Some 30,000 years ago, Stone Age people decorated a cave, today known as Cueva de los Casares, in central Spain with pictures of mating humans (most famously), geometric shapes, and…
COLOMBO — In 2012, Sri Lanka’s National Red List delivered a grim verdict on endemic Pini- Beraliya, the towering dipterocarp Doona ovalifolia (syn. Shorea ovalifolia) tree by categorizing it as…
MANNAR, Sri Lanka — Under the blanket of darkness, giant trucks rumbled through the narrow roads of Sri Lanka’s Mannar district, their headlights cutting through the night. On their trailers…
KATHMANDU — Nayaram Sunar vividly remembers the day at the end of monsoon season in 2019, when rain was pouring in relentlessly on his sister’s corn field in the village…
COLOMBO — As darkness settled over Colombo on Aug. 3, a small group of young men, led by a zoology professor, slipped quietly into Sri Lanka’s largest cemetery, Borella Kanatte,…
When the sheep were removed, the páramo — high-altitude ecosystems in the Andes — started to heal. Without their waste, water quality improved. Without their hooves compacting the soil, plants…
The phrase malezi mema in Comorian loosely translates to “parenting well.” A fishers’ group of the same name on the island of Anjouan in Comoros is trying to provide a…
Conservationists snapped images of two small wildcat species in Pakistan earlier this year: an Asiatic caracal (Caracal caracal schimitzi) and a sand cat (Felis margarita) — both which are incredibly…
As Africa’s environment ministers meet this week in Nairobi, Kenya, for the 20th African Ministerial Conference on the Environment (AMCEN), the Global Environment Facility (GEF)is touting its decades of support…
In southern California’s Coachella Valley, pale sand dunes sprawl under the desert sun, shifting and re-forming in the wind. In dry years, lone shrubs dot the dunes. But the landscape…
COLOMBO — The Deduru Oya reservoir in northwestern Sri Lanka has long been a favorite fishing spot for angler Ishanka Dissanayaka. In mid-June, he returned to the reservoir for a…
In a world full of bad news, there’s been good news in whale conservation. Many of the great whales are coming back. In fact, some populations have been recovering faster…
A recent report surveying seizures of pangolin scales and elephant ivory over the past decade has found a sharp decline following the COVID-19 pandemic. Using data from media reports, public…
The Afro-Asiatic wildcat (Felis lybica) is the world’s most widely distributed wildcat, but experts and information on the species are scarce. The species’ range is immense, stretching across most of…
Open any ecology textbook and you’ll find the Canada lynx, the snowshoe hare, and their wildly oscillating population cycles offered as a classic example of the intimate relationship between predator…
This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center’s Ocean Reporting Network, where Elizabeth Claire Alberts is a fellow. Mere days after the Trump administration rolled out a controversial executive order…
Lorayne Meltzer has lived along the Gulf of California for 30 years. As an ecologist and director of a binational field station, she’s supported many scientists in their research into…
KATHMANDU — Following decades of speculation, skepticism and lack of consensus, Nepal’s government has announced the country’s first-ever consolidated national estimate of snow leopards (Panther uncia): 397 individuals. The figure,…
This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center’s Ocean Reporting Network, where Elizabeth Claire Alberts is a fellow. Canadian deep-sea mining firm The Metals Company (TMC) has announced it "initiated…
NAIROBI, Kenya — Many African cities are now characterized by deafening traffic noises and suffocating gas emissions, and are becoming limitless concrete jungles as urbanization takes hold and human settlements…
COLOMBO — In July 2023, heavy rains continued in southern Sri Lanka for days, soaking the lush greenery of the village of Hapugala in Galle. Amid the downpour, journalist and…
BLANTYRE, Malawi ― In 2012, African Parks, a conservation nonprofit, brought three lions to Malawi's Majete Wildlife Reserve, ending the big cats' 30-year absence from the protected area. Since then,…
COLOMBO — In a dramatic turn of events, Indian tycoon Gautam Adani’s Green Energy Limited (AGEL) has withdrawn from the second phase of a proposed wind power project in northern…
Pakistan's largest city, Karachi, is home to more than 20 million people and has been in the news many times due to climate-related issues such as heat waves, urban flooding…
In 2019, scientists rediscovered a species of miniature deer long lost to science within the dry coastal forests of southern Vietnam’s Nui Chua National Park. A victim of snaring, the…
In the summer of 1948, naturalist Charles J. Guiguet spent four months on the Goose Island Archipelago, a cluster of tree-covered islands with wild, rocky beaches located off the central…
Forests are an essential ally in combating climate change. Trees consume carbon dioxide in order to grow, pulling the gas out of the air and storing it in wood, bark…
As one of the most iconic creatures in their ecosystems, moose have lumbered their way into the fabric of Canadian culture in Ontario. Recreational hunting, Indigenous well-being and the region's…
Killer whales (Orcinus orca) are finding a new place to roam in the rapidly changing Arctic Ocean. Though Indigenous people in the region have seen the whales, also known as…
In the icy waters surrounding Antarctica, small shrimp-like crustaceans called krill (Euphausia superba) swim in swarms of trillions, forming a biomass larger than the entire human population. Scientists knew these…
In the forest's fecund gloom, José Muchavisoy leads the guardians of the territory as they scan the undergrowth for trails left by their target. Strangely splayed paw prints, dung among…
In 2018, Han Xue-song, then a researcher with the Beijing-based Shan Shui Conservation Center, was in the Sanjiangyuan region on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, surveying black-necked cranes (Grus nigricollis). At an…
