Mongabay - Conservation News (original) (raw)

‘Lost’ parrot rediscovered on remote Indonesian peak

Naina Rao 16 Jun 2026

Following a grueling 14-day trek, a team of mountaineers and conservationists has photographed the elusive blue-fronted lorikeet in the highlands of eastern Indonesia’s Buru Island. This is only the second photographed record of the parrot in more than 100 years, according to bird conservation groups.

The blue-fronted lorikeet (Charmosynopsis toxopei) is a small species found only in the island of Buru. The bird, which has a lime-green plumage, an orange beak and a pointed tail, was first identified from seven museum specimens collected in the 1920s.

The avian species went undetected despite surveys conducted in the lowland and mid-elevation forests they’re described from, until it was photographed in 2014 by Craig Robson during a birding tour, according to the Search for Lost Birds project, a global partnership between the NGOs American Bird Conservancy (ABC), Re:wild and BirdLife International.

In April 2026, Indonesian mountaineering group Kanal Buru, which included researchers from ABC, Birdtour Asia and Yayasan Planet Indonesia, led an expedition in Buru. They scaled the limestone terrain of Mount Kapalatmada in the west of the island to reach a 2,700-meter (8,900-foot) summit cloud forest and successfully photographed the parrot. The team also captured its high-pitched calls for the first time.

“We noticed two small birds fly into a nearby tree so I picked up my binoculars to see what one of them was,” John C. Mittermeier, director of the Search for Lost Birds at ABC and part of the expedition, said in a statement by the ABC. “I short-circuited with excitement when I realized it was a Blue-fronted lorikeet.”

For Sumaraja, a Birdtour Asia guide and tour leader, the sighting was deeply emotional. “When we saw the Blue-fronted Lorikeet, I couldn’t hold back my tears,” Sumaraja said in the statement. “Every day, I almost cried with joy at seeing that these birds still exist.”

The blue-fronted lorikeet was listed as data deficient on the IUCN Red List in 2024, when the species was last assessed, owing to the limited information available about it.

While the mountain’s largely inaccessible terrain has served as the lorikeet’s greatest protection, Benny A. Siregar of Burung Indonesia, BirdLife International’s country partner, warned that the species remains highly vulnerable.

“Rare sighting records suggest a highly restricted habitat use. The primary challenge facing the Blue-fronted Lorikeet is that they are facing threats that remain largely unknown. This bird inhabits areas under continuous pressure from deforestation,” he said in a statement to BirdLife.

The parrot could potentially be under threat from logging on the island that’s cleared old forests in the coastal plains and the northern parts of the island, according to a recent research article. Surveys by the nonprofit Konservasi Kakatua Indonesia (KKI) have also found there is local hunting of birds, including several parrot species.

Expedition leader Handoko said he hopes the rediscovery will inspire local conservation efforts. “I hope to share these experiences to empower people in Buru to protect this unique area,” he said.

Banner image of a Blue-fronted Lorikeet. Image courtesy of John C. Mittermeier.

Himalayan rivers shifting course as climate warming thaws the ‘Water Tower of Asia’

Naina Rao 16 Jun 2026

Rivers are known to naturally meander, change courses, braid and branch. But as rising temperatures melt glaciers and thaw frozen ground, the courses of Himalayan rivers are shifting and changing shape much more rapidly than before, according to a new study published in the journal Science. The rising instability of the rivers could pose a risk to water security and critical infrastructure, researchers say.

The Himalayas, often referred to as the “Water Tower of Asia”, provide vital water resources for nearly 2 billion people downstream. But according to the study, in the upper high Himalayan region, where several important river basins originate, temperatures have risen nearly twice as fast as the global average in the past four decades.

The researchers studied three upper high Himalayan river drainage basins: Yarlung Tsangpo, Indus and Ganges. The sources of these rivers occur at elevations of nearly 5,000 meters (16,404 feet), where there is extensive glacier, ice cover and permafrost. Meltwater from these glaciers and permafrost, which is sensitive to climate warming, forms the rivers’ primary water supply.

To find out how climate change is shifting and reshaping these upper high Himalayan river basins, the researchers analyzed 40 years of satellite imagery. In particular, they measured 1,079 river bends, covering roughly 1,582 kilometers (983 miles), from 1980 to 2020. Since valleys can confine and influence river movements, the researchers chose unconfined bends or meanders that flowed freely through the landscape for their analysis.

Their analysis found that the rivers’ courses were shifting sideways faster from 2000-2020 compared to 1980-2000. There was also a significant increase in new channels and shortcuts created by the rivers over the decades. These are signs of rising river instability, the authors say.

The study attributes the instability to cryosphere degradation, suggesting that as temperatures rise, the thawing of permafrost weakens riverbanks while increasing meltwater and sediment loads, making the landscape more prone to erosion.

“The upper high Himalayas stand out as a region where climate warming and channel migration interact strongly,” said study lead author Zhongpeng Han of the China University of Geosciences, Beijing, in a news release. He noted that the region serves as a natural laboratory for studying climate-driven changes in river movements and shape.

The researchers warn that the increasingly unstable rivers pose significant risks to water security and critical infrastructure like roads and bridges.

“For the billions who rely on Himalayan water sources, the acceleration of river dynamics documented in our study poses implications for water security, sediment-related hazards, and the stability of riparian infrastructure,” said study co-author Chengshan Wang of the China University of Geosciences.

Banner image: Using satellite imagery and field observations spanning four decades, researchers found that as global temperatures rise, rivers across the upper high Himalayas are becoming more unstable. Image courtesy of “Steingletscher Moods” by ScrewJ Image (CC BY-NC-SA).

Global map of Earth’s mycorrhizal fungal networks could help protect them

Liz Kimbrough 15 Jun 2026

Fungi are living below your feet. Roughly 110 quadrillion kilometers of living fungal threads are woven through the world’s soils. Stretched end-to-end they would cover a distance nearly a billion times that from Earth to the sun. Now, scientists have mapped where those networks are, how dense they are, and what threatens them.

Last year, researchers published global analyses in Nature about the diversity patterns of underground mycorrhizal fungal communities along with the Underground Atlas to help decision makers visualize where to prioritize conservation.

Now, they ask the question: How much fungal infrastructure exists, and where?

A new study published in Science by researchers with the Society for the Protection of Underground Networks (SPUN) and collaborators produced the first global maps of arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungal network density and biomass.

“There could be up to 10 meters (32 feet) of mycorrhizal network in just a teaspoon of soil,” lead author Justin Stewart of SPUN said in a press statement.

Nearly all land plants live in partnership with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi. The fungi exchange water and nutrients for carbon made from sunlight. These underground networks act as a living circulatory system for the planet, and the new study found they move an estimated 4 billion tons of CO2 equivalent into soils annually, roughly 11% of global human-related emissions.

To build the density maps, the team drew on data from more than 16,000 soil cores collected across nine biomes referenced in 322 published studies. They developed machine-learning models to predict network density in unsampled regions, then calibrated those predictions using robotic imaging of more than 300,000 individual living hyphae (the tubular cells that make up fungal networks) grown under laboratory conditions at the Amsterdam research institute AMOLF.

The researchers visualized their results in a new interactive tool called the Mycorrhizal Infrastructure Map with estimates calculated for every square kilometer of terrestrial land. The maps reveal striking geographic variation.

Grassland ecosystems harbor an estimated 40% of all AM fungal biomass on Earth, with especially dense networks in South Sudan’s flooded grasslands, Florida’s Everglades in the U.S., and the Tibetan Plateau in Asia.

Croplands had roughly half the fungal network density of wild ecosystems. While researchers say more work is needed to link specific farming practices to fungal health, less dense networks may diminish soils’ ability to store carbon and cycle nutrients.

Previous research found that 90% of AM fungal biodiversity hotspots lie outside protected areas. The new data suggest the physical infrastructure of those networks is similarly exposed.

“Fungi have been ignored in climate and conservation for too long,” study co-author Toby Kiers, SPUN’s executive director, said. “Now is the time to change that trajectory.”

Banner image: A screenshot from the Mycorrhizal Infrastructure Map.

Lawmakers fight to stop the Trump administration’s dismantling of a $386M ocean observatory project

Associated Press 15 Jun 2026

SEATTLE (AP) — Lawmakers are demanding the National Science Foundation stop dismantling the Ocean Observatories Initiative, a $386 million ocean monitoring network being wound down under President Donald Trump’s administration. House Democrats on two committees call the action illegal. Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley says he’s drafting legislation to freeze the removal of instruments until a full scientific review is completed. The National Science Foundation directed the removal of most of the system’s instruments from waters off Oregon, Washington, Alaska, North Carolina and Greenland by 2027. Monday’s pushback against the Republican administration’s actions comes as scientists are set to remove instruments from the Pacific and as an El Niño event is predicted to arrive this summer.

By Annika Hammerschlag, Associated Press

Banner image: In this 2021 image provided by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, workers walk near buoys used to gather data at Pioneer New England shelf off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard, Mass. Image courtesy of Véronique LaCapra/Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution via Associated Press.

Australia establishes the first Sea Country Indigenous Protected Area

Rhett Ayers Butler 15 Jun 2026

Founder’s Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries.

For the Karajarri people of Kimberley in northwestern Australia, the coastline, reefs, wetlands, beaches and desert-edge country form one estate, held through law, memory, work and obligation.

That relationship now has new recognition, reports Mongabay’s John Cannon. In March, the Karajarri dedicated Karajarri Jurarr Ngurra, Australia’s first Sea Country Indigenous Protected Area. It covers 237,489 hectares (nearly 587,000 acres) of marine and coastal ecosystems, including part of Malumpurr, the Karajarri name for Eighty Mile Beach.

The area is rich in life. Flatback turtles (Natator depressus) nest along the shore of Malumpurr. Migratory birds use the wetlands. Sawfish swim through nearby waters. These species are often recorded through science, surveys and management plans. The Karajarri know them through long presence, close observation and responsibility passed across generations.

The new protected area builds on three decades of legal and political work. The Karajarri first secured recognition of their land claims. They then established a land-based Indigenous Protected Area and developed a ranger program. Sea Country protection is the next step. It gives formal weight to an existing relationship.

Jesse Ala’i, formerly the Land and Sea Country manager for the Karajarri Traditional Lands Association, put it simply: “In order to have healthy Country, you need healthy people.” The reverse is also true. “Healthy people need healthy Country,” he added.

Australia’s Indigenous Protected Areas now account for more than half of the country’s progress toward protecting 30% of its territory by 2030.

Protection typically works best when it is not designed from a distance. It needs law, funding, monitoring and science. It also needs people who know a place well enough to notice when it is changing. In the Kimberley, that means recognizing those who have long cared for both land and sea.

Read the full story by John Cannon here.

Banner image: Flatback turtles nest on, and live off, the coast of Malumpurr, also known as Eighty Mile Beach. Image by © glyall via iNaturalist (CC BY-NC 4.0).

The bats that pollinate for tequila: Photo of the week

Shanna Hanbury 15 Jun 2026

A Mexican long-tongued bat, featured above, flies into the blooms of an agave plant, a feeding and pollination technique used to reach nectar. The bats (Choeronycteris mexicana) have unusually long tongues to access nectar while their impact spreads pollen grains everywhere to pollinate nearby agave.

Peter Hudson, a professor of biology at Penn State University, U.S., photographed the moment in 2019 in Arizona’s Sonoran Desert near the U.S.-Mexico border. The region is a biodiversity hotspot, home to native species including trogons and antelope jackrabbits (Lepus alleni).

“These bats just go, like little kids on a sugar rush,” Hudson told Mongabay by phone. “They’re taking in so much of this rich sugar stuff that they’re flying about doing happy laps, as it were, in the sky.”

The bats’ long tongues can extend nearly 8 centimeters (3 inches) from their body and are covered in hair-like protusions, papillae, that help it drink nectar from flowers. They primarily feed on agave nectar, cactus flowers, soft fruits and the occasional insect.

Hudson used a movement trigger and flash to snap the moment. “It all happens so fast,” he said. “You have to get the bat as it’s coming into the plant and see if you can capture it as it hits the plant.”

The agave plant is used to make tequila and mezcal, Mexico’s national spirit. As demand for export has increased, the country has experienced a more than 700% surge in mezcal production in the past decade.

The jump in demand for Mexican spirits has been a double-edged sword for the three bat species that pollinate agave: the Mexican long-tongued bat, the lesser long-nosed bat (Leptonycteris yerbabuenae) and the greater long-nosed bat (Leptonycteris nivalis).

“Planting of the agave has increased as people want more and more agave to make tequila,” Hudson said. “So, there is an industry there which, on the one hand, seems to be benefiting the bats; but on the other hand, the wild agave is getting less.”

Agave cultivation is driving a decline in wild agave and deforestation, though scientists don’t know the true extent of deforestation, Alfonso Valiente, an ecologist at the Institute of Ecology at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, told Mongabay in 2023.

In Matatlán, a major mezcal-producing region in the south of Mexico, forest loss linked to mezcal production between 2000 and 2012 was around 36%, as producers expanded their agave farms onto hillsides with native vegetation. Yet in other agave-producing regions, producers use agroecological systems, in which 30% of agave plants are reserved for bats, limiting the amount harvested for mezcal production to 70%.

The Mexican long-tongued bat is currently listed as near threatened by the IUCN Red List, the global conservation authority.

Banner image: A Mexican long-tongued bat feeds from an agave flower in the Sonoran Desert in Arizona, U.S. Image courtesy of Peter Hudson.

Correction: A previous version of this article misidentified the jackrabbit species.