In 2013, when Sandra Altherr, co-founder of the German NGO Pro Wildlife, began looking into the reptile trade in Europe, she wondered why people paid thousands of euros for little-known…
KAFUE NATIONAL PARK, Zambia – Biologist Mike Ross, balanced in a canoe beneath a star-filled sky in central Zambia, slaps the water with a net attached to a wooden pole…
Conservation is often framed as a scientific or technical challenge — a matter of policies, protected areas and enforcement. But that lens has led conservation astray. Around the world, biodiversity…
COLOMBO — Young birder Lahiru Walpita begins most of his days at dawn by scanning the skies for seabirds along the coastline in northern Sri Lanka. In July 2024, during…
PLACENCIA, Belize — After Hurricane Iris decimated the coral reef at Laughing Bird Caye National Park in 2001, many wrote off the UNESCO World Heritage site as a coral graveyard.…
Few conservationists have shaped the public conversation around wildlife protection quite like Peter Knights. Best known for co-founding WildAid and helping to redefine conservation as a communications challenge as much…
From pollinating plants to dispersing seeds, birds play a variety of crucial roles that help to keep ecosystems in balance. But when we degrade and fragment their habitats, some species…
KATHMANDU — A decade ago, people from Salija village in western Nepal traveled several hours into the uphill forests to gather firewood and feed for their livestock, Shakhamani Khorja recalls.…
A new report by the Business & Human Rights Resource Centre (BHRRC) finds that more than half of the 95 legal cases initiated around the world since 2009 by those…
TAPLEJUNG, Nepal — In the misty hills of eastern Nepal near the border with India, 48-year-old farmer Surya Bhattarai patrols the steep slopes of Sudap Community Forest in Taplejung district.…
NAIROBI — Swarms of desert locusts are moving across parts of North Africa. With unusually heavy rains in late 2024 supporting growth of vegetation, and rising temperatures since February 2025…
A new study has shown the first habitat suitability model for the endangered bear cuscus in Indonesia’s South Sulawesi, showing its limited and fragmented range, much of which is threatened…
Pacing paw-to-paw, the fishing cat hisses. About twice the size of a domestic cat, its grey-green eyes fix on the keeper who carries a tub of tilapia on the other…
From Shakespeare’s plays to William Wordsworth’s poetry to J.R.R Tolkien's fantasy realms, Britain’s lush green forests are described as a paradise of trees. Thousands of species have called these oak,…
In Colombia’s Middle Magdalena region, a patchwork of forest corridors is linking up isolated populations of the critically endangered brown spider monkey (Ateles hybridus). Composed of native and fruit-bearing trees,…
MARERENI, Kenya — The scorching afternoon sun stretches across the semiarid landscape of Marereni, in Kenya’s Kilifi county, where salt and sea shape both the land and the lives that…
KARACHI — From the sands of Manjhaar Beach on the far outskirts of Karachi, Pakistan, an island is just visible 10 kilometers, about 6 miles, offshore. Mist rising from the…
They live in the ocean’s coldest, darkest depths, far from sight — but cold-water corals are far from safe. In a first-of-its-kind study published in Marine Biodiversity in June, a…
KATHMANDU — Nepal has launched a species action plan focused exclusively on conserving the endangered dhole (Cuon alpinus), also known as the Asiatic wild dog. The new 262.9 million rupee…
ADDIS ABABA — Local leaders at Ethiopia’s largest community conservation area are working to become financially self-sufficient and continue protecting land and wildlife independently, following the abrupt cut of funding…
COLOMBO — Sri Lanka’s largest protected area, the Wilpattu National Park, recognized as one of the best places in the country to observe leopards in the wild, has long been…
The Maya Golden Landscape in southern Belize is a patchwork of protected areas, agricultural lands and small communities, part of the greater Maya Forest, the second-largest tropical forest in the…
Leopards — solitary, enigmatic, nocturnal predators with golden fur splashed with dark rosette spots — have the widest range of any big cat. They’re found in a variety of habitats…
I have spent much of my life studying predatory fishes in East Africa’s coastal waters, but never have I been more concerned about their future. The disappearance of the western…
"We were amazed when we first noticed this behavior," said Michael Weiss, research director at the Center for Whale Research in the U.S. state of Washington. What started as a…
SALAPOUMBÉ, Cameroon — Freddy Mbengue, a 24-year-old farmer in a black polo shirt and denim shorts, keeps a watchful eye on the forest. Mbengue is from the Baka community in…
Shark conservation is not a field for the faint of heart. It pits biology against commerce, sentiment against symbolism, and, frequently, science against entrenched bureaucracies. Sharks themselves, apex predators honed…
Tyler Kartzinel likens protecting biodiversity to enhancing cellphone networks. His analogy is pretty straightforward: look for gaps in coverage, and then do what’s needed to fill them. “Engineers have figured…
METETÍ, Panama — Thousands of people used to cross the Darién Gap every day. Emerging from the rainforest, they would stop in small towns across southern Panama, where migrant reception…
METETÍ, Panama — Darién National Park covers around 575,000 hectares, or 1.42 million acres, of rainforest at Panama’s southern border with Colombia, where Central and South America meet. It’s one…
Daniel Caniullán has been diving in the cold waters of the Guaitecas Archipelago in northern Patagonia, Chile, for more than 30 years. “Just by looking at the seabed landscape, you…
Not all agroforestry projects are funded equally, suggests a new comment paper published in Nature Climate Change. Integrating crops into existing forests is an often overlooked agroforestry method to store…
