Middle and working-class citizens in nations across the globe are feeling their purchasing power diminish while billionaires hoard historically high levels of wealth. People are looking for economic solutions out of the inequity that are in line with their ecological values and planetary boundaries. "People are really hungry for solutions [and] really hungry to find alternatives," says Alvaro Alvarez, the documentary filmmaker of the new BBC documentary Less Is More: Can Degrowth Save the World?...
Mar 04, 2025•47 min•Ep. 237
A paper in the journal Nature Climate Change concludes there is limited accountability for corporations that fail to achieve their climate change mitigation targets. The analysis shows 9% of company decarbonization plans missed their goals, while 31% “disappeared.” However, 60% of companies met their targets. While this might initially seem like good news, it may not be leading to genuine climate action. This week's podcast guest, Ketan Joshi , a consultant and researcher for nonprofit organizat...
Feb 18, 2025•53 min•Ep. 236
The bobcat population has rebounded over the past century, making it North America’s most common wildcat: as of 2011, there were an estimated 3.5 million bobcats in the United States alone, a significant increase from the late 1990s. These intelligent felids, Lynx rufus , have benefited from conservation efforts that have increased their natural habitat. The species also thrives at the edges of towns and cities, where their presence can even reduce the spread of pathogens like Lyme disease that ...
Feb 11, 2025•38 min•Ep. 235
Nations across the world are working to expand their protected areas to include 30% of Earth's land and water by 2030 . In Africa, this would encompass an additional 1 million square miles. Mongabay's Ashoka Mukpo recently traveled to three nations to assess the current state of conservation practices in key protected areas, to get a better picture of what an expansion might look like, and how the crucial role of rangers in enforcing their protection is evolving. While there, he traveled with pa...
Feb 04, 2025•32 min•Ep. 234
Bryan Simmons, the vice president of communications for the Arcus Foundation, joins the Mongabay Newscast this week to share the philosophy behind the 25-year-old foundation, which funds grantees that work on LGBTQ rights and great apes and gibbons conservation. In this conversation with co-host Mike DiGirolamo, Simmons explains the link between economic development and justice for people and how this is correlated with conservation outcomes. “When people are not able to have their economic need...
Jan 28, 2025•48 min•Ep. 233
This week, Anthony James, host of The RegenNarration Podcast , joins Mongabay’s podcast to share stories of community resilience and land regeneration in the Americas and Australia. James explains how donkeys (seen as invasive pests) are now being managed to benefit the land in Kachana Station in the Kimberley region of Western Australia. In this episode, James emphasizes the importance of harnessing what’s in front of us, rather than fighting it. Across the many interviews he’s conducted, it’s ...
Jan 14, 2025•45 min•Ep. 232
General frustration with the result of the most recent UN climate conference (UNFCCC COP29) spurred the former UN climate chief, Christiana Figueres – under whose leadership the Paris Agreement was struck – to co-author a letter to the UN urging an overhaul to the COP process, and calling it “no longer fit for purpose.” Figueres joins this episode to speak about why the world’s governments seemingly cannot agree to move decisively on climate action, and what can be done about it. She shares why ...
Jan 07, 2025•54 min•Ep. 231
Seventeen regional fisheries management organizations (RFMOs) regulate commercially valuable fish species across the world's oceans. The members of these organizations do not publicize their meetings and bar journalists from attending, presenting a barrier for public awareness. On this episode of the Mongabay Newscast, Africa staff writer Malavika Vyawahare is joined by a fisheries expert, Grantly Galland, and an RFMO secretary, Darius Campbell, to explain how decisions are made in regional fish...
Dec 23, 2024•1 hr 23 min•Ep. 230
A new forest finance fund known as the Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF) will work like an investment portfolio (unlike the familiar – and often ineffective – forest conservation loan or grant funds), and if enacted as intended, it will reward 70 tropical nations billions in annual funding for keeping their forests standing. Co-host Mike DiGirolamo speaks with three people who have analyzed the fund: Mongabay freelance reporter Justin Catanoso, Charlotte Streck – co-founder of Climate Focu...
Dec 16, 2024•37 min•Ep. 229
Animal aquaculture, the farming of fish, has outpaced the amount of wild-caught fish by tens of millions of metric tons each year, bringing with it negative environmental impacts and enabling abuse, says Carl Safina, an ecologist and author. On this episode of Mongabay’s podcast, Safina speaks with co-host Rachel Donald about his recent Science Advances essay describing the “moral reckoning” that’s required for the industry, pointing to environmental laws in the United States, which put hard lim...
Dec 10, 2024•47 min•Ep. 228
Neil Vora MD is a former epidemic intelligence service officer with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) with experience combating outbreaks of the deadly Ebola virus and running the New York City contact tracing program for COVID-19. He advocates supporting public health infrastructure to respond to diseases. He much prefers preventing outbreaks before they occur instead of rushing to respond to them, though, and the best way to do this, he says, is by investing in nature. ...
Nov 26, 2024•40 min•Ep. 227
Todd Smith wanted to be a pilot since the age of 5, but an epiphany spurred by seeing a retreating ice cap in Peru revealed that his love of flying conflicted with the planetary harm his industry was causing. “That was the first seed that was planted, and I was witnessing in that moment climate change and mass tourism firsthand,” he says. Today, Smith is co-founder of Safe Landing, an organization dedicated to advocating for sustainable aviation reform to adapt to the realities of climate change...
Nov 12, 2024•48 min•Ep. 226
The new BBNJ (biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction) marine conservation agreement is impressive in scope but has since been rebranded by some as the “high seas treaty,” which risks biasing its interpretation by emphasizing the historical, but outdated, freedoms enjoyed by seafaring (and largely Western) nations. Elizabeth Mendenhall of the University of Rhode Island joins this episode to discuss the treaty with co-host Rachel Donald, detailing the fascinating and complicated nature of ocean...
Oct 29, 2024•42 min•Ep. 225
Just prior to the latest world biodiversity summit (COP 16 in Colombia), a similarly-themed event was hosted by the Australian Government in Sydney: the Global ‘Nature Positive’ Summit featured Indigenous leaders, scientists and conservationists, but political leaders in attendance provided little insight into when key reforms to the Environmental Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act would take place, which experts, lawyers, and activists have been calling for. For this episode, Mongabay...
Oct 22, 2024•30 min•Ep. 224
The Mongabay Newscast recently traveled to San Francisco to join an event hosted by the popular radio show and podcast, Climate One , reflecting on both Mongabay’s 25th anniversary and Jane Goodall’s 90th birthday, for a live audience of 1,700. First, Mongabay founder and CEO Rhett Ayers Butler discusses the news outlet’s biggest successes and impact over a quarter of a century, and then Climate One founder and host Greg Dalton engages Butler and Goodall in conversation about the state of enviro...
Oct 15, 2024•1 hr 20 min•Ep. 223
An array of top voices are interviewed or heard on this episode straight from Climate Week in New York, a global gathering of leaders and experts working in the climate and environmental sectors on proactive policies and practical initiatives. The podcast speaks with several individuals on topics ranging from a fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty that’s gaining steam currently to ways of improving the financing of Indigenous communities and conservation organizations working in Africa, and many...
Oct 08, 2024•57 min•Ep. 222
Drylands are vast and home to a wide array of biodiversity, while also hosting a large portion of the world’s farmland, but they face continued desertification, despite many of them recently experiencing increased vegetation levels. Five million hectares (12 million acres) of drylands, an area half the size of South Korea, have been desertified due to climate change since 1980, but elevated CO2 levels are also driving a regreening of some areas, which some argue is a positive effect of pumping C...
Oct 01, 2024•43 min•Ep. 221
Marine biologist and climate policy advocate Ayana Elizabeth Johnson joins this episode to discuss her latest book, What If We Get It Right? Visions of Climate Futures , a compilation of essays and interviews with experts and authors in the climate and environmental fields. Her book sensitively probes the problems human society faces and potential pathways to address environmental injustice, from the unsustainable industrialization of our food systems to the inequity (or lack) of climate policy ...
Sep 24, 2024•27 min•Ep. 220
The Phnom Chum Rok Sat community forest used to support local and Indigenous groups in Cambodia’s Stung Treng province, as well as a thriving local ecotourism venture, but that all changed this year when mining company Lin Vatey privately acquired roughly two-thirds of the land and began clearing the forest. Mongabay features writer Gerry Flynn investigated how this happened with freelance reporter Nehru Pry, and speaks with co-host Mike DiGirolamo about how the 10 individuals behind the land gr...
Sep 17, 2024•41 min•Ep. 219
“Legal personhood” and laws regarding the “rights of nature” are being trialed in nations worldwide, but whether they lead to measurable conservation outcomes is yet to be seen, says environmental economist Viktoria Kahui. Still, she says on this episode of the Mongabay Newscast that she’s very hopeful about them. There’s a global debate surrounding these laws’ efficacy as a tool for conservation, and growing uneasiness about how they may impose a Western viewpoint upon something as inherently c...
Sep 03, 2024•45 min•Ep. 218
Homeowners and towns along the U.S. East Coast are increasingly building “living shorelines” to adapt to sea level rise and boost wildlife habitat in a more economical and less carbon-intensive way than concrete seawalls. These projects protect shorelines using a clever mix of native plants, driftwood, holiday trees, and other organic materials. Peter Slovinsky, a coastal geologist with the Maine Geological Survey, joins the Mongabay Newscast to discuss the benefits of living shorelines, how the...
Aug 27, 2024•42 min•Ep. 217
The current clade of H5N1 or bird flu is an "existential threat" to the world’s biodiversity, experts say. While it has infected more than 500 bird and mammal species on every continent except Australia, the number of human infections from the current clade (grouping) 2.3.4.4b is still comparatively small. U.S. dairy workers have recently become infected, and the virus could easily mutate to become more virulent, our guest says. Joining the Mongabay Newscast to talk about it is Apoorva Mandavill...
Aug 20, 2024•28 min•Ep. 216
Top National Geographic photographer Kiliii Yüyan joined the show to discuss traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) and why Indigenous communities are the world’s most effective conservationists. Yüyan spoke about this with us in March 2023 and we're sharing the episode again after it recently won a 'Best coverage of Indigenous communities' prize from the Indigenous Media Awards. While the National Geographic version of "Guardians of Life" is now published, the collaboration between Gleb Raygoro...
Aug 13, 2024•41 min•Ep. 215
Mongabay newswire editor Shreya Dasgupta joins the Mongabay Newscast to detail her new three-part miniseries, Wild Frequencies, produced in collaboration with the Mongabay India bureau. Dasgupta details her journey with Mongabay-India senior digital editor Kartik Chandramouli. They travel the country speaking with researchers, listening and studying to the sounds produced by bats, Asian elephants, sarus cranes, wolves and many other animals. The emerging field for which this study is named, bioa...
Aug 06, 2024•32 min•Ep. 214
Scientists described Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans (Bsal) over 10 years ago, a pathogen that causes the deadly disease chytridiomycosis which is currently devastating salamanders and frogs around the world, contributing to a global amphibian decline. But thanks to a successful cross border (U.S., Mexico & Canada) effort to keep it out, it has yet to arrive in North America: the Bsal Task Force is made up of scientists from each nation using education, outreach, science and policy to keep the...
Jul 30, 2024•53 min•Ep. 213
U.S. states such as Vermont and Massachusetts are cutting thousands of acres of forest for solar power projects, despite the fact that this harms biodiversity and degrades ecosystems' carbon sequestration capacity. Journalist and author Judith Schwartz joins the Mongabay Newscast to speak with co-host Mike DiGirolamo about the seeming irony of cutting forests for renewable energy, and why she says states like hers are 'missing the plot' on climate action: she lives near a forest in southwestern ...
Jul 23, 2024•37 min•Ep. 212
Australian agronomist Tony Rinaudo's reforestation project in Niger was failing – with 80% of his planted saplings dying – until he stumbled upon a simple solution in plain sight: stumps of previously cut trees trying to regrow in the dry, deforested landscape. The degraded land contained numerous such stumps with intact root systems, plus millions of tree seeds hidden in the soil, which farmers could encourage to grow and reforest the landscape, something he refers to as 'an invisible forest in...
Jul 16, 2024•49 min•Ep. 211
The premier of the Malaysian state of Sarawak recently announced new dam projects on three rivers in Borneo without the informed consent of local people. The managing director of the Sarawak-based NGO SAVE Rivers , Celine Lim, joins the podcast to discuss with co-host Rachel Donald how these potential dam projects could impact rivers and human communities in Borneo. She also reflects on lessons learned from a recent visit with Indigenous communities in California, who successfully argued for the...
Jul 09, 2024•45 min•Ep. 210
Last year, Mongabay launched a brand-new bureau dedicated to covering the African continent daily in French and English. The team is led by veteran Cameroonian journalist David Akana, who chats with co-host Mike DiGirolamo about the importance of covering the African continent and why news that happens there is of keen interest to audiences worldwide. Akana details his team's coverage priorities, including solutions-oriented stories, which he says are vital to delivering a fair picture of the co...
Jun 25, 2024•37 min•Ep. 209
The biotic pump theory has been controversial in the climate science community ever since Anastassia Makarieva and Victor Gorshkov published their paper about it to the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics in 2010. If true, the theory sheds light on how the interior forests of vast continents influence wind and the water cycles that supply whole nations, flipping traditional hydrological and atmospheric science on its head. Anastassia Makarieva joins this episode to discuss the theory and i...
Jun 18, 2024•54 min•Ep. 208