Loss of habitat and poaching have made African forest elephants a critically endangered species. Yet the dense forests of sparsely populated Gabon in the Congo River Basin remain a "last stronghold" of the magnificent creatures, according to new research that concluded the population is much higher than previous estimates.

Counting forest elephants is a far bigger challenge than surveying plains-dwelling savanna elephants from the air. It takes difficult and dirty scientific work that doesn't involve laying eyes on the elusive animals that flee at the slightest whiff of human scent.

Air pollution remained extremely high in the Indian capital on Thursday, a day after authorities closed schools indefinitely and shut some power stations to reduce smog that has blanketed the city for much of the month.

New Delhi's air quality remained "very poor," according to SAFAR, India's main environmental monitoring agency. The concentration of tiny airborne particles less than 2.5 microns in diameter — known as PM 2.5 — neared 300 micrograms per cubic meter in some parts of the city, it said.

The U.S. Interior Department on Wednesday will auction vast oil and gas reserves in the Gulf of Mexico estimated to hold up to 1.1 billion barrels of crude, the first such sale under President Joe Biden and a harbinger of the challenges he faces to reach climate goals that depend on deep cuts in fossil fuel emissions.

The livestreamed sale invited energy companies to bid on drilling leases across some 136,000 square miles (352,000 square kilometers) — about twice the area of Florida.

There is a ray of hope for the vanishing orange-and-black Western monarch butterflies.

The number wintering along California's central coast is bouncing back after the population, whose presence is often a good indicator of ecosystem health, reached an all-time low last year. Experts pin their decline on climate change, habitat destruction and lack of food due to drought.

As many parts of western Washington began drying out after a storm that dumped rain for days, waters in some areas continued rising, more people were urged to evacuate and crews worked to restore power and reopen roads.

Officials in the small city of Sumas, Washington, near the Canada border called the flood damage there devastating. Officials said on Facebook Tuesday that hundreds of people had been evacuated and estimated that 75% of homes had water damage.

Relentless rain battered Canada's Pacific coast on Monday, forcing a town's evacuation and trapping motorists as mudslides, rocks and debris were washed across major highways.

The nomad was thirsty, and the journey into the Somali desert would be long and taxing. 

The picturesque coastal resort town of Kribi in southern Cameroon is a popular destination for tourists, but it is also blighted by the scourge of plastic waste.

Foreign tourists have been welcomed back to India after pandemic travel bans but intrepid travelers will have to brave the intense pollution season to visit the country's most famous attraction.

Detected deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon rose for the second straight month compared to last year, ending a streak of encouraging data at a moment when the government has promised to curb illegal logging.

Satellite alerts of deforestation in October corresponded to 877 square kilometers (339 square miles), the highest indicator for the month in five years and 4.9% more than for the same month in 2020, according to data from the Brazilian space agency's Deter monitoring system that were released on Friday. September registered 2.3% more deforestation than the same month last year.