YEREVAN, Armenia — A Mozambican safari operator credited with helping restore wildlife populations in Mozambique’s Zambezi Delta, has won the 2026 Markhor Award, which recognizes contributions to conservation through sustainable wildlife management. Zambeze Delta Safaris, led by professional hunter Mark Haldane, received the award on Oct. 22, 2026, at the ongoing U.N. Biodiversity Conference, COP17, in Yerevan, Armenia. The company combines regulated trophy hunting with wildlife restoration, anti-poaching efforts and community development in an area of Mozambique that was devastated by the country’s civil war. “There is no other way to describe it than it’s a truly humbling feeling,” Haldane told Mongabay in a WhatsApp interview. “In my wildest dreams I never imagined this or anything close to this.” The award comes as governments at COP17 review progress toward global biodiversity targets adopted in 2022. One of them, Target 9, calls for sustainable wildlife management that also benefits communities. A new U.N. assessment warns that the world remains off track to meet its biodiversity commitments by the 2030 deadline. Astrid Schomaker, executive secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), welcomed the recognition. “Here is something we can celebrate,” she said during a press conference announcing the winner. Haldane began working in Coutada 11, a hunting concession in central Mozambique, in 1994, after years of conflict had severely depleted wildlife populations. He later established Zambeze Delta Safaris with Mozambican businessperson Carlos Pacheco Faria. According to the company’s award nomination, since the safari outfit began working in the region, the African…This article was originally published on Mongabay

In 2024, disasters displaced 2.4 million people within Bangladesh even as the International Monetary Fund predicts that rising seas could eliminate more than one-seventh of Bangladesh’s land area and nearly one-third of its food production by 2050. As environmental pressures drive people from their homes, researchers are examining the risks migrants face in the secondary cities where they relocate and whether these cities are equipped to accommodate growing numbers of climate-displaced people. To cope with increasing climate-related pressures, migration is often viewed as an adaptive strategy because moving away from areas exposed to hazards such as flooding, cyclones, river erosion and sea-level rise can help people reduce their exposure to climate risks and seek safer housing and more stable livelihoods. In these circumstances, urban informal settlements are often among the first destinations for displaced people. Yet, in Bangladesh, these settlements are risky in nature because of the structural formation, and the residents are exposed to various hazards. This raises a broader question: Are the cities receiving climate migrants equipped to support a safer, more stable future or leaving them more exposed? A new study published in Climate and Development on climate migrants living in informal settlements in southwestern Bangladesh examines what happens to migrants after relocation to secondary settlements. The study findings suggest that moving away from regions affected by climate hazards does not necessarily mean moving toward safety, particularly when urban planning and social protection systems fail to account for their needs. In Shariatpur district, Billal Hossain breaks his…This article was originally published on Mongabay

Federal civil servants in environmental and Indigenous affairs fear a resurgence of the intimidation and institutional harassment they faced under the administration of far-right former President Jair Bolsonaro (2019-2022) if his son, Senator Flávio Bolsonaro, wins the presidency in Brazil. The candidate has announced that he will eliminate “environmental hurdles” so rural landowners can do “whatever they want on their land.” “We literally have a target in the middle of our forehead,” Tânia Maria de Souza, president of the federal environmental civil servants’ association, Ascema, told Mongabay. “It’s déjà vu.” The Bolsonaro administration brought a relentless series of actions against the environment and Indigenous rights. Bolsonaro refused to demarcate any Indigenous territories, fulfilling his 2018 campaign pledge, while deforestation and violence against Indigenous groups and public servants escalated alongside measures to open Indigenous lands to mining and agribusiness in clear violation of the Federal Constitution. “It was traumatic,”Alexandre Bahia Gontijo, former director of Ascema and former president of Asibama-DF, which represents IBAMA civil servants in the Federal District, said of the Bolsonaro administration. “Everyone is extremely apprehensive.” Activists call Flávio’s agenda “the return of the cattle herd,” referencing a 2020 statement by then-Environment Minister Ricardo Salles that the COVID-19 pandemic was an opportunity to “let the cattle herd run through” by changing environmental rules and regulations without drawing scrutiny from the National Congress and the press. Former Environment Minister Ricardo Salles left, with former President Jair Bolsonaro (right). Image courtesy of Marcos Corrêa/PR. Flávio finished first in the opening round…This article was originally published on Mongabay

MEXICO CITY — In early October, Mexico’s environment ministry published a statement about minimizing infrastructure development inside the Sian Ka’an Biosphere Reserve, a protected area on the Caribbean coast. But environmental groups say road construction continues to move forward there, threatening mangroves, cenote sinkholes, and dunes. The courts should address a lawsuit filed by local communities to halt the road construction and repair ecological damage, they said. They added that while the statement by the ministry, formally the Secretariat of Environment and Natural Resources (Semarnat), is hopeful, it doesn’t provide the same legal guarantees as a court ruling. “We want certainty for the communities that, first, the project is canceled, and second, that they repair the damage already done,” Viridiana Maldonado, co-coordinator with Territorios Diversos para la Vida, an environmental NGO that supports Indigenous peoples defending the environment, told Mongabay. “Because a good part of the project is already built, the damage is done. They cut down mangroves, they cut down forest, they interrupted hydrological flows.” The Sian Ka’an Biosphere Reserve covers more than 528,000 hectares (1.3 million acres) of mangroves, rainforests, and dunes in the southern state of Quintana Roo. It received UNESCO World Heritage status in 1987 and provides extensive habitat to jaguars (Panthera onca), Central American tapirs (Tapirus bairdii), and hundreds of migratory birds, among other species. The reserve also has 47 community-based tourism initiatives and 140 permits for tourism and recreational activities, according to Semarnat. The Puerta al Mar (“Door to the Sea”) project underway in…This article was originally published on Mongabay

“People think that because we live in the forest we have plenty of water, but this is the reality,” Erick Tijé, an Indigenous Harakmbut resident of the southern Peruvian Amazon, says in a tone of disappointment, pointing to the murky water flowing down the Inambari River. That river isn’t what it was five years ago, when fishing and life along its banks were very different for residents of the Arazaire Indigenous community. Illegal mining stole their water, only to return it to them polluted. Today, they have to buy the water they drink. On the other side of the Peruvian border, in the Colombian Amazon, Lázaro Ibañez, an elder of the Coreguaje people who live in the Jácome Indigenous Reserve, blames cattle ranching and climate change for reducing water availability around their territory. “The cattle have been destroying everything, and now all you can see is pastureland; there are hardly any trees left,” he says, having witnessed how deforestation to create grazing for cattle has gone hand in hand with the drying up of their water sources. Inhabitants of parts of the world’s greatest rainforest face a paradox: they’re surrounded by water, but can’t use it. For Indigenous peoples, it’s also the loss of the spirits that guard their water sources, driven away by the advance of logging and cattle ranching. Reporters from Mongabay, Colombian news outlet El Espectador, and Venezuela’s El Correo del Caroní, in partnership with scientists from Brazil’s Serrapilheira Institute, analyzed more than two decades of satellite…This article was originally published on Mongabay

Fear and disbelief prevail among those in Brazil who are concerned about the environment. A climate denier and voluble supporter of dismantling Brazil’s environmental agencies may well be the country`s next president. Brazil’s current president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (known simply as “Lula”) faces Flávio Bolsonaro, one of former president Jair Bolsonaro’s sons. In the first round of the election on October 4th neither reached the required 50% plus one vote needed, and they face each other in a runoff on October 25th. Flávio was two percentage points ahead for valid votes in a poll released on October 21st, although one poll released on October 18th showed Lula ahead by two points. Flávio’s father Jair Bolsonaro’s 2019-2022 term was an environmental disaster, and Flávio frequently claims that his father was the best president Brazil has ever had and that, if elected, he will bring back his father’s policies. Under Jair Bolsonaro the annual deforestation rate in the Amazon rose sharply, peaking in 2021. He made good on his promise not to demarcate “a single centimeter” of Indigenous land. He appointed openly anti-environmental figures to head the Ministry of the Environment and IBAMA (the Brazilian Institute for the Environment and Renewable Natural Resources), who largely dismantled these agencies and blocked enforcement of environmental laws. Jair Bolsonaro’s constant rhetoric supporting illegal loggers, goldminers and deforesters resulted in surges of these activities, including in Indigenous areas. Most notorious was the invasion of the Yanomami Indigenous Land by over 20,000 goldminers who converted…This article was originally published on Mongabay

Nearly every shallow-water coral reef ecosystem on Earth is at high risk of ecological collapse by 2075, according to the first coral reef assessment of the IUCN Red List of Ecosystems (RLE).  The RLE is a scientific framework for assessing the risk of ecosystem collapse. More than 250 experts assessed shallow water coral reef ecosystems across 127 tropical and subtropical ecoregions worldwide including the Great Barrier Reef in Australia and the Coral Triangle of Southeast Asia. The Oct. 22 report concluded that 24% of coral reefs are already critically endangered. When scientist include projected heat stress from climate change, they found 96% will be critically endangered in the next 50 years. One coral reef ecosystem, the Western Galapagos Islands, has collapsed already, the assessment found. The assessment identified heat stress from climate change as the single most consistent threat driving coral reef decline worldwide. Heat stress causes coral bleaching, a process in which corals expel the symbiotic algae living in their tissue. Algae provide most of the coral’s food via photosynthesis and prolonged bleaching events leave coral weakened, vulnerable to disease and lead to death. Coral reefs are crucial for marine biodiversity; they “cover less than 1% of the ocean floor,” but support approximately 25% of marine life. In an email to Mongabay Marcos Valderrábano, programme manager for the RLE at IUCN, said that if climate projections are accurate, most corals will suffer repeated severe bleaching, resulting in a less biodiverse ecosystem as corals are replaced by algae and turf.…This article was originally published on Mongabay

YEREVAN, Armenia — More than 80 conservation, Indigenous and civil society organizations have called on governments meeting at the COP17 U.N. biodiversity summit in Armenia to keep mining, oil and gas operations out of protected areas. “Meeting a numerical target will mean little”, if areas designated for conservation remain exposed to industrial activities, the organizations warn in a joint letter released in advance of  COP17 on Oct. 2. An Oct. 8 report by Earth Insight and partners says that nearly 62 million hectares (153 million acres) of protected and conserved areas across the tropics overlap with oil and gas blocks, while mining concessions overlap with 43 million hectares (106 million acres). World leaders agreed in 2022 to protect 30% of the planet’s land and waters by 2030, a commitment known as “30×30” or Target 3 of the Global Biodiversity Framework. The signatories argue that this commitment must be achieved “not just on paper, but in reality.” Conservation officials argue that mining has no place in protected and conserved areas. “Protected areas are protected areas,” Nadège Nzoyem, WWF’s Congo Basin regional director, said in a recent interview with Mongabay. Madhu Rao, chair of the IUCN World Commission on Protected Areas, has echoed that concern, arguing that “some places are so critical that they have to be secured against extractive industries.” The head of Nigeria’s National Park Service also acknowledged in a recent interview with Mongabay the challenges posed by illegal mining and insecurity in the country’s national parks. Signatories to the…This article was originally published on Mongabay

TAIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — Taiwan shut down schools and offices and grounded hundreds of flights as Typhoon Champi brushed by the island Friday, packing strong winds and torrential rains. Champi peaked at 298 kph (185 mph) maximum sustained winds earlier this week but has weakened to 155 kph (96 mph) winds as it approached Taiwan from the southwest. Its center is forecast to remain offshore as it sweeps by the island’s northeastern tip before turning north toward Japan’s southwestern islands. Taiwan’s Central Weather Administration urged residents in coastal areas to avoid outdoor activities and driving and be cautious of falling objects. One person was killed Thursday after being swept away by waves in Liuqiu, a small island off the southeastern coast of Taiwan’s main island, according to the fire department. More than 170 other people were injured in the storm. More than 2,600 people have been evacuated from vulnerable, mountainous areas, the government said. All of Taiwan’s 262 domestic flights were canceled, along with 669 international flights, according to the transport ministry. High-speed rail services on the western coast were operating normally. The capital Taipei, in northern Taiwan, saw light showers and gusts of winds. Transportation services including the subway remained open. Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te visited the island’s Central Emergency Operation Center in New Taipei City, which spans from near the capital to Taiwan’s northern coast. Champi has a massive radius of around 320 kilometers (200 miles), large enough to engulf most of Taiwan. Experts expect its biggest effect…This article was originally published on Mongabay

GALGAMUWA, Sri Lanka – Residents in Galgamuwa, a rural village in Sri Lanka’s North Western Province are mourning the death of an iconic wild, bull elephant that roamed the area. While Galgamuwa is on the frontlines of one of Sri Lanka’s worst human-elephant conflicts, people had a soft spot for this tusker, popularly known as Kavantissa. Named after a king who ruled the Kingdom of Ruhuna in ancient Sri Lanka in the 3rd and 2nd centuries B.C.E, Kavantissa was known for its gentle nature. Galgamuwa residents say it never attacked a human in its lifetime. Rathnayake Mudiyanselage Jayathilaka Bandara is a resident in Galgamuwa and an ardent animal lover. Bandara and another local resident named Kumara dedicated their time and effort to protect Kavantissa and the large herd of elephants (Elephas maximus maximus) that became famous for crossing the railway tracks in Kasikote, a town located between Galgamuwa and Ambanpola in the north west. Soon, this crossing became a must see among elephant lovers and Kavantissa would often emerge at the tail end. Bandara tells Mongabay that the demise of Kavantissa is heartbreaking because the iconic tusker was gentle and disciplined. He recalls how Kavantissa would patiently wait for the herd of elephants to cross the railway line before it made its dramatic appearance. “Sometimes it would pause before crossing the road and journey toward the nearby Palukadawala tank,” he said. “Perhaps that was its way of greeting me and Kumara. Kavantissa would sometimes push the electric fence obstructing its…This article was originally published on Mongabay

JAKARTA — On Oct. 15, as thick smog continued to choke millions of people, Indonesian health policy research and advocacy organization the Nalar Rawat Institute shared a post on TikTok and Instagram about the health effects of the country’s wildfires. Little did it know what problems the innocuous posts would create. The TikTok post featured NASA satellite imagery of carbon monoxide covering the Indonesian archipelago, superimposed on footage of an orange sky in Palangka Raya in Central Kalimantan province. The provincial capital has been one of the areas worst hit by months-long wildfires and haze in 2026. “All of Indonesia’s sky is covered by carbon monoxide,” the text on the video and the post’s caption read. “The air pollution index reaches 1,200, our living space is no longer habitable.” The figure of 1,200 — four times the hazardous threshold of 300 — came from Ministry of Environment data on the air pollution index in Central Kalimantan on Oct. 14. Not long after, the post, which garnered 500,000 views and 17,500 likes, was removed from TikTok, the NGO said. The Nalar Rawat Institute receives a notice from TikTok, saying its Oct. 15, 2026, post “has been removed for violating our community guidelines”. Image courtesy of Nalar Rawat Institute. According to Fatus Sahara, Nalar Rawat’s communications officer, on the evening of Oct. 15, TikTok notified the NGO that the post violated its community guidelines. The following day, the post vanished and the NGO’s appeal to reinstate it was rejected. “There was no…This article was originally published on Mongabay

Two Indigenous women who do not speak Portuguese were denied assistance from their interpreter while voting in Brazil’s Oct. 4 election. The translator who accompanied them to the polls, community leader Mitore Tiriyó Kaxuyana, is a relative of the women and spoke to Mongabay about what happened. Racela Tiriyó, 23, and Mirami Tiriyó, 33, are from the Tumucumaque Park Indigenous Territory in the northeastern Brazilian Amazon. They were both voting for the first time in Macapá, the capital of Amapá state. “They wanted to vote, since they had gotten their voting card, and they asked me for help,” Kaxuyana said. “If we cannot vote in our own language, we need translation … just because we are Indigenous and speak another language we can’t be impeded from voting and exercising our rights.” According to Kaxuyana, poll workers informed her that only voters with disabilities were authorized to receive help from a translator. A supervisor confirmed this to her, she said. The women then voted alone with poll workers unable to provide assistance in Tiriyó, the pair’s native language. Kaxuyana was not allowed to explain the process to them and they left unsure whether their votes had gone through as intended, Kaxuyana said. “They don’t speak Portuguese, only our language,” Kaxuyana said. “For me, it was like prejudice.” The Tumucumaque Park Indigenous Territory is home to about 2,800 people. Kaxuyana said her territory, which she represents as the coordinator of the Articulation of Indigenous Women of the Tiriyó, Kaxuyana and Txikiyana Peoples…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

A newly discovered Australian ballista spider has evolved one of the most specialized hunting strategies ever seen. Instead of chasing prey, it builds a spring-loaded silk snare that appears to target a single species: The aggressive green tree ant. Scientists think the spider may even lure the ants into attacking the trap, causing them to trigger the catapult on themselves. It’s the first known spider whose web is designed for one prey species — and the first where the prey activates the trap.This article was originally published on Mongabay

Earlier this year, one of Leandrea Taylor Reeves’s best friends fell ill with a cold. “Maybe you need to go gather some Labrador,” said Reeves’ grandmother, observing the friend. For as long as Reeves could remember, her community, part of the Taku River Tlingit First Nation in Yukon, Canada, gathered and steeped the leaves and flowers from the evergreen shrub in hot water to make a medicinal tea that treats coughs and colds. Reeves, 22, told Mongabay she had plenty of experience harvesting Labrador (Rhododendron groenlandicum) and knew what to look for and where. But as she searched along the edge of the boreal forest, she couldn’t find much. After coming across a short Labrador bush and plucking a tiny harvest, she handed her grandmother a huge Ziplock bag with only the very bottom filled. “Nana,” Reeves said. “There are none there.” The decline in Labrador near her community is one of a myriad of climate change impacts Reeves worries is affecting Canada’s North. Reeves is part of a group of plaintiffs comprising 14 other youth across the country. They are suing Canada and the attorney general of Canada for its continued support of fossil fuels, a net-zero emissions plan that allows an increase in emissions, and actions on climate change that infringes on their rights to life, liberty and security under Section 7 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The five-week trial of La Rose v. His Majesty the King beginning on Oct. 26, 2026, in Vancouver,…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

Off the coast of Cornwall in southwest England, a pole rises from a buoy with a pair of big eyes on top. The head spins, creating what researchers call an “animated eye effect.” Its job is to scare away seabirds away before they dive into the fishing net below. On other nets, a kite shaped like a bird of prey flies from a pole. According to a new study in Conservation Letters, both devices reduced the chance that diving seabirds would drown in gillnets. Nets fitted with the kites had 71% lower odds of catching an auk, the bird family that includes guillemots and razorbills. Nets fitted with the buoys had 59% lower odds. “People may enjoy seeing seabirds around our coasts, but very few witness the moment when a diving bird encounters fishing gear,” lead author Tom Horton, a research fellow at the University of Exeter, told Mongabay. Razorbills are among the seabirds that get caught in fishing nets. Thousands of birds are die in fishing nets each year. Image courtesy of Nina Constable. Gillnets are a major threat to diving birds because the birds forage underwater, where they can get tangled in the mesh, the authors write. Gillnets in the Baltic Sea and Northeast Atlantic kill more than 95,000 seabirds a year, according to a 2024 review. Across all European fisheries, about 31,000 common guillemots (Uria aalge) die as bycatch each year, the same review found. Fixes have been hard to find. An earlier trial of the eye…This article was originally published on Mongabay

On Oct. 20, International Sloth Day, a bipartisan bill was introduced in the U.S. Congress to ban the import of wild sloths into the United States. The proposed legislation comes months after the deaths of 58 of the approximately 69 sloths imported to Sloth World, a Florida-based tourist attraction. “We owe it to these animals, and to the people in our community who spoke up, to make sure a tragedy like this never happens again,” Maxwell Alejandro Frost, a Democratic representative from Florida, said in a statement. The bill’s co-sponsor is Republican Laurel Lee. The Stopping Legalized Organized Trafficking and Harm to Sloths (SLOTHS) Act would allow limited imports of live sloths to institutions accredited by the Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) for breeding purposes. Another exception would permit import of dead sloths for use in research, a press release notes. If the SLOTHS Act passes, illegal import could carry fines of up to $100,000. The push to ban sloth imports came from two Costa Rica-based NGOs, the Sloth Conservation Foundation and the Sloth Institute. When they analyzed U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service trade records, they discovered that more than 1,100 sloths were imported to the U.S. in the decade between 2011 and 2021: 100-plus sloths each year. “So, Sloth World is the biggest example of one owner importing a lot of sloths and then, of course, basically all of them dying, but it’s just not the only example,” Sam Trull, Sloth Institute co-founder and executive director, told Mongabay…This article was originally published on Mongabay

Thick smog covers the forest canopy in Ketapang, West Kalimantan, dimming the sun. On the front lines, forest and land fires are not just destroying habitats; they are pushing local primates close to extinction. In the middle of this crisis, Veterinarian Komara and the Yayasan Inisiasi Alam Rehabilitasi Indonesia (YIARI) team stay alert. Between Aug. 1 and Oct. 21, 2026, 53 Bornean orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus) were rescued from fires through joint emergency operations by the West Kalimantan Natural Resources Conservation Agency (BKSDA) and YIARI. Veterinarian Komara, right, from Yayasan Inisiasi Alam Rehabilitasi Indonesia (YIARI), along with other veterinarians, treats a female orangutan and her baby after being rescued from a burned forest and peatland area in Pelang village, Ketapang Regency, West Kalimantan, Indonesia, Sept. 18, 2026. Bornean orangutans are one of three orangutan species in the world, and the only one found on the island of Borneo. All three species of orangutan are critically endangered. Image by Garry Lotulung for Mongabay. A fire burns at a palm oil plantation in Sungai Putri village, Ketapang Regency, West Kalimantan province, Indonesia, Aug. 19, 2026. Image by Garry Lotulung for Mongabay. Fires are an increasingly deadly threat to orangutans. The flames not only kill the animals but also destroy their homes, reduce their food and cut off the paths they use to move between groups. The scale of forest and land fires in West Kalimantan makes the impact clear: 48,536 hectares (119,935 acres) have burned in the province in 2026, an area around…This article was originally published on Mongabay