A 1,000-year ecological reconstruction reveals that Australia’s ongoing wildfire crisis stems from the colonial disruption of Indigenous fire management rather than climate change alone, according to a study published in Nature. For more than 800 years prior to British colonization in 1788, the Indigenous Gunaikurnai people maintained stable, open eucalypt woodlands across southeastern Australia using frequent, low-temperature “cool” burning, the study says. Researchers analyzed sediment cores from Purghagoolah (also known as Lake Elusive) in the East Gippsland region of southeastern Australia and found tree cover averaged roughly 10% under Indigenous stewardship. High-temperature crown fires and severe soil erosion were virtually nonexistent, according to the researchers. However, that long-term stability collapsed after colonization in the 1840s forcibly severed Indigenous care for Country, the Indigenous concept of a holistic, living entity encompassing the physical land, waters, skies, and all living things. Without cultural burning, woody fuels accumulated and eucalypt tree cover — oily and highly flammable — roughly quadrupled to 34% by the 1970s. Once-open woodlands thus became dense, flammable forests, the study says. Evidence of more intense burning emerged alongside this transition, in the form of high-temperature charcoal, whose abundance doubled or even tripled. Its presence indicates a shift to canopy-consuming crown fires that also destroyed ground vegetation and exposed the topsoil to erosion. Crucially, these changes occurred long before modern human-caused climate warming began, suggesting that the buildup of woody fuels under colonial forestry practices had already rendered the region more prone to severe fires, according to the study. “The…This article was originally published on Mongabay

Twenty years after a helicopter crash killed some of Nepal’s most prominent environmental figures, the nation is celebrating ecological gains while grappling with a void in visionary leadership, reports Mongabay’s Abhaya Raj Joshi. On Sept. 23, 2006, a Russian-built Mi-8 helicopter crashed near the high-altitude mountain village of Ghunsa, killing all 20 passengers and four crew members. The victims included Gopal Rai, the minister of forests and soil conservation; other senior government officials; a Finnish diplomat; a USAID official; and key WWF staff. They had traveled to Ghunsa to hand over management of the Kanchenjunga Conservation Area, in the northeastern corner of Nepal, to local communities.  The crash occurred the next day as the group was taking off from Ghunsa. “For the community, this was the beginning,” said Ghana Shyam Gurung, now country representative for WWF Nepal. Seven WWF staff died in the crash, the single greatest loss of life in the history of the organization. Among them were Harka Gurung, Chandra Gurung, and Mingma Norbu Sherpa, and their loss left an institutional vacuum. “We didn’t just lose people that day. We lost the pace we were moving at,”said Sarita Jnawali, a former conservationist with the National Trust for Nature Conservation (NTNC). Shiv Raj Bhatta, an ecologist at the Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation, who lost key supervisors in the crash, recalled the immediate aftershock. “I wondered how we would ever produce people of that height again,” Bhatta said. The community-based conservation framework championed by that generation laid…This article was originally published on Mongabay

Snow leopards range across Asia’s rugged mountains, where they face mounting threats from climate change, declining wild prey, and retaliatory killings from local herders. Today, on Oct. 23, International Snow Leopard Day, we look back at recent Mongabay reporting highlighting how innovative science, climate-ready habitat, and community-centered conservation are helping these big cats share mountain landscapes with human neighbors. Sharing the Himalayan heights A 2025 government survey found roughly 397 snow leopards living in Nepal.  A separate study published earlier this year revealed that snow leopards (Panthera uncia), common leopards (Panthera pardus), and Himalayan wolves (Canis lupus chanco) all live together in Nepal’s Lapchi Valley. They coexist largely by targeting different prey species, Mongabay’s Liz Kimbrough reported. Wild blue sheep (Pseudois nayaur), for example, make up nearly half of the snow leopard’s prey. Study lead researcher Narayan Prasad Koju told Mongabay that maintaining such wild ungulate populations is critical to preventing the predators from targeting livestock. “When wild prey declines, all three predators shift toward livestock, which triggers retaliatory killings and destabilizes the whole system.” Community concerns about conservation In an interview with Mongabay, Rodney Jackson, founder and board president of the U.S.-based Snow Leopard Conservancy, said conservationists must shift focus from counting the carnivores to addressing the immediate needs of herding families who lose livestock to the big cats. “The cost is being borne by the communities,” Jackson told Mongabay’s Abhaya Raj Joshi, adding that ongoing human-wildlife conflict undermines trust from local communities who continue to struggle to live…This article was originally published on Mongabay

Wildlife traffickers are increasingly targeting critically endangered maleo birds from coastal Indonesia for the international exotic pet trade, according to a recent study. In 2024, enforcement agencies recorded three separate seizures totaling 25 live juvenile maleo birds (Macrocephalon maleo) en route to or within India. The ground-dwelling, black-and-white birds are endemic to the Indonesian island of Sulawesi. Just 4,000 to 7,000 breeding pairs are thought to remain there due to severe habitat destruction and egg poaching, reports Mongabay’s Spoorthy Raman. While all international commercial trade in maleos is banned under Indonesian law and CITES, the global wildlife trade convention, the new study marks the first documented evidence of the species entering illicit international commerce. Researchers found that trafficking syndicates recruited couriers including young couples, families with children, and a single mother. They were offered paid holidays and cash to carry the birds through international transit hubs in Jakarta, Mumbai, and Bangkok to avoid detection. “All evidence we have so far points to a domestic pet market in India,” said study co-author Uttara Mendiratta, a wildlife trade researcher in India and consultant with the Wildlife Trust of India. “We also see social media posts where influencers or celebrities are seen with rare wildlife as pets.” “We were not expecting to see maleos because we have not seen them in international trade before,” said lead author Chris Shepherd, senior conservation advocate at the U.S.-based Center for Biological Diversity. Shepherd said that while 25 birds may seem like a small number, removing them…This article was originally published on Mongabay

Cambodia’s population of critically endangered Irrawaddy dolphins has increased to an estimated 118 individuals since the confirmed birth of six calves this year. They were born along a 120-kilometer (75-mile) stretch of the river in Kratie and Stung Treng provinces, in the country’s northeast. Conservation officials say the births are a strong sign that the river’s sole cetaceans can recover if severe environmental threats are curbed, reports contributor Eung Sea for Mongabay. In Cambodia and Laos, Irrawaddy dolphins (Orcaella brevirostris) are regarded as sacred animals representing the ancestral spirit of the river. They also generate vital ecotourism revenue for riverside communities. “Irrawaddy dolphins are very important for our community,” said Heang Koeurn, a boat driver at the Kampi dolphin pool, a 60-meter-deep (nearly 200-foot) stretch of the Mekong that serves as a protected habitat for some 20 Irrawaddy dolphins in Kratie. “People here can make more income from tourists by driving them to see the beauty of Irrawaddy dolphins.” “They are a source of Cambodian national and local pride,” said Ian Baird, a professor of geography at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in the U.S. “They may also inspire people to protect the river and its tributaries from the impacts of more dams in the future.” Yet the Irrawaddy dolphin population in Cambodia’s section of the Mekong remains far below late-1990s estimates of roughly 200 individuals. The steep decline is largely from electrofishing, habitat degradation, and gillnet entanglement, which is especially deadly for calves, Sea reported. Additionally, more than 160 dams…This article was originally published on Mongabay

A recent study has proposed a road map for countries to better monitor wildlife health and disease outbreaks. Previous research found that nearly 60% of the 107 countries it surveyed showed no evidence of a functional wildlife health surveillance system. This leaves ecosystems, agriculture, and human populations vulnerable to catastrophic outbreaks, the researchers say. The blueprint presented in the latest study offers actionable solutions to improve surveillance, said study co-author Sarah Olson, director of health at the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). “Earlier research did a good job diagnosing the problem in terms of what’s missing, and what wildlife health surveillance needs to deliver,” Olson told Mongabay by email. “This paper goes further: it uses a Theory of Change to map out how we actually close that gap, given limited resources and fragmented networks, to reach real collaborative surveillance. The challenge now is scaling efforts and expertise through a global community of practice — no single organization can meet this need alone, and the more we collaborate, the faster surveillance can grow everywhere.” Olson and her colleagues write that unmonitored disease events have already inflicted severe ecological and economic damage; for instance, sheep and goat plague caused an estimated 80% decline in Mongolia’s endangered saiga antelope (Saiga tatarica), while highly pathogenic avian influenza (H5N1) continues to trigger mass mortality across populations of wild birds and marine mammals. Mongabay recently reported on the spread of H5N1 affecting wild birds, urban wildlife, and live animal markets across cities like New York. The researchers…This article was originally published on Mongabay

A new-to-science species of egg-eating snake has been documented in the forested mountains of southern Ethiopia, according to a recent study. The snake, which has an ink-black body, bluish skin between its scales, and stark-white throat and belly, has been named the white-throated egg-eater (Dasypeltis albigularis). It’s nonvenomous, feeding entirely on bird eggs, which it cracks using specially adapted vertebrae in its throat before swallowing, the authors say. Arthur Tiutenko of Germany’s University of Erlangen-Nuremberg, and his colleagues, first encountered a population of this snake in 2019 in the Harenna Forest, in the Bale Mountains. They collected a young female for identification and initially thought it was an African egg-eating snake (Dasypeltis atra), a similar black, nonvenomous species. But the team also noticed the juvenile had some unusual scales and coloration that differed from the known D. atra. These observations prompted captive-breeding trials, where the researchers mated the female with a male African egg-eating snake, and saw that their offspring showed a mix of traits from both parents. Further genetic analysis and examination of more individuals seen on future field trips confirmed the snake in the Harenna Forest was indeed new to science. “In the case of D. albigularis, it was a classic discovery, like in previous centuries, when one encounters an animal in a place previously not visited by researchers and recognizes it as something new,” Tiutenko told Mongabay by email. To formally describe a new species, researchers would typically have to deposit a dead, preserved physical specimen, known as…This article was originally published on Mongabay

Construction of a power plant that will burn waste to generate electricity at a landfill near Bangladesh’s capital faces strong opposition from nearby communities, who say they fear severe health risks posed by toxic air pollution, reports contributor Eyamin Sajid for Mongabay. The $467 million project is being overseen by the municipal authority Dhaka North City Corporation, and is owned by the China Machinery Engineering Corporation (CMEC), backed by Chinese-headquartered multilateral lenders. It’s designed to incinerate up to 3,000 metric tons of municipal waste daily, tackling the capital’s escalating garbage crisis while also generating up to 42.5 megawatts of electricity. The project is slated for completion in December 2028. Densely populated communities, including several schools, sit less than a mile from the location of the power plant. Local farmers told Mongabay that unmanaged trash fires at the dumpsite already disrupt their work and well-being. “We can’t breathe when waste is burned in the dumping station,” said Md Naim, who grows rice and vegetables nearby. “Our nose closes with ashes, and we feel a headache from the smoke while working on the field.” According to the environmental impact assessment for the project, the incinerator will produce 74.8 metric tons of fly ash daily, enough to get airborne. An analysis by environmental groups indicates the plant will generate 73,576 metric tons of solid waste annually, along with 39.56 metric tons of toxic substances, including dioxins, furans, and heavy metals. “If the power plant is built and run regularly, local residents, especially children…This article was originally published on Mongabay

Australian authorities have disrupted an alleged wildlife trafficking syndicate, uncovering a clandestine operation where smuggled native animals were hoarded alongside caches of cash and gold, reports contributor Johan Augustin for Mongabay. The operation reportedly seized 28 native and a few exotic species alongside approximately A$300,000 (nearly $210,000) in cash, gold, and silver bullion on July 16. The bust marks the first major wildlife crime investigation carried out by the new National Environmental Protection Agency (National EPA), Australia’s first independent federal environmental regulator, launched on July 1. In addition to the 28 native Australian reptiles — including shingleback lizards (Tiliqua rugosa), spiny-tailed skinks (Egernia stokesii), and lace monitors (Varanus varius) — there were heavily regulated nonnative species like a North American hognose snake (genus Heterodon) and a ball python (Python regius). The agency alleges the native species were supplied to foreign nationals for illegal export. “Illegal trade of Australia’s native wildlife is a serious crime,” Dani Yannopoulos, head of the National EPA’s environmental permitting and compliance division, said in a media release published Aug. 22. “Australia’s native wildlife is precious and we are working closely with [Australian] Border Force and international partners to stop those who attempt to exploit it through the illegal wildlife trade.” Yannopoulos added that anyone taking part in the illegal wildlife trade risks serious penalties. Under Australian federal environmental law, exporting native animals or eggs without a permit carries penalties of up to 10 years in prison and fines reaching A$364,000 ($253,000). Even so, immense profits continue…This article was originally published on Mongabay

Part of a forest in Malaysian Borneo that Indigenous communities had envisioned co-managing and self-governing has been turned into an active commercial logging concession, according to a recent civil society report. The 283,500-hectare (700,500-acre) Upper Baram Forest Area, in the northeastern part of the state of Sarawak, was proposed as a community-led conservation area more than 15 years ago. In 2021, the Sarawak Forest Department secured $1.4 million from the International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO), which promotes the sustainable use of forests, to develop a conservation initiative with 32 Indigenous villages, called the Baram Peace Park. However, the state government subsequently granted a 170,000-hectare (420,000-acre) timber concession in 2024 to a company called Borneoland Timber Resources Sdn. Bhd., overlapping key cultural and ecological zones, reports contributor Danielle Keeton-Olsen for Mongabay. According to a report from Swiss-based nonprofit Bruno Manser Fonds, a key funder of the Baram Peace Park project, between March and May 2025, community observers tracked more than 160 logging trucks exiting the concession monthly. These trucks hauled an estimated 10.5 million ringgit ($2.6 million) in timber per month. Logging paths have penetrated core primary forest around Gunung Murud Kecil, a peak central to the Indigenous Penan heritage, threatening protected species including helmeted hornbills (Rhinoplax vigil), sun bears (Helarctos malayanus), and Sunda clouded leopards (Neofelis diardi). Affected villagers allege loggers have violated native customary rights by bulldozing land and destroying ancestral fruit trees. Komeok Joe, CEO and founder of the Penan rights organization Keruan, said local communities are actively…This article was originally published on Mongabay

Humpback whales found in the Arabian Sea are likely a distinct subspecies, having evolved in isolation for tens of thousands of years, according to a newly published genetic analysis. “Arabian Sea humpback whales have long been an enigma to the scientific community,” lead author Rita Amaral, from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), said in a press release. “Their ecology is unlike that of any other known humpback whale population, and this new genetic work represents an important milestone in understanding how that uniqueness developed.” Humpback whales (Megaptera novaeangliae) are found throughout the world’s oceans, typically migrating from warm waters near the equator, where they breed, to the colder poles, where they feed. To date, scientists recognize three subspecies: the North Atlantic (M. n. novaeangliae), Southern Hemisphere (M. n. australis), and North Pacific (M. n. kuzira) humpback whales. Unlike most humpbacks, however, the population living in the Arabian Sea doesn’t migrate, remaining in tropical and subtropical waters all year. Researchers compared mitochondrial DNA, which mothers pass to their babies, collected from 2,285 humpback whales globally, including those from the Arabian Sea coast of Oman. The analysis showed considerable genetic differentiation between the latter population and the other subspecies. The researchers also found the Arabian Sea population had the lowest genetic diversity observed across any global ocean basin. The study estimates humpback whales in the Arabian Sea diverged from the other populations between roughly 43,000 and 113,000 years ago, suggesting a long history of isolation. Such isolation also makes them vulnerable to…This article was originally published on Mongabay