Mongabay Newscast

A recent Mongabay investigation by Elizabeth Claire Alberts and Andrés Alegría reveals that the Clarion-Clipperton Zone of the Pacific Ocean, a swath of deep sea regulated by the International Seabed Authority, has received a surge of claim applications filed with the United States for mineral exploration and exploitation.
While the ISA, a U.N.-associated body, is responsible for granting seabed mining permits in international waters, the U.S. is challenging that authority by receiving and reviewing applications of some companies. In doing so, it's citing U.S. laws, and not the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), under which the ISA was established — and which the U.S. has never ratified.
Joining the Mongabay Newscast to explain the investigation into the overlapping claims and the potential legal complications and environmental fallout is senior staff writer Elizabeth Claire Alberts.
"The U.S. doesn't really see that they're bypassing the authority of the ISA. The United States signed, but it did not ratify UNCLOS," she says. "So they are not a party to that convention, and they are also not a member of the International Seabed Authority."
The legal implications are currently unknown, as the ISA itself is currently seeking outside legal counsel on what to do about areas it oversees that are now subject to U.S.-granted claims.
"There's a lot of unknowns about what will happen … a lot of fears. It's not clear if the U.S. is going to be taken to court over the breaking of international law," Alberts says.
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Mike DiGirolamo is the host & producer for the Mongabay Newscast based in Sydney. Find him on LinkedIn and Bluesky.
Cover image: A Psychropotes dyscrita sea cucumber amid polymetallic nodules on the seafloor of the Clarion-Clipperton Zone, located in the northeast Pacific Ocean. Image courtesy of Geomar Bilddatenbank via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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Timecodes
(00:00) Who controls mining in the deep sea?
(05:17) The Clarion-Clipperton Zone
(10:24) NOAA
(14:29) Legal 'gray-area'
(18:41) Environmental impacts of deep sea mining
(23:20) What can the ISA do?

For a time during the 19th and 20th centuries, gray wolves were practically extinct across Western and Central Europe. Now, thanks to strict protection measures in countries across the region, their populations have risen over the past couple of decades — including a reported surge of 58% between 2012 and 2022.
On the one hand, this is a conservation success story. On the other, however, it amplifies long-standing sociocultural challenges, namely human-wildlife coexistence with farmers. Wolves sometimes prey on livestock, which can cause financial harm to farmers. Joining the Newscast this week to unpack these sociocultural challenges is social scientist Emu-Felicitas Ostermann-Miyashita, from the Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology.
Ostermann-Miyashita has studied the conflict between humans and wolves specifically in Germany, and has published suggestions for sustainable wolf-livestock coexistence. However, she says the problems are much less polarized than European media may portray them.
"Some people hate wolves, some people love wolves, but that was also something which I wanted to look into whether that's true or not," she says. "And all of my studies which I've conducted so far on … the public perception or social side hint to a much more like gray [area regarding] public attitudes or public perception towards the species."
But the solutions are not black and white, and require a combination of incentives for wolf presence, livestock protection, and further study of measures such as lethal control, where much of the debate currently stands.
"At the moment, I would say there's not enough evidence to say whether lethal control can be effective or not, but from the existing data it rather suggests that it's much more complex than we think it is," she says.
Lethal control may also be more difficult than protection measures, she suggests, as "the effectiveness of reducing damage is definitely much higher by protection than by lethal control at the moment."
Please take a minute to let us know what you think of our podcast here.
Mike DiGirolamo is the host & producer for the Mongabay Newscast based in Sydney. Find him on LinkedIn and Bluesky.
Banner image: Eurasian wolf (Canis lupus lupus), Pescheray, France. Photo by Clément Bardot via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0). 
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Timecodes
(00:00) Wolf recovery in Europe explained
(09:47) Problems with the EU voting to loosen protection
(14:25) A holistic approach to coexistence
(18:42) Tensions between farmers and rewildling
(23:12) More data is needed
(25:46) Collaborative approaches are needed
(27:29) The nuances behind lethal control
(31:50) The human dimension behind wolf-livestock interaction
(35:22) Key takeaways & media portrayal
(39:34) What Europe can learn from nations living with carnivores

There have been few sightings of the endangered Persian leopard in the Caucasus region over the past 20 years: just three in Georgia and 10 in Armenia. But scientists and conservationists are alert to one Persian leopard in particular, whom they've named Aren and who is presumed to have journeyed 240 kilometers (150 miles) through cold, mountainous terrain with only three legs. This region of the world — made up of southern Russia, Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan — still contains decades-old minefields from prior conflicts, and it's believed this is how Aren was injured.
Joining the Newscast this week to discuss her story for Mongabay is journalist Kayleigh Long, who explains how this leopard subspecies, Panthera pardus tulliana, persists in the region. She also describes how NGOs like NACRES, operating on extremely thin budgets, continue to monitor the big cats and provide what protection they can.
Along national borders in the Caucasus, landmines pose risks to humans and wild animals alike, as do fences. Thousands of kilometers of barbed-wire from the Soviet era still stand across parts of the Caucasus, and they can trap leopards, bears, and deer.
Despite the region's challenges, the mere persistence of leopards and the dedication of NGOs operating amid increasingly difficult conditions after USAID's shuttering offer a sense of hope, Long says.
"I think the stories that I'm trying to seek out are ones that reflect the possibility of a better, a kinder, and more just world. And I think when you look at things like borders, they can reflect the very worst of our instincts, or if people are able to cooperate and recognize that we are a part of nature and that this is our environment, we all have to get along with nature and with each other," she says.
"Perhaps it's naive of me," she adds, "but … in times like this, I sort of think hope is a moral imperative."
Please take a minute to let us know what you think of our podcast here.
Mike DiGirolamo is the host & producer for the Mongabay Newscast based in Sydney. Find him on LinkedIn and Bluesky.
Cover image: A Persian leopard. Image via Peoples Trust for Endangered Species.
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Timecodes
(00:00) Leopards in the Caucasus
(04:50) Aren
(12:05) Challenges of Fieldwork
(16:14) Landmines & Fences
(25:03) Towards coexistence & Hope

This week on the Mongabay Newscast, Samantha Murray, CEO of the Indigenous Desert Alliance, joins the program to discuss the IDA's recent nomination for an Earthshot Prize. The alliance is a network of 70 ranger teams across the Australian desert, covering 270 million hectares (667 million acres), an area almost as large as Argentina. This makes it the largest Indigenous-led conservation corridor on the planet.
Murray and her network of 885 rangers have helped restore biodiversity to 140 million hectares (346 million acres) of land over the past four years using the practice of cultural burning, a cultural and ecological management practice that has been present in Aboriginal culture for millennia. The IDA administers this through its "Right Way Desert Fire" program.
Murray discusses the various ways in which this cultural knowledge is shared among ranger teams and the IDA via the guidance of Traditional Owners, the Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islands individuals with ancestral, physical, or spiritual ties to the land. Traditional Owners may accompany rangers to what's known as Country — the Indigenous concept of a holistic, living entity encompassing the physical land, waters, skies, and all living things — and direct where and how to burn, in part because the knowledge is passed down through oral storytelling.
"We don't get handed down a manual or a handbook on how to do [the] right way of burning all that knowledge," Murray says. "And so we are very much [following] an oral history and showing practically what to do. So for that knowledge to get passed down, it requires spaces and times on Country to share."
Murray emphasizes the vast amount of land the ranger network conserves, saying it's conservation for all Australians.
"We're actually caring for such a big part of Australia, like a third of Australia, and we're caring for animals that really need our love and our care. And I think, instead of it being boxed into, 'Well, that's just Indigenous conservation. That's just over there,' or, 'That's just in the middle of Australia,' more of a different change of attitude to go, 'Well, there are some really committed professional people that are looking after animals and country,'" she says.
"Australians should be proud of rangers. They should be proud of people working on the ground."
Please take a minute to let us know what you think of our podcast here.
Mike DiGirolamo is the host & producer for the Mongabay Newscast based in Sydney. Find him on LinkedIn and Bluesky.
Cover image of Samantha Murray, courtesy of the Earthshot Prize.
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Timestamps
(00:00) Caring for Country
(02:57) Importance of Cultural Burning
(05:24) The Right Way Desert Fire Program
(10:03) Knowledge Sharing on Country
(13:22) Climate Change Impacts
(21:34) Future Goals

The global pet trade, particularly in exotic reptiles and amphibians, poses significant biodiversity and potential human health risks, scientists say; yet compared to other pressing crises like climate change, the solutions are relatively simple — if only governments would act on them.
Susan Lieberman, vice president for international policy at the Wildlife Conservation Society, based in the U.S., and Sandra Altherr, co-founder and head of science at Pro Wildlife, in Germany, join the Mongabay Newscast this week to discuss these solutions, which they've outlined in a commentary published in the journal Nature.
"The international wildlife trade for pets, reptiles, amphibians, and other species is a massive experiment," Lieberman says. "It's an experiment to see what diseases can come from one part of the world into another part of the world, and 'let's see what happens.' I think it's an experiment we should not be undertaking."
But the "exotic pet trade could be regulated very quickly, and this risk could be reduced very quickly," Altherr adds.
Both guests discuss what they identify as the main legal gaps that world governments could close, such as the fact that countries of origin have no or little legal recourse for species sold outside their borders.
Please take a minute to let us know what you think of our podcast here.
Mike DiGirolamo is the host & producer for the Mongabay Newscast based in Sydney. Find him on LinkedIn and Bluesky.
Banner image: The Jalisco mud turtle, endemic to the Jalisco and Colima states in Mexico, is a freshwater turtle found in rivers and wetlands. It is listed on CITES Appendix II, and its international trade is regulated. Image by Cheryl Harleston López Espino (CC-BY-NC-ND).
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Timecodes
(00:00) Why the Exotic Pet Trade Is Booming
(07:51) Disease Transmission Risks
(10:56) Legal Gaps in the Pet Trade
(13:47) EU Solutions, and Positive Lists
(17:16) A New UNTOC Protocol
(23:58) Lacey Act & Corruption Crackdown