Sixteen Elephants dead in series of poisoning incidents in Amboseli National Park, Kenya.

Sixteen Elephants have been found dead with apparent cyanide poisoning in the Amboseli National Park in Kenya since 24 June 2026. This has raised concerns about a potential new wave of Human-wildlife conflict in the park, where Elephants were once almost wiped out by poaching, but which is now home to a population of 36 000. All of the Elephants died outside of the Amboseli National Park itself, but within the greater Amoseli ecosystem, in the area around Kimana Sanctuary and Kuku Ranch, community-run wildlife projects linking Amboseli National Park to the Tsavo National Park to the east.

The body of an Elephant found close to the Amboseli National Park in Kenya earlier this year. BBC.

Initially, park authorities were concerned that the Elephants may have been poisoned by a cyanide-based insecticide sprayed on crops on one of the farms surrounding the park, as several of the dead Elephants had stomachs filled with tomatoes. Elephant raids on croplands close to Amboseli are a known problem, and while cyanide-based insecticides are illegal in Kenya (which maintains strict rules on the use of agricultural chemicals in order to gain access to lucrative European markets), they are legal in neighbouring Tanzania, with occasional incidents of smuggling and illegal use in Kenya being reported. 

Elephants in the Amboseli National Park. Kenya Wildlife Service.

However, local farmer's representatives have strongly denied this, claiming that despite the problems of crop raiding, most farmers love the region's Elephants and would not voluntarily harm them. Furthermore, they note that that it would take a considerable amount of cyanide to kill an Elephant, and farms are also impacted by crop raiding by other large Mammals, none of which seem to have been affected.

Farmers spraying pesticides on a farm close to the Amboseli National Park in Kenya. Peter Njoroge/BBC.

Another possibility is that the cyanide could have been used in an illegal gold mining operation either within, or close to the Amboseli National Park (while gold is not generally soluble, it can be dissolved in solutions of sodium cyanide, a method which can be used to leach gold from ore rock), although the Kenya Wildlife Service are confident that no such activities are taking place. This makes deliberate poisoning of the Elephants the most probable cause, and while the reason for this is unknown, the most likely explanation would be that it relates to the extensive farmland now surrounding Amboseli and the other parks of the region, which supply vegetables to cities such as Nairobi as well as overseas markets. While many Animals occasionally raid such farms, Elephants are uniquely destructive, with individual Elephants able to consume over a tonne of vegetables within a short period of time.

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UNESCO adds three new sites to its World Heritage List.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) has added seven new sites to its World Heritage List, which is made up of sites deemed to be of natural or cultural significance which gives them outstanding universal significance for mankind, according to a press release issued on 26 July 2026. All three of these sites have additionally been placed on the World Heritage in Danger list of sites which are facing imminent threats due to Human or natural causes. In addition, three sites already on the World Heritage List have also been placed on the World Heritage in Danger list.

The first new site added to the World Heritage List is the Boma-Badingilo Migratory Landscape in South Sudan; this is the first site in South Sudan to be added to the World Heritage List. This area comprises two National Parks, Boma and Badingilo, which are contiguous with one another, currently managed by African Parks on behalf of the South Sudanese government. The parks lie in the White Nile catchment area, and are home to the world's largest Mammal migration, with over six million Antelope trasversing the area each year, as well as being an important part of the migrant Bird route between Southern Africa and Europe. The area is a biodiversity hotspot of global significance, as well as being home to a number of ethnic groups with their own unique cultural and linguistic heritage, who have acted as custodians of this landscape.

An Antelope migration in the Boma-Badingilo Migratory Landscape. African Parks.

The UNESCO World Heritage Committee has identified the Boma-Badingilo Migratory Landscape as facing a number of serious threats, including infrastructure development, commercial poaching, and wildlife trafficking and trade, while at the same time lacks meaningful protection from the South Sudanese government, which is under-financed and has a weak infrastructure, with the country suffering from a poor security situation. For these reasons the Boma-Badingilo Migratory Landscape has been placed on the World Heritage in Danger list.

Traditional herders within the Boma-Badingilo Migratory Landscape. African Parks.

The second new addition to the World Heritage List is the Mount Amel Castles sites in Lebanon. This site compromises a series of five castles across southern Lebanon, built during the Crusader Period on strategic high ground sites, and subsequently used by the Ayyubids, Mamluks, and later powers. These are Qalaat al-Chakif, or Beaufort Castle, dominating the Litani River valley from a strategic ridge, Qalaat Tibnin, or Toron Castle, on a mountain overlooking the road from Tyre to Damascus, Qalaat Chakra, or Dubieh Castle, in the Chakra agricultural region, Qalaat Deir Kifa, or Maron Castle, on an isolated hill overlooking the route from Lebanon towards Galilee and Jerusalem, and Qalaat Chama’, on a hill overlooking the coastal plain near Tyre.

Qalaat Tibnin, or Toron Castle, in 2006. T Dakroub/Wikimedia Commons.

In November 2024 the Mount Amel Castles were given 'enhanced protection status by the UNESCO Committee for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, a status which grants access to the Fund for the Protection of Cultural Property in the Event of Armed Conflict, as well helping to make applications for other forms of international assistance. However, since that time the sites have suffered heavy damage due to the ongoing conflict in the region, and are now considered to be in jeopardy of complete destruction, prompting the World Heritage Committee to move the sites to both the World Heritage List and the World Heritage in Danger list as a way to highlight the risk of losing these sites.

Qalaat al-Chakif, or Beaufort Castle. UNESCO.

The third new site added to the World Heritage List is the Palestinian village of Sebastia in the Nablus Governate of the State of Palestine. This is a site of significant archaeological heritage, having been inhabited since at least the ninth century BC, when it served as the capital of the northern Kingdom of Israel, and has since been occupied by Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Hellenistic Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Crusaders, Ayyubids, Mamluks, and Ottomans. The village was the site of a fortified town associated with Herod the Great during the Roman period, and  was a Throne Village (administrative centre governed by local leaders) during the Ottoman period. It is considered to be the burial place of St John the Baptist.

A Roman theatre in the Palestinian village of Sebastia. Wikimedia Commons.

The site has been chosen for inclusion on the World Heritage List and the World Heritage in Danger list both because it is threatened by the ongoing conflict in the region, and also because it is threatened with expropriation, with half the site, including many privately owned propertied, earmarked to become part of the proposed Shomron National Park, a development which would allow access to the site only from Israel, excluding many Palestinians who have worked as traditional guides at the site. This project sits alongside plans for the expansion of Jewish settlements in the region, again almost certainly at the detriment of the local Palestinian population.

Roman ruins on the hilltop site near Sebastia. Jason Burke/The Guardian.

The first site already on the World Heritage List which is being additionally added to the World Heritage in Danger list is the Tauric Chersonese, an ancient city on the Crimean Peninsula founded by Ionian Greeks in the sixth century BC, and subsequently occupied by Megarian Greeks, the Pontic Empire, the Roman Empire, and the Byzantine Empire, before being abandoned in the fourteenth century. Although Crimea is part of Ukraine, it has been occupied by Russia since 2014, with no apparent plan for its protection, conservation, or management. The site is currently monitored remotely by UNITAR/UNOSAT, which has revealed significant degradation of the site, due to construction and large-scale excavation at the site. The World Heritage Committee believes there is a significant danger of the illicit trafficking of cultural property from the Crimea.

The ruins of Chersonesos, Crimea, in 2009. Dmitry Mottl/Wikimedia Commons.

The second site from the World Heritage List added to the World Heritage in Danger list is the Historic Inner City of Paramaribo in Suriname, a former Dutch colonial town from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries planted on the northern coast of tropical South America. At the moment, original and highly characteristic street plan of the historic centre remains intact, with buildings that illustrate the gradual fusion of Dutch architectural influence with traditional local techniques and materials. However, the World Heritage Committee feels that the new National Assembly hall and the Yogh parking garage detract from the property’s historic urban landscape and result in a significant loss of its authenticity and integrity, that constitute a threat to the site's outstanding universal value.

Houses in the Historic Inner City of Paramaribo in Suriname. Ron Van Oers/UNESCO.

The final site to be added to the World Heritage in Danger list is the city of Tyre in Lebanon. This site has been occupied since the Bronze Age, but rose to prominence as a major Phoenician city-state between ninth and sixth centuries BC, and was subsequently occupied by the Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Hellenic Greeks, Romans, Byzantines, Early Muslims, Crusaders, Mamluks, Ottomans, Egyptians, and French, prior to Lebanon gaining independence in 1943. As such, the city is home to numerous archaeological sites of great significance, with those of the Roman Period being particularly spectacular. 

Roman ruins at Tyre on the coast of Lebanon. Véronique Dauge/UNESCO.

Like the Mount Amel Castles, the city of Tyre is threatened by the ongoing conflict in southern Lebanon, and while the World Heritage Committee commends Lebanon for its efforts to protect Tyre, they also feel that the historic sites are now directly threatened by the conflict.

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Trachischium lalremsangai: A new species of Worm-eating Snake from Mizoram State, India, and Chin State, Myanmar.

Members of the Natricid Snake genus Trachischium are commonly known as Slender Snakes or Worm-eating Snakes. They are fossorial in nature (live underground in burrows) and are distributed in the montane forests of India, Nepal, Bhutan, China, Myanmar, and Bangladesh, typically at altitudes of between 800 and 2500 m above sealevel. Their lifestyle and habitat makes studying (or indeed finding) them difficult, and they are subsequently one of the least well known groups of Snakes. The genus Trachischium currently contains ten species, including two which were previously assigned to the genus Blythia; the two genera having been merged in 2024 on the basis that their defining criteria overlapped.

In a paper published in the journal Herpetozoa on 19 May 2026, Virender Bhardwaj, Amit Bal, and Chhangte Tluanga of the Developmental Biology and Herpetology Laboratory at Mizoram University, and Zeeshan Mirza of the Max Planck Institute for Biology, describe a new species of Trachischium from Mizoram State, India, and Chin State, Myanmar.

The new species is described on the basis of a specimen collected by Bhardwaj et al. in the Murlen National Park in 2025. A second specimen, which was collected in Chin State, Myanmar, in 2003, and now sits in the collection of the California Academy of Sciences, where it has been classified as Blythia reticulata (a species currently reassigned to Trachischium as Trachischium reticulata) on the basis of a scale pattern and colouration which matches the new species, but is atypical for Trachischium reticulata. 

Bhardwaj et al. name the new species Trachischium lalremsanga, in honour of Hmar Tlawmte Lalremsanga of Mizoram University for his contributions to herpetology in Northeast India, his guidance to numerous students, and his facilitation of research throughout the region and the Indo-Burma Biodiversity Hotspot. The species is described from two specimens, both male, one 409 mm in length and the other 506 mm, which makes it one of the larger species of Worm-eating Snakes. The dorsal surface of these Snakes is dark brown with a lustrous blue iridescence throughout, the front quarter of the ventral surface is a creamy white, the remainder brown with white speckles.

Trachischium lalremsangai, holotype male, MZMU 3757, in life. Bhardwaj et al. (2026).

The specimen Bhardwaj et al. collected was found moving along a road, close to the village of Murlen on the fringe of the Murlen National Park, 1560 m above sealevel, at about 9.30 in the evening, and shortly before a period of rain. This area forms part of the India-Burma Biodiversity Hotspot, and contains a mixture of tropical, semi-evergreen, and montane forests, with a dense canopy cover. Annual rainfall varies between about 2500 mm and about 3000 m, and the temperature varies between about 5°C in the winter and about 35°C in the winter. The area where the Snake was found has a diverse vegetation, including Oaks, Quercus spp., Needlewood, Schima wallichii, Birches, Betula spp., Champak, Michelia champaca, Khasi Pines, Pinus khasiana, Cherries, Prunus spp., Bayberry, Myrica spp., Rhododendrons, Rhododendron spp., dense stands of Thorny Bamboo, Arundinaria callosa, Cane Grasses, and a rich array of Orchids. The specimen collected in Myanmar was found at a site about 90 km away in a straight line, with a similar environment. Based upon this, Bhardwaj et al. estimate that the species may be present across northeast Mizoram and adjoining Manipur in India, as well as within the similar elevation realms of the Chin Hills.

The phylogeny of the genus Trachischium is still somewhat uncertain, and in need of thorough revision. Many species are described from single specimens, with only vague locations recorded. The genus is found from Jammu and Kashmir in the west to Arunachal Pradesh in the east, south as far as northern Myanmar and north as far as Tibet. At least one widely distributed species, Trachischium fuscum, is likely to be a species complex (group of closely related, yet reproductively isolated, and similar-appearing species). The genus Blythia was incorporated into the genus Trachischium as a junior synonym in 2024, yet this group of Snakes remain distinctive in appearance and this may be revised again; it is to this Blythia-group that the new species, Trachischium lalremsanga, belongs. Genetic data is available for only a single specimen of many species.

With this in mind, Bhardwaj et al. carried out a phylogenetic analysis for Trachischium lalremsanga using the mitochondrial 16S rRNA and cytochrome b genes and the nuclear oocyte maturation factor mos and recombination activating gene 1 genes, and comparing these to publicly available sequences from the GenBank database. 

This analysis found that the genus Trachischium can be split into three distinct subgroupings, which Bhardwaj et al. refer to as Clade 1, Clade 2 (which corresponds to the Blythia-group), and Clade 3. Clade 2 and Clade 3 are more closely related to one-another than either is to Clade 1, which forms an outgroup, so while Clade 2 could potentially be taken out of the genus Trachischium and returned to its original name, this would also require the renaming of Clade 3, with the designation Trachischium limited to Clade 1, which contains the type species for the genus, Trachischium fuscum (a type species is the species which defines a genus; other species are determined to belong or not belong to the genus on the basis of how closely they are related to that genus).

Maximum likelihood phylogeny based on concatenated two nuclear (c-mos and RAG-1) and two mitochondrial (16S and cyt b) genes of selected Natricine Snakes showing relationships within the genera Trachischium and Blythia. Numbers at nodes show maximum likelihood clade support. The new species from Murlen National Park is highlighted in red text. Bhardwaj et al. (2026).

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Ghanaian government bans mining in forest reserves.

The Ghanaian Ministry of Environment, Science and Technology has re-imposed a ban on small-scale mining in forest reserves in order to halt deforestation and protect natural water bodies. Ghana is Africa's largest producer of gold, but, as in many other countries, much of the gold is extracted by large companies, who contribute to the national revenue but employ a relatively low number of workers, leading to the impression amongst much of the population that they are not benefiting from the industry. Since a large section of the Ghanaian population lacks formal employment, being dependent on subsistence farming, fishing, or 'hustling' (participation in the informal economy), this can be a matter of contention, and has led to frequent raids on mining concessions by informal, artisanal miners.

Damage caused by an illegal mining camp in the Neung Forest Reserve in Ghana's Western Region. Festus Randy Jackson-Davis/Pan African Visions.

In an effort to combat this, in 2022 the Ghanaian Government introduced the Environmental Protection (Mining in Forest Reserves) Regulations, which allowed small scale mining in forest reserves, under a permit system. However, three years on, widespread, and unregulated, artisanal mining is reported to have led to environmental damage in 13 of the 16 regions of Ghana, in places threatening waterways vital for the country's Cocoa crops, while mining companies still report incursions onto their property. This in turn has led to a campaign by environmental groups in the country to reimpose the banning of mining in these areas.

The Ghanaian authorities plan to unveil a new, more tightly controlled system of permits for small-scale mines in the country, in line with the system of timber licensing it introduced earlier this year. It remains to be seen, however, how well the government will be able to enforce these new regulations, and to what extent they will be accepted by sections of the population with few other options for income generation.

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