The Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF), which was created to fund long-term conservation of tropical forests, recently received a $500-million pledge, over 10 years, from the Netherlands, a significant boost for forest conservation. The Netherlands announced the pledge in an Oct 26 press release and estimated that the TFFF has the potential to protect 800 to 900 million hectares (2.0 to 2.2 billion acres) of tropical forest, an area roughly 200 times the size of the Netherlands. The long-term goal is to create a $125 billion endowment fund for the TFFF. Current pledges add up to roughly $7.8 billion. The TFFF was launched by Brazil at the 30th U.N. Climate Change Conference in November 2025. It’s a partnership between tropical countries that need funding to protect their forests, investors and donor countries that want to address climate change and biodiversity loss through mitigating deforestation. The collaboration includes the private sector, Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities, the World Bank, scientists, economists, finance experts, and civil society partners. The TFFF is modeled like a sovereign wealth fund in which governments and private investors contribute to an investment fund and those investment gains, or profits, are then distributed to tropical countries to keep their forests standing. The hope is that predictable revenue from the TFFF will incentivize permanent conservation of forests over unsustainable development including logging, mining and ranching. Forest conservation is monitored using satellite imaging and scientific monitoring protocols to provide transparency and ensure forests are being protected. However, the TFFF has…This article was originally published on Mongabay

An ambitious effort to eradicate invasive spotted bass from South Africa’s Breekkrans River has unfolded about two hours north of Cape Town. Removing the bass has helped give the critically endangered doring fiery redfin (Pseudobarbus doring) a fighting chance against extinction. “Spotted bass were introduced into the river system in the late 1930s,” Martine Jordaan, a faunal ecologist at Cape Nature, a provincial conservation authority, told Mongabay in a video call. “The main reason was to have a species that was good for angling. What makes bass a good angling fish makes it a bad invader. It really goes after the small fish, and most of our native fish are 12 centimeters [4.7 inches] and smaller.” Jordaan said that after the bass species had been introduced, it spread as far as the habitat allowed, only stopping when encountering natural barriers such as waterfalls. “Often you find that native fish populations [are restricted to] streams where bass cannot invade,” Jordaan said. That was the case with the doring fiery redfin. “The Breekkrans River has the largest remaining population of doring fiery redfin with probably a few hundred adults,” Jeremy Shelton, a freshwater conservation ecologist working at the Freshwater Research Centre (FRC), told Mongabay by email. “The species also exists in another river, but in very low numbers.” Prior to the spotted bass eradication, the doring fiery redfin were confined to a 2-kilometer (1.2-mile) stretch of the Breekkrans River that remained bass-free. The Breekkrans River Restoration Project is run by the FRC…This article was originally published on Mongabay

New mapping by Amazon Underworld finds that criminal networks or armed groups operate in nearly three-fifths of Amazon municipalities across the six countries surveyed, which include Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela. Of the 1,310 municipalities examined, researchers found illicit actors in 768 of them, or 59%. Colombia had the highest proportion of affected municipalities (98%), followed by Venezuela (82%), Brazil and Ecuador (59% each), Peru (34%) and Bolivia (31%). The report also identifies increasingly interconnected criminal operations crossing international boundaries, such as Brazil’s Comando Vermelho, which is now present in almost 500 municipalities, including in Bolivia and Peru. Eight armed groups are present in 99 municipalities in the Colombian Amazon. About 78% of the country’s rural population, nearly 10 million people, “live under the influence of at least” one non-state armed group, according to Humanitarian Action. “One of our main concerns is how organized crime instrumentalizes local communities,” report author Bram Ebus, founder of Amazon Underworld and International Crisis Group consultant, told Mongabay over WhatsApp messages. “Groups extort them. They also use them, often under coercion, as human shields to protect illicit economies and obstruct state interventions. This leaves communities exposed to violent repression by state forces as well.” According to the report, gold has overtaken cocaine as the Amazon’s most lucrative criminal industry. “This shift has accelerated environmental destruction through deforestation and mercury contamination,” Ebus said. As rival groups battle for territorial control, local populations, especially Indigenous communities, bear the brunt of escalating violence. Ebus said such…This article was originally published on Mongabay

Roy Sesana, a 97-year-old Indigenous rights campaigner who opposed the Botswana government over the removal of San communities from their traditional lands in Central Kalahari, has received an honorary doctorate from the University of Botswana. The university awarded Sesana an honorary Doctor of Letters on Oct. 23, recognizing his decades of advocacy for Indigenous rights, cultural identity and dignity. In an official statement, the university said the honor recognized “a lifetime of service that goes beyond individual achievement.” The recognition comes nearly 20 years after Botswana’s High Court ruled in favor of Sesana and other San people who challenged their removal from traditional lands in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve. Communities were moved in the 1990s and early 2000s. The government justified the action saying it was necessary for conservation and because providing public services was difficult. Nearly two decades later, one of the lawyers who represented San communities is now Botswana’s president. Since taking office in November 2024, Duma Boko has prioritized Indigenous land rights, established an interministerial committee to address longstanding grievances and advanced plans to restore community rights across the 52,000-square-kilometer (20,000-square-mile) reserve. He attended the recent ceremony and paid tribute to Sesana’s struggle. Sesana helped establish First People of the Kalahari in 1991 and received the Right Livelihood Award in 2005 for his work defending his people’s right to live on their traditional land. According to Botswana’s government news agency, Sesana dedicated his honorary doctorate to the Basarwa and the people of Botswana. After the ceremony,…This article was originally published on Mongabay

Criminal organizations linked to illegal logging, illegal gold mining, land grabbing and cattle ranching now dominate large sections of land around the BR-319 highway in one of the Brazilian Amazon’s largest stretches of forest, according to a new study. The finding comes as Brazil is moving forward with further improvements to the controversial highway. ​The recent study measured the sharp increase in deforestation after 2015, when then-president Dilma Rousseff authorized the first maintenance work on the highway, abandoned since 1998. Her successor, Jair Bolsonaro, promised to pave the road, which intensified land speculation and the conversion of large forest areas into cattle pasture. According to the research article’s lead author, São Paulo University (USP) researcher Lucas Ferrante, the lack of government surveillance made the area fertile ground for organized crime. He said that drug trafficking and environmental crimes often share the same routes and financial flows, while cattle ranching is frequently used to launder money from criminal activities. ​“This region is becoming a hub of large farms controlled by organized crime,” Ferrante, associated with the Center for Research on Biodiversity and Climate Change[1] (CBioClima), told Mongabay in a video call. ​The BR-319 highway, which connects the cities of Manaus and Porto Velho in Brazil’s northern Amazon, was built during Brazil’s military dictatorship in the 1970s and later fell into disrepair. The highway’s 339-kilometer (211-mile) middle section is largely impassable in the rainy season, though many still try to traverse it. ​In April, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva moved to…This article was originally published on Mongabay

Incumbent Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva was reelected on Oct. 25 in a surprise defeat of his far-right rival who had promised to remove “environmental obstacles” in the Amazon rainforest. Lula won 51.8% of valid votes. Flávio Bolsonaro, eldest son of former President Jair Bolsonaro, who is imprisoned after being convicted of attempting a coup d’état when he lost the previous election, won 48.2% of the vote. Flávio was favored to win after he got 2% more of the first-round votes on Oct. 4. However, neither candidate got more than 50% of the vote, triggering a runoff election. Lula was able to secure an additional 10 million votes in 20 days. “This election was a defeat for denialism, a defeat for lies,” Lula said in his first speech after the election results. “We are going to teach the world how climate policy is done, here in this country. This year is the first time we have managed to reduce deforestation for four consecutive years.” Deforestation soared to its highest level in 15 years under Jair Bolsonaro’s government. Lula took office in 2023 pledging to end both legal and illegal deforestation by 2030. Since then, deforestation has gradually slowed to its lowest rate since records began in 1988, though the Amazon rainforest is still shrinking. Between August 2025 and July 2026, around 333,500 hectares (824,000 acres) of forest were cut, an area equivalent to roughly 7,300 Olympic-size swimming pools cleared every day. “The reduction in deforestation in recent years…This article was originally published on Mongabay

YEREVAN, Armenia — Like the dark spaces they often prefer, mushrooms, yeasts, and some 160,000 known species of fungi rest in the background of conservation efforts. But their crucial role as ecosystem engineers makes protecting them vital, said Greg Mueller, chief scientist emeritus at the Chicago Botanic Garden in the U.S. “They really are responsible for life on Earth,” he said, “and life as we know it would not exist without fungi.” Mueller called fungi “nature’s recyclers” at the launch of the first global conservation strategy for fungal conservation on Oct. 21 at the United Nations biodiversity conference (COP17) in Armenia. Many fungi also form symbiotic relationships with plants, helping shuttle nutrients and water between them; they can sock away carbon in soil and help provide food for animals and people. Historically, international negotiations to stem the global loss of species haven’t fully considered fungi. Now, a team of fungi conservationists from 30 countries led by Mueller has set out to integrate fungal conservation into the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework, a central part of negotiations at COP17. To date, mycologists — scientists who study fungi — have little data on the conservation status for most species known to science. “When we talk about … halting extinction risk, how can we talk about it [while] ignoring a whole kingdom of life?” Cátia Canteiro, a conservationist with U.K.-based NGO Plantlife International who co-led the strategy, said during the launch. The guidelines aim to spur new research and the protection of rare species,…This article was originally published on Mongabay

The Bezos Earth Fund and eight other organizations have pledged more than $500 million over five years to help rescue some of the world’s most threatened plants and animals, giving species recovery greater attention in global conservation funding. The Species Recovery Alliance, announced Oct. 16 at the United Nations biodiversity summit, or COP17, in Yerevan, Armenia, will coordinate funding and conservation efforts rather than establish a single pooled fund. Cristián Samper, managing director and leader of nature solutions at the Bezos Earth Fund, said the initiative grew out of concerns that efforts to expand protected areas were overshadowing the urgent needs of threatened species. “We’re forgetting some of the other targets, in particular, the Target 4 on recovery of endangered species,” he told Mongabay in an interview at COP17. Target 4 of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework calls for urgent action to halt human-induced extinctions and help threatened species recover. Yet biodiversity continues to decline. WWF’s 2026 “Living Planet Report” found that populations of monitored vertebrate wildlife declined by an average of 73% between 1970 and 2022. Africa recorded an 80% decline. A new U.N. assessment also found that fewer than half of assessed biodiversity targets are on track. “Setting up protected areas and dealing with the other issues is not enough,” Samper said. Many threatened species, he added, require targeted interventions to recover. The Species Recovery Alliance includes Re:wild, Rainforest Trust, Fondation Segré, and five other organizations alongside the Bezos Earth Fund. Its members will coordinate investments and support…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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

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

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

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

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

The Zambian government has ordered a copper miner to assess its infrastructure for weaknesses and clean up areas affected by pollution of the Kafue River, after residents downstream of the plant that processes the mine’s waste reported changes in the river’s color, taste, and smell on Sept. 28. The order also requires Konkola Copper Mines (KCM) to cover laboratory testing and related costs. The pollution was traced to a leaking pipe at KCM’s tailings leach plant and an overflow from a pollution control dam on the Mushishima Stream, a tributary of the Kafue. The company disputes allegations that it caused the pollution, saying it detected the river’s discoloration and reported the incident to local authorities. The incident has renewed concerns about recurring pollution in the Kafue, which Misozi Ngulube, director-general of Zambia’s Water Resources Management Authority (WARMA), has described as the country’s most polluted water body. In February 2025, the breach of a tailings dam operated by Sino-Metals Leach Zambia, also on the Kafue, released more than 50 million liters (13 million gallons) of toxic sludge into a tributary. The spill killed fish more than 100 kilometers (60 miles) downstream, damaged crops, and disrupted local water supplies. The government reported three cases of minor illness, but the event raised broader concerns for communities and wildlife. Ngulube told Mongabay that pollution in the Kafue comes largely from agriculture, industry, and mining. She said WARMA has acquired a water-quality monitoring system and is working toward real-time pollution detection. However, monitoring alone can’t…This article was originally published on Mongabay

As Brazilians head to the polls to vote in a runoff election, Amazon deforestation is also on the ballot. New data from Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research (INPE) find that incumbent President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva presided over the lowest deforestation levels ever recorded in both the Amazon rainforest and Cerrado savanna. Between August 2025 and July 2026, deforestation fell to 3,335 square kilometers (1,288 square miles), registering a drop of nearly 42% from the previous year and the lowest rate of deforestation since satellite monitoring began in 1988. “In 2021, deforestation peaked under far-right President Jair Bolsonaro to its highest level since 2008. More than 13,200 km2 (5,097 mi2) of forest was cleared — nearly four times the 2025-26 figure. “Without a doubt, what we are seeing is very positive,” University of São Paulo climate scientist Carlos Nobre told Mongabay in an audio message. “I am also sure that this is the lowest deforestation in the Amazon’s history since the military dictatorship began heavily deforesting the Amazon in the mid-1970s.” Brazil was ruled by a military dictatorship from 1964 till 1985. The nation did not keep year-on-year deforestation data during that period, but INPE estimates suggest an average of 21,130 km2 (8,158 mi2) of forest were cleared every year between 1978 and 1988. The Cerrado, a tropical savanna and one of Brazil’s main agricultural regions, also recorded its lowest deforestation level last year since monitoring began for that biome in 2001. Between August 2025 and July 2026,…This article was originally published on Mongabay

Greenland’s parliament has asked the government to pause licensing on seabed mining amid concerns about foreign interests in mining and potential environmental consequences for marine life. The Oct. 15 measure directed the government, called Naalakkersuisut, to present a law to the parliament, called Inatsisartut, in early 2027 to suspend seabed mining until at least 2029. “This is a decision to decide. An important one, and not the same thing as protection,” Jenseeraq Poulsen, executive director of Oceans North Kalaallit Nunaat, an environmental nonprofit, told Mongabay by email. Of the Greenlandic parliament’s 31 members, 17 were present, and all voted in favor of the proposal across party lines. On Oct. 14, a day before the vote, U.S. President Donald Trump said that “massive” oil, gas and mineral exploration was getting ready to begin in Greenland, a statement at odds with the recent decision from Greenland’s parliament. “On a question that has divided this parliament before, and in a month when there is considerable external interest in Greenland’s minerals, Inatsisartut spoke with one voice,” Poulsen said. “Every member present voted for it.” The resolution was first proposed in February 2026 by Pipaluk Lynge, a representative of the Inuit Ataqatigiit party. In the original proposal, she stated concerns over endangering Greenland’s marine environment due to other countries’ interest in deep-sea mining, and potential impacts on game animals and fishing. According to the 2026 report from Greenland’s national statistics organization, more than 90% of Greenland’s exports come from the fishing industry. According to a…This article was originally published on Mongabay

A recent State of the World’s Birds report found nearly half of the migratory birds assessed are declining. The stark finding comes as world governments are gathered in Armenia for the ongoing U.N. Biodiversity Conference to review progress toward global conservation goals. In southern Mozambique, Maputo National Park illustrates the biodiversity importance of conserving key habitats for migratory birds offering food, rest and shelter for species traveling thousands of kilometers between breeding and wintering grounds. The park’s diverse ecosystems include coastal lagoons, wetlands, mangroves, freshwater systems, intertidal mudflats and extensive shorelines — all supporting a wide range of migratory and resident birds. Its location along the southern African coast makes the park an important part of the network of habitats that sustain birds throughout their annual journeys. “The park bridges the gap between Eurasian breeding grounds and southern African over-wintering zones,” Alex Ngari, migratory birds and flyways programme manager with BirdLife International Africa told Mongabay by email. The park lies within the Maputaland Centre of Plant Endemism, a global biodiversity hotspot. ‘’It provides a safe place for exhausted birds to replenish their energy after long-distance flights,” Ngari said. He offered the example of the vulnerable to extinction curlew sandpiper (Calidris ferruginea), a migratory shorebird that breeds in Arctic regions and migrates to southern Africa where it feeds on invertebrates in the park’s mudflats for the winter. The park’s marine and inland waters, coastal lakes and lagoons also provide seasonal habitat for osprey, Madagascar bee-eaters, flamingos and several heron species, he…This article was originally published on Mongabay

“It’s such a simple phrase: stay alive! The other side is necropolitics.” This appeal was made by philosopher and prominent Indigenous leader Ailton Krenak to Brazilians to reelect President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva over far-right candidate, senator Flávio Bolsonaro. Flávio’s statement that he will not demarcate any Indigenous lands “reveals his malicious intent to do everything in his power to prevent Indigenous peoples from surviving,” Krenak said, drawing parallels with Flávio’s father, former President Jair Bolsonaro (2019–2022). Indigenous people have mobilized on social media and in the streets, warning of threats to their rights and the environment in the event of a victory by Flávio Bolsonaro, who, like his father, supports agricultural expansion and mining on Indigenous lands. “Fight with Lula,” posted the Arariboia Indigenous Territory profile on Instagram, stating that the defense of Indigenous peoples “must be reflected in public policies.” “Indigenous Peoples with Lula! Vote in the runoff election for the demarcation of Indigenous Lands!” posted the Articulation of Indigenous Peoples of Brazil (Apib) in a call for a national mobilization on Oct. 18, which brought together thousands of Indigenous people. Another mobilization is planned for Oct. 21. Artists held a rally in Rio de Janeiro that drew more than 50,000 people and Lula supporters mobilized in 22 other state capitals. This pro-Lula movement intensified after Lula narrowly lost the first round of elections on Oct. 4, contrary to the election polls that showed him leading. “We cannot accept setbacks that endanger our territories, our lives, and…This article was originally published on Mongabay

A battery system that stores excess energy when it’s plentiful will power an apartment building in Buffalo, New York, when the grid is strained and electricity is costly. The manufacturer and state officials hope it will show that larger batteries can safely operate where people live and work. Buffalo-based battery storage manufacturer Viridi and developer Good Carbon Co. say the lithium-ion battery system is connected to the electric grid for Peace Bridge Place. Viridi says the 3.75 megawatt-hour system can power the building for several days. It’s among the largest of these systems in a U.S. residential building. By Jennifer McDermott, Associated Press Banner image: A sign for Peace Bridge Place apartments that have Viridi’s lithium-ion battery energy storage system in Buffalo, N.Y., Thursday, Oct. 15, 2026. Image courtesy of Lauren Petracca, Associated Press. This article was originally published on Mongabay