Mongabay Newscast

Coyotes are now present in almost every major urban-metropolitan area in the United States, yet conflicts between the canines and humans are exceptionally low . Between 1960 and 2006, only 146 documented coyote attacks on humans occurred in the U.S. and Canada. Yet there are 4.5 million dog attacks on humans annually in the U.S. alone. Despite the low number of conflicts with coyotes, nearly one c...

Jessie Panazzolo was given a stuffed gorilla when she was 3, and from then on, she always wanted to be a conservationist. But a reasonable career track of being gainfully employed or on a livable wage almost doesn't exist in the sector, she explains to me this week on the Mongabay Newscast. She details the dwindling career prospects, the grueling conditions conservationists must endure, and the me...

The people and policies that control how humans treat the natural world are increasingly dominated by a small class of elite political entities and corporations, argues our guest, political ecologist Bram Buscher at Wageningen University in the Netherlands, on this week's Newscast. This power, he says, is concentrated on platforms that have no allegiance to fact or truth, but rather serve only wha...

When then-U.S. president John F . Kennedy created the United States Agency for International Development in 1961, it was meant primarily to administer health and food aid around the world. In the decades since, USAID expanded to become one of the world's largest financial contributors to conservation, providing nearly $400 million annually before the end of 2024. However, that money is now complet...

Tiger populations have risen in some countries, such as Bhutan, Nepal and India, but the global population of the big cat species remains critically endangered, says Debbie Banks, campaign lead for tigers and wildlife crime at the Environmental Investigation Agency . The global tiger population was recorded at roughly 5,574 in 2022, with the species having disappeared from roughly 95% of its histo...

Khatijah Rahmat , a postdoctoral researcher at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science in Germany, says she's trying to build legitimacy around the concept of animal temporality — the ability to experience time — specifically in elephants. Doing so could have implications for conservation and beyond. "How we envision an animal's relationship to time influences whether we see them as fe...

Indigenous scholar Tyson Yunkaporta (Apalech clan (Wik) Lostmob Nungar) joins the Mongabay Newscast to detail the Aboriginal perspectives behind his latest book, Right Story, Wrong Story: Adventures in Indigenous Thinking . The book explains how stories shape society, how they can harm us and the environment, and how they may save our species and the natural world. Yunkaporta explains how Indigeno...

Mongabay Latam 's multiyear, *award-winning ** investigation that uncovered 67 clandestine airstrips in the Peruvian Amazon used for drug trafficking sent waves across the local media landscape. It drew attention to the Indigenous communities impacted by these illegal airstrips and the 15 Indigenous leaders who were killed defending their territory. To communicate this story to a wider audience, M...

National Geographic photographer Kiliii Yuyän returns to the Mongabay Newscast to share his experience creating his new book, Guardians of Life: Indigenous Knowledge, Indigenous Science, and Restoring the Planet from specialty publisher Braided River. This book documents the traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) of nine Indigenous communities worldwide, featuring contributions and essays from man...

A year ago, U.S. President Donald Trump shut down public access to the Development Experience Clearinghouse, a $30 billion database holding 60 years' worth of institutional knowledge from more than 150,000 projects administered by the U.S. Agency for International Development. But before the closure, former USAID employee and artificial intelligence scientist Lindsey Moore used a large language mo...

It's been more than half a century since the publication of Silent Spring by the scientist and creative writer Rachel Carson. The seminal volume caught the attention of U.S. presidents, artists and musicians, spurring the environmental movement and leading to the eventual ban of the toxic pesticide DDT. Joining the Mongabay Newscast is environmental writer and director of the creative writing prog...

Across Mediterranean Europe, olive groves are in decline from a range of factors, from disease to depopulation. In Italy alone, there are roughly 440 million abandoned olive trees, and the ecological, cultural and socioeconomic impacts from the loss are devastating, explains the latest guest on the Mongabay Newscast. Still, solutions exist to help turn the tide of this under-discussed problem. Fed...

Professional drag artist and environmental activist Pattie Gonia has more than 2 million followers on Instagram and has raised $1.2 million for environmental nonprofits by hiking 100 miles, or 160 kilometers, in full drag into San Francisco. She has gained international recognition for using drag artistry to advocate for the environment, in acknowledgment and celebration of hundreds of researchers...

Judith Enck is a former regional administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, appointed by President Barack Obama, and the founder of Beyond Plastics , an organization dedicated to eradicating plastic pollution worldwide. She joins Mongabay's podcast to discuss how governments can implement policies to turn off the tap on plastic pollution, which harms human health and devastates our...

Gregg Treinish didn't start out as an outdoor enthusiast, but found solace and purpose in nature during his youth. After years of enjoying the outdoors, he was left feeling a need to give something back to the world. He found fulfillment by using his passion for outdoor adventures to gather critical data that researchers need for conservation and scientific research. That's how his nonprofit organ...

Mongabay senior editor Philip Jacobson joins Mongabay's podcast to discuss a two-part investigation about how state governments in Brazil have been procuring shark meat — which is high in mercury and arsenic — and serving it to potentially millions of children and citizens via thousands of schools and public institutions. With Mongabay's Karla Mendes and Pulitzer's Kuang Keng Kuek Ser, Jacobson sp...

Bill Gates recently claimed that protecting nature or improving human health is an either-or choice, but former national leaders like Russ Feingold, a retired U.S. Senator, and Mary Robinson, former Ireland President, disagree . As chair of the Global Steering Committee of the Campaign for Nature , a nonprofit organization uniting prominent politicians in support of nature protection, Feingold emp...

Sarah Goodyear, Doug Gordon and Aaron Naparstek realized that no one was discussing the many cultural factors that have played a role in humanity's car dependency, or the negative impacts this reliance on motor vehicles has on human health and the planet. So they started their own show to do exactly that, The War on Cars . Gordon joins Mongabay's podcast to discuss just how human society got here...

Nonette Royo is a lawyer from the Philippines and executive director of The Tenure Facility , a group of "barefoot lawyers" working to secure land tenure for Indigenous, local and Afro-descendant communities across the world. To date, the organization has secured more than $150 million in funding and has made progress in securing land rights covering 34 million hectares (84 million acres) across 3...

Patricia Wright, a pioneering primatologist who established the Centre ValBio research station in Madagascar, began her work there in 1986. As the person who first described the golden bamboo lemur ( Hapalemur aureus ) to Western science, her contributions led to the creation of Ranomafana National Park, now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. She joins the Mongabay Newscast to discuss her conservation...

Hello listeners. This week on the Mongabay Newscast, we ask that you take a few minutes to fill out a brief survey to let us know what you think of our audio reporting, which you can do here . Mongabay founder and CEO Rhett Butler was recently awarded the Henry Shaw Medal by the Missouri Botanical Garden and named to the 2025 Forbes Sustainability Leaders list alongside conservation greats such as...

News of Australia's "humpback comeback" is making waves globally. Numbers of humpback whales ( Megaptera novaeangliae ) on the nation's east coast have rebounded to an estimated 50,000 from a historic low of just a few hundred before commercial whaling was outlawed in the 1970s. And wildlife scientist and whale expert Vanessa Pirotta joins the podcast to discuss this inspiring conservation achieve...

Psychologist and true crime presenter Julia Shaw joins Mongabay's podcast to discuss her latest read, examining some of the highest-profile environmental crimes and why they occur, in Green Crime: Inside the Minds of the People Destroying the Planet and How to Stop Them . She details the commonalities behind six major cases, and what can be learned from them, as described by six motivating factors...

Policies enacted by seven nations and one international agreement have been recognized by the World Future Council for "top policy solutions for [humans], nature and generations to come." On this edition of Mongabay's podcast, the council's CEO, Neshan Gunasekera, shares key highlights of the eight World Future Policy Award laureates. Under the theme of "Living in Harmony with Nature and Future Ge...

Wildlife biologist and ornithologist Corina Newsome of the U.S. NGO National Wildlife Federation joins Mongabay's podcast to discuss how bird-watching plays a role in environmental justice for underserved communities in urban areas, and provides an accessible way for people to connect with nature and drives impactful change. "Birding is an opportunity [for] people to fill in data gaps where they l...