-1900. Even at the current warming, “in the last few years, we’ve just seen some really dramatic changes in the Greenland ice sheet and the West Antarctica ice sheet in particular,” Chris Stokes, the study’s lead author, from Durham University, U.K., told Mongabay in a video call. He added researchers were surprised by the amount of melting they’ve observed already. The hope has been that 1.5°C of warming is below the threshold for massive glacial melting. So, “we wanted to see what the impact of 1.5 degrees…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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The most deforested biome in Brazil, the Cerrado lost 700,000 hectares (1.7 million acres) of native vegetation in 2024. Now, it is about to receive a thermoelectric plant 30 km (18 miles) from the National Congress, in Brasília, the country’s capital. The Brazilian Institute of Environment and Renewable Natural Resources (IBAMA), responsible for federal environmental licensing, and TermoNorte will present the project and the environmental studies of the Thermoelectric Plant (UTE) Brasília in a public hearing on June 17, in the Samambaia region. Carrying out this step is precisely one of the changes in the new environmental licensing of bill 2159/21 — and, so far, it is one of the barriers preventing the demolition of a peripheral rural school that serves 340 children in Samambaia. “The change in licensing means that all territories are in a situation of very high risk. There is no longer a need for consultation or to make adjustments. It used to take months, sometimes a year or two, to obtain a license for a large enterprise. Now, licensing has become extremely shortened,” explains the director of the International Arayara Institute, Juliano Araújo. He warns about the creation of the Special Environmental License (LAE), which establishes a faster process, exempting it from certain steps and prioritizing analysis within up to one year, even for projects that have the potential to cause significant environmental degradation. The plant of the company Termo Norte Energia will have chimneys 130 meters (420 feet) high, equivalent to a 42-story building. According…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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Protected areas such as national parks, nature reserves and Indigenous lands are the foundation of biodiversity conservation. However, climate change is threatening their effectiveness in safeguarding wildlife, ecosystem services and livelihoods. As many countries work to meet the global target of protecting 30% of the planet’s lands and waters by 2030 — known as the 30×30 goal, a cornerstone of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework — scientists are calling for the incorporation of “climate-smart” approaches into the planning of new and existing protected areas. The 30×30 Progress Tracker tool shows how the global movement to protect 30% of the world’s lands and waters by 2030 is progressing — with around 17% of global land and inland waters, and 8% of oceans currently protected. Image ©️ SkyTruth. “While we know that climate change is affecting biodiversity, for example through distribution range shifts, local extinctions, and community restructuring, designs of PAs [protected areas] don’t usually explicitly account for these effects,” says Kristine Buenafe, a doctoral researcher at the Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation Science at the University of Queensland, Australia, and lead author of a recent review published in Nature Reviews Biodiversity. Buenafe’s paper indicates that conservationists risk protecting areas where species may no longer live in the future, if they don’t factor in climate change dynamics. “We’ve reached a critical time to consider where to best place our new PAs and make sure that they are ‘climate-smart’ (resilient to climate change),” Buenafe said in an email interview. This reasoning is echoed…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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The governments of the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu have announced their commitment to create a massive multinational Melanesian Ocean Reserve. If implemented as envisioned, the reserve would become the world’s first Indigenous-led ocean reserve, covering an area nearly as big as the Amazon Rainforest. Speaking at the U.N. Ocean Conference underway in Nice, France, representatives of both countries said the vision for the ocean reserve is to cover at least 6 million square kilometers (2.3 million square miles) of ocean and islands. The reserve will include the combined national waters of the Solomon Islands, Vanuatu and Papua New Guinea, and extend to the protected waters of New Caledonia’s exclusive economic zone. All of the island countries, largely inhabited by Indigenous Melanesians, are located in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, within the region known as Melanesia. “The Melanesian Ocean Reserve will give the governments and peoples of Melanesia the ability to do much more to protect our ancestral waters from those who extract and exploit without concern for our planet and its living beings. We hope our Indigenous stewardship of this vast reserve will create momentum for similar initiatives all over the world,” Vanuatu’s environment minister, Ralph Regenvanu, said in a joint press release. Melanesia is one of the world’s most biodiverse regions, hosting an incredible diversity of both land and marine species, including an estimated 75% of known coral species and more than 3,000 species of reef-associated fish. The governments of the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu reportedly conceived of the Melanesia…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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Virunga is Africa’s first national park, created by Belgian royal decree in 1925. Named for the mountains that straddle the borders between modern-day Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda and Rwanda, the park spans 790,000 hectares (almost 2 million acres). It’s a biodiversity hotspot home to endangered and vulnerable wildlife species — lions (Panthera leo), hippopotamuses (Hippopotamus amphibius), mountain gorillas (Gorilla beringei beringei), chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), okapis (Okapia johnstoni) and more. It is also the ancestral home of Indigenous peoples who, though the course of decades, have been forcibly evicted from these lands, dating back to colonial times. In 1994, Virunga National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage site, was inscribed on the List of World Heritage in Danger due to the war in neighboring Rwanda and the massive influx of refugees from that country. This led to significant deforestation and poaching and the presence of armed militias. Today, rebel groups have infiltrated the area, as decades-old conflicts wage on. But dozens of Indigenous communities continue to live just inside and near the park as well. Currently, to the south, Virunga is bordered by a chiefdom called Bakumu, which includes a total of 58 villages in seven distinct groupings. One of those groupings is called Mudja, which currently has eight villages of 4,862 inhabitants who trace their origins to two villages, called Kishari and Toro, in the center of the park. According to the Mudja chief, the people lived there until they were expelled more than half a century ago. Mudja Chief…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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