Social media can be a bat’s best friend (commentary)
Bats save countries like the United States billions of dollars in pest control every year. They keep rainforests lush and crops growing. Bats even allow us to enjoy our favorite…
Maasai conservationist strives to protect Indigenous rights because ‘land is life’ (commentary)
The idea that ‘land is life’ has been at the core of what I do since I began my journey in grassroots conservation. I was born in the Loliondo district…
Montana cannot be trusted with grizzly bear & wolf management (commentary)
Whether you live in Big Sky country, have enjoyed its natural wonders as a tourist, or marveled at the iconic imagery of Yellowstone National Park’s bears and wolves from afar…
Rio Tinto must repair the damage caused by their Madagascar mine (commentary)
Rio Tinto’s sprawling Qit Minerals Madagascar (QMM) mining operation is situated in one of the poorest regions of the fifth poorest country in the world. It lies in an area…
Conserve wildlands in southern Africa by protecting Indigenous rights (commentary)
The COP15 agreement and its pledge to preserve 30% of the world’s biodiversity by 2030 (30x30) may have sounded like a resounding success for conservation around the world. However, according…
Namibia’s first peoples struggle to access their traditional lands (commentary)
Namibia’s internationally acclaimed Community-Based Natural Resource Management (CBNRM) Program, whereby the government ostensibly allows rural and Indigenous communities the opportunity to manage and profit from their own natural resources, has…
Is there a ‘lighter side’ to our possible environmental apocalypse? (commentary)
Today I’m a waterlogged Californian, but soon I’ll be baked dry as a bone. The intensity of extreme drought and rainfall has "sharply" increased over the past 20 years, according…
A Ramadan reflection on Islam and climate action (commentary)
This month, Muslims across the world welcomed the month of Ramadan – a blessed month during which they fast and strive towards nurturing God-consciousness both spiritually and through acts of…
Flawed count puts ‘glorified’ Javan rhinos on path to extinction, report says
JAKARTA — Every time a new Javan rhino calf is spotted, Indonesia’s environmental authorities issue an update of the precise population number for the near-extinct species. The rhino’s entire population…
Indonesia’s Just Energy Transition Partnership must increase transparency (commentary)
"In Indonesia, now, wherever you look there is corruption," the country’s Coordinating Minister for Politics and Security, Mohammad Mahfud Mahmodin (Mahfud MD), said in Kompas recently. His statement strengthens data on…
After 150 years of damage to people and planet, Rio Tinto ‘must be held to account’ (commentary)
For most of us, it seems quite obvious that doing harm leads to consequences. It’s only fair after all – if your actions hurt someone, you get held to account…
Monarch butterflies become a powerful symbol for justice at the U.S./Mexico border (commentary)
Monarch butterflies could go extinct, much to the dismay of environmentalists in the U.S. and Mexico. Monarch butterfly populations in Mexico have dropped 22% in the last year, according to…
How do oil palm companies get away with disregarding Indonesian law? (commentary)
“Please tell me how I can make companies obey the law,” the official said. He was exasperated by the companies whose oil palm plantations saturated the subdistrict he headed in…
Can a new regional pact protect the Amazon from environmental crime? (commentary)
Illegal deforestation, wildcat mining, drug trafficking, and lethal violence: Name your scourge and the Amazon Basin seldom disappoints. But as an unusual compact between police officers, prosecutors, environmental protectors, and…
How you save the world with three words (commentary)
In South Los Angeles — right in the heart of the 10-million-person metro area — sits a sprawling 1,000-acre zone from another era: It’s the Inglewood Oil Field, a rolling scrubland…
At the U.N. Water Conference, food security needs to take center stage (commentary)
The vulnerabilities in our global food system have never been more apparent than they are right now, during a moment some have described as a “poly-crisis.” Between international conflict in…
Sámi rights must not be sacrificed for green energy goals of Europe (commentary)
Growing up in Gällivare/ Váhtjer, a Swedish village in Sápmi, north of the Arctic Circle, the threats facing Sámi people were a daily reality. We are Europe’s only Indigenous people,…
On wildlife and the Metaverse, some ethical considerations (commentary)
In the fight against climate change, will the Metaverse be helpful or hinder environmental efforts? Essentially an updated internet and virtual world where participants can pose as avatars and interact…
Can gaming solve a puzzle for camera trap conservationists? (commentary)
A few years ago I was catching butterflies in a strip of rainforest in Panama. One day the camp welcomed a team of jet-lagged vagabonds dragging their rollers full of…
In South Texas, watch out for ocelots crossing roads (commentary)
On the main road of the Laguna Atascosa National Wildlife Refuge in South Texas, two ocelots recently jumped out in front of a car. The mother ocelot then went back…
Mobilizing Amazon societies to reduce forest carbon emissions and unlock the carbon market (commentary)
Brazil has an unprecedented opportunity to secure $10 billion dollars or more over the next four years to move the Amazon region towards an equitable, forest-maintaining economy. The very real…
Blended finance can supercharge conservation (commentary)
As the founding Chair of the Executive Board of the Global Fund for Coral Reefs (GFCR), I have witnessed firsthand a groundbreaking effort to preserve one of Earth’s most essential…
Agroecology is a poverty solution in Haiti (commentary)
Haiti is facing a profound political and economic crisis. Functional governance that serves the interests of Haiti’s people is largely nonexistent. One of the necessities to overcome this crisis is…
Fishing industry transparency is key for a thriving ocean (commentary)
Illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing (IUU), human rights abuses at sea and the collapse of ocean ecosystems are fundamentally intertwined. Fish populations have rapidly declined globally, with 35% of fish…
Conservationists should all be feminists (commentary)
Our planet is in crisis. Human activity is driving accelerating climate change and biodiversity loss across the globe. The devastating impacts of both processes are disproportionately felt by women and…
Six steps to tackle exploitation in Indonesia’s palm oil smallholder scheme (commentary)
When the palm oil industry began growing rapidly in Indonesia in the 1980s, the government developed a scheme aimed at ensuring communities would benefit. To gain subsidized funding, companies routinely…
Biodiversity credits: An opportunity to create a new financing framework (commentary)
Biodiversity conservation requires a fundamentally different approach to managing climate change, and their respective crediting systems need to accommodate that difference for technical, social and practical reasons. Carbon credits are…
Biodiversity conservation needs a more ecological context and transformational concept (commentary)
Halting biodiversity loss is one of the great challenges of the 21st century, but our current approaches to global conservation are clearly not working. A good example of this is…
Biden-Lula meeting: The time is right for U.S. and Brazil to work together for Amazonia (commentary)
The Amazon rainforest and its people have gone through tough times recently. For the last four years, under Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, the region has experienced increasing deforestation and the…
Brazil-U.S. cooperation is key for global forest conservation (commentary)
Two days after the two-year anniversary of the January 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol, copycat mayhem broke out in Brazil's own capital, Brasília. On that Sunday, newly-inaugurated Brazilian President…
