Liberia is losing its rainforest at an alarming rate. Satellite data reveals rapid deforestation across one of West Africa's last remaining intact rainforests, driven largely by illegal cocoa plantations supplying the global demand for chocolate. To find out more, we travel deep into Liberia's forests to speak with migrant cocoa workers, forest rangers, and community landowners. From a protected chimpanzee habitat to the European Parliament, the story traces the historical migration that helped make Côte d'Ivoire the world's largest cocoa producer—and the environmental cost that followed. Today, southeastern Liberia could be on the way to repeating that history.

In 2008, wildlife researchers surveying a massive, underexplored forested region in the Democratic Republic of Congo photographed a black monkey. That region eventually became Lomami National Park. And now, nearly 20 years later, the team has confirmed in a study that the black primate is a new-to-science species of colobus monkey. The monkey isn’t well known by local communities, but those who have encountered it call it likweli, said John Hart, study lead author and scientific director at the Lukuru Wildlife Research Foundation, which spearheaded the creation of Lomami. The researchers have given the monkey the scientific name Colobus congoensis. Both male and female likweli are almost entirely black. What makes the species easy to distinguish from other colobus monkeys is a prominent patch of pinkish to orange-cream bare skin surrounding the mouth, Hart told Mongabay in a video call. When the likweli was first photographed in 2008, it was one of several monkeys the researchers couldn’t identify. “They are not in our field guides,” Terese Hart, the Lukuru foundation director, wrote in a blog post in 2008. Another of those monkeys, locally named lesula, also turned out to be new to science and was scientifically described as Cercopithecus lomamiensis in 2012. With the focus on the lesula and conservation work in the area, the likweli went on the back burner, John said. It was only 10 years later, in 2018, that local field researcher Jean Pierre Kapale photographed likweli several times during surveillance patrols and surveys. Kapale insisted the monkey was new to science, John added. “And that is a key factor. These people who make these discoveries know what they don't know and they're interested by that.” The researchers sent the photos to Jonathan Kingdon, a naturalist from Tanzania who wrote a field guide on African land mammals. “And he right away said, ‘Oh, you've got something big here,’” John said. To confirm the monkey was indeed new to science, the researchers examined dead individuals confiscated from hunters. Analysis of the monkeys’ bodies and genetics showed they’re most closely related to the black colobus monkey (Colobus satanas), found more than 1,200 kilometers (750 miles) away. They also conducted fieldwork in and around Lomami to record the monkey’s calls and understand where and how it lives. The fieldwork showed likweli are rare in the limited area where they’re found in the DRC, likely because they have very specific ecological requirements, although those are still unclear, John said. He added there may be fewer than 1,000 likweli individuals in the region. “It is naturally uncommon, it's not that it's been poached down to nothing,” he added. While hunters do kill it for food, it’s not a target by itself, he said. Because it’s rare, the researchers propose classifying likweli as endangered on the IUCN Red List. While most of the known likweli population is in the park, that’s no guarantee of protection, Terese said. Threats like hunting continue to be a pressure, she added. [caption id="attachment_323473" align="alignnone" width="2073"] Likweli. Image courtesy of Jean Pierre Kapale.[/caption] Banner image of a likweli, courtesy of Bernard Bonanga.

In the West African nation of Benin, Vodun, an ancient spiritual religion rooted in a deep connection between humans and nature, has become a primary tool for protecting the country’s disappearing mangroves. By invoking the authority of the Zangbéto deity, local communities and conservationists create spiritual sanctuaries that forbid the destruction of mangroves under threat of divine punishment, reports Mongabay Africa’s Jahëna Louisin. Mangroves are vital carbon sinks, capable of capturing up to four times as much carbon as terrestrial forests. Benin’s mangroves are under extreme pressure from logging, salt production, intensive agriculture and urbanization. Between 1995 and 2015, mangrove cover in the country decreased by 29%, according to a study published in 2025. To combat this loss, the NGO Eco-Bénin partners with Vodun dignitaries to designate specific areas as sacred. In the last decade, this collaboration has preserved about 500 hectares (more than 1,235 acres) of mangroves. The process involves seeking permission from the spirits through a Fâ priest, a mediator who uses a traditional spiritual language to communicate with the divine. In the video, Isidore Jinou, a 57-year-old advertising director and the son of a fisherman, emphasizes the importance of this spiritual oversight for the Mono River region in the southwestern corner of Benin. This region is home to Bouche du Roy, an estuary and one of the richest mangrove ecosystems on the Beninese coastline. “All our resources, all our wealth comes from the water,” Jinou, who was initiated into the Vodun religion 14 years ago, tells Mongabay. “There is a certain communion between mangroves and us humans. So it [the mangrove] has a soul. We consider it a living being that we must not destroy or mistreat.” The community's belief in the Zangbéto, a respected deity that forbids woodcutting, enforces spiritual regulation. In villages such as Dado, spiritual guardians oversee the respecting of these traditions. During ceremonies, a miniature Zangbéto is placed on a tree to signify a "pact" between spirits and the community, effectively banning fishing or woodcutting in the area. The Beninese government, which officially recognized Vodun as a national religion in 1996, now incorporates these traditional systems into its environmental strategy. Adjakou Akoutan Adjinda, Benin’s director general of the government agency for water, forests, and hunting, says in the video that the state actively supports these traditional conservation frameworks. “I think the two are complementary,” Adjinda says. “The local authority, which embodies the public force, is involved. The communities, through their chiefdoms and their deities, are involved. This will allow us to take all aspects into account and hope for better results for the conservation of mangroves in Benin.” Watch the video by Jahëna Louisin, Cynthia Hégron, Leslie Cauquais, Florian Roche and Juliette Chapalain here. Banner image: Mongabay journalist Jahëna Louisin documents the role of Vodun traditions in conserving mangroves in southern Benin. Image courtesy of Cynthia Hégron.

Happy World Chimpanzee Day. On July 14, as the world celebrates one of humans’ closest living relatives, here’s a roundup of recent Mongabay stories about chimpanzees and their world: Chimps at war in Kibale National Park Chimpanzees, like humans, sometimes fight wars with each other.  Mongabay contributor Keith Anthony Fabro reported on a chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) “civil war” in Uganda’s Kibale National Park where a chimpanzee community split into rival factions and attacked former allies.  Before the split, the Ngogo community was unusually large, with 150 to 200 individuals making it one of the largest chimp groups ever recorded in the wild. The community then divided into two factions, which researchers call the Central and Western groups — named after the areas of forest they occupied. Between 2018 and 2024, the Western group carried out 24 attacks on the Central group, killing at least seven adult males and 17 infants. The conflict is still unfolding and may have lasting consequences for the population. The findings of a study show how shifting social ties can fracture animal societies and trigger collective violence. What do chimpanzees and Ringo Starr have in common? Drumming and singing at the same time is impressive, whether you’re Karen Carpenter, Ringo Starr or a chimpanzee. Mongabay’s Liz Kimbrough reported on Ayumu, a 26-year-old male chimpanzee at Kyoto University’s Institute for the Evolutionary Origins of Human Behavior (EHUB). Ayumu has been spontaneously tearing floorboards from a walkway, fashioning them into instruments and performing extended drumming displays while also vocalizing. Researchers recorded 89 performances and found the drumming wasn’t random; it followed a structured, rhythmic pattern similar to chimpanzee vocal calls. Ayumu displayed play faces and appeared to be laughing while drumming, suggesting the behavior was emotionally rewarding and not just a social display. The findings of a study support the hypothesis that instrumental music may have evolved from vocal emotional expression. Infant chimpanzee daredevils Humans tend to take more chances and put themselves in the most danger in adolescence, so the expectation has been that chimpanzees, among humans’ closest evolutionary relatives, would follow a similar pattern. However, Mongabay’s John Cannon reported that chimpanzees actually appear to be the biggest daredevils when they’re infants. Researchers in Uganda found that infant and young chimpanzees were more likely to launch themselves through the trees than adolescents or adults, despite the risk of injury. Researchers hypothesize that the level of care human parents provide may reduce the risks children might otherwise take.   Chimpanzees like to tease each other  For younger readers, Mongabay Kids reports on how great apes like to tease each other. Researchers watched 75 hours of chimps in a zoo and documented 142 playful teasing events; most of them were juveniles teasing adults. Banner image: Eastern chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes schweinfurthii) at Budongo Forest, Uganda. Image by Julie Larsen ©Wildlife Conservation Society.

The survival of a unique frog species that lives in the coastal sand dunes of South Africa and Namibia is under threat from diamond mining, the proposed Boegoebaai Green Hydrogen Project and climate change. The desert rain frog (Breviceps macrops) has been moved to a higher threat category, from near threatened to vulnerable, on the IUCN's Red List. The change in the frog’s conservation status is based on assessments carried out by scientists from various Southern African universities and organizations. “[The species] has already experienced loss of its habitat from strip mining and these projected impacts don't bode well for the species and the other unique biodiversity that occurs only in these coastal dune systems,” Jeanne Tarrant, executive director of Anura Africa, which supports amphibian conservation, and regional co-chair of the IUCN Amphibian Specialist Group for Southern Africa, told Mongabay via email. The desert rain frog grows to just 4 to 6 centimeters (1.6 to 2.4 inches) in length. It’s range is also very small, limited to the white coastal sand dunes of northern South Africa and southern Namibia within 10 to 12 kilometers (6 to 7 miles) of the coast. It survives without a permanent source of freshwater by absorbing moisture from coastal fog and spends most of its life buried beneath moist sand, emerging when conditions are just right. Scientists identified six distinct habitat locations of the frog within the Succulent Karoo biome, a recognized hotspot for biodiversity, all threatened with mining, energy and infrastructure development. “The proposed green hydrogen development and its associated infrastructure are most worrying as these will directly impact the desert rain frog's habitat – it spends most of its life burrowed underground,” Tarrant said. Opencast diamond mining, which extracts minerals from an open pit in the ground, in the South African part of the frog's range has already reduced large areas of suitable habitat by removing sand dunes and vegetation that the frogs depend on. Mining companies replace the sand after extraction, but research suggests the vegetation doesn’t naturally recover well enough for the frogs to recolonize the areas. In the future, climate change and rising temperatures will likely put more pressure on the species by drying out their habitat, Tarrant said. The IUCN assessors project that over the next 20 years, up to one-third of the frog's habitat in South Africa and about two-thirds of its habitat in Namibia could be compromised, resulting in a projected population decline of around 20% over the next decade. Currently, there are no coordinated conservation efforts in place. “There really needs to be a consolidated effort now, based on this change in status to more threatened, to drive conservation and research action for this species,” Tarrant said. Researchers have initiated a Green Status assessment of the frog for the IUCN, which evaluates a species’ recovery potential and identifies priority research and conservation actions, she added. Banner image: The desert rain frog. Image courtesy of Bob Steele via iNaturalist (CC BY-NC 4.0).

The Walia ibex, a rare species of wild goat found only in northern Ethiopia, is once again considered critically endangered, after recent population estimates showed a sustained decline below a key threshold. The iconic species, largely confined to the remote, steep cliffs of Simien Mountains National Park, was previous listed as vulnerable on the Red List of the IUCN, the global wildlife conservation authority. The conservation status of the Walia ibex (Capra walie) has oscillated over the years. In 1986, it was listed as endangered, then reclassified as critically endangered in 1996, before being moved back to endangered in 2008. Between 2009 and 2012, surveys found the Walia ibex population had increased from 680 individuals to 850. Based on this trend, researchers estimated that by 2020 there would be more than 975 individuals. Concluding that the species was doing better, they reclassified the ibex as vulnerable. The 2020 assessment noted that in 2019, only 619 ibex had been counted, but concluded that this single record didn’t change the overall increasing trend. “With today’s knowledge this conclusion was not justified,” Paul Scholte, senior adviser to the Ethiopian Wildlife Conservation Authority and lead assessor of the IUCN Walia Ibex Assessment, told Mongabay by email. A study published last year by Scholte and his colleagues found that Walia ibex numbers have been steadily declining from a high of 865 individuals in 2015 to just 306 by May 2024. Most importantly, there were fewer than 250 mature individuals (those that can reproduce) in 2023 and 2024, thereby falling under the IUCN criterion for listing the species as critically endangered, Scholte said. An additional count in November 2024, not included in the 2025 study, found just 289 ibex, including 228 mature individuals, Scholte added. Another count in December 2025, found only 271 individuals. “In other words another 18 individuals lost within a year,” he said. For their study, Scholte and his colleagues also interviewed nearly 200 people, including park personnel, local authorities and village residents, to understand why ibex populations have been declining. The interviewees identified poaching as a major threat to the ibex, possibly for food and traditional medicine, followed by human encroachment and habitat degradation. The situation was made worse by the COVID-19 pandemic in combination with the 2021-2022 war between the Ethiopian government and the Tigray People’s Liberation Front. According to the interviewees, the instability from the war opened the door for poaching, while COVID-19 “obstructed tourist flows, decreased revenues and halted patrolling activities and awareness,” the authors wrote in the paper. Scholte said poaching continues to be a threat. “In April 2025, four poachers were apprehended, with the remains of two Walia ibexes that were confiscated, showing the continuing pressure on this species during a period of prolonged insecurity reigning in this part of Ethiopia,” he said. [caption id="attachment_322959" align="alignnone" width="768"] A Wialia ibex, subadult female. Image by Paul Scholte.[/caption] Banner image of a male Walia ibex in Ethiopia, courtesy of Paul Scholte.