Mongabay Newscast

Mongabay's award-winning podcast features inspiring scientists, authors, journalists and activists discussing global environmental issues from climate change to biodiversity, rainforests, wildlife conservation, animal behavior, marine biology and more.

The ‘quiet revolution’ inspired by Delhi’s urban wildlife 08/04/2026

The ‘quiet revolution’ inspired by Delhi’s urban wildlife In her upcoming book, , conservation biologist Neha Sinha takes readers to the hidden and not-so-hidden ecosystems of India’s largest city. And while the book expertly details the biodiversity, I believe its greatest strength lies in connecting with the reader emotionally through powerful stories from her personal life. On this week’s episode of the Mongabay Newscast, Sinha explains why nature in cities isn’t just important from an ecosystem health perspective, but necessary for the emotional life of all people. Sinha describes the difficulty of caring for her ailing father, and how this was the moment she found her favorite tree. While waiting in the hospital, she spotted a semal tree (Bombax ceiba). She tells me this was a turning point for her. “In these kind of difficult situations which are physically and mentally challenging … you look at a tree, and it restores you. It kind of makes you feel that you might have strength that you didn't know about. And it's also unique to see a tree in a very urban environment because the tree itself is a survivor,” she says. Readers already enamored with nature will find much about My Wild City that will resonate with them. And people in positions of authority tasked with protecting these ecosystems may find insight here that could alter their perspective. Sinha tells me in our conversation that the urgency to care for nature has not yet taken hold in the politics of India, but that it has in the everyday person, pointing to the rise in popularity of urban hiking and bird-watching in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. “I can tell you for sure, there hasn't been a better time for citizens to be engaged and involved in nature. And in many ways, it's actually urban wildlife that has done that,” she says, “and I think that's what has started this quiet revolution of documenting the natural world.” My Wild City is already released in India under the title . For readers outside India, you can preorder a copy . Please take a minute to let us know what you think of our podcast . Mike DiGirolamo is the host & producer for the Mongabay Newscast based in Sydney. Find him on and . Cover image: A parakeet in the Delhi ridge. Photo by Neha Sinha. —- Time codes (00:00) Trees are more than a name (11:13) Protected spaces and restorative attention (18:29) Meaning in hard times (22:37) Loss of the fireflies (27:56) Where dolphins once swam (34:12) The quiet revolution (37:42) When a tree tunnels into your life (42:25) Decolonization is also recognizing native biodiversity (47:52) 'The justice we give ourselves' /episode/index/show/mongabay/id/42309030

Why are forests in Liberia disappearing? 07/28/2026

Why are forests in Liberia disappearing? On this week’s episode of the Mongabay Newscast, we speak with features writer Ashoka Mukpo, who traveled to southeastern Liberia to investigate what satellite images indicated was a spike in deforestation over a relatively concentrated period. Along with video production coordinator Juan Maza, Mukpo illegal cacao plantations in the rainforests in the county of Grand Gedeh. In this interview, he explains how and these plantations are appearing now in Liberia. “What we saw … probably the best metaphor for it is that there's a kind of gold rush happening in this part of Liberia, except it's not gold that people are after, it's cocoa,” Mukpo says. “And this makes sense, given the context that in the last few years there was a huge price spike for cocoa, and this had to do with a lot of factors, including climate change and a poor harvest in Côte d'Ivoire. And so that's pushing this huge number of migrant workers from Côte d'Ivoire into Grand Gedeh.” At the end of the year, the European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) is set to take effect. The EU legislation would ban the importation of certain commodities produced via deforestation, and one of those commodities is cocoa. And much of the cocoa being grown in Liberia right now would potentially fall under this ban, Mukpo says. Furthermore, setting up the tracking infrastructure to ensure commodities meet EUDR standards is expensive. While nations like Côte d’Ivoire have already invested in this, Liberia has not. That leaves a lot of farmers who are betting on this commodity vulnerable. “A lot of farmers are gonna suffer just from lack of clarity. And I could see a scenario where suppliers choose to just not buy from Liberia because if there's no way for them to know where these beans are coming from, they could get in a lot of trouble if they do buy, and I think that's the real concern,” Mukpo says. Please take a minute to let us know what you think of our podcast . Mike DiGirolamo is the host & producer for the Mongabay Newscast based in Sydney. Find him on and . Cover image: A young cacao tree in Grand Gedeh, Liberia. Image by Ashoka Mukpo/Mongabay. —- Timecodes (00:00) Why are forests disappearing in Liberia? (10:56) Communities struggling to make a living (21:18) Perspectives from conservationists (25:38) The EUDR may impact these farms (32:07) ‘No clear villain’ /episode/index/show/mongabay/id/42221290

Oil has brought destruction to the Niger Delta; women and human rights may save it 07/21/2026

Oil has brought destruction to the Niger Delta; women and human rights may save it On this week’s episode of the Mongabay Newscast, I speak with travel writer . She has documented the violence and natural destruction that the presence of oil companies have brought to the people of the Niger Delta in her latest book, . Saro-Wiwa is also the daughter of the late activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, who was executed by the Nigerian government in 1995. Her father led a peaceful resistance against the oil companies' presence in the Niger Delta by mobilizing 300,000 people from Ogoniland in 1993. It is fair to say his activism started the movement against the destruction and exploitation led by oil companies in the nation. While peaceful at first, Noo Saro-Wiwa says many people gave up hope on peaceful resistance when the government failed to hold the companies accountable, and men turned to forming violent militant groups. “Oil has been literally the worst thing that's happened to the Niger Delta. If I could go back in time and I had the power, I would never have allowed oil to have been discovered,” she says. While her latest book chronicles the harm of oil and the resulting violence, I put it to her that it’s also a story about how the absence of women's rights is destroying societies. Saro-Wiwa explains how Nigeria isn’t unique in this regard, but rather a stark example of how this dynamic plays out. “ Going around the Niger Delta and talking to activists like Emem Okon … I could see very clearly how women's rights directly affects the environment … and society, and how the absence of those rights feeds into this militancy which ultimately hurts men.” Please take a minute to let us know what you think of our podcast . Mike DiGirolamo is the host & producer for the Mongabay Newscast based in Sydney. Find him on and . Banner image: A man fishes in the Niger Delta near the village of Diebu, Nigeria, Saturday, May 18, 2013. Image by Jon Gambrell / AP Photo. —— Timecodes (00:00) A heavy price to pay for oil (06:09) The Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (16:17) Militancy (21:54) Governments are 'not interested in sustainable peace’ (26:11) Women as a stabilizing force (29:44) Women's rights directly affects the environment (36:54) Oil has been 'the worst thing to happen to the Niger Delta' /episode/index/show/mongabay/id/42124250

The Mediterranean Sea’s beauty hides an ecosystem under pressure 07/14/2026

The Mediterranean Sea’s beauty hides an ecosystem under pressure The Mediterranean Sea accounts for less than 1% of the world’s ocean surface water, but it contains roughly 18% of global marine biodiversity. It is home to 150 million people along its coastline (roughly equivalent to Russia's population). And it sequesters 17.2 million metric tons of CO2 each year. Joining the Newscast this week to talk about the unique biodiversity of the Mediterranean Sea and its threats is journalist Manuela Callari. Callari has written for Mongabay, highlighting the to purple sea urchins (Paracentrotus lividus) along the Italian coast. These marine invertebrates are crucial to the health of marine ecosystems, such as those in the Mediterranean, by helping regulate algal abundance and serving as food for predators. However, they are being overfished and even poached in marine protected areas due to demand for them as the primary ingredient in a popular tourist dish: spaghetti ai ricci di mare. While the situation with urchins persists, Italy has been investing in an unprecedented effort to its entire underwater coastline using deployed sensors to better understand the marine environment and manage conservation efforts. This is allowing them to identify where meadows of the seagrass Posidonia oceanica, which are “absolutely vital” to the Mediterranean ecosystem, persist, Callari says. Overall, Callari says she wishes the rest of the world and tourists visiting the Mediterranean were more informed about the pressures the marine ecosystem faces. “I grew up here, and now that I go back to certain places where I was as a child, and they are just completely different places to me. Places that were just nature and were difficult to access. Now they have very easy access on cars, buses. You can go on boat tours very easily. And I think we don't appreciate enough the impact that has on the environment. On the sea.” Please take a minute to let us know what you think of our podcast . Mike DiGirolamo is the host & producer for the Mongabay Newscast based in Sydney. Find him on and . Cover image: Satellite data from a study shows that the Mediterranean’s average surface temperature has risen by 1.2°C (2.2°F) since the mid-1980s. Image by Katerina Katopis/Ocean Image Bank. —— Timecodes (00:00) The Mediterranean is taken for granted (07:09) Why is a tourist dish destroying marine ecosystems? (18:49) Mapping the entire Italian coast (28:19) Learning to appreciate the Mediterranean /episode/index/show/mongabay/id/42002945

Wildlife crossings are having a moment 07/07/2026

Wildlife crossings are having a moment Nearly three years ago, Newscast guest, author and journalist Ben Goldfarb his book Crossings, which is about wildlife crossings and road ecology. Wildlife crossings help reconnect habitats fragmented by road networks, reducing collisions, helping protect threatened wildlife, and improving genetic diversity. Since that conversation, Goldfarb has the growing popularity of wildlife crossings worldwide. He returns to the Newscast to detail how, where, and why wildlife crossings are becoming increasingly funded and built. “Probably the biggest factor is that at this point, the evidence that wildlife crossing structures are effective is just overwhelming. Maybe 20 years ago, you could've theoretically said, ‘Well … we don't necessarily know that …’ but here in 2026, we just have a lot of scientific research basically showing that animals of all shapes and sizes use wildlife crossings,” Goldfarb says. He takes us to locations in South America, North America and Europe, where this particular type of infrastructure has rare nonpartisan political support. A bill is currently before the U.S. Congress to make the Wildlife Crossings Pilot Program . Public surveys show overwhelming for wildlife crossings in the United States. Goldfarb explains that the positive reception may also be due to the visual nature of one iteration of crossings, the highway overpass, which a source of his long ago described as “billboards for connectivity.” “I love wildlife crossings for … their ability to … just remind us that we're sort of global citizens of a planet that we share with wildlife.” Please take a minute to let us know what you think of our podcast . Mike DiGirolamo is the host & producer for the Mongabay Newscast based in Sydney. Find him on and . Cover image: The first wildlife bridge in Brazil connects habitat across the coastal four-lane BR-101 highway. Saving Nature’s partners, DOB Ecology and the Golden Lion Tamarin Association, are reforesting a corridor to connect a protected area to the south and forest fragments to the north of the bridge. Image courtesy of Luis Paulo/Saving Nature. —— Timecodes (00:00) Why are wildlife crossings having a moment? (06:55) North America invests in more crossings (16:25) 'Malicious restoration' & 'a bridge to nowhere’ (20:38) The most permeable highway on Earth (25:17) Brazil’s canopy bridges (29:32) ‘Billboards for connectivity’ /episode/index/show/mongabay/id/41971045

The radical plan to rethink work, wealth and planetary well-being 06/30/2026

Addressing the ‘toxic legacy’ of mining in Bougainville 06/16/2026

Healing the planet requires healing ourselves, says Katharine Wilkinson 06/09/2026

A ‘coalition of the willing’ to urge the world to drop fossil fuels 06/02/2026

A ‘coalition of the willing’ to urge the world to drop fossil fuels A group of 57 nations mostly from the Global South, describing themselves as “coalition of the willing” intent on making the Transition Away From Fossil Fuels, or TAFF, convened in the Colombian city of Santa Marta, from April 24-29, 2026, for the . Also referred to as the “Santa Marta Coalition,” this group of countries met to discuss and develop frameworks and pathways for nations to phase out fossil fuel dependency. Joining the Mongabay Newscast this week is , a medical doctor, activist and member of the , a network of experts advocating for the as a measurement framework. Ramphele explains the of the conference, which included the unveiling of a dedicated scientific panel to advise nations on developing road maps to transition off fossil fuels. The science panel includes experts such as Carlos Nobre from Brazil and Johan Rockström from Sweden, who pioneered the planetary boundaries concept. The conference also saw the establishment of “” to help nations connect their phaseout road maps to their emissions reduction targets as part of their U.N. climate commitments; leverage support to change their financial systems for the transition; and reform trade systems. Two nations in attendance, Colombia and France, announced their own phaseout road maps at the conference. Ramphele, from South Africa, suggests that as countries in the Santa Marta Coalition develop and implement their own road maps, other nations not yet on board will eventually be pressured to follow. Until a legally binding agreement, such as the one advocated for by the , this is the most immediate path forward, Ramphele says. “We champion for a legally binding agreement. We get the coalition of the willing to start implementing, and by both positive stories that come out of it and moral suasion, we get people to buy into it.” Please take a minute to let us know what you think of our podcast . Image Credit: Creek in the Colombian Amazon. Image by Rhett A. Butler/Mongabay. ——- Timecodes (00:00) A ‘coalition of the willing’ emerges (12:13) Nations begin to announce phaseout roadmaps (20:48) The pathway to a legally binding fossil fuel phaseout (23:38) Looking ahead to the next conference /episode/index/show/mongabay/id/41505665

Australia claims it’s ‘on track’ to meet its environment targets. Scientists disagree 05/26/2026

Australia claims it’s ‘on track’ to meet its environment targets. Scientists disagree Australia is one of 17 “megadiverse” countries that account for 70% of Earth’s biodiversity. However, Australia is unique in having the highest mammalian extinction rate in the . That makes conservation on the island continent, where most of the wildlife is found nowhere else on Earth, all the more urgent. Conservation and environmental scientists have come out the Australian federal government’s claim that it’s “on track” to meet most of its targets under the agreed upon at the U.N. biodiversity summit in 2022. This week on the Mongabay Newscast, , a professor of wildlife ecology and conservation at Australia’s Deakin University, and a councilor with the , an academic alliance in the country, argues why conservationists say the Australian government is failing its commitments. “The short answer, unfortunately, is that Australia is doing terribly in terms of honoring its international obligations to meet those targets in the agreement. If we look at the number of threatened species in Australia, it's more than 2,200 now, and that list continues to increase,” Ritchie says. Despite being a relatively wealthy nation by gross domestic product per capita, Australia funds conservation at a diminutive scale to other industrialized countries. The latest annual budget allocates 0.06% of federal spending to nature. Ritchie and some 60 fellow experts suggest that it would only take about 1% of the federal budget to save most threatened species and restore soils and rivers. In 2024, the Wentworth Group of Concerned Scientists published its , which took six years to complete. The Biodiversity Council has separately that around 95% of Australians surveyed would support increased spending on the environment. “Essentially, the federal government is ignoring a majority of Australians by not doing that,” Ritchie says. He argues the money to fund conservation already exists — or at least could easily exist by reducing subsidies for harmful industries (such as the fossil fuel industry), which currently amount to around A$26 billion ($19 billion) a year. Separately, a 25% tax on liquefied natural gas exports could generate A$17 billion ($12 billion) a year, a move nationwide polling suggests is by 70% of Australians. Despite the perceived strong public support, Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has ruled out a 25% tax on gas exports for the time being, which Ritchie says is very hard to understand, pointing to countries like Norway, which built its own sovereign wealth fund off similar measures. As of this writing, the Australian government has lost about A$70 billion ($50 billion) in revenue it could have collected had it taxed these resources, according to an online by the Australia Institute, an independent think tank. “We could bring in tens of billions of dollars in additional revenue if we taxed the resources that we are giving away, essentially in many cases for free,” Ritchie says. Instead of increasing direct conservation funding, the Australian government intends to close the gap by launching a “Nature Repair Market,” a voluntary biodiversity offset scheme. It’s essentially a way for industry and private investors to pay for the damage they cause. Research this is unlikely to protect endangered wildlife and biodiversity without taxpayer funding. Other researchers from the and the have also weighed in, explaining that a biodiversity market is unlikely to work. Ritchie says this is problematic for a number of other reasons, ranging from the complexity of biodiversity itself, to the way the government intends to measure environmental impacts from various projects. Currently, the in the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act (EPBC) doesn’t “account for cumulative impacts,” Ritchie says. “So if you imagine that you're a threatened species and you're widely distributed … Individual projects are not being assessed in relation to other projects that may also impact on that same species,” he says. “So it is literally death by a thousand cuts.” Listen to a conversation on biodiversity offsets in Australia with Yung En Chee . Please take a minute to let us know what you think of our podcast . Image Credit: Black-flanked rock wallaby (Petrogale lateralis) in Cape Range National Park, Western Australia, Australia. The Australian government has classed the species as endangered under the EPBC Act. Image by Dsyzdek via (). —- Time codes (00:00) ‘Failing miserably’ on the environment (10:21) A ‘Nature Repair Market’ is not a solution (23:47) New nature reform laws passed (29:44) Plentiful sources of funding (35:37) Native forest logging harms /episode/index/show/mongabay/id/41421905

The world must address pandemic threats urgently, says former CDC officer 05/19/2026

The world must address pandemic threats urgently, says former CDC officer “[The]cruel irony here [is] that the world cannot get its act together to address these threats … people are dying, animals are suffering, we're losing rainforest … these are all interconnected threats,” Neil Vora tells me on this week’s episode of the Mongabay Newscast, just a day after the World Health Organization (WHO) reported more than 80 deaths in the Democratic Republic of Congo from an outbreak of the Ebola virus. Vora is a former U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) epidemic intelligence service officer who deployed to the DRC to combat Ebola. He says the current strain, the Bundibugyo virus, is particularly dangerous because there is no current approved treatment or vaccine for it. While neither this virus nor the Andes virus, a type of hantavirus that originated in Chile and Argentina and killed three people on a cruise ship, is likely to cause a pandemic, says Vora, he stresses member states of the WHO are unprepared to address a pandemic should one occur. According to Vora, the WHO could have achieved a pandemic agreement to better address the threats pandemics pose. But that fell short when nations failed to adopt a system to equitably share tools such as vaccines. “ And now those discussions on the pandemic agreement have stalled, and days later, we have these two outbreaks of zoonotic viruses.” Neil Vora is the executive director of the . Please take a minute to let us know what you think of our podcast . Image Credit: Minks at a Swedish fur farm in 2009. Living in small cages very close to each other makes for easier transmission of pathogens. Image courtesy of Jo-Anne McArthur/Djurrattsalliansen/We Animals Media. —- Timecodes (00:00) Two outbreaks (07:55) Fur farms present a pandemic risk (15:17) Banning fur farms in the EU (23:10) ‘We’re hurting ourselves’ (29:29) Preventing Pandemics at the Source Coalition /episode/index/show/mongabay/id/41345965

Protest works, but it needs your help now more than ever, veteran activists say 05/12/2026

Protest works, but it needs your help now more than ever, veteran activists say “We are experiencing what some people call sort of a shutdown of the public square in the United States and around the world,” says veteran environmental activist André Carothers. Along with the former executive director of Greenpeace US, Annie Leonard, the two have co-authored a new book about the history of protest, why it works, and why it’s under attack. was written to “remind readers about the role protests played in gaining a lot of the progress that we take for granted today,” Leonard says. Earth Day 1970 famously saw around 10% of the U.S. population actively participating in one of the demonstrations in the nation's history. This led to a number of landmark environmental laws that are arguably taken for granted today. Protest highlights how movements begin, and ultimately shape public discourse leading to these significant victories. The authors also highlight how some in society often lionize protest movements of the past, while condemning ones of the present, forgetting that at their inception, protests and the movements they represent are often unpopular. Leonard and Carothers point to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., whose approval rating never went above 50% in all his years as a civil rights leader. His rating stood at 75% the year he was assassinated. “There's something about the gymnastics of history that allows us to honor these people well after they're dead, but not when it's happening right in front of them,” Carothers says. You can find a copy of Protest: Respect It. Defend It. Use It. at . Please take a minute to let us know what you think of our podcast . Mike DiGirolamo is the host & producer for the Mongabay Newscast based in Sydney. Find him on and . Image Caption: Photographer Jonathan Bachman was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for capturing a photograph of Ieshia Evans being arrested in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. It was Ieshia Evans first protest, and Bachman’s first time covering one. The photo was included in The New York Times’ “The Year in Pictures 2016,” among other honors. jonathan bachman / reuters. Shepard Fairey—a prolific artist and activist who often addresses social and political issues in his work—was invited by the authors of ‘Protest’ to interpret Bachman’s photograph for the book. Image credit to Shepard Fairey. Image Courtesy of Patagonia Books. —- Timecodes (00:00) The attack on protesters (10:32) Combatting vilification of protesters (16:27) Amplifying messaging through art (21:05) Why non-violence works (32:04) A red line has been crossed (36:56) How students are stopping a pipeline (39:46) Earth Day 1970 (42:48) Protest is not enough /episode/index/show/mongabay/id/41259810

A new Netflix documentary captures rare mountain gorilla behavior 05/05/2026

Centering an Indigenous approach to forestry through reciprocity, not extraction 04/28/2026

Centering an Indigenous approach to forestry through reciprocity, not extraction Forester and scientist Suzanne Simard is well known for her landmark 1997 , which demonstrated that two distinct species of trees could share resources. At the time, it turned traditional Western forestry thinking on its head. Instead of the Darwinian view of trees as being in competition with each other, it introduced the idea that these trees may actually help each other, and that industrial logging practices may be missing the forest for the trees. In recent years, Simard has been advocating for Indigenous knowledge as the only way to save the Earth and its forests. Environmental reporter Erica Gies spent some time in the field with Simard and her colleagues, into her latest project, , which seeks to find the most sustainable form of forestry for both people and ecosystems. Gies joins the Mongabay Newscast to explain what she learned from Simard and why she advocates Indigenous knowledge and systems, which are governed by rules of reciprocity. A shift in her thinking occurred when she read the dissertation of fisheries ecologist Teresa Sm’hayetsk Ryan, who now works with Simard. “She realized that, you know, the people were also a very important part of the complex forest relationships,” Gies says. “Which is much more of a reciprocity kind of mentality. If you take, you also give back. There is a responsibility to care for the system. Because if you don't, and if you overexploit it, it would be really easy to starve, right?” Please take a minute to let us know what you think of our podcast, . Listen to our previous conversation with Erica Gies . Mike DiGirolamo is the host & producer for the Mongabay Newscast based in Sydney. Find him on and . Image Credit: Goose Island Archipelago is a cluster of tree-covered islands with wild, rocky beaches located off the central coast of British Columbia. Image courtesy of Alex Harris. —— Timecodes (00:00) The ‘wood-wide web’ (15:49) The Mother Tree Project (19:33) Why reciprocity is needed (30:27) Questions that remain /episode/index/show/mongabay/id/41000420

Across oceans, seabird flyways gain recognition — and a chance at protection 04/21/2026

The coyotes next door: What we get wrong about America’s ‘song dog’ 04/14/2026

The ‘lonely conservationist’ advocating for better care of workers 04/07/2026

The ‘lonely conservationist’ advocating for better care of workers Jessie Panazzolo was given a stuffed gorilla when she was 3, and from then on, she always wanted to be a conservationist. But a reasonable career track of being gainfully employed or on a livable wage almost doesn’t exist in the sector, she explains to me this week on the Mongabay Newscast. She details the dwindling career prospects, the grueling conditions conservationists must endure, and the mental toll they’re taking on themselves. Following Jeremy Hance’s on the mental health crisis afflicting conservationists, I contacted Panazzolo to gain more insight into her journey in the conservation sector and how she came to lead a community of like-minded professionals who had heartbreaking stories about pursuing their passions. Panazzolo has been fired for being sick, twice. And had trees thrown at her by orangutans. But these are far from the only struggles she and other conservationists have faced. “I've been chased by tigers or have orangutans rip trees out of the ground and chucked in my direction. But all of these are seen as like not normal risks that you'd put in risk assessments.” She founded and to provide resources to conservationists of all walks of life and to offer workshops to conservation NGOs on improving working conditions and caring for their employees. “I wanted to make sure that there was light shed on a range of struggles faced in the conservation industry and give more weight to the need to start to address these. And ever since then, I've been running workshops for NGOs and for teams … to help their teams to look after themselves and each other and build resilience.” Please take a minute to let us know what you think of our podcast, . Mike DiGirolamo is the host & producer for the Mongabay Newscast based in Sydney. Find him on and . Image Credit: Jessie Panazzolo. Image courtesy of Jessie Panazzolo. —- Timecodes (00:00) The ‘unfair’ job of conservation (13:49) Creating a community for conservation workers (18:39) Not all NGOs are on board (25:22) How conservation has changed (36:52) Fighting for nature in a world working against it /episode/index/show/mongabay/id/40662345

The conservation sector must speak truth to power, says political ecologist 03/31/2026

The conservation sector must speak truth to power, says political ecologist The people and policies that control how humans treat the natural world are increasingly dominated by a small class of elite political entities and corporations, argues our guest, political ecologist Bram Buscher at Wageningen University in the Netherlands, on this week's Newscast. This power, he says, is concentrated on platforms that have no allegiance to fact or truth, but rather serve only what increases their bottom line. Understanding this power dynamic and speaking truth to it is essential for the environmental movement to succeed. "If you keep on doing the same kind of things and not take the root causes, the root structural forms of power into account, you may have nice terms like nature-based solutions, ecosystem services, natural capital, but they don't actually challenge the power structures to change,” he says. That structure he refers to as “platform capitalism.” Tasks humans used to do through various options or pathways are now gate-kept by tech companies. These companies have monopolized these platforms, including social media, generative artificial intelligence, and search engines that prioritize data collection over sincere citizen engagement. This makes it difficult for the environmental movement’s message to find an open audience. In some cases, people cannot tell the difference between what is real and what is not anymore. Buscher has written his thoughts in his book , which explains why “speaking facts to power” does not fundamentally change the policies currently failing the environment. Speaking truth to power, Buscher argues, is the only way to truly address the root causes of environmental destruction. "Unless we understand how power works … also authoritarian power … we can't go beyond it and or speak truth to it. To do something deliberately and consciously different.” Please take a minute to let us know what you think of our podcast, . Banner image: Wallace's Passage between Gam and Waigeo islands in Raja Ampat, Indonesia. Image by Rhett A. Butler/Mongabay. —- Timecodes (00:00) What is political ecology? (12:31) Why conservation is inherently political (17:03) What is ‘speaking truth to power’? (29:35) Understanding ‘platform capitalism’ (42:02) How to speak truth to power (53:24) Convivial conservation /episode/index/show/mongabay/id/40637375

A year after the shuttering of USAID conservation projects fight to stay afloat 03/24/2026

A year after the shuttering of USAID conservation projects fight to stay afloat 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 result of the ending of health programs, two-thirds of them likely children, according to an analysis from Impact Counter. Much of the agency’s health focus was on HIV/AIDS treatment and prevention. “Support for HIV/AIDS treatment, malaria control and other initiatives have saved an estimated 91 million lives just over the past 20 years,” says environmental reporter . Nijhuis, who joins Mongabay’s podcast this week, says it’s a similar story on the , with projects around the world suddenly losing their main — and in many cases their only — source of funding. She notes that “$400 million [was] going toward really creative … successful conservation projects in some of the most endangered habitats in the world [that] were also stopped abruptly.” The impact is being felt in places and communities that relied on this funding, such as , the , the and . Also affected are many of the world’s largest conservation NGOs, some of which received tens of millions of dollars from USAID annually. The long-term damage from this, Nijhuis says, is very difficult to measure. “Some of the effects we're already seeing, but some of the effects are going to be much slower to appear, much harder to measure,” she says, “and in many ways we will not know what we've lost.” Michell Nijhuis is also the author of the recent book . Initiatives mentioned by Nijhuis: Please take a minute to let us know what you think of our podcast, . Mike DiGirolamo is the host & producer for the Mongabay Newscast based in Sydney. Find him on and . Image Credit: The WeMUNIZE program in Nigeria, significantly disrupted by aid cuts, used digital record keeping and community engagement to increase early childhood immunizations. Image by KC Nwakalor for USAID/Digital Development Communications via (). —- Timecodes (00:00) How USAID funded conservation (05:10) Human health and conservation fallout after USAID shuts down (13:52) Large NGOs feel the impact (21:39) ‘We will not know what we lost’ (31:45) How conservation groups are surviving (37:34) The bright spots /episode/index/show/mongabay/id/40550655

Save a tiger, save an ecosystem: Why protecting the big cats is a biodiversity boon 03/17/2026

Save a tiger, save an ecosystem: Why protecting the big cats is a biodiversity boon 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 need to focus on. “This story is very much a mixed bag of localized successes and elsewhere just stagnation … and a lack of political and financial investment to bring tigers back from the brink in some places.” Making good on the commitments of GTRP 2.0, Banks says, would also benefit nations seeking to fulfill their environmental protection commitments under the agreed upon by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). That’s because tigers are what’s known as an umbrella species, meaning that protecting them also protects ecosystems and a host of other species and biodiversity contained within these ecosystems. “Tigers are an apex predator, therefore a keystone species, an umbrella species, a flagship species. And by saving tigers…we save so much more.” Please take a minute to let us know what you think of our podcast, . Image Credit: A tiger in Sumatra. The Sumatran subspecies is critically endangered due to habitat loss and hunting, and now faces additional threats from two hydropower dams planned to be constructed within their habitat. Image courtesy of Pete Morris. ——— Timecodes (00:00) Introduction (03:07) The global status of the tiger (10:33) Threats to the tiger (24:16) Law enforcement and reducing tiger demand (33:35) The Global Tiger Recovery Program (42:02) Protecting tigers ‘saves so much more’ /episode/index/show/mongabay/id/40508680

Understanding how elephants experience time might change how we protect them 03/10/2026

Tyson Yunkaporta on how the ‘wrong story’ harms nature, and how we can change it 03/03/2026

Live theater tells the story of how Mongabay detected narco airstrips in the Amazon 02/24/2026

Live theater tells the story of how Mongabay detected narco airstrips in the Amazon ’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 story” of what they, their reporters, and Indigenous leaders experienced during this investigation, and how their play adaptation brings that to the eyes and ears of a theatrical audience. “I think that all the journalists in these times, we are very worried [about] trying to find ways to understand our audience and to get their attention. We know that there are news avoiders. We know that there are fake news. So we are trying to look for different ways,” Torres says. *This story was first published by Mongabay Latam in Spanish on Nov. 12, 2024, and won the 2025 Global Shining Light Award for investigative journalism and the Digital Storytelling prize given by the 2025 Future of Media Awards. **This investigation was conducted in partnership with the Consortium to Support Independent Journalism in the Region (CAPIR), which leads the Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR) in Latin America. Please take a minute to let us know what you think of our podcast, . Image: In the Indigenous community of Galilea, drug traffickers abandoned this airstrip a year ago. But they could revive it at any time. Image by Mongabay Latam. -------- Timecodes (00:00) Chasing answers on narco airstrips (13:38) Ground-truthing the data and building relationships (18:41) Risks, impacts and beyond (28:55) Bringing the story to the stage (36:13) “The story behind the story” (44:48) Plans for the future /episode/index/show/mongabay/id/40194800

Kiliii Yüyan details ‘Guardians of Life’ and how we can learn from them 02/17/2026

Kiliii Yüyan details ‘Guardians of Life’ and how we can learn from them 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, cultural and ecological benefits that neoliberal economics does not. Yüyan highlights that some of the most significant environmental victories of the past few years, such as the of the Klamath River dams in the United States — the largest dam removal project ever — were led by Indigenous people. Yüyan’s imagery captures the essence of the decades it took for Lisa Moorehead-Hillman, Leaf Hillman and others to advocate for their removal. “I think what the great power of the book is in a lot of ways is the power of photography … actually seeing it. That this is what it means when we're talking about what is shamanism, what does it mean when you remove a dam … and you see it in people's faces.” Please take a minute to let us know what you think of our podcast, . Mike DiGirolamo is the host & producer for the Mongabay Newscast based in Sydney. Find him on and . Image Credit: Lisa Morehead-Hillman and Leif Hillman, both Karuk, celebrate the removal of the dams on the newly exposed reservoir floor in 2024. The former head of the Karuk Natural Resources Department, Leif spent two decades working with other Indigenous groups, environmental organizations and government officials to bring back the Klamath River. Image courtesy of Kiliii Yüyan. —- Timecodes (00:00) What is traditional ecological knowledge? (08:00) When values and governance go together (17:38) Why and when hunters share their bounty in Greenland (27:26) In Mongolia ceremonies are conservation (39:12) How to get a dam removed (46:08) Why the buffalo is the best environmentalist /episode/index/show/mongabay/id/40040405

Lessons from 60 years of USAID development projects have been saved by this company 02/10/2026

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