Planet: Critical

Writer Dennis discusses life at The Foundry, one of Europe's rare extra-capitalist spaces, and why he thinks such spaces are more necessary than ever before. 

The Foundry: https://bravosfoundry.com/

Valuable minerals are regularly dug out of sensitive ecological areas like rainforests, and a growing slice of this mining is of the small, "artisanal," and unregulated kind.

The result is often a moonscape devoid of trees that is difficult to restore. But a new tech interface called Project Inambari, which was recently named a winner of the Artisanal Mining Challenge, aims to change that with technology, so that communities and authorities can better protect their resources. Bjorn Bergman is an analyst for SkyTruth and is one of the project's developers, and he joins the podcast to describe their vision.

Also joining us to discuss the impacts of mining and its mitigation is Dr. Manuela Callari, a Mongabay contributing writer who recently wrote about the tens of thousands of abandoned and shuttered mine sites in Australia and what communities are doing about them.

Episode artwork: satellite view of artisanal mining in rainforests of Madre de Dios, Peru, courtesy of SkyTruth.

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The wildlife rich island of Sumatra is experiencing a road building boom, causing some of its iconic creatures to be seen by construction workers: a photo of a Sumatran tiger crossing a highway work-site went viral this summer, for example. 

This smallest of all tiger subspecies still needs its space despite its stature: up to 250 square kilometers for each one's territory. A single road cut into their forest habitat encroaches on these key areas, where less than 400 of these critically endangered animals persist.

Road building creates access to impenetrable forests that are home to all kinds of creatures, though, enabling illegal hunting and fragmenting habitats.

To discuss the impact of - and alternatives to - such infrastructure projects as the billion dollar Trans-Sumatran Highway, we reached Hariyo “Beebach” Wibisono, a research fellow at the San Diego Zoo Global & director of SINTAS Indonesia, plus Bill Laurance, a distinguished professor at James Cook University, who is also head of ALERT, the Alliance of Leading Environmental Researchers and Thinkers.

Related reading:

• Tiger on the highway: Sighting in Sumatra causes a stir, but is no surprise
• China’s Belt and Road poised to transform the Earth, but at what cost?
• Batang Toru: Worker feared dead as landslide hits quake-prone dam in orangutan habitat

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Episode artwork: a critically endangered Sumatran tiger (Panthera tigris sondaica). Image courtesy of the Zoological Society of London.

If you enjoy the Newscast, please visit www.patreon.com/mongabay to pledge a dollar or more to keep the show growing, Mongabay is a nonprofit media outlet and all support helps! Supporting at the $10/month level now delivers access to Insider Content at Mongabay.com, too, please visit the link above for details.

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Intellectual property journalist, Charlotte Kilpatrick, gives a detailed explanation of the IP laws at play in the race to make a coronavirus vaccine that are making some companies billions of dollars as the West snaps up extra doses per head of population. These same IP laws ensure that countries unable to compete with the West's buying power will never have access to the knowledge to replicate—or even test—the vaccine. The Global South is being abandoned—again—and this time to a deadly virus. 

Charlotte's articles: https://www.salon.com/writer/charlotte_kilpatrick

On this episode we look at how the largest and most biodiverse tropical savanna on Earth, Brazil's Cerrado, may finally be getting the conservation attention it needs.

We’re joined by Mariana Siqueira, a landscape architect who’s helping to find and propagate the Cerrado’s natural plant life, and who is collaborating with ecologists researching the best way to restore the savanna habitat.

Arnaud Desbiez also joins the show: he's founder and president of a Brazilian wildlife research NGO who describes the Cerrado as an important part of the range for the giant armadillo, an ecosystem engineer which creates habitat for many other species. So conserving their population will have positive effects for the savanna's overall biodiversity, he argues.

Read more about the Giant Armadillo Conservation Project here & view all of our recent coverage of the Cerrado here.

Please invite your friends to subscribe to the Mongabay Newscast on the Google Podcasts app, Apple Podcasts, Android, Stitcher, via Pandora or Spotify, or wherever they get podcasts.

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Episode artwork: A giant armadillo (Priodontes maximus), photo courtesy of Giant Armadillo Conservation Program.

If you enjoy the Newscast, please visit www.patreon.com/mongabay to pledge a dollar or more to keep the show growing, Mongabay is a nonproft media outlet and all support helps! Supporting at the $10/month level now delivers access to Insider Content at Mongabay.com, too, please visit the link above for details.

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North Sumatra is home to 1 of only 8 known great ape species in the world, the newly described Tapanuli orangutan, first classified in 2017 after its habits and DNA proved them to be unique. As with many animals in Sumatra, they are amazing creatures that are critically threatened, with a maximum of 800 individuals estimated to be living in an increasingly fragmented habitat.

Now a hydroelectric dam proposed for the center of the animals' tiny territory further challenges this special species' chances of survival, as well as that of 23 other threatened species which also live in the area. 

To understand what's interesting about this animal and how the proposed Batang Toru dam would impact it, we speak with a biologist who helped discover its uniqueness, Dr. Puji Rianti of IPB University in Bogor, and Mongabay staff writer Hans Nicholas Jong in Jakarta, who has been covering the controversy over the project, as it's been called into question by activists and funders alike and faces numerous delays.

The saga is definitely not over, and this episode explains why.

• Dam that threatens orangutan habitat faces three-year delay
• Fighting to save an endangered ape, Indonesian activists fear for their lives
• Allegation of forged signature casts shadow over China-backed dam in Sumatra
• Eight species, including Tapanuli orangutan, make first appearance on list of most endangered primates

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We're taking a look at the importance of securing Indigenous & local communities’ land rights -- and the global push for privatization that can deprive such people access to their territories -- with two guests on this episode.

A 2018 study found that Indigenous Peoples steward about 38 million km2 of land in 87 countries, that's more than a quarter of the world’s land surface, making them the most important conservationists on the planet, you might say. But governments and corporations increasingly want access to these lands, too, so the issue of land rights and titles is heating up.

To discuss the issue and learn how people are gaining title to their lands, we welcome Daisee Francour, a member of the Oneida nation of Wisconsin (U.S.) who is also director of strategic partnerships and communications for the NGO Cultural Survival, plus Anuradha Mittal who's executive director of the Oakland Institute, a think tank that recently released a report titled Driving Dispossession: The Global Push To Unlock The Economic Potential Of Land.

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Episode artwork: In Zambia, a resident displays a map of her village's land. Villagers confirm that individual plots of land are accurately depicted and will be given a certificate conferring rights to farm and use the land. Photo courtesy of Sandra Coburn/Oakland Institute.

If you enjoy the Newscast, please visit www.patreon.com/mongabay to pledge a dollar or more to keep the show growing, Mongabay is a nonproft media outlet and all support helps! Supporting at the $10/month level now delivers access to Insider Content at Mongabay.com, too, please visit the link above for details.

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Sumatra contains some of the largest tracts of intact rainforest left in the world, but it's at the center of a complicated web of deforestation drivers, many of which began during the Dutch colonial era and are now spurred further by corruption and the global demand for cheap palm oil used in a wide range of consumer products.

To understand the rapid expansion of industrial-scale agribusinesses that market both palm oil and pulp & paper to the global market from this, the largest island in the Indonesian Archipelago, podcast host Mike DiGirolamo speaks with Nur “Yaya” Hidayati and Philip Jacobson.

Hidayati is the national executive director of Walhi, the largest and oldest environmental advocacy NGO in Indonesia, while Jacobson is a contributing editor at Mongabay who has been covering Indonesia for six years.

They discuss what causes the massive deforestation in Sumatra in particular and Indonesia in general, why it’s so difficult to control, what exacerbates efforts to stop it, and what can be done globally and locally to slow or stop the expansion of continued land exploitation.

We now offer a free app in the Apple App Store and in the Google Store for this show, so you can have access to our latest episodes at your fingertips, please download it and let us know what you think via the contact info below.

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We have amazing recordings of indri lemur songs (click for the choruses, stay for the roars) and the award-winning architect of protected areas that house Madagascar’s rich plant life on this episode of the Mongabay Newscast.

Mongabay has a special tie to this biologically-rich East African country--our name comes from an island just off its shores--so we're thrilled to return for this episode.

Jeannie Raharimampionana is a Malagasy botanist who identified 80 priority areas for conservation of plant life there, 11 of which have now been protected: this achievement recently won her the National Geographic Buffett Award for Leadership in Conservation in Africa and the title of National Geographic Explorer.

We also speak with Valeria Torti from University of Turin who researches critically endangered indri lemurs in the protected forests of the Maromizaha region. Torti tells us about the threats indris are facing and plays for us a number of wild recordings of their calls.

Episode artwork is of an indri lemur in the Analamazaotra Special Reserve, photo by Charles J Sharp.

We now offer a free app in the Apple App Store and in the Google Store for this show, so you can have access to our latest episodes at your fingertips, please download it and let us know what you think via the contact info below.

Please invite your friends to subscribe to the Mongabay Newscast on the Google Podcasts app, Apple Podcasts, Android, Stitcher, via Pandora or Spotify, or wherever they get podcasts.

If you enjoy the Newscast, please visit www.patreon.com/mongabay to pledge a dollar or more to keep the show growing, Mongabay is a nonproft media outlet and all support helps! Supporting at the $10/month level now delivers access to Insider Content at Mongabay.com, too, please visit the link above for details.

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Sumatran rhinos are unlike anything else in this world: small in stature and docile by nature, they sport a coat of fur and sing songs reminiscent of a dolphin. In other words, this ancient species surprises and enchants anyone lucky enough to encounter it.

But Sumatran rhinos are also one of the most endangered large mammals on the planet. While its population is difficult to pinpoint, experts estimate there could be as many as 80 – or as few as 30 – still in the wild, leaving their future in doubt.

To understand the wonder and worry associated with this species, Mongabay Explores podcast host Mike DiGirolamo speaks with two guests, Wulan Pusparini and Jeremy Hance, about the unique challenges of conserving them, what is being done for them currently, and what needs to happen in order to save them from extinction.

Pusparini studied them as a species conservation specialist with the Wildlife Conservation Society before pursuing her Ph.D. in Environmental Conservation at Oxford University, while Hance is Mongabay’s senior correspondent who’s traveled Sumatra extensively to cover the species (and is the author of a new book about such travels, “Baggage“).

To learn more, see Mongabay's twin series authored by Hance on the conservation efforts and the scientific advances made in their captive breeding, here:

• "Is Anyone Going to Save the Sumatran Rhino?"
• “The Rhino Debacle”

Music heard during this episode is by Sorbatua Siallagan, chief of the Dolok Parmonangan Indigenous community. The song is called "Gondang  tu Mulajadi," where Gondang means ‘music’ and also ‘prayer,’ and Mulajadi means God. This kind of music is typically performed when Indigenous communities in Batak areas of Sumatra conduct rituals. Series theme music heard at the beginning and end is called “Putri Tangguk” and was licensed via Pond5.

Sounds of Sumatran rhinos heard during the show courtesy of Save the Rhino International.

We now offer a free app in the Apple App Store and in the Google Store for this show, so you can have access to our latest episodes at your fingertips, please download it and let us know what you think via the contact info below.

If you enjoy the Newscast, please visit www.patreon.com/mongabay to pledge a dollar or more to keep the show growing, Mongabay is a nonprofit media outlet and all support helps! Supporting at the $10/month level now delivers access to Insider Content at Mongabay.com, too, please visit the link above for details.

See all our latest news from nature's frontline at Mongabay's homepage: news.mongabay.com or find us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram by searching for @mongabay.

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