Podcast · Tech & Science

Mongabay Newscast

by Mongabay.com · English · Tech & Science

News and inspiration from nature's frontline, featuring inspiring guests and deeper analysis of the global environmental issues explored every day by the Mongabay.com team, from climate change to biodiversity, tropical ecology, wildlife, and more. The show airs every other week.

New episodes: Weekly
Typical length: 42 min
Latest: 13 Oct 2026
Language: English

Latest episode

13 Oct 2026 · 36 minNew

The exotic pet trade fuels biodiversity and disease risks. Here's how to curb it

The global pet trade, particularly in exotic reptiles and amphibians, poses significant biodiversity and potential human health risks, scientists say; yet compared to other pressing crises like climate change, the solutions are relatively simple — if only governments would act on them. Susan Lieberman, vice president for international policy at the Wildlife Conservation Society, based in the U.S., and Sandra Altherr, co-founder and head of science at Pro Wildlife, in Germany, join the Mongabay Newscast this week to discuss these solutions, which they've outlined in a commentary published in…

Play episodeWhatsApp Download

Earlier episodes 29 most recent

E312 · 6 Oct 2026 · 39 min
Kynan Tegar wants 'a future that exists' for Indonesia's Indigenous communities
Indigenous activist and filmmaker Kynan Tegar joins the Mongabay Newscast this week to discuss the impacts of the fires devastating Kalimantan, the Indonesian portion of the island of Borneo. Some 48,000 hectares (about 119,000 acres) of land have burned so far this year; Kynan says these fires are intentional on the part of agricultural corporations. "The process that has gotten us to this point right now, where fires are raging through the island, it's a process that started maybe you can draw the line up to the 1970s, which was around the time where the Indonesian New Order period regime…
E311 · 29 Sep 2026 · 57 min
Iwi and communities bring kiwi back to Wellington after 150 years
For the first time in 150 years, kiwi once again live in the hills surrounding Wellington, Aotearoa New Zealand. More than 250 manu ("birds" in the Māori language) were successfully translocated back to the region, thanks to the efforts of the iwi (nations of Aotearoa), community members, and landowners behind the Capital Kiwi Project . Paul Ward, the project lead and founder, joins the Mongabay Newscast this week to explain the yearslong effort to make this possible. "This is a relational project as much as it is what you might traditionally call a conservation project. And I think at a…
E310 · 22 Sep 2026 · 52 min
Home Planet Fund succeeds in conservation by investing in local knowledge
This week on the Newscast, we're joined by Dilafruz Khonikboyeva, the founder of the Home Planet Fund, an independent, Indigenous-led nonprofit that provides funding for local and Indigenous communities and conservation projects around the world. Khonikboyeva, who is also the organization's executive director, speaks about the ethos of the Home Planet Fund and how it works. But I must emphasize that in my conversation with Khonikboyeva, what stands out most to me isn't just the fund's focus on Indigenous-led conversation and investing in local knowledge. It's the well of experience…
E309 · 15 Sep 2026 · 48 min
'Big Cats' highlights the remarkable power of photojournalism
Jeff Sikich, the biologist for the National Park Service in Griffith Park, Los Angeles, thought that Steve Winter "was crazy" for wanting to capture a photograph of a mountain lion in front of the Hollywood sign. "He looked at me like I was crazy because he said, 'There are no mountain lions in Griffith Park.' But I knew in the past that there had been," Winter says. It took him 15 months, but Winter managed to do it. He captured the famous mountain lion, named P-22 by scientists, sauntering down a hill at night wearing his tracking collar, with the Hollywood sign shimmering in the…
E308 · 8 Sep 2026 · 39 min
A health crisis for Peru's recently contacted people brings planetary health to the fore
Mongabay staff writer Aimee Gabay joins the Newscast this week to discuss her reporting trip to the Peruvian Amazon, where she spoke with the Indigenous Matsés community. She made the trip initially to examine environmental threats to Matsés territory. Instead, she found them suffering from an epidemic of malaria and hepatitis B, which they have been asking the Peruvian government to help address. "The story itself was a surprise … every question directed to them about environmental changes would immediately become an issue about health," Gabay says. The current epidemic of malaria and…
E307 · 1 Sep 2026 · 51 min
Christiana Figueres and Garik Israelian on Jane Goodall's legacy and the search for truth
A new award has been created in honor of late conservation icon Jane Goodall by the board of the Starmus Festival , an international gathering of scientists and artists to be held from Oct. 17-22 in Tenerife, Spain. Christiana Figueres has been selected as the recipient of this inaugural Jane Goodall Earth Medal . Figueres is the former executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change and is known for her work in securing the negotiations leading to the Paris climate agreement. She joins the podcast this week to discuss the significance of this medal and her…
E306 · 25 Aug 2026 · 33 min
In Bhutan, the pursuit of happiness extends to the food system
Bhutan is a Himalayan kingdom sandwiched between China and India. Forty percent of its 800,000 citizens work in the agriculture sector. The mountainous country is famous for its breathtaking landscapes and its unique policy of "Gross National Happiness," instituted in 1972 by Jigme Singye Wangchuck, the fourth king of Bhutan. My guests on the Newscast this week say this philosophy is the backbone of the nation's food system, and its plan for full food self-sufficiency by 2029. "Our food system isn't just about producing food. It's about sustaining our landscapes, our communities, and our…
E305 · 18 Aug 2026 · 47 min
'Remembering Wildlife' before it goes extinct
British wildlife photographer Margot Raggett says she created the book Remembering Elephants after she heard David Attenborough say, "The question is, are we happy to suppose that our grandchildren may never be able to see an elephant except in a picture book?" Her effort was to provoke this question in others and to give the proceeds from its sale to conservation organizations. In a sense, the book went viral and generated a following, prompting Raggett to continue the book series and her nonprofit, Remembering Wildlife . "Sometimes people get upset with me and say 'They're still around,'…
E304 · 11 Aug 2026 · 29 min
Historic fire seasons are the 'new normal' without 'serious action' on climate change
Elizabeth Goldman is a co-director of Global Nature Watch , previously known as Global Forest Watch, a database measuring forest loss that's frequently cited in Mongabay reporting. She joins this week's podcast to detail GNW's updated 25-year analysis of global forest fire trends. The picture is stark: Forest fires burn twice as much forest today as they did 20 years ago, and historic fire seasons are the "new normal," she says. "Catastrophic, large-scale fires are becoming more of a normal. The last three years are the worst three years in the record-keeping in our data set," Goldman says.…
E303 · 4 Aug 2026 · 54 min
The 'quiet revolution' inspired by Delhi's urban wildlife
In her upcoming book, My Wild City: Finding Nature, Meaning, and Hope in India ' s Capital , conservation biologist Neha Sinha takes readers to the hidden and not-so-hidden ecosystems of India's largest city. And while the book expertly details the biodiversity, I believe its greatest strength lies in connecting with the reader emotionally through powerful stories from her personal life. On this week's episode of the Mongabay Newscast, Sinha explains why nature in cities isn't just important from an ecosystem health perspective, but necessary for the emotional life of all people. Sinha…
E302 · 28 Jul 2026 · 38 min
Why are forests in Liberia disappearing?
On this week's episode of the Mongabay Newscast, we speak with features writer Ashoka Mukpo, who traveled to southeastern Liberia to investigate what satellite images indicated was a spike in deforestation over a relatively concentrated period. Along with video production coordinator Juan Maza, Mukpo documented illegal cacao plantations in the rainforests in the county of Grand Gedeh. In this interview, he explains how and why these plantations are appearing now in Liberia. "What we saw … probably the best metaphor for it is that there's a kind of gold rush happening in this part of Liberia,…
E301 · 21 Jul 2026 · 42 min
Oil has brought destruction to the Niger Delta; women and human rights may save it
On this week's episode of the Mongabay Newscast, I speak with travel writer Noo Saro-Wiwa . She has documented the violence and natural destruction that the presence of oil companies have brought to the people of the Niger Delta in her latest book, The Burning Ground: Oil and Militancy in Nigeria . Saro-Wiwa is also the daughter of the late activist Ken Saro-Wiwa, who was executed by the Nigerian government in 1995. Her father led a peaceful resistance against the oil companies' presence in the Niger Delta by mobilizing 300,000 people from Ogoniland in 1993. It is fair to say his activism…
E300 · 14 Jul 2026 · 34 min
The Mediterranean Sea's beauty hides an ecosystem under pressure
The Mediterranean Sea accounts for less than 1% of the world's ocean surface water, but it contains roughly 18% of global marine biodiversity. It is home to 150 million people along its coastline (roughly equivalent to Russia's population). And it sequesters 17.2 million metric tons of CO2 each year. Joining the Newscast this week to talk about the unique biodiversity of the Mediterranean Sea and its threats is journalist Manuela Callari. Callari has written for Mongabay, highlighting the threats to purple sea urchins ( Paracentrotus lividus ) along the Italian coast. These marine…
E299 · 7 Jul 2026 · 37 min
Wildlife crossings are having a moment
Nearly three years ago, Newscast guest, author and journalist Ben Goldfarb discussed his book Crossings , which is about wildlife crossings and road ecology. Wildlife crossings help reconnect habitats fragmented by road networks, reducing collisions, helping protect threatened wildlife, and improving genetic diversity. Since that conversation, Goldfarb has documented the growing popularity of wildlife crossings worldwide. He returns to the Newscast to detail how, where, and why wildlife crossings are becoming increasingly funded and built. "Probably the biggest factor is that at this point,…
E298 · 30 Jun 2026 · 53 min
The radical plan to rethink work, wealth and planetary well-being
A group of more than 40 researchers spent 20 months devising a plan for the world to achieve ecological sustainability within planetary boundaries , all while seeing incomes rise for 98% of the global population and reducing working hours for everybody by half to two and a half days a week. The plan to achieve this by 2100 is laid out in the recent " Global Justice Report ." If it sounds utopian, Lucas Chancel, the co-director of the World Inequality Lab and editor of the report, is the first person to acknowledge this, but explains why it's not only possible — there's even historical…
E297 · 16 Jun 2026 · 34 min
Addressing the 'toxic legacy' of mining in Bougainville
Theonila Roka Matbob grew up next to what was — at the time — the world's largest open-pit mine in Bougainville, an autonomous island in Papua New Guinea, operated by a subsidiary of Rio Tinto. This mine wrought environmental and social devastation on the community of Panguna for decades. And many of these impacts carry on today, says Roka Matbob, who is an Indigenous Nasioi woman and politician. With the help of Jubilee Australia and the Human Rights Law Centre, Roka Matbob was able to file a legal complaint with Australia's National Contact Point for Responsible Business Conduct. As a…
E296 · 9 Jun 2026 · 46 min
Healing the planet requires healing ourselves, says Katharine Wilkinson
Katharine Wilkinson has a Ph.D. in geography and the environment, is well known for being a co-author of the book Drawdown and co-founder of The All We Can Save Project . She joins the Newscast this week to discuss her latest book Climate Wayfinding: Healing Ourselves and the Planet We Call Home . As a journalist, it's unhelpful for me to divorce myself from the topic of this interview, as I have experienced , time and again, the sense of "murky overwhelm" this book is specifically designed to address. But Wilkinson didn't just write this book for journalists like myself who cover ecological…
E295 · 2 Jun 2026 · 34 min
A 'coalition of the willing' to urge the world to drop fossil fuels
A group of 57 nations mostly from the Global South, describing themselves as "coalition of the willing" intent on making the Transition Away From Fossil Fuels, or TAFF, convened in the Colombian city of Santa Marta, from April 24-29, 2026, for the inaugural TAFF summit . Also referred to as the "Santa Marta Coalition," this group of countries met to discuss and develop frameworks and pathways for nations to phase out fossil fuel dependency. Joining the Mongabay Newscast this week is Mamphela Ramphele , a medical doctor, activist and member of the Planetary Guardians , a network of experts…
E294 · 26 May 2026 · 42 min
Australia claims it's 'on track' to meet its environment targets. Scientists disagree
Australia is one of 17 "megadiverse" countries that account for 70% of Earth's biodiversity. However, Australia is unique in having the highest mammalian extinction rate in the world . That makes conservation on the island continent, where most of the wildlife is found nowhere else on Earth, all the more urgent. Conservation and environmental scientists have come out against the Australian federal government's claim that it's "on track" to meet most of its targets under the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework agreed upon at the U.N. biodiversity summit in 2022. This week on the…
E293 · 19 May 2026 · 36 min
The world must address pandemic threats urgently, says former CDC officer
"[The]cruel irony here [is] that the world cannot get its act together to address these threats … people are dying, animals are suffering, we're losing rainforest … these are all interconnected threats," Neil Vora tells me on this week's episode of the Mongabay Newscast, just a day after the World Health Organization (WHO) reported more than 80 deaths in the Democratic Republic of Congo from an outbreak of the Ebola virus. Vora is a former U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) epidemic intelligence service officer who deployed to the DRC to combat Ebola. He says the current…
E292 · 12 May 2026 · 51 min
Protest works, but it needs your help now more than ever, veteran activists say
"We are experiencing what some people call sort of a shutdown of the public square in the United States and around the world," says veteran environmental activist André Carothers. Along with the former executive director of Greenpeace US, Annie Leonard, the two have co-authored a new book about the history of protest, why it works, and why it's under attack. Protest: Respect It. Defend It. Use It. was written to "remind readers about the role protests played in gaining a lot of the progress that we take for granted today," Leonard says. Earth Day 1970 famously saw around 10% of the U.S.…
E291 · 5 May 2026 · 39 min
A new Netflix documentary captures rare mountain gorilla behavior
"That might be something that you see in a decade, not in two years of filming," Tara Stoinksi, CEO of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund, tells me. The behavior she's referring to occurs in mountain gorilla groups, such as a "dominance transfer," where a younger male silverback takes over leadership from an older male, and infanticide, where an outsider or ostracized gorilla kills the offspring of a new mother within the group. The former of these was captured on camera within days of filming for the new Netflix documentary A Gorilla Story: Told by David Attenborough . Stoinski joins the Mongabay…
E290 · 28 Apr 2026 · 41 min
Centering an Indigenous approach to forestry through reciprocity, not extraction
Forester and scientist Suzanne Simard is well known for her landmark 1997 paper , which demonstrated that two distinct species of trees could share resources. At the time, it turned traditional Western forestry thinking on its head. Instead of the Darwinian view of trees as being in competition with each other, it introduced the idea that these trees may actually help each other, and that industrial logging practices may be missing the forest for the trees. In recent years, Simard has been advocating for Indigenous knowledge as the only way to save the Earth and its forests. Environmental…
E289 · 21 Apr 2026 · 28 min
Across oceans, seabird flyways gain recognition — and a chance at protection
The routes taken by migratory birds, known as flyways, often cross vast expanses of ocean. Six of these marine flyways have now been formally recognized by the U.N.'s Convention on Migratory Species, at the suggestion of scientists who published their findings on these flyways in the British Ecological Society's Journal of Applied Ecology . Tammy Davies, a co-author of the paper and marine science coordinator at BirdLife International, joins the Mongabay Newscast this week to discuss the conservation potential of the six flyways, and what the formal recognition by CMS does and doesn't do.…
E288 · 14 Apr 2026 · 45 min
The coyotes next door: What we get wrong about America's 'song dog'
Coyotes are now present in almost every major urban-metropolitan area in the United States, yet conflicts between the canines and humans are exceptionally low . Between 1960 and 2006, only 146 documented coyote attacks on humans occurred in the U.S. and Canada. Yet there are 4.5 million dog attacks on humans annually in the U.S. alone. Despite the low number of conflicts with coyotes, nearly one coyote is killed every minute in the United States on average, according to the nonprofit organization Project Coyote . Camilla Fox, the group's founder and executive director, joins this week's…
E287 · 7 Apr 2026 · 46 min
The 'lonely conservationist' advocating for better care of workers
Jessie Panazzolo was given a stuffed gorilla when she was 3, and from then on, she always wanted to be a conservationist. But a reasonable career track of being gainfully employed or on a livable wage almost doesn't exist in the sector, she explains to me this week on the Mongabay Newscast. She details the dwindling career prospects, the grueling conditions conservationists must endure, and the mental toll they're taking on themselves. Following Jeremy Hance's reporting on the mental health crisis afflicting conservationists, I contacted Panazzolo to gain more insight into her journey in the…
E286 · 31 Mar 2026 · 1 hr 1 min
The conservation sector must speak truth to power, says political ecologist
The people and policies that control how humans treat the natural world are increasingly dominated by a small class of elite political entities and corporations, argues our guest, political ecologist Bram Buscher at Wageningen University in the Netherlands, on this week's Newscast. This power, he says, is concentrated on platforms that have no allegiance to fact or truth, but rather serve only what increases their bottom line. Understanding this power dynamic and speaking truth to it is essential for the environmental movement to succeed. "If you keep on doing the same kind of things and not…
E285 · 24 Mar 2026 · 49 min
A year after the shuttering of USAID conservation projects fight to stay afloat
When then-U.S. president John F . Kennedy created the United States Agency for International Development in 1961, it was meant primarily to administer health and food aid around the world. In the decades since, USAID expanded to become one of the world's largest financial contributors to conservation, providing nearly $400 million annually before the end of 2024. However, that money is now completely gone after the current president, Donald Trump, gutted and shut down the agency in one of his first acts upon returning to office in January 2025. Since then, an estimated 834,000 people have…
E284 · 17 Mar 2026 · 50 min
Save a tiger, save an ecosystem: Why protecting the big cats is a biodiversity boon
Tiger populations have risen in some countries, such as Bhutan, Nepal and India, but the global population of the big cat species remains critically endangered, says Debbie Banks, campaign lead for tigers and wildlife crime at the Environmental Investigation Agency . The global tiger population was recorded at roughly 5,574 in 2022, with the species having disappeared from roughly 95% of its historical range. Banks joins Mongabay's podcast this week to detail the status of Panthera tigris, the successes and failures of the first Global Tiger Recovery Program (GTRP), what the second iteration…

About Mongabay Newscast

Mongabay Newscast is a English tech & science podcast from Mongabay.com. Melo plays each episode straight from the publisher's own feed — no ads added, no account needed — and remembers where you stopped, in this browser only.

Publisher: Mongabay.com
Language: English
Category: Tech & Science
New episodes: Weekly
Typical length: 42 min
Latest episode: 13 Oct 2026
Feed: RSS — paste into any podcast app
Apple Podcasts: podcasts.apple.com/podcast/id1155856616

RSS feed Apple Podcasts

More English tech & science

Take it with you

The Melo app keeps playing with the screen off, works in the car and on your watch, wakes you to your station, and browses the whole catalogue offline. Free, no ads, no account.