Human beings have a storied and complicated history with bears. The iconic mammals have long been an important symbol for thousands of years in cultures across the globe. Yet, almost all of the eight bear species left in the wild remain threatened.
Some iconic bear species, such as the giant panda, have benefitted from conservation gains, but other species continue to face urgent and increasing threats to their survival.
Award-winning environmental journalist Gloria Dickie joins the Mongabay Newscast to discuss the state of the world’s eight remaining bear species which she documents in a compelling new book, “Eight Bears: Mythic Past and Imperiled Future.”
Related reading:
‘We will decide their future’: Q&A with “pro-bear” environmental journalist Gloria Dickie
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Episode artwork: A portrait of a wild grizzly bear, a subspecies of brown bear (Ursus arctos). Photo by Jean Beaufort via Wikimedia Commons. Public domain (CC0).
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Nearly a million animals are killed on roads every day. That's just in the U.S., and this sobering statistic is very likely an underestimate.
“If anything, the number is probably quite a bit higher,” says Ben Goldfarb, environmental journalist and author of the new book "Crossings: How Road Ecology is Shaping the Future of our Planet."
The world is projected to build 25 million more miles of roads by 2050, so wildlife ecologists and engineers are searching for ways to integrate the needs of wildlife into their design. Goldfarb’s book offers a deep examination of some of the most fascinating, inspiring, but also tragic ways human societies develop infrastructure alongside nature.
He joins the Mongabay Newscast to explain the concept of ‘road ecology’ and how wildlife-friendly designs are becoming part of landscapes globally.
Related reading:
Hear Goldfarb's previous visit with this podcast, where he discussed his award-winning book "Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter," by looking up episode #49 via your favorite podcast player or click play here:
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Episode artwork: A bison crosses a road in British Columbia, Canada. Image courtesy of Ben Goldfarb.
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Traditional capitalism is not working for the planet or the public, and needs an overhaul, says Beth Thoren, environmental action and initiatives director at Patagonia. Where governments are failing to regulate, Thoren argues, corporations should be making the change anyway. “If we continue to live in a world where shareholder value is the only thing that is valued, we will burn up and die,” she says.
She joins the Mongabay Newscast to detail Patagonia's business model—which gives its profit to environmental organizations—and shares how the company is making a push for other corporations to follow, while taking stands against boondoggles like the space race via their #NotMars campaign.
In founder and CEO Yvon Chouinard's words, Patagonia exists to "force government and corporations to take action in solving our environmental problems." These are words the company backs up with its environmental marketing campaigns, its business model, its films and books.
The company details its philosophy and the lessons learned from 50 years in business in the book, The Future of the Responsible Company, published this month.
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Image caption: Beth Thoren, Environment Director, Patagonia. London, U.K.Friday, Nov. 13, 2020. Photographer: Jason Alden for Patagonia
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Ecuadorians have just approved a referendum to halt oil drilling in Yasuní National Park, one of the most biodiverse regions on the planet, which will prohibit further oil extraction. The "yes" vote effectively keeps its oil in the ground, so for the details we check in with staff writer Max Radwin who covered the news for Mongabay.
Related to that is a recent legal victory in Ecuador's Andean region, another massively biodiverse area – not only in that country but for the entire planet – so we're re-sharing a discussion with associate digital editor Romi Castagnino that aired after the winning decision for Indigenous and local communities, whose rights to prior consultation and the 'rights of nature' were both upheld.
You can read more about both stories and watch the video report mentioned by Romi at these links:
Ecuador referendum halts oil extraction in Yasuní National Park
Ecuador court upholds ‘rights of nature,’ blocks Intag Valley copper mine
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Image caption: Indigenous activist Nemonte Nenquimo stands alongside an oil spill near Shushufindi in the province of Sucumbíos, Ecuadorian Amazon, June 26th 2023. Image by Sophie Pinchetti / Amazon Frontlines.
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Tim Killeen is a top conservation biologist and author whose book is a straight-shooting, non-naive dive into "everything you need to know about the Amazon if you want to save it," he says on this episode.
With 30 years of experience living in the Amazon, his wealth of knowledge springs from having guided the first environmental impact study there, pioneering satellite mapping of deforestation with NASA, and traveling extensively throughout the region, so Killeen has unique insight into the drivers of – and solutions for – Amazon deforestation.
On this episode he shares key insights from the second edition of his book "A Perfect Storm in the Amazon Wilderness," plus what gives him hope, and his advice for up-and-coming conservationists.
Mongabay is releasing the book's new edition in short installments in English, Portuguese, and Spanish, find the first two chapters published so far, here:
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Image caption: Rainstorm in the Amazon. Pillcopata, Villa Carmen, Peru. Image by Rhett Butler.
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Conservation technology such as drones, remote sensing, and machine learning plays a critical role in supporting conservation scientists and aiding policymakers in making well-informed decisions for biodiversity protection. Recognizing this, the XPRIZE Foundation initiated a five-year competition with the goal of developing automated and accelerated methods for assessing rainforest biodiversity.
In this episode of the Newscast, Mongabay staff writer Abhishyant Kidangoor interviews Peter Houlihan, the executive vice president of biodiversity and conservation at the XPRIZE Foundation during the semi-finals in Singapore. The foundation recently revealed the six finalists that will compete next year. Houlihan discusses the importance of the collaborative nature of the competition, and why he believes it has become a movement.
Related reading:
Competing for rainforest conservation: Q&A with XPRIZE’s Kevin Marriott
Meet the tech projects competing for a $10m prize to save rainforests
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Image caption: An extendable arm attached to a drone was used to deploy the platform on top of the canopy. Team Waponi. Photo by Abhishyant Kidangoor.
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Field research stations are vital to rewilding and conservation efforts yet they’re often absent from global environmental policy, a Nature paper argues.
Despite this lack of visibility and funding challenges, their impact is immensely beneficial in regions of the world such as Costa Rica: a nation that had one of the highest rates of deforestation in the 1980s and became the first nation to reverse tropical deforestation.
Joining the Mongabay Newscast to discuss the importance of field research stations --is wildlife ecologist and director of Osa Conservation, Andrew Whitworth.
Related reading:
Harpy eagle’s return to Costa Rica means rewilding’s time has come (commentary)
Reforestation projects should include tree diversity targets, too (commentary)
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Image Caption: A field biologist with Osa Conservation releasing a king vulture that the team has just tagged with a solar-powered GSM unit. These are some of the first tagged king vultures in the world – a part of the conservation science focus of the research that will help to understand the health of the ecosystem of the Osa Peninsula and ultimately how healthy this system is for key apex species like king vultures. Photo by Luca Eberle for Osa Conservation
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Great apes are facing a concerning future. If humans neglect to address climate change, they could lose up to 94% of their range by 2050.
In the Congo Basin, a stronghold for great ape species, several challenges pose significant threats to their survival; national interests in exploiting natural resources, security issues in areas like the Albertine Rift, hunting activities, and the illegal wildlife trade all contribute to the severe predicament faced by these charismatic mammals.
In this episode of Mongabay Explores, Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka, Kirsty Graham, Terese Hart, and Sally Coxe shed light on threats to bonobos and mountain gorillas, provide insight from their years of experience working with them, and discuss the pivotal role played by great apes in safeguarding the Congo Basin rainforest.
Listen to the other episodes in this Congo Basin season of Mongabay Explores:
Mongabay Explores the Congo Basin: The ‘heart of the world’ is at a turning point
Congo Basin communities left out by ‘fortress conservation’ fight for a way back in
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Image Caption: Bonobos live in more peaceful societies than their two close relatives, chimpanzees and humans. Photo courtesy of Jutta Hof.
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Famed ethnobotanist and conservation advocate, Mark Plotkin, joins the Mongabay Newscast to discuss traditional ecological knowledge about the increasingly popular psychedelic and medicinal plants and fungi of the Amazon. He shares his thoughts on the value of this knowledge and how this cultural moment can be used to leverage conservation action.
Plotkin is no stranger to conservation, having co-founded the Amazon Conservation team in the 1990s. Their Indigenous-led and managed conservation model, while considered pioneering at the time, is becoming more recognized as the ideal today.
His own podcast discusses these issues and the great importance of Indigenous knowledge in great detail, listen to 'Plants of the Gods' here via the podcast provider of your choosing: https://markplotkin.com/podcast/
Read more about Mark Plotkin's work on Mongabay here:
Everything you need to know about the Amazon rainforest: an interview with Mark Plotkin
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Image Caption: Amanita muscaria is a mushroom that is both hallucinogenic and poisonous. Image posted by creator 942784 to the Creative Commons via Pixabay.
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"Drilled" is a true-crime podcast series from Critical Frequency and journalist, Amy Westervelt, examining the back-door dealings and environmental impacts of major fossil fuel projects.
The latest season looks into what's happening between the South American nation of Guyana and oil giant Exxon Mobil. For this episode of the Mongabay Newscast we give you a look at the first episode of the 8th season of this critically acclaimed podcast series. You can listen to it here. Follow and subscribe to Drilled on the podcast provider of your choice.
We also encourage you to listen to our previous Newscast interview with Amy Westervelt here.
Related reading on Guyana from Mongabay:
Oil production or carbon neutrality? Why not both, Guyana says
Questions over accounting and inclusion mar Guyana’s unprecedented carbon scheme
Guyana gets ‘Drilled’: Weighing South America’s latest oil boom with Amy Westervelt
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Image Caption: Spangled cotinga in Guyana. Image by Mathias Appel via Flickr (CC0 1.0).
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"The planetary boundaries" is a concept that measures the point at which human impact on our Earth's natural systems goes beyond "safe operating grounds." Trespass that boundary, and we risk destabilizing other natural systems in a cascading effect.
A recent study getting a lot of press nowadays indicates that we've passed 7 out of 8 of these thresholds already — of particular interest beside climate change is that experts announced we crossed the land use change planetary boundary last year, in large part due to forest loss. Globally we've lost 50% of our forest cover since the dawn of agriculture 12,000 years ago.
However, experts have outlined 5 solutions that societies can implement toward staying within this important planetary boundary. Listen to the popular article from Liz Kimbrough: We’ve crossed the land use change planetary boundary, but solutions await
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Image caption: A fire in Krasnoyarsk, Siberia, just one region where fires are burned throughout Russia in 2020. Image by Greenpeace International.
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Since the colonization of the Congo Basin by Europeans, many Indigenous communities have been denied land they once relied on in the name of conservation under a contentious conservation model.
The central concept of “fortress conservation” remains popular with some Central African governments, however experts say it is based on a false premise of a "pristine wilderness" devoid of humans. However, Indigenous leaders and conservation experts say it's time for a change. One that includes Indigenous communities and puts them in the drives seat of conservation initiatives.
On this episode of Mongabay Explores the Congo Basin, Cameroonian lawyer and Goldman Prize winner Samuel Nguiffo, Congolese academic Vedaste Cituli, and Mongabay features writer Ashoka Mukpo detail the troubling history of fortress conservation in Central Africa, its impact, and ways to address the problems it has created.
For more Congo exploration coming soon, find & follow/subscribe to Mongabay Explores via the podcast provider of your choice, or locate all episodes of the Mongabay Explores podcast on our podcast homepage here.
Please also enjoy the first three seasons of Explores, where we dove into the huge biodiversity and conservation challenges in Sumatra, New Guinea, and more.
Episode Artwork: Kahuzi-Biega National Park rangers standing in formation in the park in October 2016, by Thomas Nicolon for Mongabay.
Sounds heard during the intro and outro: The call of a putty-nosed monkey (Cercopithecus nictitans). This soundscape was recorded in Ivindo National Park in Gabon by Zuzana Burivalova, Walter Mbamy, Tatiana Satchivi, and Serge Ekazama.
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See all our latest news from nature's frontline at Mongabay's homepage: news.mongabay.com or find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and TikTok by searching for Mongabay.
Australia suffered catastrophic bushfires in 2019 - 2020, followed by intense rain and flooding from an ensuing La Niña which experts say may be linked to those bushfires. Despite the pleas of scientists to halt development, some governments, such as in the Northern Territories, continue to greenlight massive fossil fuel infrastructure projects.
All of this is 'demoralizing' says award-winning podcast host of 'A Rational Fear,' Dan Ilic. He joins the Mongabay Newscast to discuss climate change policy in Australia, recent victories from Indigenous communities, and how comedy provides coverage and catharsis for citizens concerned about the climate crisis. Ilic, who previously made headlines for comedic billboards satirizing Australia's lack of action on climate policy, speaks with host Mike DiGirolamo in person in Sydney.
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Related Reading:
See all our latest news from nature's frontline at Mongabay's homepage: news.mongabay.com or find and follow Mongabay on all the social media platforms.
Image Caption: A mother koala and her joey who survived the forest fires in Mallacoota. Australia, 2020. Photo by Jo-Anne McArthur / We Animals
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Scientists have discovered a series of hydrothermal vents in the Mid-Atlantic ridge spanning hundreds of miles and teeming with life adapted to scorching plumes of hot water like shrimp, crabs, mussels, anemones, fish, gastropods, and more.
This discovery, 40 years in the making, adds another layer of consideration to where deep sea mining can occur, which experts argue should not happen in these diverse underwater ecosystems, in part because they store vast amounts of marine genetic resources, besides their biodiversity.
Listen to the new report from Elizabeth Claire Alberts: Seafloor life abounds around hydrothermal vents hot enough to melt lead.
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Image caption: A squat lobster perches atop a bubblegum coral in the deep sea. Image by Schmidt Ocean Institute (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0).
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This week we're sharing the first episode of a new season of Mongabay Explores, a deep dive into the Congo Basin which begins with the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), which contains 60% of central Africa's forest, but which also aims to open up protected areas and forested peatlands to oil and gas development.
This is big because the Congo Basin contains the world’s second-largest rainforest, a staggering 178 million hectares, containing myriad wildlife and giant trees plus numerous human communities: it is also one of the world's biggest carbon sinks.
We speak with Adams Cassinga, a DRC resident and founder of Conserv Congo, and Joe Eisen, executive director of Rainforest Foundation UK, about the environmental and conservation challenges and opportunities faced by the DRC & the Congo Basin in general.
For more Congo exploration coming on episode 2, find & follow/subscribe to Mongabay Explores via the podcast provider of your choice, or locate all episodes of the Mongabay Explores podcast on our podcast homepage here.
Until episode 2 airs, please also enjoy the first three seasons of Explores, where we dove into the huge biodiversity and conservation challenges in Sumatra, New Guinea, and more.
Episode Artwork: A female putty-nosed monkey. Image by C. Kolopp / WCS.
Sounds heard during the intro and outro: The call of a putty-nosed monkey (Cercopithecus nictitans). This soundscape was recorded in Ivindo National Park in Gabon by Zuzana Burivalova, Walter Mbamy, Tatiana Satchivi, and Serge Ekazama.
Please invite your friends to subscribe to Mongabay Explores wherever they get podcasts. If you enjoy our podcast content, please visit www.patreon.com/mongabay to pledge a dollar or more to keep the show growing, Mongabay is a nonprofit media outlet and all support helps!
See all our latest news from nature's frontline at Mongabay's homepage: news.mongabay.com or find us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and TikTok by searching for Mongabay.
Feedback is always welcome: submissions@mongabay.com.
The South American nation of Guyana, whose economy has traditionally relied on tourism, agriculture, and fishing, has begun doing business with oil giant ExxonMobil to build a massive offshore oil drilling project along its coast.
The president has argued that the profits could pay for the nation's clean energy transition, while others argue that the nation's traditional economic models, biodiversity, and coastal population are at risk of severe environmental impacts from the project.
Award-winning journalist and podcast producer Amy Westervelt joins the Mongabay Newscast to share details of the situation, which is the focus of the 8th season of her acclaimed podcast series Drilled, and she opines about the power of podcasting and the current state of the global effort to tackle climate change:
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Related Reading:
See all our latest news from nature's frontline at Mongabay's homepage: news.mongabay.com or find and follow Mongabay on all the social media platforms.
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Image: Series artwork for "Drilled" Season 8 by Matt Fleming.
Recent breeding success at a nature reserve in South Africa has given conservationists hope for the survival of Africa's only resident penguin species, whose population has dropped by nearly 65% since 1989.
Researchers are having success boosting breeding colonies near abundant food sources with the help of simple interventions like building nest boxes that mimic their guano burrows which keep the birds cool and safe in a world whose climate is becoming hotter and less predictable.
Listen to the popular article from Ryan Truscott here:
Breeding success raises hopes for future of endangered African penguin
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Image caption: African penguin. Image by Alberto Ziveri via Flickr (BY-SA 2.0)
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Conservation technology is a rapidly growing field with exciting potential. From eDNA to bioacoustics and AI, there's a lot to keep track of in an ever-changing environment.
Here to discuss it on the Newscast this week is new Mongabay staff writer Abhishyant "Abhi" Kidangoor who's joined our newsroom to focus on this quickly growing field: he shares details of his current conservation tech reporting projects and ones our readers can look forward to in the future.
Related reading:
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Image caption: Conservation technology and wildlife manager, Eleanor Flatt, installs a GSM camera trap in the Costa Rican forests protected and managed by Osa Conservation. Image by Marco Molina.
More than 15 years in the making, the United Nations has finally reached an agreement on a landmark, legally binding treaty to protect international waters, where a myriad of wildlife big and small live.
Why did it take so long, and what happens next?
Hear all about it by listening to this audio reading of the popular article by Elizabeth Fitt:
As U.N. members clinch historic high seas biodiversity treaty, what’s in it?
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Image caption: A humpback whale in Antarctica. Image by Christopher Michel via Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0).
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The American approach to food production is negatively impacting the environment and depleting natural resources like topsoil and groundwater at an alarming rate. Top agriculture author, journalist, and Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future research associate Tom Philpott highlights these problems on this episode first by discussing two regions where such impacts are acutely felt, the Central Valley of California and the Great Plains, and then explains how these problems are spreading to the rest of the globe.
But the author of Perilous Bounty: The Looming Collapse of American Farming and How We Can Prevent It, Philpott also says there's hope via sustainable practices like agroecology and agroforestry, new land tenure models, and more.
A former food reporter and editor for Mother Jones and Grist, he discusses steps that can be taken to reform our food systems for a healthier and more sustainable future at this moment as a new growing season is about to begin in the Northern Hemisphere.
“We don’t have to have an agriculture that consumes the very ecologies that make it possible, and leads to this catastrophic loss of species that we’re in the middle of right now,” our guest says.
Related reading:
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Image caption: Corn is a common food and fodder crop of the Great Plains, and has also long been used to make ethanol. But its most common cultivation methods lead to massive soil erosion, pollution of waterways, and heavy use of chemical herbicides and pesticides. Image courtesy of Tyler Lark.
In 2022, the population of western monarch butterflies reached its highest number in decades, 335,000, according to the annual Western Monarch Count in California and Arizona, marking the second year in a row for a positive tally of the species numbers.
While that count is celebrated by conservationists, they also point to the need to protect monarchs' overwintering sites in North America, which continue to suffer degradation and destruction each year.
Read the popular article by Liz Kimbrough here: Western monarch populations reach highest number in decades
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Image caption: A monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus). Image by John Banks via Pexels (Public domain).
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This week, National Geographic photographer Kiliii Yuyan joins the show to discuss his visits to five Indigenous communities and the value of traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) for protecting the world’s biodiversity, which is the subject of his new project, "The Guardians of Life: Indigenous Stewards of Living Earth."
An effort in collaboration with previous guest Gleb Raygorodetsky and with support from the National Geographic Society and the Amazon Climate Pledge, the project takes Yuyan to five different Indigenous communities across the world.
Yuyan shares insights on the TEK of the Indigenous communities he’s visited and his own reflections as a person with Indigenous ancestry doing this work, plus what he wishes more journalists would do when sharing the stories and unique knowledge of Indigenous communities.
Related reading:
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Image Caption: Larry Lucas Kaleak listens to the sounds of passing whales and bearded seals through a skinboat paddle in the water. Image (c) Kiliii Yuyan.
As the world pursues reforestation on an expanding scale, a recurring question is: how do we pay for it? One emerging solution is to grow and harvest timber on the same land where reforestation is happening, as exemplified in Brazil's Atlantic Forest. Another approach is to grow timber trees and natural forests on separate plots of land, with a portion of the profits from timber harvests supporting the reforestation.
However, some experts worry that relying too much on timber revenues could harm ecosystems and existing forests, resulting in additional harvesting. Can we balance the need for funding with the need to preserve native ecosystems?
On this episode, listen to the popular Mongabay article by Gianluca Cerullo that discusses all this: Dollars and chainsaws: Can timber production help fund global reforestation?
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Image caption: Native regeneration under 50% dead standing eucalyptus trees in Brazil’s Atlantic Forest. Image courtesy of Paulo Guilherme Molin/Federal University of São Carlos.
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Modern society is constantly crafting mega solutions to problems it has created, many of which come with even more problems, and no guarantee of solving the issue, long term.
Whether it's injecting reflective aerosols into the atmosphere to combat climate change (literally turning the sky white), or gene-editing invasive species, “we seem incapable of stopping ourselves,” argues journalist and Pulitzer-prize winning author Elizabeth Kolbert.
She joins the Mongabay Newscast to talk about her latest book, “Under a White Sky: The Nature of the Future,” which explores many of these machinations in detail and why she urges readers to be skeptical of them.
Related reading:
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Image: The cane toad (Rhinella marina). Native to South and Central America, the toxic species was deliberately introduced in Queensland, Australia, in 1935 and today it is considered an invasive pest, poisoning native fauna. Image by Paul Williams/Iron Ammonite Photography. Creative Commons (CC BY-NC 2.0).
In a national park in southern Malawi, the reintroduction of cheetahs (and lions) is bringing four critically endangered vulture species back to the skies, after a 20-year absence: the big cats' kill sites have increased the food supply, encouraging the birds to return in a conservation 'win-win.'
A project of African Parks and the Endangered Wildlife Trust begun in 2017, the team has since observed tagged vultures in parks outside Malawi, too.
Read or share this popular article by Ryan Truscott here:
Cheetah reintroduction in Malawi brings vultures back to the skies
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Photo Credit: A cheetah. Image by Rhett Butler for Mongabay.
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