Mongabay Newscast

On this episode we explore the latest revelations about “shadow companies” and dark money associated with the palm oil sector, and how they factor into Mongabay’s ongoing investigation into the corruption fueling Indonesia’s rainforest destruction and land rights crises (plus how these factors derail democracy in this huge country). Host Mike Gaworecki speaks with guest Phil Jacobson, Mongabay's Indonesia editor.  If you enjoy this podcast, please visit www.patreon.com/mongabay to pledge any amount to keep it growing. Mongabay is a nonproft media outlet, and everything helps. Thank you! And please invite your friends to subscribe via Android, Google Play, iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn, or listen via Spotify.

On this episode of the podcast we discuss the increasing use of drones by wildlife lovers, researchers, and businesses, how these uses might be stressing animals out, and how drone users can make a meaningful contribution to science while avoiding wildlife harassment. Our guest is Alicia Amerson, a marine biologist, drone user ("pilot"), and science communicator. She tells us why it’s critical to have best practices for drones in place not only to guide hobbyists making videos of whales or birds, but especially before companies like Amazon.com deploy fleets of drones in our skies. Episode artwork of falcon and drone courtesy of Shane Keena Photography. If you enjoy this podcast, please visit www.patreon.com/mongabay to pledge any amount to keep it growing. Mongabay is a nonproft media outlet, and all donations help. Thank you! And please invite your friends to subscribe via Android, Google Play, iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn, or listen via Spotify.

Traditional indigenous knowledge and climate change is this episode's topic, with Snowchange Cooperative's Tero Mustonen: “Often in the past, science has been seen as quite [a] colonial tool by indigenous peoples,” he says. “We are trying to say that we are co-researching, and these knowledge-holders in remote communities are scientists of their own kind.” We also hear about Snowchange’s ecological restoration and solar power projects, the latter of which empower women and kids in remote indigenous communities. If you enjoy this podcast, please visit www.patreon.com/mongabay to pledge any amount to keep it growing. Mongabay is a nonproft media outlet, and all donations help. Thank you! And please invite your friends to subscribe via Android, Google Play, iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn, or listen via Spotify. Image courtesy of Nathaniel Wilder, nathanielwilder.com.

In this episode, professor Anne Axel of Marshall University makes the case for a new field of bioacoustics research: soundscape phenology, the study of cyclical life events of plants and animals via sound recordings. She'll be keynoting the biennial Ecoacoustics Congress in Brisbane, Australia later this month on the topic, and gives us a preview while playing just a few of the recordings that have informed this research from the forests of Madagascar. We'd be very glad to have your support for this podcast, please visit www.patreon.com/mongabay to pledge any amount to keep this show growing. Thank you! And please invite your friends to subscribe via Android, Google Play, iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn, or listen via Spotify.

On this episode, a special report on community-based conservation and agroforestry operations known as ejidos in Mexico. Ejidos have proven to be effective at conserving forests while creating economic opportunities for the local rural communities who live and work on the land, but have also faced a threat to their own survival over the past decade as younger generations, seeing no place for themselves in the rigid structure of ejido governance, have left in large numbers. A lack of inclusion of women has also posed a challenge. But some ejidos are changing all that, and host Mike Gaworecki visited several of them and spoke with ejidatarios and youths plus outside experts. We'd be very glad to have your support for this podcast, please visit www.patreon.com/mongabay to pledge any amount to keep this show growing. Thank you! And please invite your friends to subscribe via Android, Google Play, iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn, or listen via Spotify.

Legendary oceanographer and marine biologist Sylvia Earle, often called "Her Deepness," is a National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence and former chief scientist at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). She's a fierce champion for ocean conservation in general and marine protected areas in particular. "The ocean has given us everything, life itself, now it's time to give back," she says in this wide ranging conversation with Mongabay. Despite difficult trends, she also reports being 'seriously optimistic.' We'd be very glad to have your support for this podcast, please visit www.patreon.com/mongabay to pledge any amount to keep this show growing. Thank you! And please invite your friends to subscribe via Android, Google Play, iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn, or listen via Spotify.

Megan Friesen is a conservation biologist using bioacoustics technology to examine the breeding behavior of a secretive Pacific seabird called Buller’s shearwater, which breeds on the remote Poor Knights Islands, off of northern New Zealand. In this Field Notes segment, Friesen explains why bioacoustics techniques are critical to the research she's doing with the Northern New Zealand Seabird Trust, and she plays recordings of the birds from both of the main islands where it breeds. If you like what you hear, we'd be very glad to have you as a supporter, so please visit www.patreon.com/mongabay to pledge any amount to keep this show growing. Thank you! And please invite your friends to subscribe via Android, Google Play, iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn, or listen via Spotify.

On this episode we discuss the impacts of agriculture on Brazil’s Cerrado region, an incredibly biodiverse savannah supporting more than 10,000 plant species, 900 kinds of birds, and 300 different mammals. But it has long been overlooked by scientists and environmentalists alike, and as protecting the Amazon Forest became more of a priority, much agricultural production in Brazil has moved from the rainforest to the vast Cerrado. Mongabay sent two reporters there to learn about the effects of agriculture, and they join us to discuss this 'upside down' forest.  If you like what you hear, please subscribe via Android, Google Play, iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn, or look it up on Spotify, and tell a friend about the show. We'd also be very glad to have you as a supporter, so please visit www.patreon.com/mongabay to pledge any amount to keep this show growing. Thank you!

On this episode we speak with James Valentine, the multiple-Grammy-winning guitarist for Maroon 5 about his work to keep illegal and unsustainable rainforest wood out of musical instruments, and efforts to make concert tours more environmentally friendly. He has been to Peru and Guatemala to see the effects of illegal logging there, and he talks with us about his motivations for stopping this destructive trade. If you like what you hear, please subscribe via Android, Google Play, iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn, or Spotify and tell a friend about the show. We'd also be very glad to have you as a supporter, so please visit www.patreon.com/mongabay to pledge any amount to keep this show growing. Thank you!  

On this episode, we discuss humanity’s deep connection to water and hear sounds of one of the most ancient animal migrations on Earth, that of the Sandhill crane. Our first guest is marine biologist and sea turtle conservationist Wallace J. Nichols, the author of Blue Mind: The Surprising Science That Shows How Being Near, In, On, or Under Water Can Make You Happier, Healthier, More Connected, & Better at What You Do. Then we speak with a team using bioacoustics to document the ecology and phenology of Sandhill cranes on the Platte River in the U.S. state of Nebraska, as the birds make a stopover during their annual northward migration. We play their spellbinding recordings of this amazing scene, plus we round up the recent top environmental & conservation science news! If you like what you hear, please subscribe and tell a friend about the show. And please help us improve the Mongabay Newscast by leaving a review on its page at Android, Google Play, iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn, or wherever you subscribe

How effective is environmental restoration? On this episode, we seek answers to that question with Claire Wordley of Cambridge University, which has just debuted a much needed new project collecting the evidence, and examples of restoration from around the globe. We also speak with Becky Kessler, editor of Mongabay’s ongoing series that examines how well a range of other conservation efforts work, about what this project has revealed.  Plus we round up the recent top environmental & conservation science news! If you like what you hear, please subscribe and tell a friend about the show. And please help us improve the Mongabay Newscast by leaving a review on its page at Android, Google Play, iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn, or wherever you subscribe to it.  

On this episode we discuss the amazing minds and lives of animals — their memories, how even electric eels dream, the fact that some creatures like to get drunk (and why) — and we’ll hear all about Mongabay's newly launched bureau in India. Author Sy Montgomery teamed up with her friend and fellow animal writer Elizabeth Marshall Thomas to write Tamed and Untamed: Close Encounters of the Animal Kind. Sy is the author of numerous other fascinating animal behavior titles, including "The Soul of an Octopus," which was a National Book Award finalist in the U.S. We also speak with Sandhya Sekar, she is Programme Manager for Mongabay's newest bureau, Monbabay-India, and she shares some fascinating stories that they're already covering. Plus we round up the recent top environmental & conservation science news! If you like what you hear, please subscribe and tell a friend about the show. And please help us improve the Mongabay Newscast by leaving a review on its page at Android, Google Play, iTunes, Stitcher, Tun

On this episode we dive into cutting-edge remote sensing technologies invented by Heinz Award-winner Greg Asner, the Carnegie Airborne Observatory, which his team uses to monitor ecosystems like rainforests and coral reefs. This airborne laser-guided lab can even see underwater to map reefs, find record-breaking individual rainforest trees that have escaped detection, and more. We also listen to bioacoustic recordings that are used to analyze species richness in tropical forests with a researcher from the University of Puerto Rico, Dr. Mitch Aide. Plus we round up the recent top environmental & conservation science news! Please help us improve the Mongabay Newscast by leaving a review on its page at Android, Google Play, iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn, or wherever you subscribe to it. And if you like what you hear, please subscribe and tell a friend about the show!

On today’s episode we feature a conversation with iconic Canadian scientist, author, television presenter, and activist David Suzuki. Suzuki is a biologist who’s just as well known for his outspoken views on the need to protect nature. He is the author of more than 50 books and the host of the long-running science program The Nature of Things. He’s also the founder of the David Suzuki Foundation and the Blue Dot Movement, which aims to enshrine the right to a healthy environment in the Canadian Constitution. Plus we round up the recent top environmental & conservation science news! Please help us improve the Mongabay Newscast by leaving a review on its page at Android, Google Play, iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn, or wherever you subscribe to it. And if you like what you hear, please subscribe and tell a friend about this show!

On the first episode of 2018, we speak with the author of a new book about the resilience of indigenous peoples in the face of climate change, and a researcher shares recordings of Australia's elusive night parrot. Plus we round up the recent top environmental news! Please help us improve the Mongabay Newscast by leaving a review on its page at Android, Google Play, iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn, or wherever you subscribe to it. And if you like what you hear, please subscribe and tell a friend about this podcast!

We speak with Christopher Herndon, a medical doctor who as co-founder and president of Acaté Amazon Conservation, has been helping indigenous Matsés people document their traditional healing and plant knowledge in a massive 1,000 page encyclopedia, and in creating living pharmacies for the future. Also on the show is Mongabay contributor Rowan Moore Gerety, the writer behind our recent series on the effectiveness of conservation projects in Madagascar. The island nation has been a global conservation priority for decades, receiving hundreds of millions of dollars in conservation funds from international donors — but rising deforestation, commercial exploitation of wildlife, and degradation of critical habitats suggest that these conservation investments may not be reaching their full potential. Mongabay hired Gerety, a veteran radio and print journalist, to examine the factors that contribute to or hinder success with the aim of informing future conservation efforts. Plus we round up the recent top environmen

Award-winning iconic writer Margaret Atwood recently tackled a medium she is not as well-known for: comic books. Her superhero series Angel Catbird "was a conservation project from the get-go," she tells us in this edition of the podcast, being an effort to shine a light on the plight of wild birds and the house cats who love to stalk them, plus other ecological themes. We also discuss her smash hit "The Handmaid's Tale" and other 'possible futures,' as she calls them. Then we speak with Tyler Gage, a co-founder of the beverage company Runa and author of "Fully Alive," a new book detailing the lessons he learned in the Amazon that led to the launch of Runa and its mission to partner with indigenous communities in business via plant medicine and agroforestry. Plus we round up the recent top environmental news! Please help us improve the Mongabay Newscast by leaving a review on its page at Android, Google Play, iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn, or wherever you subscribe to it. And if you like what you hear, please subs

Mongabay is lucky to have Jane Goodall on its Advisory Board, and just before founder and CEO Rhett Butler was scheduled to speak with her most recently, research came out that vindicated her contention, which she’s held for nearly 60 years, that animals have personalities, so we recorded her thoughts about that for the Mongabay Newscast. “Quite honestly I think almost everybody recognized that animals have personalities, whether they were in the wild or whether they weren't,” she says. Other topics discussed include trophy hunting, activism, and hope for the future (a full transcript will be available at Mongabay.com on 11/17/17). Our second guest is reporter Justin Catanoso, who is covering the UN Climate Change conference (COP23) for Mongabay this week, and he joins us from the event in Bonn, Germany. Plus we round up the top environmental news. Please help us improve the Mongabay Newscast by leaving a review on its page at Android, Google Play, iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn, or wherever you subscribe to it. An

In this episode we discuss new science on the impacts on birds and amphibians of drilling for natural gas in the tropics with a Smithsonian researcher, and a Goldman Prize winner discusses her ongoing campaign to rid mercury contamination from the environment, which is (still) having alarming human health effects. Plus we round up the top environmental news. Please help us improve the Mongabay Newscast by leaving a review on its page at Android, Google Play, iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn, or wherever you subscribe to it. And if you like what you hear, please tell a friend about this podcast!

Mongabay editor Phil Jacobson joins the Newscast to discuss a new investigative reporting project in collaboration with The Gecko Project called “Indonesia For Sale” about the land deals — and the powerful politicians and businessmen behind them — that have converted vast areas of Indonesian rainforest to industrial palm oil plantations for personal profit.  Then we speak with Adrià López-Baucells, whose acoustic studies of bats in the central Amazon reveal the effects of Amazon forest fragmentation on bat foraging behavior. In this Field Notes segment, López-Baucells plays some of the recordings he captured and also explains how this audio led to some species being found in the central Amazon for the first time. Plus we round up the past two weeks' top news. Please help us improve the Mongabay Newscast by leaving a review on its page at Android, Google Play, iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn, or wherever you subscribe to it. And if you like what you hear, please tell a friend about this podcast!