Islands News

MAKASSAR, Indonesia — Daeng Bau says he has no plans to move from his home on the tiny island of Lae-Lae, a stone’s throw across the seafront here in Makassar,…

Seven years ago, Redonda, a volcanic island in the Caribbean Sea, resembled the moon's surface: a dusty, debris-covered, barren terrain. The island, which is part of Antigua and Barbuda, had…

PALEMBANG, Indonesia — In February 1965, President Sukarno, flanked by aides and a photographer, unlocked the door to Indonesia’s first experimental nuclear reactor, the TRIGA Mark II, in the city…

CAPE TOWN — Evidence of mice attacking albatross chicks on Marion Island, midway between South Africa and Antarctica, makes for grim viewing. One video, captured at a colony of endangered…

A recent study found that locally managed marine areas in Fiji strengthened the mechanisms believed to advance conservation efforts but ultimately led to few social, economic or even ecological benefits.…

ARU ISLANDS, Indonesia — More than 10 years have passed since a young official in Indonesia’s eastern Aru Islands saved his archipelago from becoming a monoculture plantation. Today, Mika Ganobal…

Mayra Parra presses play on her laptop, and the video on the screen comes to life for the Perez family in the town of Abriaquí, Colombia. As a spectacled bear…

JAKARTA — The Indonesian government is considering applying an international treaty to fight illegal fishing at more ports across the country, to gain better oversight of the all-important fishing industry.…

How do you make people care about protecting marine habitats and wildlife? You tell stories, says Enric Sala, an explorer-in-residence and founder of the Pristine Seas project at the National…

In 2007, an NGO began linking up forest fragments in Brazil’s most at-risk biome. Today, Saving Nature has forest corridor projects underway on three continents. Part three of a three-part Mongabay mini-series on island habitat restoration.

In 2002, a couple vacationing in Costa Rica, stunned by deforestation there, bought land and regrew a transitional cloud forest — a grassroots model worth emulating: Part two of a three-part Mongabay mini-series on island habitat restoration.

Two musical instrument makers wanted to save Hawai‘i’s rare koa tree. In the process, they restored a tropical forest on the slopes of the Big Island’s Mauna Loa volcano. Part one of a three-part Mongabay mini-series on island habitat restoration.

It’s often been said that big cats don’t like water — but this mythological thinking isn’t entirely accurate. New research provides evidence that some male cougars (Puma concolor), or pumas,…

The Philippine eagle, the archipelagic nation's iconic, endemic apex predator, has been declared threatened with extinction for nearly three decades. Yet despite its status as the national bird, little is…

After 24 years of eluding ornithologists, a small, ground-hopping songbird known only from the tropical forests of northeastern Madagascar has been spotted by researchers once again. The dusky tetraka (Xanthomixis…

SAMAL ISLAND, Philippines — Its official name, the Island Garden City of Samal, tells you all you need to know about this bucolic township off the coast of the southern…

The Peruvian diving petrel is a tiny, thrush-sized seabird that spends more time in the water than in the air. True to its name, it plunges into the chilly waters…

In 2009, a group of Indonesian researchers published a report on the vulnerability to climate change of the eastern Indonesian island of Lombok, home to about 4 million people. Their…

Damselfish can be fastidious farmers. They prune and cultivate small patches of algae, often no more than half a square meter (5 square feet) in area, ensuring they have a…

Stuart Sandin’s first impression of Palmyra Atoll, a remote island in the central Pacific Ocean, during a visit in 2004, was troubled. There were seabirds, but their presence was fragmented,…

JAKARTA — Much of the mangroves, seagrass beds and coral reefs in Indonesia lie outside protected areas, which could thwart efforts at effective marine conservation, a new report shows. Indonesia…

A resplendent rainbow fish, a frog that looks like chocolate, a Thai tarantula,  an anemone that rides on a back of a hermit crab, and the world's largest waterlily are…

KOH S’DACH, Cambodia — Bristling with coral reefs, marine life and palm trees, the islands dotting Cambodia’s western and southwestern coasts have long lured tourists and investors alike with white…

MAKASSAR, Indonesia — At the end of September, fishermen on Sapuka Island in eastern Indonesia’s Flores Sea made a surprising announcement. They would regulate their sea cucumber harvests, they declared,…

In a nation besieged by poverty, deforestation, cholera, lawlessness and climate change, a Haitian conservation coalition joins with communities to reforest and protect one of the nation’s last best biodiversity hotspots.

The black-and-white motion-triggered video looks like an outtake from a cheap horror movie: A handful of rats circle a smooth, platter-sized mound of sand. Suddenly a sea turtle hatchling appears,…

MINDANAO, Philippines – In the wake of deadly floods and landslides caused by Typhoon Nalgae last month, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos Jr. has ordered tree planting be included in flood…

A group of researchers have identified several new species of sunbirds, whose range spans from Africa in the west and Australia in the east, in the tropical Wakatobi Islands in…

Plants on the remote island of St. Helena in the South Atlantic evolved for many centuries in isolation, only to be devastated when human colonizers arrived. Today, rare native tree and shrub species are being restored here.

Over the past two decades, fewer vessels have trawled the South Pacific’s high seas. Companies from only one country have kept at it, an island nation with a green reputation:…