The Tanintharyi Region in southern Myanmar is a beautiful and rich expanse of rainforest, ocean, and mangroves where we still have wild tigers and elephants, and where the forest provides…
From above, the satellite image shows two insignificant dark-colored shapes, like a couple of missing puzzle pieces in a flat sea of green. But on the ground, they represent devastation.…
In spring 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic took off in the United States just as the breeding season for the black-footed ferret (Mustela nigripes) commenced. Disease is always at the forefront…
BOGOTÁ — In Colombia’s Chocó department, renowned by environmentalists for its abundant biodiversity, Afro-Colombian communities collect gold from rivers as part of an ancestral way of life. “When we talk…
A group of philanthropic organizations has come together to pledge $5 billion for the creation and expansion of protected areas across the planet, one of the largest private investments ever…
BOGOR, Indonesia — The population of the nearly extinct bowmouth guitarfish in Indonesia is being depleted by overfishing, according to a recent study that calls for a reduction in its…
JAKARTA — Consumer goods behemoths such as Unilever, PepsiCo and Nestlé that buy palm oil from Indonesia may be exposed to the environmental and social fallout from a seemingly unrelated…
They say you should never smile at a crocodile. But that’s exactly what happened on Sept. 9 when a team of researchers discovered a group of eight Siamese crocodile (Crocodylus…
September 24 marks World Gorilla Day, set aside to celebrate these threatened giants of the forest as well as to renew calls for action to protect them. All gorilla species…
2020 will forever be remembered as the year a global pandemic brought the world to its knees. But at the rate the planet’s temperature is rising, forever might not be…
This month, the leaders of nation states from around the world have been gathered in New York City to attend the 76th Session of the United Nations General Assembly. Covid,…
Fires have destroyed at least 18,000 hectares of vegetation (44,480 acres) in central Brazil’s savanna region and now threaten a national park that’s home to rare species such as jaguars,…
Primatologist and conservation icon Jane Goodall has formally joined a global effort to counter climate change and the extinction crisis by planting a trillion trees within a decade. On Tuesday,…
COLOMBO — The leaf litter and other decaying plant matter that carpet Sri Lanka’s lowland rainforests are potential lurking points for numerous blood-sucking leeches and hideouts of some venomous snakes.…
JAKARTA — Most forest trees that persist in areas dominated by oil palm plantations die before they can mature, a new study shows, emphasizing the urgency of conserving or restoring…
Our pollution of the planet with heavy metals, plastics, industrial chemicals, pesticides and more is pushing Earth systems to the limit, and us closer to crossing a dangerous planetary boundary we don’t understand.
Nearing the end of her undergraduate studies in ecology, Drea Darby sat frustrated at her desk, searching for jobs in conservation. She had envisioned a career out in the field,…
Industrial agriculture feeds billions of people and created the modern world. But the nitrogen and phosphorus it’s fertilized with is putting the biosphere, and humanity, at risk.
On a cold and humid morning in March, two bird surveyors stood in the dim forests of Kenaboi State Park in Malaysia, straining their ears for birdsong. From where they…
Hours after Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro painted a rosy picture of his administration's environmental record during a United Nations speech, Greenpeace and other environmental groups released a set of photos…
Next spring, California condors will soar in northern California for the first time in a century. Four young condors will be released in Redwood National and State Parks, reintroducing this…
New study addresses the effects of fires on biodiversity loss in the world’s largest forest during the last two decades. Researchers measured the impacts on the habitats of 14,000 species of plants and animals, finding that 93 to 95% suffered some consequence of the fires.
Planting trees seems to be a simple solution to the climate crisis. As trees photosynthesize, they capture carbon dioxide and lower the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, cooling…
Most people are familiar with the world's "big cats": Lions, tigers, leopards, jaguar, puma, and cheetah. But far fewer people know about the much larger number of small cat species,…
They were once considered the most threatened bird in the world: with just four remaining individuals on the island in 1974, the Mauritius kestrel (Falco punctatus) seemed doomed to extinction.…
All seven sea turtle species are already endangered. Now humanity’s overshoot of planetary boundaries — climate change, ocean acidification, pollution and more — is upping the ante. Can turtles, people and conservation adapt?
Every October, at least 10 million straw-colored fruit bats (Eidolon helvum) arrive in Kasanka National Park in Zambia from the rainforests of the Democratic Republic of Congo. Besides its spectacular…
Efforts to protect wildlife and landscapes have generally been shifting away from "fortress conservation" — where local people are excluded from the lands they've traditionally managed — toward more inclusive…
As deforestation and the violation of Indigenous land rights continue to be an ever-present part of the global supply chain, many consumers (and even investors) are calling for transparency on…
Though September sea ice extent appeared to offer a short-term recovery this fall, “that’s not the full story,” says one Arctic scientist, with low ice concentration seen in 2021, and lack of multiyear ice setting a new record.
