Open Newswire

Asiatic lions in Gujarat are increasingly occupying a variety of different landscapes as their population grows, a census exercise by the Gujarat Forest Department found. Between 2020 and 2025, the population of Asiatic lions increased from 674 individuals to 891, the census, published as a paper in the Global Ecology and Conservation journal, says. However, […]

Last Updated on January 7, 2026 I grew up hearing stories about the land as a living being, one who remembers the humans who are part of it. But today, my people’s lifeways are threatened by extraction. State-led mining interests clash with Akan land guardianship, revealing the unequal power dynamics behind the language of “development.” […] Source

Are weighted vests more than a fitness fad? A health and exercise expert explains their potential benefits and limitations.

Why Mongabay is reporting on California’s biodiversity Mongabay’s coverage of biodiversity has long been associated with tropical forests and far-flung frontiers. Yet California—wealthy, populous, and intensively studied—presents a different kind of challenge. It is one of the planet’s biodiversity hotspots, and yet much of its life remains undocumented, unnamed, and unaccounted for. That contradiction […]

A group of conservation organizations said U.S. Critical Materials presented a “bad faith” proposal for “a mining plan” in the Sheep Creek area — not just an “exploration” plan as the company describes. A letter Monday from the groups to the Bitterroot National Forest asks the U.S. Forest Service to reject the operations plan to […]

The warming climate is killing Australia’s forest trees at a faster rate. This offers a glimpse of what may lie ahead for forests globally.

Last Updated on January 6, 2026 The West Papua provincial government reaffirmed Monday that Indigenous communities with customary land rights have the legal authority to approve or reject any expansion of palm oil plantations in their forests, a policy change officials and local advocates say aims to safeguard both community rights and the region’s sensitive […] Source

JAKARTA — Best known as the home of the world’s rarest great ape, the mountainous Batang Toru forest landscape on the island of Sumatra has become a test case for whether Indonesia can enforce environmental law in a region where mining, energy and plantation projects overlap with fragile ecosystems. In late November 2025, a rare […]

Lurh Tlang Vavu Sanctuary in Farkawn village of Champhai district has become Mizoram’s first community-led forest dedicated to the sole conservation of Mrs. Hume’s pheasant, the state bird of Mizoram. This initiative marks a rare instance of an entire village proactively setting aside forest land for the conservation of a species. Mrs. Hume’s pheasant (Syrmaticus […]

Sri Lanka in 1881 was an emerald island. Its forests blanketed 84 percent of the land with their canopies stretching endlessly across mountains and valleys. Today, a mere 29.7 percent remains. This... The post Understanding Why Conservation Matters for Sri Lanka – Part 4 first appeared on Groundviews.

VAUPÉS, COLOMBIA – As a baby, Elisa Fernández Sánchez’ mother would place her into the bow of the canoe and glide across the murky waters of the Vaupés River in the thick Amazon rainforest. Their journey towards the traditional forest gardens was not easy, but they did it almost every day. Her mom would plunge […]

In the Chico Mendes Extractive Reserve in the Brazilian Amazon, locals tap rubber and extract Brazil nuts from the rainforest for a living. It’s a way of life dependent on the forest that goes back generations — and which rubber tapper Chico Mendes, who gave the area its name, was murdered trying to defend in […]

More than 145,000 African forest elephants roam the rainforests of Africa, according to a recent population assessment. Published in December by the African Elephant Specialist Group at the IUCN, the global wildlife conservation authority, the survey relies on improved DNA-based techniques to provide the first estimate for these critically endangered pachyderms since they were recognized […]

Idaho’s endowment forests are often the subject of passionate public conversation, and that is a good thing. These lands support Idaho’s public schools and other institutions and are managed – by Idahoans – with care and scientific rigor.  A recent op-ed about Priest Lake includes several misconceptions about how the Idaho Department of Lands (IDL) […]

The decline of the forest, following extractive work, deforestation, tree cutting, agricultural expansion, illegal logging, and other works in the forest areas of Congo, is shrinking the habitat of Indigenous peoples.

In the mountains of central Veracruz, scientific work is rarely abstract. It means walking narrow paths through cloud forest, speaking patiently with communities, and learning to read landscapes that yield information slowly. It also means accepting risk as a condition of knowledge. Field research unfolds in places where the state is often distant and authority […]

(The Center Square) – As legislation continues to move on $210 million in tax incentives for a new $1.5 billion pulpwood facility in Hayward, Synthec Fuels’ chief operating officer said that the decision on whether to put the facility in Hayward or another state is not solely dependent on the state funds. The plant would take pulpwood and turn it into aviation fuel in what is called sustainable aviation fuel made from CORSIA wood mass operated by a German company working with Wisconsin-based Johnson Timber. A bill dubbed the Forestry Revitalization Act would provide $60 million in enterprise tax credits and use the state forestry account to back $150 million in bonds for an incentive toward the project. “You're not selecting your site because of any incentives, you know, there are other factors which each are important,” Synthec Fuels CEO Matthias Mueller told The Chronotype of Rice Lake. “This is a significant amount, and even though we are fully funded, it creates positive effect on our side, and so we will have to weigh everything if decisions are being made. But I think this is premature, right now, to say that.” The bill had a public hearing in the Senate Committee on Insurance, Housing, Rural Issues and Forestry in October but has not seen a vote or an Assembly public hearing. Senate President Mary Felzkowski, R-Tomahawk, is a bill sponsor along with Rep. Chanz Green, R-Grand View. “This facility would be a great boon to Wisconsin, directly creating about 150 jobs at the facility and supporting over 200 additional jobs for loggers, truckers, foresters, etc., and converting 880,000 tons of wood residue into 48 million gallons of biofuel annually,” Felzkowski said in testimony supporting the bill. Mueller told the paper that Hayward was the “first choice” for the plant over options in Minnesota and Michigan and that access to pulpwood, energy and both rail and highway transportation are important factors along with the tax incentives. “The good news is that our business plan is not relying on it, but obviously, you know, it's enhancing the bottom line, and it's lowering the risk at our end,” Mueller told the outlet. Part of the need for the sustainable aviation fuel is European regulations, which require a mix of the fuel. The European Union will require 2% blends of the fuel by 2025, or 1.2 million tons, and 20% by 2035, or 13.6 million tons.

Seven threatened galaxy frogs (Melanobatrachus indicus) are gone from a research site in the Western Ghats in Kerala after photographers seeking images of the rare, star-patterned amphibians destroyed their delicate forest floor habitat, according to a short article published in Herpetology Notes. Researchers found the seven tiny frogs beneath rotting logs at the site in […]

President Trump recently nominated Steve Pearce — an anti-environmentalist obsessed with selling off public lands — to run the nation’s largest land management agency. The Bureau of Land Management oversees 245 million acres nationwide, including 12 million acres in Arizona. This includes Ironwood Forest National Monument, the San Pedro River corridor, Vermilion Cliffs National Monument […]

Last Updated on January 1, 2026 At dawn in the Cuyabeno Reserve, members of the Siona Ancestral Force move quietly through Amazonia’s dense forest. This Indigenous guard monitors territory abandoned by the government. Trails are marked by violence, some still hiding landmines scattered during decades of armed conflict in neighboring Colombia. Today, various armed groups […] Source