Show overview
Mongabay Newscast has been publishing since 2016, and across the 10 years since has built a catalogue of 370 episodes, alongside 65 trailers or bonus episodes. That works out to roughly 250 hours of audio in total. Releases follow a fortnightly cadence.
Episodes typically run thirty-five to sixty minutes — most land between 29 min and 52 min — though episode length varies meaningfully from one episode to the next. None of the episodes are flagged explicit by the publisher. It is catalogued as a EN-language Science show.
The show is actively publishing — the most recent episode landed 5 days ago, with 31 episodes already out so far this year. The busiest year was 2022, with 52 episodes published. Published by Mongabay.com.
From the publisher
News and inspiration from nature's frontline, featuring inspiring guests and deeper analysis of the global environmental issues explored every day by the Mongabay.com team, from climate change to biodiversity, tropical ecology, wildlife, and more. The show airs every other week.
Latest Episodes
View all 370 episodes'Remembering Wildlife' before it goes extinct
Historic fire seasons are the 'new normal' without 'serious action' on climate change
The 'quiet revolution' inspired by Delhi's urban wildlife
Why are forests in Liberia disappearing?
Oil has brought destruction to the Niger Delta; women and human rights may save it
The Mediterranean Sea's beauty hides an ecosystem under pressure
Wildlife crossings are having a moment
The radical plan to rethink work, wealth and planetary well-being
Addressing the 'toxic legacy' of mining in Bougainville
Healing the planet requires healing ourselves, says Katharine Wilkinson
A 'coalition of the willing' to urge the world to drop fossil fuels
Australia claims it's 'on track' to meet its environment targets. Scientists disagree
The world must address pandemic threats urgently, says former CDC officer
Protest works, but it needs your help now more than ever, veteran activists say
A new Netflix documentary captures rare mountain gorilla behavior
Centering an Indigenous approach to forestry through reciprocity, not extraction
Across oceans, seabird flyways gain recognition — and a chance at protection
The coyotes next door: What we get wrong about America's 'song dog'
Ep 287The 'lonely conservationist' advocating for better care of workers
Jessie Panazzolo was given a stuffed gorilla when she was 3, and from then on, she always wanted to be a conservationist. But a reasonable career track of being gainfully employed or on a livable wage almost doesn't exist in the sector, she explains to me this week on the Mongabay Newscast. She details the dwindling career prospects, the grueling conditions conservationists must endure, and the mental toll they're taking on themselves. Following Jeremy Hance's reporting on the mental health crisis afflicting conservationists, I contacted Panazzolo to gain more insight into her journey in the conservation sector and how she came to lead a community of like-minded professionals who had heartbreaking stories about pursuing their passions. Panazzolo has been fired for being sick, twice. And had trees thrown at her by orangutans. But these are far from the only struggles she and other conservationists have faced. "I've been chased by tigers or have orangutans rip trees out of the ground and chucked in my direction. But all of these are seen as like not normal risks that you'd put in risk assessments." She founded The Lonely Conservationists and Earth Carer Care to provide resources to conservationists of all walks of life and to offer workshops to conservation NGOs on improving working conditions and caring for their employees. "I wanted to make sure that there was light shed on a range of struggles faced in the conservation industry and give more weight to the need to start to address these. And ever since then, I've been running workshops for NGOs and for teams … to help their teams to look after themselves and each other and build resilience." 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. Image Credit: Jessie Panazzolo. Image courtesy of Jessie Panazzolo. —- Timecodes (00:00) The 'unfair' job of conservation (13:49) Creating a community for conservation workers (18:39) Not all NGOs are on board (25:22) How conservation has changed (36:52) Fighting for nature in a world working against it
Ep 286The conservation sector must speak truth to power, says political ecologist
The people and policies that control how humans treat the natural world are increasingly dominated by a small class of elite political entities and corporations, argues our guest, political ecologist Bram Buscher at Wageningen University in the Netherlands, on this week's Newscast. This power, he says, is concentrated on platforms that have no allegiance to fact or truth, but rather serve only what increases their bottom line. Understanding this power dynamic and speaking truth to it is essential for the environmental movement to succeed. "If you keep on doing the same kind of things and not take the root causes, the root structural forms of power into account, you may have nice terms like nature-based solutions, ecosystem services, natural capital, but they don't actually challenge the power structures to change," he says. That structure he refers to as "platform capitalism." Tasks humans used to do through various options or pathways are now gate-kept by tech companies. These companies have monopolized these platforms, including social media, generative artificial intelligence, and search engines that prioritize data collection over sincere citizen engagement. This makes it difficult for the environmental movement's message to find an open audience. In some cases, people cannot tell the difference between what is real and what is not anymore. Buscher has written his thoughts in his book The Truth About Nature: Environmentalism in the Era of Post-Truth Politics and Platform Capitalism, which explains why "speaking facts to power" does not fundamentally change the policies currently failing the environment. Speaking truth to power, Buscher argues, is the only way to truly address the root causes of environmental destruction. "Unless we understand how power works … also authoritarian power … we can't go beyond it and or speak truth to it. To do something deliberately and consciously different." Please take a minute to let us know what you think of our podcast, here. Banner image: Wallace's Passage between Gam and Waigeo islands in Raja Ampat, Indonesia. Image by Rhett A. Butler/Mongabay. —- Timecodes (00:00) What is political ecology? (12:31) Why conservation is inherently political (17:03) What is 'speaking truth to power'? (29:35) Understanding 'platform capitalism' (42:02) How to speak truth to power (53:24) Convivial conservation