In mid-April, the government of Thai Binh province on Vietnam’s north-central coast quietly issued a decision that has since spawned growing controversy. The decision removed protection from almost 90% of…
CONCEPCION, Philippines — The skies were overcast but intense heat from the sun permeated the salty air one June afternoon on Bagongon, a central Philippines island. As the tide receded,…
In a heartening turn of events, the world's largest mangrove forest, the Sundarbans, which spans the southwest border of Bangladesh, is seeing promising signs of recovery for the iconic Bengal…
It’s long been known that many people depend on the world’s single largest mangrove forest, the Sundarbans, for their livelihoods, as the forest naturally provides resources including fish, crabs, honey…
DHAKA — Abdus Sobur is a small fisherman with a simple formula for success: “Catch those mud crabs, both male and female, and sell them to the local dealer at…
This Saturday is International Youth Day, established by the U.N. in 1999. With a different theme every year, this year celebrates youth worldwide developing the "green skills" needed to shift…
Guanabara Bay, the historic gateway to Rio de Janeiro, is both a UNESCO World Heritage Site and one of the most polluted coastal ecosystems in the world. It sees 18,000…
Mangroves’ capacity to store carbon — up to five times more than upland tropical forests — makes them a powerful natural solution for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and tackling climate…
POHUWATO, Indonesia — The world's largest collective of seafaring nomads has sailed the waters off Sulawesi Island and farther afield for centuries, forging a cultural legacy that inspired even James…
The Parcel de Manuel Luís coral reef, off the coast of northeastern Brazil, is vital for the survival of 53 species at risk of extinction. Despite vetoes from Brazil’s environmental regulator, the local government seeks to give the go-ahead to oil drilling projects in the Pará-Maranhão basin.
GORONTALO, Indonesia — Marine and fisheries activists in Indonesia are ramping up their calls for the revocation of a new government regulation allowing the export of sea sand, saying the…
Element Africa is Mongabay’s bi-weekly bulletin of brief stories from the extractives industry in Africa.
KOLAKA, Indonesia — Ansal grabbed a makeshift raincoat, an empty rice sack, and ran home as the rain began to pound the fields of Pomalaa. A few hours later, after…
When Hurricane Dorian blazed its trail of destruction through the Bahamas in 2019, it ravaged the country’s mangroves. Almost overnight, coastal communities were deprived of a natural barrier that protected…
JAKARTA — Environmental activists and marine experts have criticized the Indonesian government’s decision to lift a 20-year-old ban on exporting sea sand, saying the policy will exacerbate ecological damage for…
DHAKA — Authorities in Bangladesh have decided to install nylon net fencing in the Sundarbans, the world’s largest mangrove forest, to tackle human-tiger conflicts and protect both communities and the…
One of Bangladesh’s two Ramsar sites, wetlands of international importance, is slowly losing some of the waterbirds that seek respite at this key migratory pit stop, a new study says.…
PRIETO DIAZ, Philippines — Working quietly before a bucket of rabbitfish, known locally as danggit, two women precisely cut open each fish with square knives, gutting and deboning before repeating…
JAKARTA — The ongoing development of Indonesia’s new capital city, Nusantara, in eastern Borneo has raised alarm bells among environmentalists and human rights defenders around the world as the region…
In the village of Costa de San Juan, mangroves still dominate the landscape. Located on the shores of the Alvarado Lagoon System in Mexico, village homes sit on the edge…
State-owned Petrobras has requested a license to investigate an oil site in a region in the north of Brazil where the Amazon River meets the Atlantic Ocean.
BALIKPAPAN/JAKARTA — A clearing for the ramp to a new toll road in the Indonesian Bornean city of Balikpapan gapes open on the side of a paved highway as big…
In 2021, Gabon’s space research agency, AGEOS, concluded that the country’s capital, Libreville, had lost nearly 70 hectares (170 acres) of mangroves in three years. That’s an area about a…
(Baca dalam Bahasa Indonesia.) In 2020, the Indonesian government set a goal of restoring 600,000 hectares, or nearly 1.5 million acres, of mangrove ecosystems by 2024. Progress toward that goal…
SEPAKU/BALIKPAPAN/JAKARTA, Indonesia — In 1977, when Darna was about 8 years old, her family moved from Indonesia’s central island of Java to Borneo, its largest. They were among the tens…
CẦN GIỜ DISTRICT, Vietnam— At night, waves crash into the rocky barricades running along the coast of Cần Giờ, a refuge of mangroves and beaches in the southernmost reaches of…
Ocean Revolution Mozambique (ORM) was one of the winners of the United Nations Development Programme’s (UNDP) Equator Prize for 2022, awarded to recognize community-led efforts in conservation and sustainability that…
DHAKA — As Bangladesh authorities prepare to declare the country’s largest freshwater wetland a Ramsar site, its two other designated wetlands of international importance, including the Sundarbans, continue to come…
SICANANG, Indonesia — In October 2019, the Sicanang Mangrove Forest ecotourism project launched as a mangrove tourism destination. At its launch, the project, in Sicanang village on the outskirts of…
KILIFI, Kenya — An incident in Kelly Roberts Banda’s childhood set him on the path of climate advocacy. Although Banda did not realize it at the time, what appeared then…
