New Future

The recent advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice on states’ obligations regarding climate change was celebrated globally for providing clarity on countries’ legal obligation to prevent climate harm, but was also appreciated by island nations for its additional certainty on their maritime boundaries remaining intact regardless of sea level rise.

“Never, ever say anything negative about an elephant or a gorilla. Elephants may attack people’s property, destroy their crops, and even kill them. Always take the side of the elephant. Big cats have public-school accents. Hyenas are fair game and have vaguely Middle Eastern accents.

ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — African leaders met Monday in the Ethiopian capital for the second Africa Climate Summit, where they proposed a new way of thinking about climate adaptation funding and called for the continent to be viewed not as a victim, but as an investment opportunity.

In the rainforest, much of life dwells in the tree canopy. But getting up there to study it isn’t easy. By the time a human has clumsily lumbered up from the ground, most of the critters have scattered.

In May, Indonesia’s state-owned electricity monopoly, PLN, vowed to increase its complement of natural gas power plants as part of a gambit, it said, to make its power supply cleaner and more reliable.

When the going gets tough, the tough get going — but for people in the Itasin-Imobi community, the going has been tough for far too long. Situated in the midst of Ogun state, Nigeria, this quiet fishing and agrarian community has been facing challenges that have tested its resilience to the limit.

ADDIS ABABA — African leaders attending the Africa Climate Summit in Addis Ababa this week have called for a new global partnership that treats the continent as an engine of climate solutions rather than a recipient of aid. Summit host and Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed set the tone at the opening on Sept.

FORT BRAGG, U. S. — In 2024, I was scuba diving in Northern California’s Casper Cove where the Watermen’s Alliance, a group of ex-abalone sports divers, has been culling purple urchins since 2020. It had been six years since abalone season shut down, following the region’s kelp forest collapse.

Alberto Franco* has long lost count of how many times he has had to hide in the forest until the gunfire dies down. The southern Colombian forest where he grew up has been a battlefield for decades. Over the last few years, armed groups have robbed his people of their freedom.

A land dispute between residents of a Cameroonian village and a major palm oil company remains unresolved despite protests and requests for meetings with authorities, NGOs and community members say.

An ongoing outbreak of yellow fever in Colombia is sickening and killing rare and threatened monkey species in captivity, a new study shows. Between February and May 2025, authorities reported eight deaths among four monkey species in southern Colombia’s Putumayo department, researchers note.

Founder’s Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries. At Chester Zoo in the U. K. , eight downy chicks have emerged this year — an encouraging development for a bird thought lost to history, reports Mongabay’s Liz Kimbrough.

JAKARTA — Global calls are mounting for RV companies in the U. S. to change their policies following new revelations that some of America’s best-selling RVs are built with plywood from the destruction of orangutan habitat in Indonesian Borneo.

KAKAMEGA, Kenya — Tropical rainforest once extended east from the Congo Basin into what is now western Kenya. That’s almost all gone now, though there are still plenty of trees to be seen around Turbo township, in Kakamega county.