Mongabay Newscast

Indigenous activist and filmmaker Kynan Tegar joins the Mongabay Newscast this week to discuss the impacts of the fires devastating Kalimantan, the Indonesian portion of the island of Borneo. Some 48,000 hectares (about 119,000 acres) of land have burned so far this year; Kynan says these fires are intentional on the part of agricultural corporations. "The process that has gotten us to this point right now, where fires are raging through the island, it's a process that started maybe you can draw the line up to the 1970s, which was around the time where the Indonesian New Order period regime of Suharto was leasing out a lot of lands as concessions to companies," she says. "A lot of times it's logging, it's palm oil concessions, it's also gold mines." Corporations have drained more than 1 million hectares (2.5 million acres) of peatland, she says. But the impact, she says, that isn't receiving as much attention is the decreased access to freshwater for Indigenous and local communities, which both climate change

For the first time in 150 years, kiwi once again live in the hills surrounding Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand. More than 250 manu ("birds" in the Māori language) were successfully translocated back to the region, thanks to the efforts of the iwi (nations of Aotearoa), community members, and landowners behind the Capital Kiwi Project. Paul Ward, the project lead and founder, joins the Mongabay Newscast this week to explain the yearslong effort to make this possible. "This is a relational project as much as it is what you might traditionally call a conservation project. And I think at a fundamental level that if we lose our relationship with these animals, with these manu … they risk becoming a museum species," he says. Rāwiri Walsh (Taranaki Whānui ki Te Upoko o Te Ika, Ngā Rauru Kītahi, Ngāti Raukawa ki te Tonga, Te Āti Haunui-a-Pāpārangi) is the project's Kaimanaaki Kiwi (kiwi guardian) and iwi liaison. He also joins the podcast to explain the process from the perspective of Te ao Māori (the Māori world).

This week on the Newscast, we're joined by Dilafruz Khonikboyeva, the founder of the Home Planet Fund, an independent, Indigenous-led nonprofit that provides funding for local and Indigenous communities and conservation projects around the world. Khonikboyeva, who is also the organization's executive director, speaks about the ethos of the Home Planet Fund and how it works. But I must emphasize that in my conversation with Khonikboyeva, what stands out most to me isn't just the fund's focus on Indigenous-led conversation and investing in local knowledge. It's the well of experience Khonikboyeva brings to it that, growing up in Tajikistan under Soviet occupation and having firsthand experience of a community making do under extremely difficult circumstances, I believe, is rare among philanthropic efforts. In a sector that runs on reports, restrictions, and guarantees, Khonikboyeva encourages funders to work differently, which often might come in an answer they don't want to hear. "If you're getting a satisfyin

Jeff Sikich, the biologist for the National Park Service in Griffith Park, Los Angeles, thought that Steve Winter "was crazy" for wanting to capture a photograph of a mountain lion in front of the Hollywood sign. "He looked at me like I was crazy because he said, 'There are no mountain lions in Griffith Park.' But I knew in the past that there had been," Winter says. It took him 15 months, but Winter managed to do it. He captured the famous mountain lion, named P-22 by scientists, sauntering down a hill at night wearing his tracking collar, with the Hollywood sign shimmering in the background. This helped spark a conservation movement in L.A. and eventually inspired funding for the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing over U.S. Route 101, which will be the world's largest wildlife crossing when it opens on Dec. 2. Winter and Mongabay contributing editor Sharon Guynup join the Mongabay Newscast this week to detail this story and others that are featured in her and Winter's upcoming book of impactful photojournal

Mongabay staff writer Aimee Gabay joins the Newscast this week to discuss her reporting trip to the Peruvian Amazon, where she spoke with the Indigenous Matsés community. She made the trip initially to examine environmental threats to Matsés territory. Instead, she found them suffering from an epidemic of malaria and hepatitis B, which they have been asking the Peruvian government to help address. "The story itself was a surprise … every question directed to them about environmental changes would immediately become an issue about health," Gabay says. The current epidemic of malaria and hepatitis B they face is being exacerbated by climate change, drought, and state neglect. Prolonged dry weather allows for favorable conditions for malaria-bearing mosquitoes to breed, and at the same time cuts off the river transit that the Matsés depend on for access to health care. Community members have travelled to the nearest major city to plead with the Peruvian government, but they say they're still not receiving the p

A new award has been created in honor of late conservation icon Jane Goodall by the board of the Starmus Festival, an international gathering of scientists and artists to be held from Oct. 17-22 in Tenerife, Spain. Christiana Figueres has been selected as the recipient of this inaugural Jane Goodall Earth Medal. Figueres is the former executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and is known for her work in securing the negotiations leading to the Paris climate agreement. She joins the podcast this week to discuss the significance of this medal and her thoughts on the future of science communication and truth — both of which are focal points of the upcoming festival. "What an absolute giant [Goodall] was to her very last day," says Figueres. "The fact that a medal has been made in her honor, and that I will debut that is just an unbelievable honor." Astrophysicist and co-founder of the Starmus Festival, Garik Israelian, also joins the podcast to discuss the festival theme,

Bhutan is a Himalayan kingdom sandwiched between China and India. Forty percent of its 800,000 citizens work in the agriculture sector. The mountainous country is famous for its breathtaking landscapes and its unique policy of "Gross National Happiness," instituted in 1972 by Jigme Singye Wangchuck, the fourth king of Bhutan. My guests on the Newscast this week say this philosophy is the backbone of the nation's food system, and its plan for full food self-sufficiency by 2029. "Our food system isn't just about producing food. It's about sustaining our landscapes, our communities, and our culture," says renowned chef and restaurateur Bleu Tshering Dorji. She owns two restaurants in the nation's capital, Thimpu. She explains the unique challenges farmers she works with face due to climate change and steep mountain terrain. "We are a mountainous landlocked country, and only a small percentage of our land is, I think, actually suitable for agriculture. We don't have the luxury of just expanding farmland. We have

British wildlife photographer Margot Raggett says she created the book Remembering Elephants after she heard David Attenborough say, "The question is, are we happy to suppose that our grandchildren may never be able to see an elephant except in a picture book?" Her effort was to provoke this question in others and to give the proceeds from its sale to conservation organizations. In a sense, the book went viral and generated a following, prompting Raggett to continue the book series and her nonprofit, Remembering Wildlife. "Sometimes people get upset with me and say 'They're still around,' but I want people to stop and think," Raggett says. In this episode of the Mongabay Newscast, she discusses her journey into photography, the intention behind memorializing still-living species, and details of her 11th book, Remembering Giraffes, which will be published Oct. 12. Raggett has gathered work from some of the world's most renowned wildlife photographers. To date, Remembering Wildlife has raised more than $1.6 mi

Elizabeth Goldman is a co-director of Global Nature Watch, previously known as Global Forest Watch, a database measuring forest loss that's frequently cited in Mongabay reporting. She joins this week's podcast to detail GNW's updated 25-year analysis of global forest fire trends. The picture is stark: Forest fires burn twice as much forest today as they did 20 years ago, and historic fire seasons are the "new normal," she says. "Catastrophic, large-scale fires are becoming more of a normal. The last three years are the worst three years in the record-keeping in our data set," Goldman says. "Fires now burn twice as much forest as they did earlier in the time series from our data." 2025, considered a drop from 2024, still saw 11 million hectares (27 million acres) of forest, an area roughly the size of Guatemala, burn. Rhett Butler, founder and CEO of Mongabay, published an analysis of the dip in 2025, cautioning readers against reading too much into what appeared to be a reprieve. He noted that large-scale co

In her upcoming book, My Wild City: Finding Nature, Meaning, and Hope in India's Capital, conservation biologist Neha Sinha takes readers to the hidden and not-so-hidden ecosystems of India's largest city. And while the book expertly details the biodiversity, I believe its greatest strength lies in connecting with the reader emotionally through powerful stories from her personal life. On this week's episode of the Mongabay Newscast, Sinha explains why nature in cities isn't just important from an ecosystem health perspective, but necessary for the emotional life of all people. Sinha describes the difficulty of caring for her ailing father, and how this was the moment she found her favorite tree. While waiting in the hospital, she spotted a semal tree (Bombax ceiba). She tells me this was a turning point for her. "In these kind of difficult situations which are physically and mentally challenging … you look at a tree, and it restores you. It kind of makes you feel that you might have strength that you didn't

On this week's episode of the Mongabay Newscast, we speak with features writer Ashoka Mukpo, who traveled to southeastern Liberia to investigate what satellite images indicated was a spike in deforestation over a relatively concentrated period. Along with video production coordinator Juan Maza, Mukpo documented illegal cacao plantations in the rainforests in the county of Grand Gedeh. In this interview, he explains how and why these plantations are appearing now in Liberia. "What we saw … probably the best metaphor for it is that there's a kind of gold rush happening in this part of Liberia, except it's not gold that people are after, it's cocoa," Mukpo says. "And this makes sense, given the context that in the last few years there was a huge price spike for cocoa, and this had to do with a lot of factors, including climate change and a poor harvest in Côte d'Ivoire. And so that's pushing this huge number of migrant workers from Côte d'Ivoire into Grand Gedeh." At the end of the year, the European Union Def

On this week's episode of the Mongabay Newscast, I speak with travel writer Noo Saro-Wiwa. She has documented the violence and natural destruction that the presence of oil companies have brought to the people of the Niger Delta in her latest book, The Burning Ground: Oil and Militancy in Nigeria. Saro-Wiwa is also the daughter of the late activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, who was executed by the Nigerian government in 1995. Her father led a peaceful resistance against the oil companies' presence in the Niger Delta by mobilizing 300,000 people from Ogoniland in 1993. It is fair to say his activism started the movement against the destruction and exploitation led by oil companies in the nation. While peaceful at first, Noo Saro-Wiwa says many people gave up hope on peaceful resistance when the government failed to hold the companies accountable, and men turned to forming violent militant groups.  "Oil has been literally the worst thing that's happened to the Niger Delta. If I could go back in time and I had the power, I

The Mediterranean Sea accounts for less than 1% of the world's ocean surface water, but it contains roughly 18% of global marine biodiversity. It is home to 150 million people along its coastline (roughly equivalent to Russia's population). And it sequesters 17.2 million metric tons of CO2 each year. Joining the Newscast this week to talk about the unique biodiversity of the Mediterranean Sea and its threats is journalist Manuela Callari. Callari has written for Mongabay, highlighting the threats to purple sea urchins (Paracentrotus lividus) along the Italian coast. These marine invertebrates are crucial to the health of marine ecosystems, such as those in the Mediterranean, by helping regulate algal abundance and serving as food for predators. However, they are being overfished and even poached in marine protected areas due to demand for them as the primary ingredient in a popular tourist dish: spaghetti ai ricci di mare. While the situation with urchins persists, Italy has been investing in an unprecedente

Nearly three years ago, Newscast guest, author and journalist Ben Goldfarb discussed his book Crossings, which is about wildlife crossings and road ecology. Wildlife crossings help reconnect habitats fragmented by road networks, reducing collisions, helping protect threatened wildlife, and improving genetic diversity. Since that conversation, Goldfarb has documented the growing popularity of wildlife crossings worldwide. He returns to the Newscast to detail how, where, and why wildlife crossings are becoming increasingly funded and built. "Probably the biggest factor is that at this point, the evidence that wildlife crossing structures are effective is just overwhelming. Maybe 20 years ago, you could've theoretically said, 'Well … we don't necessarily know that …' but here in 2026, we just have a lot of scientific research basically showing that animals of all shapes and sizes use wildlife crossings," Goldfarb says. He takes us to locations in South America, North America and Europe, where this particular t

A group of more than 40 researchers spent 20 months devising a plan for the world to achieve ecological sustainability within planetary boundaries, all while seeing incomes rise for 98% of the global population and reducing working hours for everybody by half to two and a half days a week. The plan to achieve this by 2100 is laid out in the recent "Global Justice Report." If it sounds utopian, Lucas Chancel, the co-director of the World Inequality Lab and editor of the report, is the first person to acknowledge this, but explains why it's not only possible — there's even historical precedent for many of the measures the report outlines. Achieving this plan rests on three pillars: decarbonization and the energy transition; a shift towards "sufficiency," defined here as the reduction of labor and production of superfluous products not needed for human survival; and a "drastic reduction in inequality of income, wealth and power." "Basically, our plan is thought in a way that it can work with [an] incomplete coal

Theonila Roka Matbob grew up next to what was — at the time — the world's largest open-pit mine in Bougainville, an autonomous island in Papua New Guinea, operated by a subsidiary of Rio Tinto. This mine wrought environmental and social devastation on the community of Panguna for decades. And many of these impacts carry on today, says Roka Matbob, who is an Indigenous Nasioi woman and politician. With the help of Jubilee Australia and the Human Rights Law Centre, Roka Matbob was able to file a legal complaint with Australia's National Contact Point for Responsible Business Conduct. As a result, Rio Tinto signed a memorandum of understanding with the Bougainville government to remediate the impacts of this mine. For this legal achievement, Roka Matbob was awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize. However, she is skeptical that remediation for these impacts will occur. She joins the podcast this week to tell the Bougainville story and what she wants people to understand about mining's impacts on the autonomous r

Katharine Wilkinson has a Ph.D. in geography and the environment, is well known for being a co-author of the book Drawdown and co-founder of The All We Can Save Project. She joins the Newscast this week to discuss her latest book Climate Wayfinding: Healing Ourselves and the Planet We Call Home. As a journalist, it's unhelpful for me to divorce myself from the topic of this interview, as I have experienced, time and again, the sense of "murky overwhelm" this book is specifically designed to address. But Wilkinson didn't just write this book for journalists like myself who cover ecological crises for a living. She wrote it for readers and listeners like you. "I think we're all in our own ways grappling with this increasingly mapless time, right? And that is quite literally true," Wilkinson says. "'Is there hope?' and 'What can I do?' I think these are fundamentally navigational questions as much as they are questions of action." What Climate Wayfinding does that I think is unique is it directly addresses the

A group of 57 nations mostly from the Global South, describing themselves as "coalition of the willing" intent on making the Transition Away From Fossil Fuels, or TAFF, convened in the Colombian city of Santa Marta, from April 24-29, 2026, for the inaugural TAFF summit. Also referred to as the "Santa Marta Coalition," this group of countries met to discuss and develop frameworks and pathways for nations to phase out fossil fuel dependency. Joining the Mongabay Newscast this week is Mamphela Ramphele, a medical doctor, activist and member of the Planetary Guardians, a network of experts advocating for the planetary boundaries as a measurement framework. Ramphele explains the highlights of the conference, which included the unveiling of a dedicated scientific panel to advise nations on developing road maps to transition off fossil fuels. The science panel includes experts such as Carlos Nobre from Brazil and Johan Rockström from Sweden, who pioneered the planetary boundaries concept. The conference also saw th

Australia is one of 17 "megadiverse" countries that account for 70% of Earth's biodiversity. However, Australia is unique in having the highest mammalian extinction rate in the world. That makes conservation on the island continent, where most of the wildlife is found nowhere else on Earth, all the more urgent. Conservation and environmental scientists have come out against the Australian federal government's claim that it's "on track" to meet most of its targets under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework agreed upon at the U.N. biodiversity summit in 2022. This week on the Mongabay Newscast, Euan Ritchie, a professor of wildlife ecology and conservation at Australia's Deakin University, and a councilor with the Biodiversity Council, an academic alliance in the country, argues why conservationists say the Australian government is failing its commitments. "The short answer, unfortunately, is that Australia is doing terribly in terms of honoring its international obligations to meet those targe

"[The]cruel irony here [is] that the world cannot get its act together to address these threats … people are dying, animals are suffering, we're losing rainforest … these are all interconnected threats," Neil Vora tells me on this week's episode of the Mongabay Newscast, just a day after the World Health Organization (WHO) reported more than 80 deaths in the Democratic Republic of Congo from an outbreak of the Ebola virus. Vora is a former U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) epidemic intelligence service officer who deployed to the DRC to combat Ebola. He says the current strain, the Bundibugyo virus, is particularly dangerous because there is no current approved treatment or vaccine for it. While neither this virus nor the Andes virus, a type of hantavirus that originated in Chile and Argentina and killed three people on a cruise ship, is likely to cause a pandemic, says Vora, he stresses member states of the WHO are unprepared to address a pandemic should one occur. According to Vora, the