Rebecca Kessler

Providence

Senior Staff Editor and Journalist at Mongabay

Science & Environmental Journalist, Editor at https://t.co/feBGQCGXZP

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Articles

Smuggling networks exploit migrant debt to fuel tiger poaching in Malaysia, study shows

3 weeks ago | news.mongabay.com | Rebecca Kessler |Keith Anthony Fabro

Fewer than 150 critically endangered Malayan tigers (Panthera tigris jacksoni) remain in the wild, and poaching for the illegal wildlife trade poses a major threat to their survival. A new study links human trafficking to Malayan tiger poaching, tracing how indebted Vietnamese migrant workers in Malaysia enter the illegal wildlife trade, and how network managers and fishing boat captains smuggle tiger parts to Vietnam by boat.
President Biden bans offshore oil and gas drilling for many U.S. waters

Jan 7, 2025 | news.mongabay.com | Rebecca Kessler

With just two weeks remaining as president, Joe Biden invoked the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act to ban new offshore oil and gas drilling for the entire U.S. East Coast, West Coast, eastern Gulf of Mexico and sections of the North Bering Sea in Alaska. The move will ban fossil fuel extraction from nearly 2.5 million square kilometers (977,000 square miles) of federal water, an area larger than Texas and Alaska combined.
Coral destruction for toilet construction: Interview with a Malagasy fisher

Dec 20, 2024 | news.mongabay.com | Rebecca Kessler

Toamasina, a coastal city in eastern Madagascar, is surrounded by an extensive network of coral reefs that are home to near-threatened species. For decades, these reefs have been under threat from an unusual activity: The use of coral in the construction of septic tanks. Mongabay spoke with Abraham Botovao, a boat skipper and the president of a local fishers’ association, who has been closely monitoring this trade and its impact on the local marine environment.
A port is destroying corals to expand. Can an NGO rescue enough to matter?

Dec 19, 2024 | news.mongabay.com | Rebecca Kessler

The ongoing expansion of the port of Toamasina in eastern Madagascar is set to destroy 25 hectares (62 acres) of coral reefs. Tany Ifandovana, a Malagasy NGO, removed a small portion of these corals before construction began, and transplanted them to a coral island several kilometers away, as a way to ecologically compensate for the losses, at least in part.
Hundreds of whales to be harpooned as Iceland issues new hunting licenses

Dec 17, 2024 | news.mongabay.com | Rebecca Kessler

On Dec. 6, Iceland’s interim government announced it had issued five-year commercial whaling permits to hunt fin and minke whales. The permits, issued to domestic whaling companies Hvalur hf and Tjaldtangi, allow the hunting of 209 fin whales and 217 minke whales each year in Icelandic waters. The move follows recent government decisions to briefly pause whaling based on welfare concerns about using grenade-tipped harpoons for hunting, and then resume it again.
'Shifting baselines' in Cabo Verde after 50 years of declining fish stocks

Dec 16, 2024 | news.mongabay.com | Rebecca Kessler

In Cabo Verde, as in many low-income countries in Africa, the historical record of fish catch is incomplete, making it hard to know what’s been lost and what’s required to fully rebuild. In a new study, researchers interviewed fish workers to understand how catches have changed over the last five decades, finding evidence of a major decline in volume of catch and maximum size of key species.
No answers for Ghanaian fishery observer’s family months after suspected death

May 2, 2024 | envirolink.org | Rebecca Kessler

ANYAMAM, Ghana — The brother of a Ghanaian fisheries observer who went missing from his assigned vessel last October says the family has received no information from the authorities investigating the case. Yohane Abayateye tells Mongabay the family is now considering legal action to compel the Ghana Police Service to release the findings of its investigation, especially the DNA test results that could confirm the identity of a headless body that washed ashore in December.
No answers for Ghanaian fishery observer’s family months after suspected death

May 2, 2024 | news.mongabay.com | Rebecca Kessler

Samuel Abayateye, a 38-year-old father of two, was working as a fisheries observer when he was reported missing from his assigned vessel in October 2023. After a body missing its head, forearms and feet that Abayateye’s family says closely resembled him washed ashore in December, the Ghana Police Service opened an investigation.
Fishing by dodgy fleets hurts economies, jobs in developing countries: Report

Apr 26, 2024 | envirolink.org | Rebecca Kessler

Companies implicated in illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing can have a serious impact on the economies, job opportunities and overall welfare of the developing countries in whose waters they operate, according to a recent report from London-based global affairs think tank the Overseas Development Institute. The report, released Feb.
Plastic debris in lakes and reservoirs | Nature

Jul 12, 2023 | nature.com | Rebecca Kessler |Solvig Pinnow |David Brown |Vitor Gonçalves |Amanda Valois |Katrin Attermeyer | +72 more

Plastic debris is thought to be widespread in freshwater ecosystems globally1. However, a lack of comprehensive and comparable data makes rigorous assessment of its distribution challenging2,3. Here we present a standardized cross-national survey that assesses the abundance and type of plastic debris (>250 μm) in freshwater ecosystems. We sample surface waters of 38 lakes and reservoirs, distributed across gradients of geographical position and limnological attributes, with the aim to identify factors associated with an increased observation of plastics. We find plastic debris in all studied lakes and reservoirs, suggesting that these ecosystems play a key role in the plastic-pollution cycle. Our results indicate that two types of lakes are particularly vulnerable to plastic contamination: lakes and reservoirs in densely populated and urbanized areas and large lakes and reservoirs with elevated deposition areas, long water-retention times and high levels of anthropogenic influence. Plastic concentrations vary widely among lakes; in the most polluted, concentrations reach or even exceed those reported in the subtropical oceanic gyres, marine areas collecting large amounts of debris4. Our findings highlight the importance of including lakes and reservoirs when addressing plastic pollution, in the context of pollution management and for the continued provision of lake ecosystem services. Analysis of plastic debris found in surface waters shows that lakes and reservoirs in densely populated and urbanized regions, as well as those with elevated deposition areas, are particularly vulnerable to plastic contamination.