Mongabay Newscast

Acclaimed environmental journalist John Vidal joins the show to discuss the current pandemic's links to the wildlife trade and the destruction of nature. We speak about his recent Guardian/Ensia feature on what we know about the origins of the outbreak, what he's learned while reporting from similar outbreak epicenters in the past, how the destruction of nature creates the perfect conditions for diseases to emerge, and what we can do to prevent future outbreaks. See related Mongabay podcast episode: How studying an African bat might help us prevent future Ebola outbreaks Here's this episode's top news: National parks in Africa shutter over COVID-19 threat to great apes Shell of bioluminescent shrimp not only glows but detects light Seychelles extends protection to marine area twice the size of Great Britain If you enjoy this show, please invite your friends to subscribe via Android, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, TuneIn, Spotify, Pandora, or wherever they get podcasts. Please visit www.patreon.com/mongabay to pledge a dollar or more to keep this show growing, Mongabay is a nonproft media outlet and all support helps! See our latest news from nature's frontlines at Mongabay's homepage: news.mongabay.com or find us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram by searching for @mongabay. Feedback is always welcome: submissions@mongabay.com.

The songs, calls, clicks, and bumps of beluga whales, bearded seals, bowhead whales, ribbon seals, and walrus are the stars of this episode, which also features the co-author of a recent study that used bioacoustics to assess how variation in sea surface temperature and sea ice extent affects these animals' populations in the northern Bering Sea. Dr. Howard Rosenbaum is the director of the Wildlife Conservation Society's Ocean Giants Program, and his team is creating an acoustic baseline for how marine noise pollution and climate change are affecting large mammals in this area of the Arctic. Learn more about Dr. Rosenbaum's team's study here and press play to hear the fascinating sounds they captured. Here's this episode's top news: Conservationists set the record straight on COVID-19's wildlife links Record-high global tree cover loss driven by agriculture In Afghanistan, a new national park carries hopes for conservation and peace If you enjoy this show, please invite your friends to subscribe via Android, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, TuneIn, Spotify, Pandora, or wherever they get podcasts. Please visit www.patreon.com/mongabay to pledge a dollar or more to keep this show growing, Mongabay is a nonproft media outlet and all support helps! See our latest news from nature's frontlines at Mongabay's homepage: news.mongabay.com or find us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram by searching for @mongabay. Feedback is always welcome: submissions@mongabay.com.

Rocket scientist Shah Selbe discusses using open-source technologies for conservation challenges. Their team deploys drones, sensor networks, smartphone apps, and acoustic buoys for ecosystem monitoring. They also introduce the open-source hardware and online platform FieldKit for real-time monitoring. Other topics include China's wildlife trade ban, fires in Brazil's Pantanal wetlands, lowland gorillas in Equatorial Guinea, and excitement about conservation technology and collaboration.

Fred Swaniker is the founder of the African Leadership University, which recently launched a School of Wildlife Conservation to help young Africans develop the skills and knowledge necessary to "own and drive" the conservation agenda on the African continent. Swaniker sees Africa's natural heritage as a strategic advantage for the continent, and argues on this episode that the immense young workforce can be engaged in its conservation in many ways, from management to filmmaking, science communications and technology. He also shares highlights from ALU's recent "Business of Conservation Conference" in Kigali, Rwanda. Here's this episode's top news: Jeff Bezos establishes $10 billion 'Earth Fund' to combat climate change Deforestation in Brazil continues torrid pace into 2020 Rhino poaching in South Africa declines for fifth straight year Learn more about African Leadership University's School of Wildlife Conservation at its website, www.sowc.alueducation.com. If you enjoy this show, please invite your friends to subscribe via Android, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, TuneIn, Spotify, Pandora, or wherever they get podcasts. Please visit www.patreon.com/mongabay to pledge a dollar or more to keep this show growing, Mongabay is a nonproft media outlet and all support helps! See our latest news from nature's frontlines at Mongabay's homepage: news.mongabay.com or find us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram by searching for @mongabay. Feedback is always welcome: submissions@mongabay.com.

Top scientists, authors, and activists appear on the Mongabay Newscast to discuss their latest research, describe new solutions for tough challenges, or to share their views on conservation and the environment: subscribe to this free show via Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon, or wherever you get your podcasts. Mongabay.com is a 25 year-old award-winning nonprofit news service with 5 million monthly readers who consume our daily reporting in 6 languages via 5 international bureaus. So to stay on top of key trends, new science and fresh thinking on the global environment, find, subscribe and follow the Mongabay Newscast for news and inspiration from nature's frontline.

'Without the land, indigenous people cannot exist' the new leader of Cultural Survival, Galina Angarova, tells host Mike G. in this new episode. Raised in a Buryat community in Siberia, she's had a number of top roles through the years, but her recent appointment to this key indigenous rights organization is perhaps the most important one yet. She grew up eating wild berries, mushrooms, nuts, wild garlic, deer, and more on the shores of Lake Baikal, and therefore has a strong sense of relationship to the land and how important it is that indigenous peoples like her community are allowed to keep stewarding these places: it's been proven that indigenous communities are the best stewards of land, waters, forests, and animals. Angarova joins the show to discuss this plus the power of indigenous radio programs, and her idea of the sacred feminine. Here's this episode's top news: Catastrophic Amazon tipping point less than 30 years away: study Dam that threatens orangutan habitat is 'wholly unnecessary': Report Indigenous, protected lands in Amazon emit far less carbon than areas outside Belize officially declares wildlife corridor in key protected area complex Learn more about Galina and the work of Cultural Survival at their website, culturalsurvival.org. If you enjoy this show, please invite your friends to subscribe via Android, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, TuneIn, Spotify, Pandora, or wherever they get podcasts. Please visit www.patreon.com/mongabay to pledge a dollar or more to keep this show growing, Mongabay is a nonproft media outlet and all support helps! See our latest news from nature's frontlines at Mongabay's homepage: news.mongabay.com or find us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram by searching for @mongabay. Feedback is always welcome: submissions@mongabay.com.

Laurel Symes is a biologist who uses bioacoustics to study tropical katydids in Central America, and she joins us to play some of her hypnotic rainforest recordings and say how tracking these insects' interesting sounds can aid rainforest conservation. Based on the Osa Peninsula in Costa Rica, she uses machine learning to detect and identify these creatures, which are grasshopper-like insects that are important to the rainforest food web, because they eat a lot of plants and are in turn eaten by a lot of other species, including birds, bats, monkeys, frogs, and more. Here's this episode's top news: 2019 was second-hottest year on record, 2010s hottest decade Indigenous lands hold 36% or more of remaining intact forest landscapes Update to biodiversity treaty proposes protecting at least 30% of Earth One six-week expedition discovered ten new songbird species and subspecies in Indonesia If you enjoy this show, please invite your friends to subscribe via Android, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, TuneIn, Spotify, Pandora, or wherever they get podcasts. Please visit www.patreon.com/mongabay to pledge a dollar or more to keep this show growing, Mongabay is a nonproft media outlet and all support helps! See our latest news from nature's frontlines at Mongabay's homepage: news.mongabay.com or find us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram by searching for @mongabay. Feedback is always welcome: submissions@mongabay.com.

Ami Vitale is an award-winning war correspondent turned conservation photographer, and her iconic images of animals like Sudan the Rhino adorn the pages of National Geographic and other top outlets often. But she's so much more than a woman with a camera, rather, she's a force of nature helping create change and grassroots conservation all over the world through her work, words, and advocacy. She joins the podcast to talk about the most inspiring and heartbreaking moments from her recent projects (don't miss the beautiful story at the end about the behavior of elephant orphans) and she shares where she finds her seemingly boundless energy and optimism. Here's this episode's top news items: Study declares ancient Chinese paddlefish extinct 'Tainted timber' from Myanmar widely used in yachts seized in the Netherlands New monkey discovered on "island" amid deforestation in Brazil Episode artwork of a panda keeper in China is courtesy of Ami Vitale. If you enjoy this show, please invite your friends to subscribe via Android, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, TuneIn, Spotify, Pandora, or wherever they get podcasts. Please visit www.patreon.com/mongabay to pledge a dollar or more to keep this show growing, Mongabay is a nonproft media outlet and all support helps! See our latest news from nature's frontlines at Mongabay's homepage: news.mongabay.com or find us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram by searching for @mongabay. Feedback is always welcome: submissions@mongabay.com.

For this last episode of 2019, we take a look back at some favorite bioacoustics recordings featured here on the Mongabay Newscast and play them for you. As regular listeners will know, bioacoustics is the study of how animals use and perceive sound, and how their acoustical adaptations reflect their behaviors and relationships with their habitats and surroundings. Bioacoustics is a fairly young field of study but it is already being used to study everything from how wildlife populations respond to the impacts of climate change to how entire ecosystems are impacted by human activities. Here's this episode's top news: Tropical forests' lost decade: the 2010s Central American countries pledge to protect Mesoamerica's '5 Great Forests' Mountain gorilla census reveals further increase in numbers If you enjoy this show, please invite your friends to subscribe via Android, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, TuneIn, Spotify, Pandora, or wherever they get podcasts. Please visit www.patreon.com/mongabay to pledge a dollar or more to keep this show growing, Mongabay is a nonproft media outlet and all support helps! See our latest news from nature's frontlines at Mongabay's homepage: news.mongabay.com or find us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram by searching for @mongabay. Feedback is always welcome: submissions@mongabay.com.

We speak with National Geographic writer Chris Fagan about the investigative report he just filed for Mongabay revealing a massive invasion of national parks in the Peruvian Amazon, in an area relied upon by isolated indigenous communities. Traveling up the Sepahua River with indigenous guides, Fagan counted more than 250 plots of land illegally cleared for cocaine production in recent months. He met some of these growers and describes for us a very 'Wild West' scene that Peruvian officials know little about, in an area that was thought to be largely protected. Read Chris's full report and see the stunning video and drone footage here: https://news.mongabay.com/2019/12/coca-farms-close-in-on-protected-areas-isolated-tribes-in-peruvian-amazon/ Here's this episode's top news: Revealed: Government officials say permits for mega-plantation in Papua were falsified Hopes dim as COP25 delegates dicker over Article 6 and world burns: critics Newly spotted calves boost Javan rhino population to 72 If you enjoy this show, please invite your friends to subscribe via Android, Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Stitcher, TuneIn, Spotify, Pandora, or wherever they get podcasts. Please visit www.patreon.com/mongabay to pledge a dollar or more to keep this show growing, Mongabay is a nonproft media outlet and all support helps! See our latest news from nature's frontlines at Mongabay's homepage: news.mongabay.com or find us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram by searching for @mongabay. Photo of Chris Fagan by Jason Houston/Upper Amazon Conservancy. Feedback is always welcome: submissions@mongabay.com.