Green & indigenous News

In 2025, Hawaiʻi experienced its second-driest year in more than a century, alongside persistently above-average temperatures throughout the year—a stark reality detailed in the inaugural Hawai'i Annual Climate Report 2025. Published by the University of Hawai'i Sea Grant College Program, this first-of-its-kind report uses plain language, along with easy-to-interpret maps and figures, to summarize statewide rainfall, temperature, and drought conditions over the past year.

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In the Pacific Northwest, big faults like the Cascadian subduction zone located offshore, get a lot of attention. But big faults aren't the only ones that pose significant hazards, and a new study investigates the dynamics of a complex fault zone that runs right under the heart of Seattle.

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When an Arctic blast pushed deep into the southeastern United States last weekend, it left behind more than freeze warnings and broken records. Over the Atlantic, the cold air reorganized the lower atmosphere into long, parallel cloud bands—patterns that meteorologists recognize as a signature of intense cold moving over warmer water—captured in striking detail by NOAA’s GOES East satellite. The formations reflect a basic exchange of energy between ocean and atmosphere. As frigid, dry air passes over comparatively warm water, it absorbs heat and moisture, forcing the air into alternating lanes of ascent and descent. Clouds form where air rises and cools, while adjacent sinking air remains clear, producing the distinctive street-like appearance visible from space. In this case, the cloud streets marked the southern reach of one of the coldest air masses Florida has experienced in years. Temperatures dropped well below freezing in parts of the state, exposing ecosystems, infrastructure, and agriculture adapted to warmth to conditions more commonly associated with far higher latitudes. “The frigid air that plunged southward on Sunday was some of the coldest that Florida has seen in years,” NOAA said in a statement. “Temperatures dropped to 23 degrees Fahrenheit in Winter Haven, 29 degrees in Tampa, 30 degrees in West Palm Beach, and 35 degrees in Miami.” The same satellite systems that reveal these visually arresting patterns are also responsible for tracking storms, monitoring ocean conditions, and maintaining the long-term records scientists use to understand a changing planet. At a time when NOAA faces…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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Last Updated on February 5, 2026 Picture an aircraft streaking across the sky at hundreds of miles per hour, unleashing millions of laser pulses into a dense tropical forest. The objective: map thousands of square miles, including the ground beneath the canopy, in fine detail within a matter of days. Once the stuff of science […]

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A new Curtin University study warns that large parts of Australia, including major cities and farming regions, could be highly vulnerable to a fast-spreading invasive beetle, already causing severe damage across the Perth metropolitan area. The study looked at the full life cycle of the polyphagous shot hole borer (PSHB), a tiny insect which releases a fungus that can starve trees of nutrients, killing them in the process. The study resulted in a model to analyze where new outbreaks are most likely to occur in Australia.

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Bacteria in food can make you seriously ill, which is why it is so important for the facilities that produce your food to ensure proper hygiene in their production lines. A new doctoral thesis from NTNU has investigated how bacterial communities in the chicken and salmon industries change when disinfectants are used.

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Scientists at the University of Southampton have uncovered evidence from ancient rocks that Earth's climate continued to fluctuate during its most extreme ice age—known as Snowball Earth. During the Cryogenian Period, between 720 and 635 million years ago, it has long been believed that Earth's climate entirely shut down.

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Researchers at the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin, together with data scientists, have developed a new method to largely automate the extraction of label information from digitized insect specimens. The pipeline, named ELIE, uses artificial intelligence to reliably detect and process printed labels. This significantly reduces the time-consuming manual transcription work and represents an important advance for the digitization of natural history collections worldwide. The paper is published in the journal Methods in Ecology and Evolution.

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The Trump administration recently announced it is seeking suggestions for Arctic National Wildlife Refuge sites to auction off for oil development, and the Yukon-Kuskokwim village of Kipnuk is at a crossroads.

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After her father’s death, Bigga-Helena Magga and her sister were determined that their ancestral homeland, Alttokangas, a Sámi boreal forest and peatland in Finland’s Inari municipality, would not be turned into a commercial forestry operation. “We chose to take care and protect our inherited site located along the Ivalojoki river, which held great significance to Sámi culture and way of life,” said Magga, a Sámi leader from the Ivalo community. What began as a personal restoration project gained momentum in 2024, when it was formally recognized as the first Indigenous and community conserved area (ICCA) in Sámi lands located in Finland. That same year, they joined an effort to create what may be the world’s first coordinated restoration hubs across boreal and Arctic peatlands in Europe and North America. A key goal is for communities across Canada, the U.S. and Europe’s Arctic to work simultaneously to find a shared framework for restoration that conserves peatlands’ rich soil carbon and mitigates climate change. Kunnijänkkä intact peatland facing Northeast, the Pallas-Ounas National Park visible on the horizon. Image courtesy of Mika Honkalinna / Snowchange Cooperative. The initiative, part of the Climate Breakthrough Award program, builds on peatland conservation and restoration work led by Snowchange Cooperative, a Finland-based organization that launched its first landscape rewilding project in 2018. At the time, the effort restored peatlands from eight sites totaling 8,800 hectares (21,745 acres) to 188 sites in 2024, affecting up to 62,000 hectares (153,205 acres) in Finland. The program expands on this initiative…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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More than 50 skuas in Antarctica died from the high pathogenicity avian influenza virus H5N1 in the summers of 2023 and 2024, marking the first documented die-off of wildlife from the virus on the continent. That is confirmed for the first time in a study led by Erasmus MC in The Netherlands and the University of California, Davis. It was published this week in the journal Scientific Reports.

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Oceanic ecosystems are increasingly threatened by global warming, which causes coral bleaching, species migration and, through the loss of habitats and biodiversity, food web disruptions on major scales. Also, pollutants such as plastics and other marine debris, wastewater, as well as chemical runoffs, including oil spills, cause major ecosystem disruptions. Importantly, given the interconnectedness of all life on the planet, the deteriorating health of our oceans directly impacts human health and sustenance.

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Florida's coastal and urban counties continue to see the spread of two invasive termite species beyond South Florida. The species are now threatening structures statewide, according to a new University of Florida study.

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The evolution of the human species is marked by an increase in brain size. Now new research suggests that could be partly dependent on increases in prenatal estrogen—revealed by looking at the length of a person's fingers. Professor John Manning, of Swansea's Applied Sports, Technology, Exercise and Medicine (A-STEM) research team, is an expert in the field of digit ratio. His work examines the relationship between the length of index and ring fingers, known as the 2D:4D ratio, which is directly linked to the relative concentrations of estrogen and testosterone a baby receives during the first trimester of pregnancy.

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On Dec. 10, 2025, Ghana’s government revoked one of the worst pieces of environmental legislation in our country’s history. The Environmental Protection (Mining in Forest Reserves) Regulations passed in 2022 opened up nearly 90% of Ghana’s forest reserves, including globally significant biodiversity areas, to mining. These forests, which cover more than 9 million hectares (22 million acres), are crucial for providing water, managing microclimates and supporting forest-dependent communities. Ghana’s leading cause of forest loss is industrial mining, and the country — Africa’s biggest gold producer — is among the top three in the world for direct mining-related deforestation. The 2022 legislation compounded the problem, with the government doling out mining permits at a record pace and watching on as forests were besieged by illegal miners. The decision to therefore ban mining in Ghana’s forest reserves marked a significant achievement. This success was built on a campaign that galvanized a remarkably broad coalition, including civil society, faith institutions, trade unions and the general public. Together, we rallied behind the idea that our forests are more important to us than gold. But as momentous as repealing the legislation is, it’s only a staging post in a longer journey to end the devastation that mining is inflicting in Ghana. Unprecedented attack Much of this destruction is associated with galamsey, the illegal small-scale mining that has long blighted our country, but that takes place mostly outside forest reserves. Before 2022, these reserves were largely protected by the law, although incursions by illegal operators were…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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The global moratorium on commercial whaling reached its 40-year mark in January, during which time it’s been credited with helping Earth’s largest creatures recover from centuries of hunting pressure. The moratorium went into effect in January 1986 following a 1982 vote by member countries of the International Whaling Commission. Though a few countries have continued to hunt whales using legal loopholes, the vast majority of the world’s nations have stopped. “The ban has literally saved the great whales from extinction, and is one of the most important global conservation measures ever implemented,” Clare Perry, a senior adviser with the Environmental Investigation Agency’s ocean campaign, told Mongabay in an email. She called the passage of the ban “the defining moment in the IWC’s history.” The IWC was formed in 1946 and is celebrating its 80th anniversary this year. Perry said it started as a “whaler’s club” made up of the 14 biggest whaling nations at the time; today, it has 88 members. The commission sets whaling rules and coordinates conservation of the roughly 90 known species of whales and dolphins. Commercial whaling was already declining by the 1970s as overexploitation depleted whale populations. Regulations and consumer preferences had also shifted. Some national fleets had halted operations even before the moratorium was enacted. The 1982 vote got the three-quarters majority required to pass. Japan, Norway and Iceland opposed the moratorium and are the only countries to conduct commercial whaling since the late 1980s. The IWC doesn’t have enforcement authority, so “if parties…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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All life on Earth shares a common ancestor that lived roughly four billion years ago. This so-called "last universal common ancestor" (LUCA) represents the most ancient organism that researchers can study. Previous research on the last universal common ancestor has found that all the characteristics we see in organisms today, like having a cell membrane and a DNA genome, were already present by the time of this ancestor. So, if we want to understand how these foundational characteristics of life first emerged, then we need to be able to study evolutionary history prior to the last universal common ancestor.

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KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — Malaysia has announced an immediate and full ban on the importation of electronic waste, as the government vowed the country would not be a “dumping ground” for the world’s waste. The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission said in a statement late Wednesday that all electronic waste, commonly known as e-waste, would be reclassified under the “absolute prohibition” category effective immediately. This removes the discretionary power previously given to the Department of Environment to grant exemptions for importation of certain e-waste. Environmental advocates have long urged stronger action. E-waste — discarded electronic products such as computers, phones and appliances — can contain toxic substances and heavy metals including lead, mercury and cadmium that pollute soil and water resources if improperly processed or dumped. “E-waste is no longer permitted,” MACC chief Azam Baki said in the statement, vowing “firm and integrated enforcement action” to prevent illegal imports. Malaysia has previously grappled with large volumes of imported e-waste, much of it suspected to be illegal and hazardous to human health and the environment. Authorities have seized hundreds of containers of suspected e-waste at ports in recent years and issued notices for return to exporters. The ban comes as authorities widen a corruption inquiry tied to e-waste management. Last week, the MACC detained and remanded the director-general of the environment department and his deputy over alleged abuse of power and corruption involving e-waste oversight. The probe has also seen authorities freeze bank accounts and seize cash linked to the case. The Home Ministry in…This article was originally published on Mongabay

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Every year at Grand Canyon National Park, millions of visitors from all over the world stop at one of a dozen water spigots. Most people are on a rim, seeing the canyon's majesty for the first time, when they step off the trail to refill a water bottle. Others are deep in the belly of the canyon, sweaty and tired, facing a hike up in punishing heat, filling their reservoirs and dumping water over their heads to avoid dehydration and heat stroke.

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An international study investigating the genomic diversity of the Sudanese population reveals that the Copts originating in Egypt—who settled in the country between the seventh and eleventh centuries—have acquired a genetic variant that protects them from contracting malaria.

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Global climate models capture many of the processes that shape Earth's weather and climate. Based on physics, chemistry, fluid motion and observed data, hundreds of these models agree that more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere leads to hotter global temperatures and more extreme weather. Still, uncertainty remains around how seasonal weather patterns and atmospheric systems like the jet stream will respond to global warming. Some of this uncertainty stems from the way models approximate the effects of relatively short-lived, small-scale phenomena known as gravity waves.

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A study conducted by researchers at the University of Liège on a large population of Japanese giant salamanders—one of the largest amphibians in the world—reveals that above a certain size, a spectacular transition occurs in the diet of this species, propelling it to the top of the river food chain. The Japanese giant salamander (Andrias japonicus)—an endemic and emblematic species of the country—fascinates scientists with its exceptional size, reaching up to 1.5 meters in length.

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Seamounts and the oxygen minimum zone (OMZ) are two typical deep-sea habitats that often coexist. However, determining whether the "seamount effect" alters OMZ structure through marine stratification, thereby influencing the deep-sea hypoxic environment and carbon sink processes, remains unconfirmed.

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A French research team led by CNRS scientists has discovered that cells are able to retain a memory of a previous perturbation within the 3D structure of their genome, independently of their DNA sequence. When they are exposed to a transient stimulus that induces changes in the proteins that compact DNA—thereby altering chromosome architecture—cells retain this modified architecture even after the initial cellular conditions have been restored. Moreover, this cellular memory is amplified if the cells are exposed to the same stress again. These findings were published in Nature Genetics on February 4.

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Studying the shape of tissues and organs is critical to understanding how they are formed. Embryonic development happens in three dimensions, but many studies are limited by the use of two-dimensional approaches and images to describe three-dimensional processes. To overcome this challenge, researchers at EMBL Barcelona have created LimbLab—an open-source pipeline made for three-dimensional visualization and analysis of growing limb buds.

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