Mongabay Explores

According to UN-Habitat, a global housing affordability crisis is underway, with 1.6 billion people currently in need of adequate, affordable homes. That number could rise to three billion in just a few years. Home prices in urban markets have reached "impossible" levels of unaffordability while temperatures continue to rise as a result of climate change. On this third episode of the Mongabay Expl...

In 2016, Finland became the first nation to design a circular economy roadmap, in an effort to design goods to be less resource-intensive, from their manufacture to disposal and recycling. Tim Forslund of the Finnish Innovation Fund (SITRA) was one of its architects and joins this episode of Mongabay Explores to detail his nation's circularity plan and the challenges ahead. Over 50 nations now hav...

The fifth season of Mongabay Explores dives into the circular economy: the effort to design goods to be less resource intensive, from their manufacture to disposal and recycling. In this episode, we speak with circular economy researcher and policy expert Jessika Richter , associate senior lecturer at Lund University in Sweden, who discusses the environmental and social impacts of electric vehicle...

In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), pollution from extracting minerals commonly used in the energy transition like cobalt and copper is on the rise, and miners generally ignore their legal obligations to clean it up. Cases of such pollution have killed and displaced people and caused major health problems, say residents and community organizations.   The DRC is estimated to hold 64% of the...

The African forest elephant (Loxodonta cyclotis) plays a critical role in shaping the Congo rainforest, experts say. Though they represent incalculable and intrinsic value, there is much scientists still do not know about this critically endangered species of megafauna.    On this final episode of the Congo Basin season of Mongabay Explores,  Fiona "Boo" Maisels , a conservation scientist at the W...

How much does it cost to protect the Congo Rainforest? The world's second-largest rainforest provides critical ecological services that millions of people and myriad species rely on. It is also a massive carbon sink, storing tens of billions of tons of carbon in its trees, soils and peatlands. One would think protecting it would be an international priority, and yet funding commitments have histor...

The global 'just energy transition' has increased demand for critical minerals – such as cobalt and copper – for products like lithium-ion batteries, solar panels, and other renewable energy sources. The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), which produces nearly 70% of the global supply of cobalt, has a poorly regulated mining sector that's fueled by demand for these natural resources and which has...

Recent research shows that great apes of the Congo Basin stand to lose up to 94% of their habitat due to climate change. In the world's only habitat of bonobos and mountain gorillas, time (and land) is running out to save them. Hunting, natural resource extraction, disease, and other human impacts threaten their prospects.  On this episode of the Mongabay Explores podcast, we speak with  Terese Ha...

The debate about how to best protect the Congo Basin's rainforest increasingly finds experts and Indigenous leaders arguing that it's time for a change, one that brings local and Indigenous people into the conversation. Fortress conservation, a model exported to Africa during the colonial era, typically expels local people from land they once relied on for food, fiber and medicine, but experts arg...

The Congo Basin contains the world's second-largest rainforest, a staggering 178 million hectares: containing myriad wildlife and giant trees plus numerous human communities, it is also one of the world's biggest carbon sinks.  On this first episode of a new season of Mongabay Explores, we take you to the Congo Basin and begin with the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), which contains 60% of...

Leif Cocks returns to the podcast to discuss the status of the Sumatran elephant, a critically endangered species that we discussed with him in season 2, which is estimated to have less than 10 years to find a conservation solution or face extinction: he says the ranks of passionate, young Indonesian conservationists he's recently met that are working for the iconic animals' future gives him great...

Indonesia's Ministry of Environment and Forestry recently announced the birth of an incredibly rare Sumatran rhino calf at a captive breeding facility at Way Kambas National Park in Indonesia's Lampung province.  For this bonus episode of Mongabay Explores, we speak with Mongabay's senior staff writer for Indonesia, Basten Gokkon . He explains the significance of this event, the difficulty in bree...

By 2025 the global, edible nut industry will be worth an estimated $2 billion. In Papua New Guinea (PNG), the traditional and plentiful staple, the galip nut ( Canarium indicum ), holds promise of tapping into that demand. Its relative ease of access for smallholder (non-commercial) farms means a new source of income for thousands of farmers across PNG.  On this episode of Mongabay Explores, we sp...

The Tanah Merah project sits in the heart of New Guinea covering 2,800 square kilometers (1,100 square miles). Roughly twice the size of Greater London, it threatens not only dense, primary, tropical rainforest and Indigenous land, but also could release as much carbon as the U.S. state of Virginia emits by burning fossil fuels for an entire year. However, the true owners of the project have been...

New Guinea's dense tropical montane forests are home to 12 of 14 tree kangaroo species. Over the past couple of decades, conservationists have leveraged these charismatic, intelligent marsupials to spearhead community development, conservation efforts, and the establishment of protected areas.  In Papua New Guinea, the Torricelli mountain range is home to three species of tree kangaroo, including...

Spanning over 4,000 kilometers (2,500 miles) and being built over the course of decades, the Trans-Papua Highway cuts across the entire length of Indonesian New Guinea's two provinces, including 7 key protected areas. While the project is nearly complete, experts warn it will cost billions annually to maintain, and threaten to open up untouched rainforest to palm oil expansion contributing an addi...

New Guinea is home to the third-largest tropical rainforest in the world—of which 80% is still intact. The two-nation island also contains 44 species of unique birds-of-paradise and dense biodiverse regions unlike anywhere else on the planet. Because of its one-of-a-kind biodiversity, and relatively undeveloped landscape, New Guinea is in a unique position to conserve its forest cover as part of a...

Since 2014, Papua New Guinea has been the world's largest tropical timber exporter: more than 70% of that is considered illegal. Timber companies continue to possess land originally owned by local Indigenous communities through legal loopholes: while the carbon market has gained popularity as an alternative source of revenue for Indigenous communities, it suffers from some of the same land rights...

New Guinea is one of the most most biodiverse regions on the planet and also the world's largest tropical island. It makes up less than 0.5% of the world's landmass, but is estimated to contain as much as 10% of global biodiversity. To unpack the vast biodiversity of New Guinea, conservation policy, and NGO efforts to protect land, culture and Indigenous rights, we spoke with Rodrigo Cámara-Leret...

'I'm amazed how resilient, adaptable and optimistic the people of Sumatra are,' conservationist and HAkA Sumatra founder Farwiza Farhan says in the first moments of this episode about the women and communities she works with during the final episode of Mongabay's special series on Sumatra. The giant Indonesian island of course faces many environmental challenges, but there is also tremendous hope...

Once drained for palm oil or other agricultural uses, Indonesia's peatlands become very fire prone, putting people and rich flora and fauna--from orchids to orangutans--at risk. Over a million hectares of carbon-rich peatlands burned in Indonesia in 2019, creating a public health crisis not seen since 2015 when the nation's peatland restoration agency was formed to address the issue. To understand...

The Sumatran rhino is a ridiculously cute but cryptic species that teeters on the brink: with an estimated 80 individuals left in the wilds of its super dense rainforest home, experts are also divided on *where* they are. With conflicting and sometimes misleading data on their whereabouts, it is exceedingly difficult to track them down, and to therefore protect them. To discuss this 'rhino search...

The Sumatran orangutan is a lowland species that has adapted to life among this Indonesian island's highlands, as it has lost favored habitat to an array of forces like deforestation, road projects, plus the trafficking of young ones to be sold as pets, so this great ape is increasingly in trouble. On this episode, Mongabay speaks with the founding director of Orangutan Information Centre in North...

The Sumatran elephant is a small species of Asian elephant whose numbers are dwindling as their lowland forest habitats are converted to crops like oil palms. Experts say that Indonesia has 10 years to turn this trend around and save them from the eternity of extinction--and that doing so will have many additional benefits for human communities and wildlife.  To explore the issues surrounding the...

The wildlife rich island of Sumatra is experiencing a road building boom, causing some of its iconic creatures to be seen by construction workers: a photo of a Sumatran tiger crossing a highway work-site went viral this summer, for example.  This smallest of all tiger subspecies still needs its space despite its stature: up to 250 square kilometers for each one's territory. A single road cut into...