Civil society

Mangrove tree in the waters around Nosy Be Madagascar

Madagascar’s mangroves are rebounding after decades of deforestation

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A new analysis of satellite imagery dating as far back as 1972 reveals that mangroves in Madagascar are rebounding after decades of deforestation. The island’s total mangrove cover is down 8% compared with 1972, but a closer look at the data shows that the rate of loss has been declining and even reversed in the last decade. Between 2009 and 2019, Madagascar’s mangrove cover increased by 5%, with mangrove forests expanding even more in protected areas — showing that conservation efforts are working.

Shot of a young male doctor standing with his arms crossed in an office at a hospital

Michael Bloomberg gives $600 million to four Black medical schools’ endowments

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Black Americans fare worse in measures of health compared with white Americans, an Associated Press series reported last year. Experts believe increasing the representation among doctors is one solution that could disrupt these long-standing inequities. In 2022, only 6% of U.S. physicians were Black, even though Black Americans represent 13% of the population. Almost half of Black physicians graduate from the four historically Black medical schools, Bloomberg Philanthropies said.

New Caledonia’s endangered cagou now thriving after conservation push

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The flightless bird is considered endangered and experts estimate there are about 2,000 in New Caledonia, a French territory in the South Pacific. A “massacre” by predators in 2017 killed about three-quarters of the population in the area. A similar incident three years later further hurt its numbers. But efforts to preserve and grow the population are paying off. A series of steps to protect the birds – including managing threats and tracking behavior – have seen their numbers triple since 2017.

Tiger lying down

Thai tiger numbers swell as prey populations stabilize in western forests

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The tiger population density in a series of protected areas in western Thailand has more than doubled over the past two decades, according to new survey data. Thailand is the final stronghold of the Indochinese tiger, the subspecies having been extirpated from neighboring Cambodia, Laos, and Vietnam over the past decade due to poaching, habitat loss, and indiscriminate snaring.

Baby crocodile

Near-extinct Siamese crocodiles make comeback in Cambodia

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Cambodia has welcomed 60 baby Siamese crocodiles – a hatching record for the endangered species in this century, conservationists say. They have called it a “real sign of hope”, after more than 20 years of efforts to revive the reptile’s numbers in the remote Cardamom Mountains. The olive green freshwater reptile has a distinct bony crest at the back of its head – by some estimates, it can grow up to 3m or nearly 10ft.

Iberian lynx

Iberian lynx no longer endangered after numbers improve in Spain and Portugal

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Less than a quarter of a century after the Iberian lynx was feared to be only a whisker away from extinction, populations of the animal have recovered enough across Spain and Portugal for it to be moved from “endangered” to “vulnerable” on the global red list of threatened species. According to the latest census, the lynx population on the peninsula has risen from just 94 in 2002 to 2,021 last year.

Alive sturgeon in aquarium

Atlantic sturgeon reintroduced in Sweden for the first time after “functional extinction”

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The Atlantic sturgeon – a keystone species – was driven to functional extinction in Europe in the middle of the twentieth century. Supported by a grant from Rewilding Europe’s European Wildlife Comeback fund, a pioneering initiative has seen this iconic fish reintroduced in a Swedish river for the first time. A total of 100 juvenile sturgeon were translocated from a breeding facility in the village of Born auf dem Darß, on Germany’s Baltic Sea coast, which is operated by the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern Research Center for Agriculture and Fisheries in Rostock.

Horses on grassland

Wild horses return to Kazakhstan steppes after two-century absence

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The seven horses, four mares from Berlin and a stallion and two other mares from Prague, were flown to the central Asian country on a Czech air force transport plane. The wild horses, known as Przewalski’s horses, once roamed the vast steppe grasslands of central Asia, where horses are believed to have been first domesticated about 5,500 years ago.

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