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

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

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

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

Europe is a work in progress. Its future depends on the ability of people, institutions and businesses to work together across national borders and political divides.

The European project is far from perfect, but it remains the strongest alternative to a continent defined by division and confrontation.

Europe has advanced through dialogue, negotiation and compromise. Challenging established ideas is part of that process. So is recognising that criticism alone cannot deliver change. The task is to improve what we have built and find common ground on what comes next.

That responsibility extends well beyond the EU institutions and the Brussels bubble.

Businesses, civil society, universities, national governments, media and citizens all have a stake in Europe’s future. The single market and the euro, for example, are not merely institutional achievements. They are also the products of economic cooperation and the participation of businesses and citizens across the continent.

Strengthening Europe’s competitiveness and prosperity should be understood in the same way: as a shared undertaking, not an agenda reserved for political and economic elites. A stronger Europe requires participation, initiative and a willingness to contribute. It cannot be built by those who remain on the sidelines.

Europe needs more Connectors

Construction usually brings to mind roads, bridges and buildings — the concrete structures that link cities, countries and communities. But Europe also relies on less visible infrastructure: the networks, institutions and platforms that bring people together, build trust and turn ideas into action.

Media, civic organisations, universities and professional networks all play a role in this process. They connect perspectives, create opportunities for dialogue and help people identify shared interests across sectors and borders. They make cooperation possible where distance, competing priorities or a lack of understanding might otherwise stand in the way.

These Connectors are essential to Europe’s ability to act collectively. They help businesses engage with policymakers, give citizens access to informed public debate and enable organisations to exchange knowledge and develop partnerships. Their value lies not only in the connections they create, but also in what those connections make possible.

Pan-European media has a particular role to play. Outlets such as EUobserver do more than report on European affairs. They provide a space where different perspectives meet, complex policy debates become accessible and stakeholders can better understand the choices shaping the continent. In doing so, they can help connect the communities that make the European project work.

This is also the thinking behind our initiative to develop a media product dedicated to the business community. The aim is to create opportunities for organisations to communicate their priorities, strengthen their visibility and engage with the people and ideas shaping Europe’s economic future.

But the ambition goes beyond communication. It is about building relationships between businesses and the wider European ecosystem, encouraging the exchange of ideas and helping organisations find common ground around shared challenges and opportunities.

A competitive and prosperous Europe needs more than sound policies and strong institutions. It needs people and organisations willing to connect, cooperate and contribute. Media can help bring them together.

Europe is still under construction. Let’s connect its Connectors

To explore how we can connect your organisation with the people and ideas shaping Europe, contact us at connector@euobserver.com. 

“The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield, and government to gain ground.” ~ Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) The U.S. Constitution was ratified to create and to restrain the government. It established boundaries beyond which the government may not venture, even when it invokes national security, public order, economic necessity, emergency or the will of […]

On New Year’s Eve in 2023, on the Danish side of the border with Germany, two children stood near their father’s house watching fireworks. The boy was ten, his sister thirteen. A team of masked men in black stormed the house, beat the father to the ground, and took the two children. One of them […]

The recent death in my family underscored for me the devastating impact of personal grief, illuminating the deep loss and constant state of mortality that Palestinian families endure every day. To be Palestinian is to carry an inherited archive of loss. After nearly a century of forced displacement, military occupation and relentless aggression at the […]

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