Deforestation is surging in Indonesia

worldrfnews on April 9, 2026

Indonesia’s forests, long held up as a case of tentative progress, are again under pressure. New analysis shows deforestation rose sharply in 2025, reversing several years of decline and returning to levels not seen in nearly a decade, reports Hans Nicholas Jong.

Auriga Nusantara, an Indonesian NGO, estimates that more than 430,000 hectares were cleared last year, a jump of 66% from 2024. The increase follows a period when forest loss had fallen steadily, reaching a low in 2021 after a series of policy interventions and tighter oversight. Since then, losses have climbed each year, with 2025 marking a clear break from the earlier trend.

The shift is notable in a global context. In Brazil, enforcement has pushed Amazon deforestation down for three consecutive years. Indonesia is now moving in the opposite direction, with the possibility of becoming the largest tropical deforester if current patterns hold.

Policy choices help explain the change. Regulatory easing during the later years of Joko Widodo’s presidency reduced some environmental safeguards. Large-scale habitat conversion programs, including food estate projects and industrial expansion, have opened forested land. The current administration has continued many of these priorities, with land allocated for agriculture, energy and infrastructure often overlapping with intact forest.

The geography of loss is also changing. Papua, home to some of Indonesia’s most extensive remaining forests, recorded a sharp increase in clearing. Areas once considered relatively insulated are coming under greater pressure as expansion moves eastward.

Industrial activity remains central. Nearly half of the deforestation occurred within licensed concessions, linking forest loss to mining, timber and oil palm. Demand for nickel, driven by electric vehicle supply chains, has extended roads and extraction into previously undisturbed areas.

The consequences extend beyond land use. Indonesia’s climate targets depend on turning its forestry sector into a net carbon sink. Rising deforestation makes that goal harder to reach. Even in years with lower clearing, emissions reductions have not met targets.

Officials say safeguards remain in place and point to differences in how forest loss is measured. Researchers disagree on the figures, but the direction is consistent. The balance between conversion and protection is shifting again.

Simple rope bridges offer lifelines for tree-dwelling animals

worldrfnews on March 8, 2026

Across the Amazon, roads and power lines cut through forest that once stretched unbroken for hundreds of kilometers. The resulting fragments pose serious challenges for wildlife. Many species survive by moving through the canopy, yet the gaps created by infrastructure force them to descend to the ground or prevent them from moving between trees. Mortality from vehicle strikes is one risk. Isolation may prove the more consequential one, gradually eroding the genetic health of populations.

Researchers are exploring relatively simple ways to restore some of that lost connectivity, reports Luís Patriani. 

In Peru’s Napo-Sucusari Biological Reserve, near the city of Iquitos, two biologists from the State University of New York at Binghamton installed a series of experimental canopy bridges. Nets, ropes and small platforms were suspended between treetops, forming corridors that allow animals to move from one tree to another.

Camera traps recorded the results over several weeks. Sloths, saki monkeys and an Amazonian long-tailed porcupine used the structures, offering a glimpse of how arboreal mammals respond when given a path across the canopy. Such observations may seem modest. For conservation planners, however, they provide useful information about how animals move and which bridge designs they will use.

Elsewhere in South America, similar efforts are being tested along highways. In Brazil’s Atlantic Forest, researchers have linked trees with simple rope crossings where primates had been killed attempting to cross roads. Within days, monkeys were using them.

The structures are straightforward and inexpensive. Their value lies in what they restore: the ability for animals to move through forests that infrastructure increasingly divides.

The story: https://news.mongabay.com/2026/03/across-south-america-canopy-bridges-evolve-as-a-lifeline-for-tree-dwelling-wildlife/

Header image: Howler monkeys using an artificial bridge at Fontes do Ipiranga State Park in São Paulo. Image courtesy of the São Paulo State Secretariat of Infrastructure and Environment (SEMIL).

Can deforestation be halted in the Congo?

worldrfnews on February 22, 2026

The Congo Basin has become a familiar setting for large pledges and thin follow-through. It is home to the world’s second-largest tropical rainforest, spans several Central African countries, and underpins the livelihoods of tens of millions of people. It is also chronically underfunded, politically fragmented, and increasingly exposed to mining, small-scale agriculture, and energy scarcity. A $2.5 billion pledge announced last November at the COP30 climate conference aims to change that pattern. Whether it does will depend on how it is implemented.

The pledge, known as the Belém Call to Action for the Congo Basin Forests, was the focus of a recent Land Dialogues webinar that brought together policymakers, civil-society leaders, and donor representatives. For several participants, it was their first public discussion of how the money might move from paper commitments to practical interventions, reports Latoya Abulu.

Much of the debate centered on land tenure and direct access to finance for Indigenous peoples and local communities. Joseph Itongwa, a regional Indigenous leader, argued that conservation outcomes depend on whether those who live in forests can secure rights and livelihoods.

“There is an interdependence between biological diversity and cultural diversity,” he said, adding that Indigenous peoples already play a central role in maintaining forest ecosystems. The problem, he noted, is not a lack of capacity but a lack of access: bureaucratic barriers and donor priorities often prevent communities from receiving funds directly.

Others echoed that concern. Simon Hopkins of the Central African Forest Initiative said that “more funding must be directed to protecting standing forests,” and that traditional aid budgets, largely from the Global North, are unlikely to be sufficient. Expanding the pool of contributors to include multilateral institutions and nontraditional sovereign funders will be necessary if the pledge is to scale.

Implementation risks loom large. Civil-society representatives warned that past commitments have stalled because of opaque financing, weak coordination, and fragile regional institutions. Clear governance structures and traceable funding channels, they argued, are essential if the call to action is not to join a long list of unmet promises.

The urgency is clear. According to Global Forest Watch, the Democratic Republic of Congo lost 590,000 hectares of forest in 2024, the highest level on record. The question now is whether the Belém pledge can move faster than the forces driving that loss.

What’s next for the major pledge to halt & reverse Congo Basin deforestation?

Suriname looks to cancel a deal to clear a vast tract of the Amazon rainforest

worldrfnews on February 13, 2026

Suriname’s government is seeking to unwind a contentious agribusiness contract that could lead to the clearance of more than 100,000 hectares of Amazon rainforest, raising questions about the country’s environmental governance and its prized carbon-negative status.

In 2024 the agriculture ministry entered a public-private partnership with Suriname Green Energy Agriculture N.V. to develop 113,465 hectares of forest in the northwestern district of Nickerie. Although large-scale development did not begin immediately, officials say the legal framework remained in force, allowing clearing to start in recent months. The project area largely overlaps with logging concessions governed by sustainability rules intended to safeguard primary forest.

Environmental concerns extend beyond Suriname’s borders. “This is not just a local issue. This is a regional issue because of the role rainforests play on the continent,” John Goedschalk, a climate adviser to the president, told Mongabay’s Max Radwin. He warned that “the continued deforestation in the Guiana Shield endangers access to water for people all the way to Argentina.”

Internal government emails reviewed by Mongabay suggest the company began clearing without permits from the National Environmental Authority. Officials are now examining whether this procedural lapse could provide grounds to terminate the contract. “We might be able to cancel this contract just on that basis,” Mr. Goedschalk said.

The episode reflects broader tensions over economic development and conservation in a country where forests cover about 93% of the territory. Previous efforts to expand industrial agriculture, including proposals to allocate land to Mennonite farmers, have met public resistance. Critics argue that weak coordination between agencies and unclear oversight have compounded uncertainty. “Nobody knows what is happening,” said Erlan Sleur, president of the environmental group ProBios.

For a nation that has long promoted its environmental credentials, the outcome may carry lasting economic and political consequences.

Widespread protests push Ghana to close its forest reserves to gold mining

worldrfnews on February 10, 2026

In December 2025 Ghana reversed a law that, in Daryl Bosu’s view, should never have been passed. The Environmental Protection (Mining in Forest Reserves) Regulations of 2022 had opened nearly 90% of the country’s forest reserves to mining, including areas of global ecological importance. Bosu argues that the repeal marked a rare moment when public pressure forced a decisive course correction.

Ghana’s forests, he notes, cover more than 9 million hectares and underpin water supplies, local climates, and rural livelihoods. Yet the country has become one of the world’s leading hotspots for mining-related deforestation. Industrial mining is the main driver, and the 2022 regulations accelerated the damage by allowing permits at scale while illegal mining continued largely unchecked.

Much of the harm, Bosu says, comes from galamsey, illegal small-scale mining that has long operated at the margins of forest reserves. Before 2022, companies were kept out by law, even if enforcement was weak. The surge in global gold prices changed that balance. With deposits lying beneath protected forests, the government argued that extraction would boost revenues. What followed, according to Bosu, was an “unprecedented attack” on forests, including incursions by politically connected firms.

Opposition to the law spread well beyond environmental groups. Trade unions, faith institutions, civil-society organizations, and public figures joined protests, petitions, and strikes. In October 2024 dozens of demonstrators were detained. Bosu describes it as the first time he had seen collective action in Ghana coalesce around such a specific environmental demand.

The repeal, passed swiftly after a change of government, is only a starting point, he argues. New proposals, including a gold-traceability system and a national forest-protection strategy, will test whether Ghana can curb mining damage while ensuring benefits reach local communities. The victory, in his telling, has opened a narrow but real path forward.

Bolivia’s conservation push shifts to the local level

worldrfnews on February 9, 2026

Bolivia is adding land to its protected estate at a moment when forest loss is accelerating. Over the past several months, local governments and Indigenous communities have created four new protected areas totaling just over 900,000 hectares, stretching from Amazonian lowlands to Andean foothills. The scale is notable. So is the way it has been done, reports Max Radwin.

The new areas were planned and approved at the municipal level, often linking Indigenous territories with existing national parks. The aim is practical: to keep forests intact across larger landscapes so wildlife can move, rivers remain functional, and rural economies based on standing forest can endure. In several cases, municipalities have placed more than half of their territory under some form of protection.

That local initiative contrasts with national trends. Bolivia expanded its national protected areas aggressively in the early 2000s, but momentum slowed. In the past five years only two national parks have been created or upgraded. Meanwhile deforestation has surged, driven by agriculture, cattle ranching, mining, and fire. In 2025 the country lost 1.8m hectares of tree cover, according to satellite data.

Against that backdrop, municipalities have begun acting on their own. In Pando, along the Brazilian border, residents of Santos Mercado created the Guardián Amazónico Pacahuara Integrated Natural Management Area, protecting more than 540,000 hectares. Mining and logging had begun to affect water supplies and Brazil-nut harvests, the backbone of the local economy.

“That’s where the initiative was born,” said Ericka Cortez, president of the municipal council. “The concern to conserve the environment, to conserve our Amazon, our forest and more than anything: the beauty of our Brazil nut.”

Other areas respond to similar pressures. In La Paz department, Indigenous Mosetén communities backed a new municipal park to protect watersheds needed for cacao and coffee. Elsewhere, new reserves are intended to curb illegal gold mining and connect established parks through migration corridors.

Support from conservation groups and international donors helped turn local plans into legal designations. Long-term management will be harder. Municipal governments have limited budgets and enforcement capacity. Sustaining these areas will depend on outside financing and on whether forest-based livelihoods can reliably outcompete clearing land.

A tiny orange has been discovered in Brazil. It is named after Lula.

worldrfnews on December 23, 2025

In the leaf litter of Brazil’s Atlantic Forest, scientists have added another name to a genus that seems determined to rewrite its own census. A pinky-nail-sized frog, bright orange and barely a centimeter long, has been described as a species new to science. It has been christened Brachycephalus lulai, after Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva.

The frog belongs to a group sometimes called flea toads, a lineage notable for its extremely small size and for the pace at which new species are being discovered. Of the 42 known Brachycephalus species, most have been described this century, often from single mountaintops or narrow bands of forest. The latest addition was found at two nearby sites in the Serra do Quiriri in southern Brazil, concealed among damp leaves in montane cloud forest.

Researchers confirmed its novelty by comparing DNA, body form, and its distinctive mating call with those of close relatives. Males are under 12 millimeters long; females slightly larger. For now, the species appears secure. “The new species occurs in highly preserved forests that are very difficult to access, which means it is not threatened with extinction,” Marcos R. Bornschein, one of the study’s authors, told Popular Science.

That reassurance comes with caveats. Elsewhere in the same mountain range, grassland burning, grazing, mining, and invasive pines are eroding habitats that host other, more vulnerable frogs. Climate change also could affect its niche habitat.

B. lulai underscores how incomplete scientific inventories remain, even in forests long assumed to be well mapped. In the Atlantic Forest, it turns out, there is still room for small discoveries.

Small cat conservationists welcome Uganda’s new national park

worldrfnews on December 20, 2025

Uganda’s decision to elevate Echuya Forest to national-park status have given one of Africa’s most elusive predators a better chance at survival, reports Sean Mowbray.

The African golden cat survives by staying unseen. That strategy has failed it. In forest reserves, snares set for bushmeat and steady habitat degradation have taken a significant toll. Camera traps tell the story. In nearby Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, a golden cat appears within days. In Echuya, it took months.

“Having Echuya elevated to that level of protection is massive,” says Badru Mugerwa, founder and director of Embaka, who has spent years documenting the decline. “Protected areas, especially national parks, remain the strongholds.”

The upgrade matters beyond one species. Echuya’s montane forest shelters endemic birds and primates, and it sits in a region where ecological margins are thin. Uganda’s broader decision to add six national parks signals a bet that protection still works.

It also raises familiar tensions. Communities depend on the forest for livelihoods, and some worry about new restrictions or relocated wildlife. Uganda’s answer has been to pair protection with revenue sharing and negotiated access, borrowing lessons from elsewhere.

National-park status is not a cure. Enforcement, trust, and time will decide the outcome. But for a cat being pushed toward extinction by invisibility, attention is a start—and sometimes that is enough to change the trajectory.

Indonesia’s first attempt to move a Javan rhino ended in failure.

worldrfnews on December 19, 2025

Musofa, a mature male captured in early November as part of a long-planned genetic-management effort, died four days after arriving at the Javan Rhino Study and Conservation Area. Park officials said he received round-the-clock veterinary care. A necropsy later showed he had been living with severe parasitic disease, chronic malnutrition and age-related organ decline. Those conditions would have been difficult to detect in the field. They also made him far less able to withstand the stress of capture and transport.

Experts have asked why his condition deteriorated so quickly. John Payne, a veteran rhino conservationist, told Mongabay’s Basten Gokkon that animals with heavy parasite loads can often cope in familiar surroundings, but that in Musofa’s case, the strain appears to have overwhelmed whatever reserves he had left.

For a species pushed to the brink by poaching and hemmed into a single park, the loss is more than symbolic. Yet the response has not been paralysis. Officials say the failure will sharpen disease screening, surveillance and planning. Conservationists insist the work must continue. They have brought the Javan rhino back before, and they say it can be done again.

Congo Basin nations to pay communities for protecting forests

worldrfnews on December 1, 2025

Last month Congo Basin governments used the COP30 summit in Belém to unveil a payments-for-environmental-services scheme meant to shift incentives for communities that rely on forests. The plan, backed by the Central African Forest Initiative, sends money directly to farmers and other participants through a mobile app. Payments are tied to verified tasks such as agroforestry, reforestation, forest regeneration, conservation work, and deforestation-free agriculture, reports Anne Nzouankeu.

Officials say the system has moved beyond the experimental stage. “Hundreds of farmers are already under contract and the first direct mobile payments based on performance were successfully made this month, confirming the efficiency and fairness of the system,” Kirsten Schuijt, director-general of WWF International, told Nzouankeu. Pilot efforts in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Republic of the Congo now cover nearly 3,000 hectares and involve about 10,000 people. In Gabon, 15 villages are slated to sign conservation contracts next year that will apply to roughly 50,000 hectares.

To expand the model, CAFI has pledged another $100 million, in addition to the $25 million already committed. Whether that funding translates into durable results will depend on execution. Roger Pholo Mvumbi, who leads a DRC civil-society platform focused on food security, argues that precision matters. “The deployment of Payments for Environmental Services is a fine initiative, on the sole condition that the real producer is formally identified,” he said. Without that, benefits could drift away from those doing the work.

The urgency is clear. The Congo Basin lost more than 35 million hectares of forest between 1990 and 2020, with clearing driven by farming, fuelwood demand, logging and mining. Pholo sees the new approach as one way to slow the trend.

“The payment system can precisely offer communities alternative incomes by remunerating them for practices that preserve the forest rather than destroy it,” he told Nzouankeu.

Nigeria passes major new wildlife law

worldrfnews on November 1, 2025

Nigeria’s Parliament has approved sweeping legislation to protect endangered species from traffickers, reports Valentine Benjamin. Once signed by the president, offenders caught trading elephant ivory, pangolin scales, or other products from threatened animals could face fines of up to 12 million naira ($8,300) and as much as ten years in prison. The law is among the toughest of its kind in West Africa. Yet even its supporters admit that laws are only as strong as their enforcement.

The Endangered Species Conservation and Protection Bill of 2024, passed by the Senate on October 28, brings Nigeria closer in line with international conservation treaties such as CITES.

“This new bill addresses long-existing gaps in our legal framework,” said Terseer Ugbor, the bill’s sponsor and deputy chairman of the House Committee on Environment. “The old law was riddled with ambiguities. It failed to specify whether its provisions applied only to international wildlife trade or also to domestic transactions.”

The new measure broadens the list of protected species, strengthens penalties, and allows courts to seize assets linked to wildlife crimes. It also gives agencies new powers to close the bureaucratic gaps traffickers have long exploited. Whether those tools will be used effectively is another matter.

Nigeria has for years been a global hub for illegal wildlife trade. Between 2010 and 2021, roughly a million pangolins—about 90,000 a year—are believed to have been trafficked through Nigerian networks. In 2024 alone, nearly 1.6 metric tons of ivory seized in Vietnam were traced back to Nigeria. Yet prosecutions remain rare; only a dozen convictions have been secured in the past three years.

“A law is useless without enforcement,” said Tunde Morakinyo of the African Nature Investors Foundation. 

Still, optimists hope that with stricter laws and coordination, Nigeria could move from being a trafficking hub to a leader in conservation.

Elephants on the edge

worldrfnews on October 31, 2025

In northern Kenya’s Samburu National Reserve, elephants once starved and parched by drought now graze in knee-high grass. The rains that began in late 2023 transformed the landscape into a lush plain of acacia and tangled vegetation.

“These were salad days for the Samburu elephants,” writes journalist Hillary Rosner in ROAM: Wild Animals and the Race to Repair Our Fractured World, published by Patagonia. Her visit to the reserve early in 2024 captures both the beauty of recovery and the fragility of coexistence in a country racing toward modernity.

From a field camp beside the Ewaso Ng’iro River, researchers with Save the Elephants have tracked hundreds of individuals since 1997, fitting them with GPS collars that reveal “elephant highways” across northern Kenya. The data show how herds migrate in search of water and acacia seed pods, crossing communal grazing lands and private plots in intricate seasonal patterns. But those ancient corridors are fast disappearing. As Rosner observes, “by building roads and rail lines, putting towns and cities in the midst of elephant roads, and erecting fences that make it impossible for the animals to cross, humans are cutting off the elephants’ ability to move across the landscape.”

Kenya’s push to achieve middle-income status by 2030 hinges on vast infrastructure projects: railways, highways, and new towns springing up along transport routes. The Standard Gauge Railway—funded by China’s Belt and Road Initiative—has already bisected two national parks. The next wave of expressways and private land conversions threatens to wall off the remaining migration routes entirely.

Rosner’s account centers on one such bottleneck near the settlement of Oldonyiro, where GPS maps show the animals’ meandering tracks condensing into a single line—a narrow, perilous passage through encroaching development. Conservationist Benjamin Loloju, a local Samburu who earned an “elephant scholarship” from Save the Elephants, works with communities to mark and preserve corridors before they vanish. Yet even he admits, “We already think maybe we have been late for Oldonyiro.”

The elephants adapt, forging new routes where they can, but each fence and erosion gully narrows their options. Rosner’s narrative makes plain what data alone cannot: that Kenya’s test of progress is not only economic. The country’s future—and that of its elephants—depends on whether it can build prosperity without severing the ancient paths that bind the wild to the human world.

An excerpt from ROAM.

Rescued African gray parrots return to Democratic Republic of Congo’s forests

worldrfnews on October 30, 2025

In the forests of Maniema province, fifty African gray parrots soared back into the wild this October, marking a small victory against one of Central Africa’s most persistent wildlife crimes. The birds had spent a year recovering at a sanctuary run by the Lukuru Foundation after being rescued from traffickers. Since its creation, the foundation has rehabilitated nearly 400 parrots, but much work remains, reports Didier Makal.

A new decree issued in July 2025 bans the capture, trade, and possession of African gray parrots in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Yet poaching continues. “It is good to have a ministerial decree banning poaching, but there needs to be action on the ground,” said conservationist Corneille Kalume.

The trade is brutal: only a third of captured birds survive the journey from forest to buyer. 

The Lukuru Foundation and the Congolese conservation agency have established rehabilitation centers across the country, including a new one at Kisangani Zoo. Caring for the birds is costly—feeding 100 parrots can exceed $2,000 a month—but the greater challenge lies beyond the cages. Conservationists fear that once released, the same parrots could be caught again, unless enforcement and community engagement take flight alongside them.

The Forest Stewardship Council’s will vote on new traceability rules amid fraud allegations

worldrfnews on October 29, 2025

This week the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) will vote on whether to build a global volume-tracking system—an effort to plug the holes through which, critics say, billions of dollars in fraudulent wood slip each year, reports Philip Jacobson.

The Bonn-based group’s tick-tree logo appears on everything from tables to tissue boxes, a promise that forests were managed responsibly. But insiders and watchdogs argue the certification often rests on faith.

“It’s a trust-based system,” says Sam Lawson of Earthsight. His group estimates that up to $30 billion of falsely labeled wood moves through FSC supply chains annually.

FSC rejects that as speculation, insisting its audits, wood-sample tests, and “transaction verifications” safeguard integrity. Yet even a senior official concedes fraud remains widespread. The system’s flaw is structural: companies report to outside auditors but not to any central database, leaving no way to reconcile what goes in with what comes out.

A proposal backed by WWF and U.K. retailer Kingfisher—known as Motion 30—would require companies to record trades in a unified ledger, possibly blockchain-based. Business members, wary of cost and bureaucracy, have blocked similar ideas before.

Supporters say this time the stakes are higher. Since Russia and Belarus were expelled from the scheme in 2022, certified forests have shrunk by nearly a third while the number of licensees has grown. The math, as one FSC insider put it, “doesn’t add up.”

See Jacobson’s piece at https://news.mongabay.com/2025/10/fsc-to-vote-on-new-traceability-rules-amid-fraud-allegations/

A rare bloom transforms Sri Lanka’s highlands, turning its hills violet

worldrfnews on October 29, 2025

Every dozen years or so, Sri Lanka’s misty highlands erupt into a fleeting spectacle of color. Across the Horton Plains, slopes shimmer in violet, pink and white as native shrubs known collectively as nelu bloom in unison. Belonging to the genus Strobilanthes, these plants flower together, set seed and die, transforming the grasslands into a living mosaic before fading away. The synchronized flowering, a marvel of ecological timing, remains only partly understood, reports Malaka Rodrigo.

Researchers say the nelu’s mass blooming is an evolutionary gamble. By releasing enormous quantities of seed at once, the plants overwhelm predators such as rodents and insects, increasing the odds that some seeds will germinate, said Siril Wijesundara of Sri Lanka’s National Institute of Fundamental Studies. The bloom also draws pollinators, particularly giant honeybees that migrate from the coast to the hills each year, perfectly timed to the floral feast.

The phenomenon has fascinated scientists for more than a century. British naturalist Thomas Farr first documented the 12-year cycle in the late 1800s, predicting future blooms with uncanny accuracy. Botanists forecasted the latest event for 2024-25, and the hills have again proved them right.

Yet beauty brings burden. Visitor numbers to Horton Plains have tripled during the bloom, leaving trails eroded, shrubs trampled and litter scattered across fragile habitats. Park officials have urged restraint, fearing that invasive plants like mistflower and blue stars could colonize spaces left bare after the nelu die-off.

Ecologists warn that climate change may disrupt the subtle cues that synchronize the plants. Protecting the nelu’s rhythm, they say, will require more than admiration: it will demand careful management to ensure the hills turn violet again a dozen years from now.

Bangladesh to reintroduce captive elephants to the wild

worldrfnews on October 25, 2025

Bangladesh has embarked on an ambitious plan to end the centuries-old practice of keeping elephants in captivity, reports Abu Siddique.

The government has begun retrieving privately owned elephants and aims to rehabilitate them in the wild. The initiative follows a 2024 High Court order banning cruelty to wildlife and illegal use of animals for labor or entertainment.

The country’s elephant population is small and fragile. According to a government report, only 268 wild elephants remain in Bangladesh’s southeastern forests, alongside 96 in captivity. Once used for logging and transport, captive elephants are now illegally exploited in markets and towns, often in harsh conditions that have led to deaths from heatstroke.

The project will survey elephant populations, buy animals from owners, and prepare forest sites for rewilding. Two potential sanctuaries—Rema-Kalenga and Chunati—are under review. Officials acknowledge the difficulties ahead, from disease risks to the loss of wild instincts among long-domesticated elephants. Yet they insist that ending captivity is essential for both welfare and conservation. As one adviser put it, “the elephants will never be back in captivity.” 

If successful, Bangladesh’s experiment could become a model for other Asian nations struggling to reconcile tradition with the ethics of conservation.

One man’s mission to rewild a dying lake

worldrfnews on October 24, 2025

From a hillside overlooking Lake Toba, the vast volcanic basin at the heart of Sumatra, Wilmar Eliaser Simandjorang looks down on what he calls both a blessing and a warning, reports Sri Wahyuni. 

Once the first district leader of Samosir, Wilmar has spent his retirement rewilding parts of this landscape sacred to the Batak people. “If we don’t pay attention to this, Lake Toba will be just a memory,” he said.

That memory is fading fast. Pollution, logging, and unchecked plantations have clouded the waters of what was once among Indonesia’s purest lakes. “The forest is being cut down, both legally and illegally—biodiversity is being burned,” Wilmar said. “Rainwater is just running off; it carries ash, trash and pesticides into the lake.” Research published in 2024 confirmed nitrogen levels above national safety thresholds, threatening fish and water quality.

The deterioration stings for those who remember when people would ask travelers to bring back a flask of Toba’s crystal water. “Now? Just cooking rice with it will smell,” Wilmar said. He has watched the district lose nearly a quarter of its old-growth forest since 2002. Yet he persists, planting trees, urging families to blend fruit and forest crops, and teaching children to see trees, birds, and soil as kin. “I believe forests will be sustainable if people feel they are part of their lives,” he said.

His modest crusade has taken place as larger institutions stir. This year the Batak Protestant Christian Church, Indonesia’s biggest, called for the closure of PT Toba Pulp Lestari, the dominant plantation company blamed for decades of conflict and ecological damage. “The most painful fact is that the presence of PT TPL has triggered various social and ecological crises,” declared the Reverend Victor Tinambunan. The firm denies wrongdoing.

Fires have since scorched 16 hectares of land Wilmar spent years re-greening. “The land I turned green, which was just starting to show results, went up just like that,” he said. Yet he continues to plant and to preach renewal, even after threats from illegal loggers and indifference from officials. His faith, rooted in duty rather than reward, remains unshaken. “We can turn this destruction into hope,” Wilmar said. “But it takes will, knowledge, and love.”

The price of a monkey

worldrfnews on October 22, 2025

The long-tailed macaque has lost a battle for its survival—but won one for scientific integrity. In early October the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) reaffirmed the species’ endangered status, rejecting an appeal by the U.S. National Association for Biomedical Research (NABR). The lobby group had argued that the listing impeded vaccine and drug development, since laboratories rely heavily on macaques for testing.

The IUCN first elevated Macaca fascicularis from vulnerable to endangered in 2022, after evidence emerged that wild monkeys were being laundered into “captive-breeding” farms across Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam. Its latest review found that wild populations have fallen by as much as 70% over the past three decades.

“I’m happy to see science prevail, but I’m not happy to see the long-tailed macaques endangered,” said Malene Friis Hansen of Aarhus University, a co-author of the assessment. “That we’ve pushed such an adaptive synanthrope to this stage should be an eye-opener.”

The COVID-19 pandemic intensified demand. When China halted exports in 2020, Cambodia’s shipments nearly doubled. Reports soon surfaced that supposed captive-bred macaques were, in fact, trapped in the wild and funneled through state-linked farms. American prosecutors later alleged Cambodian officials’ complicity in the trade, though few have faced consequences. The industry, meanwhile, has prospered: wild monkeys can fetch a few hundred dollars, while laboratory buyers pay tens of thousands.

The NABR insists the IUCN’s process was tainted by “emotive” language and conflicts of interest, allegations the conservation body dismissed after an internal inquiry. It has pledged to “educate policymakers” about what it calls an overreach of environmental science. Yet Hansen asks a sharper question: “If these companies claim they’re only using captive-bred monkeys, then why are they so concerned about the IUCN listing?”

Beyond laboratories, macaques suffer from the pet trade and from viral social-media cruelty videos, where abuse is monetized for clicks. Habitat loss and persecution complete the toll. The species’ apparent abundance at tourist sites masks its disappearance from the forests it once dominated. For a primate known for its adaptability, that may be the cruelest irony of all.

In Indonesia’s courts, truth can be a lonely witness.

worldrfnews on October 19, 2025

For more than two decades, professors Bambang Hero Saharjo and Basuki Wasis of the Bogor Institute of Agriculture have stood where science meets power, testifying against companies accused of torching forests and draining peatlands. Their measurements of ash and carbon and their calculations of hectares lost have given judges a way to translate ecological ruin into the dry language of liability. For that service to the public, they have been repaid with lawsuits, harassment, and danger, reports Rendy Tisna.

Last October a court in Bogor, west of Jakarta, offered a rare reversal: it dismissed a civil suit brought by PT Kalimantan Lestari Mandiri, a palm-oil firm once fined for fires that scorched more than 800 hectares of Borneo peat. The company had sought billions of rupiah in damages from the very experts whose testimony helped convict it years earlier. The judges ruled for the scientists. “Hopefully this will set a good precedent to protect environmental defenders,” Bambang told Mongabay Indonesia after the verdict.

It was the fourth such case he has endured. Each time, the aim has been less to win than to exhaust—one more strategic lawsuit against public participation, designed to make truth-telling unbearably costly. “If we keep getting sued like this,” he warned, “the environment will become increasingly neglected.”

Their victory was cheered by activists and the environment minister alike, who called the suit a “form of SLAPP” and praised the decision as proof that Indonesia’s judiciary could still defend its defenders. Yet it is a fragile shield. Dozens of scientists, journalists, and campaigners have faced similar tactics, and enforcement of environmental judgments remains weak. The fires continue to burn.

Both men might have chosen easier paths. Their expertise in forestry and soil science could have earned them corporate consultancies or quiet academic lives. Instead they have lent credibility to the state’s most controversial prosecutions—often at personal cost, under threat, sometimes alone. In 2019 Bambang received the John Maddox Prize for standing up for science; the honor did little to stop the attacks.

What sustains them is a conviction that evidence matters, even when power denies it. They keep returning to court, peat samples in hand, as if proof itself were an act of faith.

“The environment,” Bambang once said, “is the lifeblood of the planet, and we must protect it together.”

Scientists discover world’s 1,500th known bat species

worldrfnews on October 18, 2025

From the slopes of a volcano on Bioko Island in Equatorial Guinea comes the 1,500th bat species known to science, reports Shreya Dasgupta.

Researchers have named it Pipistrellus etula—“etula” meaning “island” or “nation” in the Bubi language. The tiny insect-eating pipistrelle marks a symbolic milestone for mammalogy and a reminder of how much remains undiscovered. “It reminds us how much biodiversity remains undocumented, particularly in under-surveyed regions like Central Africa,” said Laura Torrent, lead author of the study.

The discovery traces back to 1989, when a handful of specimens were first caught near Bioko’s Biao Peak. Decades later, genetic analyses confirmed they represented a new species adapted to montane environments where no other vesper bats are known.

Scientists warn that logging, construction, and rising temperatures could threaten its fragile volcanic habitat—a microcosm of broader conservation challenges.

Group of critically endangered Tapanuli orangutans discovered in Sumatra peat swamp

worldrfnews on October 17, 2025

A remarkable discovery has redrawn the map of one of the world’s rarest great apes. For years, scientists believed the critically endangered Tapanuli orangutan lived only in the Batang Toru forest of North Sumatra. Now, researchers have confirmed the species’ presence some 20 miles away, in a peat swamp forest near Lumut Maju village—a finding that could reshape conservation strategies for the world’s most threatened ape, reports Junaidi Hanafiah who saw and photographed a mother and infant Tapanuli orangutan firsthand on assignment for Mongabay-Indonesia Indonesia.

The team from the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Programme and the Orangutan Information Centre (YOSL-OIC) first heard local reports of orangutans in 2022. After years of monitoring and DNA testing, they verified that the apes were indeed Pongo tapanuliensis. “We found new nests that we categorized as class one nests, which we can confirm to have orangutans,” said YOSL-OIC’s Rio ardi.

The discovery brings both excitement and alarm. Lumut Maju’s forest is unprotected and shrinking fast, cleared for oil palm plantations until less than 1,000 hectares remain. With the local population likely under 100 individuals, isolation poses a severe survival risk. For conservationists, the finding underscores both the species’ resilience and the urgency of protecting the few forests they have left.

Newly-discovered fungus can hold the weight of a person

worldrfnews on October 16, 2025

From the misty forests of Arunachal Pradesh, India, comes a discovery that has surprised even veteran mycologists, reports Divya Kilikar for Mongabay India. Researchers from the Botanical Survey of India have described Bridgeoporus kanadii, a fungus so large that “I could sit on it, and it remained firmly attached to the tree,” said lead author Arvind Parihar.

The species, named for Indian mycologist Kanad Das, grows on old fir trees and can reach over three meters across—twice the size of its North American relative, B. nobilissimus.

Though new to science, locals have long known the inedible fungus. Like others in its genus, B. kanadii performs quiet ecological labor, breaking down dead wood and recycling nutrients.

“The lens with which we look at fungi is far too limited,” Parihar observed. “Without fungi, forests will be full of debris, logs and leaf litter left undecomposed.”

Regenerative fashion initiative in Indonesia wins 2025 Pritzker Environmental Genius Award

worldrfnews on October 15, 2025

In a world defined by extraction, Denica Riadini-Flesch is showing that creation can heal instead. The Indonesian economist-turned-entrepreneur has won UCLA’s 2025 Pritzker Emerging Environmental Genius Award for building a “farm-to-closet” supply chain—a system that regenerates land, restores heritage craft, and empowers rural women.

Riadini-Flesch founded SukkhaCitta after witnessing the hidden cost of modern progress. As a young economist from Jakarta, she once equated development with endless growth—until she met women dyeing textiles with chemicals that scarred their skin and lungs. “It burns my hands, my eyes, my lungs,” one told her. The remark revealed what Riadini-Flesch calls “the true cost of convenience.”

SukkhaCitta set out to invert that logic. Production takes place not in factories but in courtyards and small farms across Java, Bali, Flores, and West Timor. Cotton is grown in polycultures that replenish soil; dyes come from indigo and mahogany leaves; fabrics are woven on handlooms. The enterprise has restored 120 acres of degraded land, kept five million liters of toxic dye wastewater out of rivers, and raised women’s incomes by 60 percent.

The environmental gains are measurable, but the social ones may matter more. Through decentralized Rumah SukkhaCitta Foundation schools, women learn ecological literacy and entrepreneurship alongside heritage techniques. “Artisans and farmers are the missing link to solving the climate crisis,” Riadini-Flesch said. “When rural artisans lead, we lay the blueprint for a regenerative future.”

Her husband and co-founder, Bertram F., accepted the award in Los Angeles; Riadini-Flesch, seven months pregnant, joined remotely from Indonesia. He described the Indigenous practice of tumpang sari—a polyculture where cotton grows beside twenty other crops—as the model for their business. “We’ve made a business case for regeneration,” he said. “It shows you can run a supply chain that restores the environment instead of depleting it.”

Her aim is to regenerate 2.5 million acres of land and create livelihoods for 10,000 women by 2050. “We cannot have infinite growth on a finite planet,” she said. “I believe in an economy where growth is measured by how well we repair what’s been broken: soil, rivers, dignity, trust.”

Anthony Waddle, who is working to protect amphibians in the wild from chytrid, and Seema Lokhandwala, who uses bioacoustics to reduce human-elephant conflict, were the other finalists.

$1.7 billion pledge to support Indigenous and local forest tenure has been met a year early

worldrfnews on October 10, 2025

When governments and private donors pledged $1.7 billion at the 2021 U.N. climate conference to strengthen Indigenous and local communities’ land rights, few expected the target to be met—let alone ahead of schedule. Yet four years later, the funders have announced that they have fulfilled their commitment a year early, reports Aimee Gabay. In a field marked by broken promises, this is rare.

The pledge was born of frustration. Between 2011 and 2020, less than 1% of global climate finance supported projects tied to community land tenure. The “Forest Tenure Pledge,” as it became known, sought to correct that imbalance. Rebeca Sandoval of the Ford Foundation said the aim was to make the rights of Indigenous peoples, Afro-descendants, and local communities a lasting priority in donors’ agendas. “And that is what happened,” she said.

The figures tell a mixed story. Direct funding to Indigenous and community-based organizations grew from 22 recipients in 2021 to 112 in 2024, according to the Forest Tenure Funders Group. But the proportion of total funds going straight to local organizations still hovers in the single digits.

“The important thing is that a path was opened,” said Levi Sucre Romero of the Mesoamerican Alliance of Peoples and Forests. “That path needs to be broadened for future pledges.”

Observers credit the pledge’s success to unusual coordination among funders, facilitated by joint platforms and shared monitoring. Yet they note its limits. Early consultations with communities were scant, and the “plumbing” of aid—the compliance rules and bureaucratic hurdles that block smaller organizations—remains clogged. 

“A lot of these organizations aren’t traditional Western NGOs,” said Bryson Ogden of the Rights and Resources Initiative. “The funding architecture doesn’t make it easy for them to access resources.”

There were lessons too. Continuous dialogue and transparency matter more than lofty targets. So does inclusion: despite modest gains, projects centered on women’s leadership and youth remain scarce. And protection for forest defenders, still subject to violence and intimidation, lags behind the rhetoric of rights.

Now funders are debating whether to launch a second pledge. But global aid budgets are tightening, with traditional donors shifting resources toward defense. Without renewed political and financial commitment, the gains could erode as quickly as they came.

Ultimately, a pledge is only as good as the trust it builds—and that trust, once earned, will require careful tending.

Protecting Earth’s oldest data system: The case for biodiversity

worldrfnews on October 6, 2025

Long before humans built computers, nature built a better one. Razan Al Mubarak sees biodiversity as the planet’s original information network.

In a commentary published on Mongabay, Al Mubarak, president of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and the founding managing director of the The Mohamed bin Zayed Species Conservation Fund, argues that biodiversity is not just a collection of species but a vast, self-sustaining archive of information written in DNA. Each organism, she writes, encodes evolutionary knowledge—solutions to survival challenges refined over millions of years. The loss of a species, therefore, is not merely the disappearance of beauty or ecological function; it is the deletion of irreplaceable data from Earth’s biological archive.

Drawing examples from the Arabian oryx, whose genetic code reveals how to endure the desert’s extremes, and the ghaf tree, whose roots have mastered water detection, Al Mubarak contends that nature’s research and development far surpass humanity’s. Extinctions, she warns, are akin to losing entire languages before they have been translated.

The United Arab Emirates, she asserts, understands the value of information, having built a modern economy around data and knowledge. This perspective underpins its approach to conservation, from national Red List assessments and protected areas to global initiatives such as the Mohamed bin Zayed Species Conservation Fund. Projects like the reintroduction of the scimitar-horned oryx in Chad exemplify how restoring species helps repair the global ecological network.

But institutions alone cannot safeguard biodiversity. Al Mubarak calls for individuals to engage directly by observing local wildlife, contributing to citizen science, and supporting initiatives that treat ecosystems as essential infrastructure. She frames biodiversity as the ultimate backup system—a decentralized store of adaptive intelligence on which humanity depends for its own resilience.

As the world convenes in Abu Dhabi for the IUCN World Conservation Congress, Al Mubarak urges collective investment in preserving this living network. Protecting biodiversity, she concludes, is not only an ethical duty but a strategic imperative for the planet’s survival.