By Charles Mpaka Chimpanzees, like humans, can use a variety of tools to perform tasks such as getting food from hard-to-reach places. Now, a study published in PLOS Biology has found that, also like humans, chimps continue learning and refining those skills well into adulthood. This lifelong learning and continual development of skills is critical for the survival of chimpanzees in the wild, says lead author Mathieu Malherbe, from the Ape Social Mind Lab at Marc Jeannerod Institute of Cognitive Sciences in France and the Taï Chimpanzee Project in Côte d’Ivoire. “Chimpanzees’ ability to extrac...
Mongabay
By Farhana Parvin For long, cucumbers and pumpkins remained the only popular squash vegetables in Bangladesh. When Bangladesh Agricultural Extensions introduced zucchinis to farmers in the late 1990s, there was some confusion among both farmers and consumers regarding the cultivation and uses of this new type of squash. However, zucchini squash has now gained popularity among farmers in Bangladesh as a short-duration crop. Farmers feel secure cultivating this vegetable because it requires less water, requires lower production costs, has higher yields, and a growing market demand. Shithi Rani i...
Mongabay
By S. Gopikrishna Warrier “April is the cruelest month,” wrote T.S. Eliot in the poem The Waste Land. For the 30 million residents of India’s southern state of Kerala, this April was particularly cruel, with the India Meteorological Department (IMD) declaring the first ever recorded heatwave in the state. The heatwave also came at a time when Kerala, along with other parts of the country, is part of the national elections process, with campaigning, public meetings and voting taking place in high temperatures. The ambient heat is expected to continue in the coming days, too, while the political...
Mongabay
By Carolyn Cowan Civil society groups in Southeast Asia are calling for greater public participation and transparency in the drafting process of a regional declaration on environmental rights, as well as stronger levels of commitment from states within the final agreement. First tabled in 2021 by the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), the bloc’s declaration on environmental rights, known as ADER, aims to provide an unprecedented regional framework to push for the implementation of international environmental rights standards. These include the 2022 U.N. General Assembly ...
Mongabay
By Timothy J. Killeen The Pan Amazon is a significant source of several key industrial commodities. Global markets are not overly dependent on the region; nonetheless, production from Amazonian mines is not insignificant. Development of mineral resources is a decades-long process and, if the extractive sector were to abandon the region, as proposed by some environmental advocates, the global economy would find other geographies to supply these essential minerals. Oil and gas production is insignificant at the global scale (< 0.1%) and production could be wound down without difficulty. In purel...
Mongabay
By Claire Asher Plastic is a remarkably versatile and durable material, which has made it indispensable in almost every area of modern life. But these same properties, amplified by our “take-make-waste” linear economy, have created a brewing environmental catastrophe. It’s hard to grasp the gigantic scale of our global plastic waste problem. Since 1950, humanity has produced more than 8.3 billion metric tons of plastic. Most has ended up in landfills or the environment, where it is harmful to wildlife, ecosystem functioning and human health. Once in the environment, plastic slowly breaks down ...
Mongabay
By Carolina Pinheiro Small fragments of ancestral Amazonian culture are emerging from the ground in the backyards of homes in the rural and urban parts of Parintins, Amazonas: pieces of broken pots, chips with clear drawings, elaborately sculpted figures of human and nonhuman beings, decorative objects and burial urns — all made of pottery. Among these particles of time that include stone instruments as well, people and objects are intertwined amid diverse landscapes composing an ancient biocultural mosaic called a sustainable agroecological system in archaeology. In this municipality located ...
Mongabay
By Falahi MubarokYogi Eka Sahputra PULAU SERIBU, Indonesia — Mustaghfirin unmoors his boat every day in the Thousand Islands archipelago, two hours’ sailing from the Jakarta coast, and sets off into a sea filled with garbage. “This plastic waste is extremely annoying,” Mustaghfirin told Mongabay Indonesia in April. “The motor we use to propel the boat is small, so it often gets jammed.” In 1950, global production of plastic amounted to around 2 million metric tons per year. By 2019, the world produced more than 450 million metric tons, according to production figures compiled by Our World in D...
Mongabay
By Charles Pekow Hopes for a worldwide plastics treaty gained some momentum at the fourth of five scheduled summits to hash out an agreement. But while the week-long session of the UN International Negotiating Committee made some headway, it didn’t leave environmentalists feeling overly optimistic. INC-4, which took place the last week of April in Ottawa, Canada, was the latest step in a United Nations effort to develop international law to control plastic pollution. Representatives of 170 nations converged on Ottawa, where they greatly shortened a lengthy draft text, and reached consensus on ...
Mongabay
By Hans Nicholas Jong JAKARTA — Fear among Indonesia’s ruling class of losing control of natural resources to Indigenous people is why the country’s parliament continues to delay passing a long-awaited bill on Indigenous rights, according to activists. The bill was proposed in 2012 and has been placed on parliament’s list of national priority legislation every year since 2014, but never passed since. A lawmaker on the legislation committee discussing the bill now says that’s because it keeps being blocked by two of the biggest parties in parliament. Luluk Nur Hamidah said her committee had as ...
Mongabay
To continue enjoying content, please agree to our Terms of Use for Users that includes our collection and use of your browsing data, which is incorporated into our Privacy Policy.