Mongabay Reports: ‘Extinction denial’ is the latest anti-science conspiracy theory
Release Date: 08/19/2021
A year after the shuttering of USAID conservation projects fight to stay afloat
Mongabay Newscast
When then-U.S. president John F . Kennedy created the United States Agency for International Development in 1961, it was meant primarily to administer health and food aid around the world. In the decades since, USAID expanded to become one of the world's largest financial contributors to conservation, providing nearly $400 million annually before the end of 2024. However, that money is now completely gone after the current president, Donald Trump, gutted and shut down the agency in one of his first acts upon returning to office in January 2025. Since then, an people have lost their lives as a...
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Save a tiger, save an ecosystem: Why protecting the big cats is a biodiversity boon
Mongabay Newscast
Tiger populations have in some countries, such as Bhutan, Nepal and India, but the global population of the big cat species remains critically endangered, says Debbie Banks, campaign lead for tigers and wildlife crime at the . The global tiger population was recorded at roughly 5,574 in 2022, with the species having disappeared from roughly 95% of its historical range. Banks joins Mongabay’s podcast this week to detail the status of Panthera tigris, the successes and failures of the first (GTRP), what the second iteration (2.0) seeks to do differently, and what she thinks range countries...
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Understanding how elephants experience time might change how we protect them
Mongabay Newscast
, a postdoctoral researcher at the in Germany, says she’s trying to build legitimacy around the concept of animal temporality — the ability to experience time — specifically in elephants. Doing so could have implications for conservation and beyond. “How we envision an animal’s relationship to time influences whether we see them as feeling, remembering beings. My aim is to encourage a more dynamic view of their place in the world when we recognize them as equally temporal beings.” This week on the Mongabay Newscast, Rahmat explains three key areas of evidence for interpreting...
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Tyson Yunkaporta on how the ‘wrong story’ harms nature, and how we can change it
Mongabay Newscast
Indigenous scholar (Apalech clan (Wik) Lostmob Nungar) joins the Mongabay Newscast to detail the Aboriginal perspectives behind his latest book, . The book explains how stories shape society, how they can harm us and the environment, and how they may save our species and the natural world. Yunkaporta explains how Indigenous laws, and lore can help us improve modern society, specifically in how humans relate first to the land, then to each other, and why this shapes how we exploit nature and care for it. Identifying the “wrong story” is critical, Yunkaporta explains, to correcting harmful...
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Live theater tells the story of how Mongabay detected narco airstrips in the Amazon
Mongabay Newscast
’s multiyear, *award-winning ** that uncovered 67 clandestine airstrips in the Peruvian Amazon used for drug trafficking sent waves across the local media landscape. It drew attention to the Indigenous communities impacted by these illegal airstrips and the 15 Indigenous leaders who were killed defending their territory. To communicate this story to a wider audience, Mongabay Latam director Maria Isabel Torres and managing editor Alexa Vélez adapted it into an interactive live theater performance for an audience of 100. They join this week’s podcast to tell the “story behind the...
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Kiliii Yüyan details ‘Guardians of Life’ and how we can learn from them
Mongabay Newscast
National Geographic photographer returns to the Mongabay Newscast to share his experience creating his new book, from specialty publisher Braided River. This book documents the traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) of nine Indigenous communities worldwide, featuring contributions and essays from many members of these communities, along with Yüyan’s own photography. TEK, Yüyan says, isn’t exactly traditional so much as it is ecological knowledge that is place-based. While it draws on thousands of years of knowledge, it also innovates in society as we know it, and can offer social,...
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Lessons from 60 years of USAID development projects have been saved by this company
Mongabay Newscast
A year ago, U.S. President Donald Trump shut down public access to the Development Experience Clearinghouse, a $30 billion database holding 60 years’ worth of institutional knowledge from more than 150,000 projects administered by the U.S. Agency for International Development. But before the closure, former USAID employee and artificial intelligence scientist Lindsey Moore used a large language model (LLM) to read all of the information in this database — rescuing critical lessons on development, environmental, economic and social projects in countries across the globe, all documented by...
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Writer Megan Mayhew Bergman on the lessons and moral clarity of ‘Silent Spring’
Mongabay Newscast
It’s been more than half a century since the publication of Silent Spring by the scientist and creative writer Rachel Carson. The seminal volume caught the attention of U.S. presidents, artists and musicians, spurring the environmental movement and leading to the eventual ban of the toxic pesticide DDT. Joining the Mongabay Newscast is environmental writer and director of the creative writing program at Middlebury College, Megan Mayhew Bergman. She unpacks the impact of Carson’s work, which came under public attack from chemical companies seeking to discredit her, and how, eventually, the...
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Massive decline of European olive groves harms nature and culture, but solutions exist
Mongabay Newscast
Across Mediterranean Europe, olive groves are in decline from a range of factors, from disease to depopulation. In Italy alone, there are roughly 440 million abandoned olive trees, and the ecological, cultural and socioeconomic impacts from the loss are devastating, explains the latest guest on the Mongabay Newscast. Still, solutions exist to help turn the tide of this under-discussed problem. Federica Romano is the program coordinator and UNESCO Chair on Agricultural Heritage Landscapes at the University of Florence. On this episode of the Mongabay Newscast she discusses the drivers of the...
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Joy is a winning environmental strategy for drag artist Pattie Gonia
Mongabay Newscast
Professional drag artist and environmental activist has more than 2 million followers on Instagram and has raised $1.2 million for environmental nonprofits by hiking 100 miles, or 160 kilometers, in full drag into San Francisco. She has gained international recognition for using drag artistry to advocate for the environment, in acknowledgment and celebration of hundreds of researchers and scientists in the field who identify as queer. She joins Mongabay’s podcast to explain why joy is a fundamental ingredient missing in the environmental advocacy space, how she prioritizes it in her work as...
info_outlineThere’s a growing refusal by some to acknowledge the ongoing global extinction crisis being driven by human actions, conservation scientists say.
These views are pushed by many of the same people who also downplay the impacts of climate change, and go against the actual evidence of widespread species population declines and recent extinctions.
Listen to a September 2020 report published at Mongabay.com about this news via this episode of Mongabay Reports, which shares evergreen articles from Mongabay.com, read by host Mike DiGirolamo.
This episode features the popular article, "Biologists warn 'exctinction denial' is the latest anti-science conspiracy theory."
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