Isabel Esterman

Researchers and local nature enthusiasts described 234 new-to-science species across the Greater Mekong region in 2023.

Five years after government forces began shutting down their schools for alleged links to communist rebels, thousands of Indigenous Lumads remain dispersed and deprived of justice.

BALI, Indonesia — “We didn’t have electricity in our village of Taro, near Ubud, until I was 12 years old,” says conservationist Wayan Wardika. To find their way through the rice fields at night, Wardika and his schoolfriends would capture fireflies and put them in jam jars, so they could use them as lanterns. “We […]

For Thảo, a journalist based in Hanoi, online reports from Vietnamese internet users were key to her and her colleagues’ coverage of Typhoon Yagi and its aftermath. The storm, the biggest in Asia this year and the strongest to strike Vietnam in 70 years, made landfall in the country’s north on Sept. 7. Millions pf […]

A survey to find the critically endangered Tonkin-snub nosed monkey in Vietnam found no trace of it in one of two remaining forest patches it was known to inhabit.

Conservationists searching for Vietnam’s critically endangered Tonkin snub-nosed monkey, one of the world’s most threatened primates, have found no sign of the species in one of the two forest patches where it was thought to remain. This is cause for “great concern,” say conservationists from Fauna & Flora’s Vietnam program in a recent paper in the journal Oryx. Until recently, the Tonkin snub-nosed monkey (Rhinopithecus avunculus) was known to only inhabit Quan Ba Forest and Khau Ca Species and Habitat Conservation Area, within the larger Du Gia National Park. In Quan Ba, the species was last seen in 2020. Anecdotal evidence from local communities suggest it may have clung on, but a 32-person survey team that traveled a combined 731 kilometers (454 miles) over five days in April failed to find any signs of the species. Fauna & Flora team member on a Tonkin snub-nosed monkey survey. In April 2024, conservationists with the organization found no significant evidence of the monkeys in Quan Ba Forest. Image courtesy of Oliver Wearn/Fauna & Flora. “We did not see the monkeys this year,” says Lam Van Hoang, director of Fauna & Flora’s Vietnam office, which led the survey. That doesn’t mean they’ve gone locally extinct, or extirpated, he says, noting it’s possible that a population of 20 individuals or fewer could remain undetected in the forest. “We need to apply more conservation technology, maybe using thermal drones or more human efforts, in order to have more accurate data of the population.” Agricultural expansion, widespread deforestation,…This article was originally published on Mongabay

2024 was a grim year for conservation and its champions across Southeast Asia, as deforestation surged due to infrastructure, agriculture, logging and mining, threatening critical ecosystems and protected areas.

Among New Guinea’s rainforest inhabitants is a group of birds called pitohuis, chatty songbirds that stand out for their loud, attractive songs. But there’s more to these birds than their songs: their poison. Pitohuis are among the few poisonous birds on the planet. Their skin and feathers contain potent neurotoxins, which help them fight off parasites such as lice, ticks and fleas, and predators, including humans. When humans handle these birds, the neurotoxins irritate the nasal passage and cause allergy-like symptoms. Yet even the poison doesn’t seem enough to protect pitohuis from the songbird trade, as new research shows. A study published in the journal Bird Conservation International by a team of international researchers and an NGO presents the first evidence of poisonous pitohuis (genus Pitohuis) entering the songbird trade in Indonesia, which occupies the western half of the island of New Guinea. The researchers find that these birds appeared in the trade in 2015 and have since been sold in bird markets and online platforms, raising conservation concerns about the illegal trade of these birds. Birdkeeping is a traditional practice rooted in Javanese culture, where a third of households keep songbirds. Studies estimate that the island has anywhere between 66 million and 84 million caged birds. For most, it’s a cherished hobby, and for a few, they’re prize-winning contestants in singing competitions. But this penchant for songbirds has a dark side: the Asian songbird crisis. With soaring demand for songbirds, thousands of wild-caught birds are entering the trade in…This article was originally published on Mongabay

Citizens rallied in Bangkok this week demanding accountability and action from the government and private corporations following an outbreak of

In Nagasaki prefecture, on the southern Japanese island of Kyushu, J-Power, the operator of the aging Matsushima coal-fired power plant, has an idea to keep the unit operating despite the country’s no-coal pledge: gasification. “Japan considers coal gasification a form of abatement, and thus in line with their commitments to phase out unabated coal power,” […]