New revelations around a carbon deal in Malaysian Borneo criticized for its opacity have led to further calls for clarity and transparency about the project. Two international carbon credit project…
Captive elephants often lead difficult lives. In tourism, logging and roadbuilding, they put in long hours in hazardous conditions that cause injuries. But since 2006, the Elephant Valley Project has…
A new report reveals that deforestation increased by 4% worldwide in 2022, dimming the prospects of ending forest loss by 2030. The spike indicates rates are trending “in the wrong…
MUKU, Papua New Guinea — Fidelis Nick’s eyes lock onto the police vehicle as it passes through his village in northwestern Papua New Guinea. A few people wave greetings as…
The world needs to ramp up action to address climate change, according to a major report from the United Nations released Sept. 8. Meeting agreed-upon climate goals requires “phasing out…
PORT MORESBY, Papua New Guinea — A moratorium on deep-sea mining established by a group of Pacific island nations has struck a blow to the Solwara 1 project in Papua…
PU TROM, Cambodia — The quiet life that Sambo leads today seems as distant from her past plight as the searing-hot streets she once trod as a tourist attraction in…
A study has found that the vast majority of the carbon credits from a set of forest conservation projects on three continents aren’t “offsetting” the emissions of the companies and…
KAVIENG, Papua New Guinea — Papua New Guinea’s minister for mining confirmed in early August that a deep-sea mining company would once again be looking to mine the seafloor under…
Supporters of an embattled carbon deal in the Malaysian Bornean state of Sabah have publicly resumed efforts to bring the 2-million hectare (4.9 million-acre), 100-year agreement into force. "This initiative…
Hundreds of millions of people around the world live in spots considered critical for the protection of wildlife. More than three-quarters of these populations exist in less-industrialized countries, where poverty…
The world won’t be able to limit global temperature rise as called for in the 2015 Paris Agreement without eventually eliminating the use of fossil fuels, according to Simon Stiell,…
The founding CEO of the world’s most prominent standards organization for carbon credits sold on voluntary markets will step down. David Antonioli will leave the U.S.-based nonprofit standard-setting organization Verra…
ADDIS ABABA, Ethiopia — The peoples of the Lower Omo River Valley in southwestern Ethiopia have never had an easy task in ensuring their own survival. Hot and dry, with…
A group of Indigenous-led organizations released a letter May 9 supporting forest protection efforts known collectively as REDD+ projects. They argue that REDD+, short for “reducing emissions from deforestation and…
An independent governance body has released a set of rules aimed at boosting the “integrity” of the global carbon market for the exchange of credits meant to address the climate…
Humans must make “deep, rapid, and sustained” cuts to greenhouse gas emissions to avoid the worst effects of climate change, according to the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change…
Bearded pigs play a prominent role in the lives of many people living on the island of Borneo. For some ethnic groups, they're a hunter’s most-prized quarry, providing an important…
For the first time ever, researchers have plotted out the locations and tabulated the carbon stocks of more than 9.9 billion individual trees spread across the dry belt of land…
Only about 10% of the exchanges, brokers, resellers and cryptocurrency vendors that buy and sell voluntary carbon market credits share the precise commissions and profits they make in these exchanges,…
Warmer temperatures could significantly diminish the ability of tropical forests to siphon carbon from the atmosphere by intensifying dry seasons, according to a recent study. The tropics pack away an…
The red-breasted goose is a well-traveled bird. From their breeding grounds in Arctic Siberia, flocks typically migrate over northern Kazakhstan through the Russian Republic of Kalmykia and Rostov Oblast to…
A flagship dam and large-scale sugarcane plantations in southwestern Ethiopia are causing starvation and disease among several Indigenous groups driven off their land by the projects, according to a report…
Eight conservation and Indigenous organizations have released a detailed guide for companies looking to invest in tropical forest carbon credits. The groups first published the Tropical Forest Credit Integrity (TCFI)…
Pollution from a variety of sources is driving up the incidence of resistance to the compounds used to treat infections, according to a report released by the United Nations Environment…
Corporations see investments in voluntary carbon markets as a key part of their climate strategy, according to a new report from the environmental nonprofit Conservation International and the We Mean…
Large trees in older forests that hold significant amounts of carbon located within U.S. national forests are vulnerable to logging, according to a new study published Jan. 6 in the…
The tree kangaroos inhabiting a forested mountain range in Papua New Guinea have made an unlikely comeback in the past 40 years, but old dangers now jeopardize that rebound. Three…
Damselfish can be fastidious farmers. They prune and cultivate small patches of algae, often no more than half a square meter (5 square feet) in area, ensuring they have a…
It’s too easy nowadays to look at the state of the world and feel a sense of hopelessness. Scientists tell us we face not one but two potentially existential menaces…
John is a staff features writer with Mongabay. Follow him on Twitter: @johnccannon.
John became a correspondent for Mongabay in 2014 and joined the site's team full time in October 2016. John's journalistic work has also appeared in New Scientist, Slate.com, Yale Environment 360, Pacific Standard, Science (online), Business Insider and Bicycle Times. John has been a guest on the BBC as well as NPR's All Things Considered and Living on Earth, and he has also had several short stories published in literary magazines. He studied biology as an undergraduate at the Ohio State University and has a graduate degree in science writing from UC Santa Cruz. Always eager to find local perspectives on globally relevant stories, John has reported from Brunei, Cameroon, Central Africa Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Malaysia, Peru and Rwanda. He currently lives in Afghanistan with his wife.
