Mongabay Newscast

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!

On this week's show we speak with Princeton University's Zuzana Burivalova about whether forest certification schemes like the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) are actually achieving their environmental, social, and economic goals. Whether they do or not has massive implications for forest conservation worldwide, and while the evidence is hard to find, this tropical forest ecologist has interesting findings to share. Our second guest is Steve Wilson, who has just written a new paper on Javan rhino vocalizations. He plays some recordings of these fascinating sounds and discusses what they mean.  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!

Bruce Cockburn is well known for his outspoken support of environmental and humanitarian causes, and his multi-decade career has yielded 33 records, including his latest, Bone On Bone. This week, he will be inducted into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame alongside another outspoken icon, Neil Young. We spoke with Cockburn about how he came to his ecological worldview, why he wrote iconic songs like "If a Tree Falls" and "If I Had A Rocket Launcher," as well as similar songs on his new record, and we also discuss where he finds hope for the future. Our second guest is Amanda Lollar, founder and president of Bat World Sanctuary, a wildlife rehabilitation center in Texas. Lollar discusses the efforts of a number of dedicated wildlife rehabbers who took action in the wake of Hurricane Harvey to rescue wild animals in Houston and other impacted areas. 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, Stit

On this episode we take a look at the role technology plays in conservation efforts. First we speak with Topher White of Rainforest Connection, which deploys used cell phones in tropical forests around the world to provide real-time monitoring of forests and wildlife. Its network alerts local communities when illegal logging activities are taking place and can then be stopped, for example. Then we speak with Matthew Putman, he's the CEO of Nanotronics and an applied physicist with a keen interest in conservation. We discuss some of the technologies that he sees making the biggest contributions to the way we approach conservation, and why he believes these advances can help turn the tide against environmental degradation. Plus we round up the past 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. Thanks, and we also hope you will tell a friend about this podcast!

Our first guest for this edition of the Mongabay Newscast is Eddie Carver, a Mongabay contributor based in Madagascar who recently reported about a troubled company that is hoping to mine rare earth elements in Madagascar’s Ampasindava peninsula, to make electronic gadgets. This is a highly biodiverse region that is home to numerous endangered lemur species, some of which live nowhere else on Earth. Then we speak with Jo Wood, an Environmental Water Project Officer in Victoria, Australia. In this Field Notes segment, Wood plays for us the calls of a number of indicator species like whistling ducks and "pobblebonks" (also called "banjo frogs") which appear when her team floods their dried up wetland home -- this audio evidence helps her assess the overall success of the "rewetting program" and the health of the wetlands ecosystem. 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. Thanks, and we also h

“It was a complete breakthrough for me to realize that sharing from the heart, which is the opposite of what we’re taught to do as scientists, was the way for me to connect with people,” Katharine Hayhoe, an atmospheric scientist, tells us in this episode of the Mongabay Newscast. She is an acclaimed climate communicator and a professor at Texas Tech University and last year, she teamed up with her local TV station to write and produce a web series called "Global Weirding," which tackles common questions, misconceptions, and myths around climate science, politics, and religion. We check in with Hayhoe right as she’s in the midst of shooting Season 2 of "Global Weirding." We are also joined by Branko Hilje Rodriguez, a PhD student from Costa Rica, where he’s studying the soundscapes of different successional stages of the tropical dry forest in Santa Rosa National Park, the largest remaining remnant of tropical dry forest in Mesoamerica. In this Field Note segment, Hilje Rodriguez plays for us a number of the

On this episode of the Mongabay Newscast we speak with Sarah Bardeen, the communications director for the NGO International Rivers. Bardeen wrote a commentary for Mongabay recently after attending an international gathering of river defenders, who face harassment, intimidation, and worse for their opposition to massive hydropower projects.  We also speak with Yannick Dauby, who has been making field recordings throughout the small country of Taiwan. In this Field Notes segment, Dauby plays a recording of his favorite singer, a frog named Rhacophorus moltrechtpi, the sounds of the marine life of Penghu, the calls bats, and more. 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. Thanks!

On this episode of the Mongabay Newscast, we take a break from our usual science reporting to look at some of the ways nature inspires people to create art — and how they in turn use that art to inspire others to protect the natural world and its inhabitants. Our first guest is Ben Mirin, aka DJ Ecotone, an explorer, wildlife DJ, educator, and television presenter who creates music from the sounds of nature to help inspire conservation efforts. He'll explain the art and science of his recordings and play several songs he composed. We also speak with Cleve Hicks, author of a new children’s book called A Rhino to the Rescue: A Tale of Conservation and Adventure, not only to express his love of nature but to raise awareness of the poaching crisis decimating Africa’s rhino population. If you'd like to share your acoustic ecology work with us during a future edition of the show, log on to Twitter and send us a link to a recording you made and any info about the science the clip conveys using the hashtag #Scienceso

On this episode we welcome Gemma Tillack, agribusiness campaign director of the Rainforest Action Network, which has been very active in the global campaign to protect Indonesia’s Leuser Ecosystem, one of the richest, most biodiverse tropical forests on the planet that is at risk of being turned into oil palm plantations. Tillack explains just what makes Leuser so unique and valuable and how consumers can help decide the fate of the region. And in the latest Field Notes segment, research ecologist Marconi Campos Cerqueira discusses a recently completed a study that used bioacoustic monitoring to examine bird ranges in the mountains of Puerto Rico, which appear to be shifting related to climate change, and he’ll share some of his recordings with us. 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 welcome John Hocevar, a marine biologist and director of Greenpeace USA’s oceans campaigns. John was on the Greenpeace ship Esperanza to document the newly discovered Amazon Reef, and he talks about the uniqueness of the discovery, what it’s like to be one of a few people on Earth who have ever seen it with their own eyes, and what the opposition to drilling for oil near the reef will look like, should BP and Total try to move forward. Then we welcome two staffers from Mongabay-Latin America which just celebrated its one-year anniversary recently, so we spoke with them about what it’s like covering the environment in Latin America, what some of the site’s biggest successes are to date, and what we can expect from Mongabay-Latam in the future. Please help us improve this show by leaving a review on its page at Android, Google Play, iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn, or wherever you subscribe to it. Thanks!

On this episode we speak with Frances Seymour, lead author of a new book Why Forests? Why Now? The Science, Economics and Politics of Tropical Forests and Climate Change, which she co-authored with Jonah Busch. Seymour argues that tropical forests are key to climate change mitigation, and that it's up to rich countries to invest in their protection. She shares her thoughts on why now is an important moment for such forests, whether or not the large-scale investment necessary to protect them will materialize any time soon, and which countries are leading the tropical forest conservation charge. We also welcome Mongabay editor Glenn Scherer back to the program to answer a question from a Newscast listener about which 'good news' stories are worth talking about in these tough times for environmental and conservation news. Mongabay has a long and very inspiring series of stories tagged 'happy upbeat' that you can view here. Please help us improve this show by leaving a review on its page at Android, Google Play,

In this episode we feature Dr. Bill Laurance of James Cook University in Cairns, Australia, talking about his team's work documenting the planetary infrastructure boom and the need for more positive, less 'doom and gloom' science communication, and then we welcome Dr. Michelle LaRue to the program. She is a research ecologist with the University of Minnesota’s Department of Earth Sciences, and her current work is focused on using high-resolution satellite imagery to study the population dynamics of Weddell seals in Antarctica. You have to hear these seals' calls to believe them! Please write a quick review of the Mongabay Newscast in the Apple Podcasts app, iTunes store, Stitcher page, or wherever you get your podcasts! Your feedback will help us improve the show and find new listeners. Simply go to the show's page on whichever platform you get it, and find the 'review' or 'rate' section. Thanks!

On this episode of the Mongabay Newscast, we speak with Leah Barclay, a sound artist, acoustic ecologist, and researcher with Griffith University in South East Queensland, Australia. We discuss the ever broadening field of acoustic ecology, the many ways that marine bioacoustics is growing in importance, and she describes the new spectrogram app she's developing plus the creative ways she uses her interactive soundscape art to get kids excited about engaging with nature via hydrophones connected to cell phones. Plus we round up the week's top news and hear some of her recordings of marine life, ranging from whales to shrimp and even insects. Please share a review of the Mongabay Newscast in the Apple Podcasts app, iTunes store, Stitcher page, or wherever you get your podcasts from! Your feedback will help us improve the show and find new listeners. Simply go to the show's page on whichever platform you get it from, and find the 'review' or 'rate' section. Thanks!

On this episode we speak with Crystal Davis, the director of Global Forest Watch, a near-real-time forest monitoring system. GFW uses data from satellites and elsewhere to inform forest conservation initiatives and reporting worldwide. Davis shares her thoughts on how GFW's being used and the ways Big Data is changing how we approach conservation. We also speak with Francesca Cunninghame, Mangrove Finch Project Leader for the Charles Darwin Foundation for the Galapagos Islands. In this Field Notes segment, we’ll listen to the call of a mangrove finch, one of the rarest birds in the wild, and hear about how its population seems to be growing, finally. Please share a review of the Mongabay Newscast in the Apple Podcasts app, iTunes store, Stitcher page, or wherever you get your podcasts from! Your feedback will help us improve the show and find new listeners. Simply go to the show's page on whichever platform you get it from, and find the 'review' or 'rate' section. Thanks!

During this episode we speak with Sue Palminteri, editor of Mongabay’s WildTech site which highlights high- and low-tech solutions to challenges in conservation. She shares with us some of the most interesting technologies and trends that she sees as having the biggest potential to transform the way we go about conserving Earth’s natural resources and wildlife. Also on the program we feature a live-taped conversation with Jonathan Thompson and Clarisse Hart, two scientists with the Harvard Forest, a long-term ecological research station belonging to Harvard University, which has made a number of important discoveries. If you enjoy this podcast, please write a review of the Mongabay Newscast in the Apple Podcasts app, iTunes store, Stitcher page, or wherever you get your podcasts! Your feedback will help us improve the show and find new listeners. Thanks. 

On this episode of the Mongabay Newscast, we’re thrilled to feature a conversation with the one and only Paul Simon, who's just announced a tour in support of the environment. The 12-time Grammy-winning musician recently announced on Mongabay.com that he is embarking on a 17-date US concert tour, with all proceeds benefitting Half-Earth, an initiative of the E.O. Wilson Biodiversity Foundation. We play parts of the interview with Paul Simon as he discusses his long-time friendship with E.O. Wilson, the power of optimism, and why Dr. Wilson’s Half-Earth idea inspired him to get involved. Also on the program, we round up the top conservation news and feature another Field Notes segment, this time with Zuzana Burivalova, a conservation scientist at Princeton University who has recorded the soundscapes of over 100 sites in the Indonesian part of Borneo. We listen to a variety of those recordings, each made in a different type of habitat, from protected rainforest to an oil palm plantation, and Burivalova explains