The slippery politics of ‘sustainable’ palm oil (commentary)
Commentary by Laura Humes What is the last thing you ate? If it was any kind of processed food, chances are that in the ingredients list you’ ll find the words “palm oil.” According to the Rainforest Action Network (RAN), palm oil is found in roughly half of packaged foods in U.S. supermarkets. Food companies made the switch to palm oil as a cheap alternative to trans fats, but international conservation and...
The Big Brown Spot: Southeast Asia’s ecological catastrophe (commentary)
Commentary by Ethan Lussky When looking at a satellite image of Southeast Asia, you see white clouds dotting the sky, beautiful shades of blue hugging the coast, and a thick, green forest enveloping the land. Swirls and curves mark the Northern Highlands of Laos and Vietnam—but they are accentuated by swaths of brown. River pathways leading to the ocean—lined with brown. One would expect this tropical region to be covered in a blanket...
Thank You, Madagascar: Conservation Diaries of Alison Jolly – book review
By Gabriel Thoumi In Thank You, Madagascar: Conservation Diaries of Alison Jolly, Dr. Jolly tells the riveting, personal, and often heroic tale of Madagascar conservation. For over fifty years, from her first steps in Madagascar in the early 1960s to her most recent visit before her untimely passing February 2014, she takes the reader step-by-step through Madagascar’s conservations successes and challenges as the countries careens...
Capturing the Wild: Jaguars in Belize
Commentary and photos by: Fabienne Lefeuvre The native inhabitants of Suriname referred to him as a God. He is the third largest cat in the world after the tiger and the lion. The Native American called him ‘yaguar’ which means ‘he who kills with one leap’: the jaguar. The jaguar (Panthera onca) can be found in 18 Latin American countries. Today they are mainly concentrated between Southern Arizona and New...
Santa Lucia: a Gem amongst Ecuador’s Cloud Forest Reserves (Photos)
Photo Essay and Commentary By: Etienne Littlefair The time is 6:30 am, a faint glimmer of light is just breaking the horizon revealing gnarled epiphyte laden trees still dripping from the rains that had passed through earlier in the morning. In the distance the piercing call of a Wattled Guan cuts through the morning air. I think to myself how lucky I am, as the remnant cloud cover seems to evaporate away leaving a crisp, still...
Reporter’s Journal: Times are getting dark
By Mongabay Special Reporting Initiative Fellow Ruxandra Guidi. Photo by Roberto Guerra. This is the season of hurricanes and heavy storms. But the archipelago of Kuna Yala, located south of the hurricane belt, is typically spared the damage and strong winds that hit islands further north in the Caribbean, year after year. In recent years, however, rains have forced the people living in these islands — an estimated 30,000 — to start...
BBC World Service: Climate Change and Community Forest Management in Kuna Yala, Panama
Mongabay SRI Fellow Ruxandra Guidi published a seven-minute segment on BBC World Service’s Science in Action program. The piece focuses on the indigenous Kuna of Panama, whose livelihoods and homes are already being affected by sea level rise and climate change, and the ways in which they are adapting to it while trying to preserve their customs and sovereign control of their forests. Listen to the full segment...
The allure of the Amazon: real or imagined?
Commentary by Nick Werber What is it about the Amazon that fires the imagination? For as long as I can recall it has been a symbol for the Earth as it wants to be; a flourishing paradise perhaps, a place of explosive variegation, the jungle in full bloom. Like the untamed areas outside of the cities in Brave New World, The Heart of Darkness and The Lost World, the jungle has formed an archetype for all that is natural and untouched by...
Reporter’s Journal: From Panama
By SRI Fellow Ruxandra Guidi Don Jesus was tasked with the logistics for the conference, and Don Feliciano would be taking care of all the meals for more than 25 people. This was no small feat for these two septuagenarian men, who had to do a lot of phone calling and running around in order to try to secure things like ice and a motorboat and a generator. In the end, ice was the only thing they couldn’t get — and that’s because...
Reporter’s Journal: The forests of Uganda
In late January through early February I traveled to Uganda as part of the first Mongabay Special Reporting Initiative (SRI) to report on “the next big thing in tropical forest biodiversity conservation.” I’m a world traveler, and I have a special passion for tropical rainforests — having seen them in Australia, the Peruvian Amazon, Asia, and Central America. Africa was my last continent to visit (OK, does...
Camera-trap Ecotourism: the next big thing in conservation?
By Gregory McCann, Habitat ID Ecotourism is a popular growing trend, and this is especially true in tropical countries that have a wealth of biodiversity to offer the interested trekker. Cambodia is no exception. I have been visiting Virachey National Park in northeastern Cambodia for the past five years, but my most recent trip involved a special purpose: setting up 14 motion-triggered camera-traps throughout the park. Without giving...
Is ‘human rights’ the right approach for protecting the interests of forest-dependent people?
Commentary by Dr. Prakash Kashwan, University of Connecticut Nature conservation is often promoted in the name of the greater good of humanity. However, in a large number of cases, nature conservation is associated with increased militarization of resource control (see the select bibliography below). International conservation organizations have responded to such concerns by developing proposals for what they refer to as ‘rights-based...
A jungle day-trip: studying brazil nuts in the Peruvian Amazon
By Eleanor Warren-Thomas The day begins at around 5 a.m., when the sounds of motorbikes revving, dogs barking, wood being chopped and shouting men start to permeate the room. I haven’t needed to set my alarm for weeks. I am here to help run a project on Brazil nut harvesting from lowland rainforests in Madre de Dios, in the Peruvian Amazon. Brazil nut collection from these forests forms a huge part of many people’s livelihood in this...
Deep inside Guyana: the beautiful and biodiverse Rupununi region
By Benedicte de Waziers Deep inside Guyana’s territory hides an enigmatic ecosystem that few people have heard of. The Rupununi region–Raponani in Carib–is located in the Takutu basin in Southern Guyana. The Rupununi is home to many Amerindian tribes, including the Makushi. Despite its fast-growing population and urbanization, the Rupununi provides invaluable services for its inhabitants. The majority of the Makushi people settle...
Activism: funds needed to replant forest for nearly-extinct loris
Note: as a news organization mongabay.com does not endorse the action below, but believes its readers may be interested in taking action or discussing the issue in comments. Horton Plains slender loris. Photo courtesy of EDGE. Researchers estimate that only 80 Horton Plains slender loris (Loris tardigradus nycticeboides) survive in the world. After believed to be extinct ZSL EDGE rediscovered the subspecies in a dwindling Sri Lanka...
Banana plantation threatens rainforest valley (video)
Cambodia’s Cardamom Mountains were recently spared a titanium mine, however now the region faces a new peril: bananas. The Australian firm Indochina Gateway Capital Limited has proposed a banana plantation in the Southern Cardamom Mountains. The plantation would likely destroy an elephant corridor for one of Cambodia’s last wild elephant populations. In addition, pesticides used in the plantation could pollute local...
Wangari Maathai muses on trees, activism, and God (radio)
Nobel Peace Prize winner and founder of the Green Belt movement, Wangari Maathai, started a tree-planting campaign to create a better world for the impoverished and marginalized people of her native country, Kenya. For such views, she faced threats of assassination, violence, and censorship from the government. Now 71, Maathai speaks to Krista Tippett, the host of the radio show On Being, about the importance of trees, how ecology and...
FSC-certified company clearcutting Swedish forests
A German news show (with English subtitles) investigates clearcuts in the Swedish boreal by logging company Stora Enso, which has been certified as sustainable by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). The FSC has come under heavy fire from a number of small green groups for what they deem as ‘greenwashing’ ecologically destructive practices, however the FSC remains supported by large conservation organizations who argue...
Last chance for the Xingu River and its people? (video)
Brazil recently announced it was going ahead with building the hugely controversial Belo Monte dam, although the construction is set to flood rainforest, change the character of the Xingu River, and displace at least 16,000 people, although transforming the lives of many tens-of-thousands more. Indigenous people along the Xingu have been fighting the dam for decades. Mongabay.com has been following the Belo Monte dam closely:...
Activism: save Southeast Asia’s last major primary lowland rainforest
Note: as a news organization, mongabay.com does not endorse the action below, but believes its readers may be interested in taking action or discussing the issue further. Villagers from Prey Lang forest area rally in Cambodia’s capital against continuing destruction of their forest. Protestors dressed as ‘avatars’ to gain more attention to their plight. Photo courtesy of: Prey Lang Network. Cambodia’s Prey Lang...