The largest-ever private philanthropic campaign for biodiversity conservation is on track to reach its target by 2030, but a lack of detail over exactly how some of the funds are being spent has raised concerns over transparency and accountability. A Mongabay analysis has found that about a quarter of the $5 billion pledged through the Protecting Our Planet (POP) campaign has already been allocated to land, river and ocean conservation projects around the world. By searching grant databases, reviewing financial records and cross-checking with data supplied by POP group members, Mongabay was able to verify a total of $1.25 billion in spending. This is in line with the expected timeline of the campaign. The POP group includes foundations representing some of the richest people on Earth. Publicly championed by Swiss billionaire Hansjrg Wyss, the group includes Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, former New York mayor Mike Bloomberg and Walmart heir Rob Walton. Intel co-founder Gordon Moore, who died on March 24, was also a supporter of the scheme. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is one of several billionaires behind the POP Challenge. Photo: Daniel Oberhaus/Flickr. At the launch, Wyss said the POP campaign would help to solve the crisis facing nature. But its going to take the wealthiest nations and the wealthiest individuals committing to reinvest our enormous bounties here on Earth, safeguarding nature and protecting our lands, waters and wildlife, he added. About 60% of the funding has been issued in grants to established conservation organizations, or to new alliances of privateThis article was originally published on Mongabay

With two-thirds of the country draped in dense, tropical rainforests, Papua New Guinea is home to diverse wildlife, including several marsupial species, flightless cassowaries, and vibrant birds-of-paradise. Just as diverse are the cultures of its people, who have inhabited the land for nearly 50,000 years, first as hunter-gatherers and later as agriculturalists. Today, more than 85% of the countrys population live in rural and remote areas, where subsistence hunting is still a part of life. People eat meat from small animals, and hunt cassowaries and tree kangaroos for traditional exchanges. The plumage of birds-of-paradise and parrots adorn traditional costumes and ornaments. As Western education permeates the society and economic opportunities in cities increase, youths in Papua New Guinea may be veering away from hunting, a recent study published in the journal Global Ecology and Conservation suggests. It found hunting skills are in decline among secondary school students, and while this may imply that animals could be less likely to be targeted by hunters in the future, experts say this isnt necessarily good news for wildlife, even threatened species: the decline in hunting skills is correlated with poor traditional knowledge about wildlife, which is as necessary for conservation as it is for hunting. The plumage of birds-of-paradise and parrots adorn traditional costumes and ornaments. Image by Valerie Hukalo via Flickr (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0). Demographic change Papua New Guinean ethnobiologist Alfred Kik, pursuing his Ph.D. at the University of South Bohemia in the Czech Republic, wanted to understand whether the growing populationThis article was originally published on Mongabay

READER ADVISORY: This story contains images of dead wildlife that some viewers may find disturbing. Monday, March 20. Thats a date French marine conservation groups will remember. Fishers, too. Frances top administrative court, the Council of State, gave the government six months to close areas to fisheries during portions of the year to curtail dolphin deaths on the French Atlantic coast. But conservationists say theres still a long way to go. An image search of dolphins and France wont just yield the typical photos of these marine mammals moving in the ocean, sunbeams dancing on their smooth skin. Instead, many of the pictures will show bloodied animals lying dead on the beach. Earlier this year, Frances Stranding Network, or RNE, revealed that nearly 400 of the small cetaceans had washed up dead along the countrys west coast between Dec. 1, 2022, and Feb. 15, 2023. The Pelagis Observatory, which coordinates the RNE, reported that 90% of these were common dolphins (Delphinus delphis), with most bearing traces of injuries from fishing gear. However, the true number of deaths is likely far higher. Pelagis estimates that up to 10,000 dolphins may die every year off Frances west coast, as more than 80% of them sink or decompose at sea. The death toll is much higher than the more notorious dolphin massacres on the Danish Faroe Islands and Japans Taiji Cove combined. Dolphins face a number of human-caused perils at sea, including oil spills, boat strikes, exposure to toxic chemicals, and the impactsThis article was originally published on Mongabay

JAKARTA When scientists made the bombshell announcement in 2017 that the Tapanuli orangutan (Pongo tapanuliensis) was a new species, the apes were immediately put under the global spotlight. With fewer than 800 individuals surviving in a tiny tract of forest in the western part of Indonesia, scientists declared the Tapanuli orangutan as the rarest great ape as well as the most threatened great ape. Within a month of its identification as a unique species, a report by the IUCN calculated the apes population had plummeted by 83% over the course of three generations. The decline was attributed to killings by hunters or as a result of conflict with humans, along with  habitat loss from agriculture and industrial development, including a gold mine and a planned hydroelectric plant. So what does becoming the most endangered ape in the world overnight get you? Apparently not much, according to Amanda Hurowitz, the senior director for Asia at U.S.-based campaign group Mighty Earth. Since it [the species] was described, not much has changed. You would think new species of orangutan, new species of great ape, the world would pull up its sleeves and decide to save it, she told Mongabay. Unfortunately, the Tapanuli orangutan face many of the same threats they did in 2017. So theyre really a species that we identified when theyre already on the brink, and unfortunately our actions have probably pushed them further to the brink of extinction, Hurowitz said. A numbers game In its orangutan conservation action plan documentThis article was originally published on Mongabay

Jacobo, a Mennonite farmer who preferred only his fist name be used, had just begun to explain why he left Belize to settle in the Peruvian town of Tirunt when five other members of his colony hopped out of a pickup truck to interrupt his story. We dont want to give any information, said one of them. The person who interrupted was later identified as the leader of the Mennonite colony that settled in 2020 in Tiruntn, which is located in the district of Padre Mrquez in Perus Loreto region. Members of the Mennonite colony near Tiruntn block reporters access to a road hewn recently through the rainforest. Image by Hugo Alejos. The leader, who did not identify himself, later relented and told Mongabay reporters that his group, the Gnadenhoff Reinlaender Benboya Agricultural Christian Mennonite Colony Association, began settling the region around Tiruntn in 2020. His is not the only Mennonite group colonizing this part of Peru. In Masisea, in the Ucayali region, a Mennonite colony of Bolivian origin established a settlement in 2017. In Tierra Blanca, in Perus Loreto region, three additional Mennonite colonies Wanderland, sterreich, and Providencia arrived the same year. All of these colonies are under investigation for having illegally cleared forest in the Peruvian Amazon. In regard to the colony that settled near Tiruntn, Mongabay reporters viewed a document from the Specialized Environmental Prosecutors Office dated October 10, 2022. The document specifies that, according to a report issued by the National Forest and Wildlife Service ofThis article was originally published on Mongabay

MEXICO CITY A court in Mexico has eliminated a major financial resource for fighting climate change, raising doubts about how willing the country will be to invest in future environmental initiatives. The Supreme Court ruled against an injunction that was filed to revive the countrys Climate Change Fund, which was designed to channel public and private funding into projects that fight climate change. This decision further distances Mexico from fulfilling its national and international commitments to combatting the climate crisis and constitutes a step backwards in terms of the states obligation to guarantee our human right to a healthy environment, the Mexican Center for Environmental Law (CEMDA), which filed the injunction last year, said in a statement. The Climate Change Fund was created in 2012 to support local and national conservation efforts that help reduce greenhouse gas emissions pushing global temperatures beyond 1.5 Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit). That included reducing deforestation rates, restoring degraded landscapes, developing sustainable agricultural practices and investing in renewable energy, among other things. A crowd protests for renewable energy in Mexico City. (Photo courtesy of CEMDA) The fund was abolished in November 2020 despite pushback from environmental organizations like the Group for Climate Finance in Latin America and the Caribbean, Fridays For Future Mexico, Our Right to the Future, the Northwest Environmental Defense and the Defense of the Environment. What set the fund apart from other parts of the budget, they said, was that it was specifically reserved for fighting climate change and couldnt be influencedThis article was originally published on Mongabay

Some of the worlds largest banks and financial institutions are helping to finance beef companies linked to the destruction of the Paraguayan Gran Chaco, according to a report published by rights group Global Witness. It lists investment giants BlackRock and Vanguard; lenders BNP Paribas, HSBC, Santander, J.P. Morgan and Bank of America; and pension fund APG as among the institutions that hold large investments in companies linked to illegal deforestation and land-grabbing. Our new investigation shows that banks are continuing to service and hold equity in companies linked to deforestation and human rights abuses, even when they made public pledges not to, says the report, titled Cash, Cattle and the Gran Chaco: How financiers turned a blind eye to Paraguays deforestation crisis. Even after it was made public in 2020 that deforestation had entered the beef companies supply chains, the financial institutions continued to hold and even accelerate investments. Deforestation in the Chaco for cattle ranching. Image by Earthsight. Paraguays Gran Chaco region is home to the second-largest forest in South America, covering around 60% of Paraguay, as well as areas of Argentina, Bolivia and Brazil. It has one of the highest rates of tropical deforestation in the world, with Paraguay losing a quarter of its net forest cover between 2000 and 2020, or an estimated 5.2 million hectares (12.8 million acres) an area almost twice the size of Belgium. The primary driver of deforestation in the Gran Chaco is cattle ranching. This sustained loss, despite the Gran ChacoThis article was originally published on Mongabay

Around 15 million people across the globe are working at artisanal and small-scale gold mining sites, nearly a third of them women and children. Instead of operating advanced equipment supplied by formal mining companies subject to government oversight, they use basic tools, bulldozers and unregulated chemicals. In many cases, miners vaporize mercury to separate gold from the soil, a process known as amalgamation. While it can be faster than other methods, the process also leads to serious environmental and public health consequences. Mercury is known to lead to memory loss, seizures, vomiting and lung damage, among other problems. The World Health Organization considers mercury to be one of the top-ten chemicals of public health concern. Yet regulations on its use are still relatively new. The UN Minamata Convention on Mercury only went into force in 2017, an attempt by the international community to collaborate on mitigating mercury use. Nearly 140 countries have signed onto the treaty, with the UN saying that 84% of them have submitted some update on improved mercury regulation policy. But their efforts in artisanal and small-scale gold mining appear to be flawed, a March study in Environmental Science & Policy found. And the progress being made to limit mercury use in mining is either misrepresented or just too inconsistent to reach a conclusion about. We realized that there were a lot of differences with these mercury estimates and how they were developed, said Michelle Schwartz, the studys lead author and engineer at environmental consulting firm TanaqThis article was originally published on Mongabay

More than 7% of all mountain forests have been destroyed during the past two decades, according to a new study published in the journal One Earth. Using high-resolution satellite data and maps of mountain terrains, researchers found that 780,000 square kilometers (301,000 square miles) of mountain forest an area the size of Texas or twice the size of Norway were lost worldwide between 2001 and 2018. The study notes an alarming acceleration in mountain forest lost worldwide over the past two decades, with rates of forest loss nearly doubling after 2010. The studys findings are a significant concern for biodiversity, as more than 85% of all bird, mammal and amphibian species live all or part of their lives in mountain forests. Many species have a limited range, making them highly susceptible to extinction even with minimal forest loss. Mountains have exceptionally high levels of biodiversity, and many of these species are dependent on forests for their survival, study co-author Paul Elsen, a climate adaptation scientist at the Wildlife Conservation Society, said in a statement. The high levels of forest loss we observed in mountains could be catastrophic for these sensitive mountain species. Mountain forest loss area over time. Figure from He et al 2023. [T]he use of large-scale data such as remote-sensing satellite products are a great tool to monitor forest change in almost real time, Marco Mina, a researcher at the Institute for Alpine Environment, Eurac Research, in Italy, who was not involved in the study toldThis article was originally published on Mongabay

This May, Scarabaeus laticollis will return to Frances southeast and to one of Europes biggest plantation forests. Eighty of these lowly Old World dung beetles, first described by the naturalist Linnaeus in 1767, will be reintroduced at the tang de Cousseau National Reserve as a first step to improving forest biodiversity there. Unlike other dung beetles, S. laticollis not only rolls dung into neat balls, but also takes them underground, recycling important soil nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorous, while dispersing grass and tree seeds. Importantly, local breeds of cattle which arent given antibiotics, resulting in drug-free dung have also been introduced to graze the land. The dung beetles arrival marks the first release under the new European Wildlife Comeback Fund (EWCF) which aims at reintroducing a variety of native animals across the continent, including keystone species like the dung beetle, the red deer (Cervus elaphus) and fallow deer (Dama dama) in the Danube Delta, Eurasian lynx (Lynx lynx) in northwest Poland, and Sorraia horses (Equus ferus caballus) in Portugals Sintra-Cascais Natural Park. EWCF is a project of Rewilding Europe along with other conservation and funding partners. A key but controversial justification supports these biodiversity enhancements, according to some conservationists. Restoring natural balance to forests has the potential to boost their ability to store carbon, says Sophie Monsarrat, Rewilding Europes rewilding manager. Dung beetles in France. While they may not look important, dung beetles, of which there are around 60 species in Europe, are a keystone species. TheyThis article was originally published on Mongabay

In 2017, the Tapanuli orangutan was identified as a new species of great ape and immediately became the most endangered great ape on the planet, with a total population of less than 800. The orangutans are restricted to a small area of the Batang Toru ecosystem in Indonesias North Sumatra province, where they face threats from the illegal wildlife trade, mining, conflicts with humans, and a planned hydroelectric dam.  A 2021 study found that the great apes have lost almost 97.5% of their habitat over the past 130 years. The $1.6 billion dam project, funded and built by Chinese companies and expected to supply clean electricity to North Sumatra, risks further fragmentation of their habitat and threatens to cut off the connectivity between separate population groups, making prospects for their survival even more difficult. Despite efforts by activists, locals and conservation groups, the dam project is still under construction, pushing the Tapanuli orangutan ever closer to the brink of extinction. Banner image: A female Tapanuli orangutan, the most endangered great ape on the planet. Image by Tim Laman via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 4.0).This article was originally published on Mongabay

New world in Angolas relic forests threatened by fires: scientists NAMBA MOUNTAINS, Angola Remote pockets of species-rich afromontane forest in Angolas Namba Mountains will be lost if nothing is done to stop uncontrolled fires that threaten to destroy them, scientists warn. These forests are believed to be relics from a time when the habitat was more widespreadduring the earths glacial cycles, the last of which ended 10,000-12,000 years ago, said Martim Melo, a researcher at the University of Portos Research Center in Biodiversity and Genetic Resources. Afromontane forests similar to those in the Namba range in the Cuanza Sul province of west-central Angola can also be found more than 2,000 kilometers away, on mountains in Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Malawi, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe, among others. The relic forests on Angolas Namba Mountains are home to 90 bird species, including the threatened Swierstras francolin spurfowl. Scientists surveying the area recently discovered nine new animal species previously unknown to science. Image by Zieger M via Wikimedia (CC BY-SA 4.0) Nearly 90 different species of bird live in the Namba forests. These include a healthy population of the Swierstras francolin (Pternistis swierstrai), a partridge-sized bird with black and white plumage listed as endangered on the IUCNs Red List of threatened species. Over an 11-day expedition to the forests last May, the scientists found at least nine animals new to science, including two rodents, three bats, two pygmy toads, a frog and a dragonfly. There are new thingsThis article was originally published on Mongabay

Today Im a waterlogged Californian, but soon Ill be baked dry as a bone. The intensity of extreme drought and rainfall has sharply increased over the past 20 years, according to a new study published in the journal Nature Water. Next July Hey kids, Im putting on my Dune vapor recovery suit, is there anything you want from the abandoned gas station? Next February Hey kids, Im hooking up the shopping float to the outrigger, is there anything you want from the Interstate marina? Today, the best available science is creating the worst imaginable scenarios for our immediate futures. Unfortunately, scientists are not always the best communicators of coming disaster. If your house were on fire and your best friend was a scientist, you might not understand her urgent call warning you that a rapid oxidation process was occurring in the living room What? you might ask, to which shed frantically reply, An exothermic reaction is underway resulting in the evolution of light and heat of various intensities and never mind. I got your mother out. Shes still respirating. Waterworld is a post-apocalyptic action film about a future where polar ice caps have melted and the oceans cover nearly all of the planet, forcing humanity to live at sea in floating communities known as atolls. Image courtesy of Universal Pictures. So, when climate scientists warn us that we are crossing dangerous tipping points for the planet most people think, Tipping points? I could use some. Is 20% reallyThis article was originally published on Mongabay

A court in Ecuador ordered oil companies to stop the hazardous practice of burning natural gas at extraction sites because it was a major driver of cancer and other illnesses in nearby communities. But nearly two years have passed since that ruling, and oil companies are burning more natural gas than ever. In September 2021, a provincial court gave oil companies 18 months to eliminate gas flaring in the Amazon, most notably in the provinces of Sucumbos and Orellana, where a lawsuit had been filed by a group of young girls worried about the future of their health. Although that deadline expired at the end of March, oil companies continue to use the flares. The state of Ecuador has failed to comply with the ruling and continues to burn gas, violating the rights of the Amazon, the girls and the country, said Pablo Fajardo, an attorney representing the girls in the lawsuit and the Union of People Affected by Texaco (UDAPT), an advocacy group for victims of oil drilling in the area. Gas flares look like tall columns emitting fire into the air over oil fields. Theyre designed to burn off the excess natural gas produced during oil extraction but also contribute to climate change and pose serious health risks to people who have to breathe it in and drink the water it contaminates. One study conducted by UDAPT and environmental group Clnica Ambiental found 442 cases of cancer between 2018 and 2022 in oil-producing areas of the Amazon likeThis article was originally published on Mongabay