New Future

The daily destruction of nature’s carbon stores is happening right before our eyes, as forests are ravaged by catastrophic wildfires and vast tracts of wildlands are cleared for agriculture. But even greater stores of carbon lie hidden beneath our feet, and they too are under threat.

The Białowieża Forest is unparalleled in the world. It harbors the best-preserved fragments of lowland deciduous and mixed forests in the European Lowlands, where natural processes, including all stages of forest ecosystem dynamics, unfold undisturbed by human interference over vast areas.

The impact of human beings on different ecosystems is huge. Throughout our history, we have changed ecosystems in ways that have led to biodiversity loss, increased the chances of natural disasters such as fires or disconnected humankind from nature.

Bangladesh’s northeastern corner, as shown on Google Maps, features irregular green patches: pale green swaths and smaller deep green pockets. In or around each deep green area lies a Khasi village, or punjee, with tin-roofed cottages on hillocks, indicating homes to one of Bangladesh’s Indigenous communities.

Francis’s gorgeous sapphire — a new-to-science species of butterfly — has just been described in the high-altitude evergreen forests of western Angola.

Wealth inequality is a primary culprit behind the ecological and environmental collapse of societies over the past 12,000 years, which have come to be dominated by a small circle of elites hoarding resources like land, research shows.

For decades the world’s largest rainforest has been getting drier. A new study published in Nature Communications disentangles how much of this shift can be blamed on humanity’s warming of the planet and how much on the felling of trees within the Amazon itself. The answer: More than many had expected.

In nature, many organisms glow in the dark, including lightning bugs, some squid and jellyfish, using light to attract a mate or lure prey. Now, researchers have engineered glowing succulents, plants that recharge in sunlight and shine bright at night, an early step toward living, energy-free light sources.

Camera-trap images from a section of Kafue National Park in Zambia show conservation efforts are paying off: Populations of leopards, wild dogs and lions are all growing, Mongabay contributor Ryan Truscott reported in July. Truscott interviewed Chisomo M’hango, trainee field ecologist at Musekese Conservation , a nonprofit monitoring wildlife in the Musekese-Lumbeya section of the park.

Researchers have developed the first model to map how supply and demand interact in Indonesia’s highly lucrative songbird trade, revealing patterns that could help curb poaching pressure on rare and threatened species.

In 1973, researchers scientifically described a species of shark based on a single specimen: a pregnant female caught a few years earlier by a fisherman near the mouth of the Gogol River in Astrolabe Bay, Papua New Guinea. They named this new-to-science species the sailback houndshark .

Founder’s Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries. Ecuador’s Antisana páramo, southeast of Quito, offers a striking example of ecological restoration, turning back the clock on centuries of degradation caused by livestock grazing, reports contributor Ana Cristina Alvarado for Mongabay.

BENGKULU, Indonesia — Yesi held her daughter Helda tightly, but the little one still shivered for days in the tropical heat over Teluk Sepang, a bay on Sumatra’s west coast. “Her cough hasn’t stopped for 10 days now, ” Yesi told Mongabay Indonesia. “I feel so sorry for her.

Rainforests have long played a central role in Liberia. Home to hundreds of thousands of people, they’re a source of sustenance, a site for cultural practice and habitat for forest elephants, western chimpanzees, and pygmy hippos.