The Amazon is renowned for its cultural diversity, particularly the ethnic diversity of its Indigenous nations, but also the cultural traditions of numerous other distinctive groups that have migrated into…
Bangladesh transforms into a mesmerizing haven of migratory birds every winter, particularly in its haors (swampy wetlands) and coastal areas. These birds undertake incredible journeys from northern Mongolia, parts of…
BAHUNDANGI, Nepal – The heavy thud against the glass window sent Krishna Bahadur Rasaili’s heart racing. Stepping outside, he saw his granary lay in ruins, and an elephant was feasting…
One of the main social and economic challenges facing Amazonian countries is inequality. Although the standard of living of the lower economic strata is better now than at any time…
When James Sheppard set out to deploy tiny backpacks fitted with satellite transmitters to track endangered thick-billed parrots in 2019, doubts abounded. His colleagues were concerned it wasn’t going to…
The constituency for the conservation of the Pan Amazon is broad-based and diverse. Academics and civil society organizations have been successful in framing conservation of the Amazon as an issue…
The modern history of internal migration in Colombia began in a manner that was not unlike the processes organized by the governments in Brazil and the other Andean countries in…
Throughout most of the twentieth century, the Ecuadorian authorities pursued a geopolitical strategy that reflected a long-held conviction that they were cheated out of large territories in the Western Amazon.…
In late February, a flash flood hit Gwadar, a port city on Pakistan’s southwestern coast in Balochistan province. The 183 millimeters (7.2 inches) of rain that fell in 30 hours…
Policies designed to occupy and populate the Peruvian Amazon began about seventy years ago with the construction of a trunk highway connecting Pucallpa on the Ucayali River with Lima. Named…
In the middle decades of the twentieth century, Bolivian society was profoundly traumatized by the Chaco War and the loss of about thirty per cent of its national territory; before…
There have been three major sources of Brazilian immigrants in the twentieth century: the Northeast, where emigration offers one of the few realistic opportunities to escape poverty; the South, where…
BOUGAINVILLE, Papua New Guinea — The climate is changing, science shows. And according to some estimates, it could create anywhere between 200 million and 1.2 billion climate refugees by 2050.…
Because of their privileged status as a transnational religious institution and their allegiance to the pope, the Jesuits enjoyed considerable autonomy from both the Spanish and Portuguese crowns. This status…
Most of the Pan Amazonian population consists of immigrants or their descendants. They arrived over centuries, motivated by historical events that moulded their self-identity. This diverse assemblage of people represents…
Scientists have long surmised that birds migrate during winters to save energy. The reasoning has been pretty obvious: far away from the biting cold, birds would need to expend less…
Rural-to-urban migration is a worldwide phenomenon and the Amazon is no exception. Nonetheless, a very large proportion of its immigrants are small farmers who originally came from the High Andes…
Prior to the arrival of Europeans, the Amazonian lowlands were home to several hundred ethnic groups living in tens of thousands of villages with a population estimated at between four…
One reason it is possible to be optimistic about the future of the Pan Amazon is that none of the countries must deal with an impending demographic explosion. This was…
Infrastructure investments, agricultural production systems, land speculation and the exploitation of mineral resources have all been identified as drivers of deforestation and hydrological degradation in the Pan Amazon. These forces…
Brown skuas and south polar skuas, two gull-like species that nest in Antarctica, are sometimes called the “pirates of the Southern seas.” These migratory seabirds are fierce, competitive predators that…
KATHMANDU — A Himalayan-dwelling snow leopard that somehow wound up in Nepal’s lowland plains at the start of the year will not be released back into the wild and will…
Elephants are known to be “ecosystem engineers,” altering habitats to suit their own needs, but this sometimes comes at a cost to other species. Hedging, or stem snapping, is the…
Ten years ago, says Mike Chase, the Kavango Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area was one fluid contiguous elephant habitat. “An elephant could be in Botswana in the morning, midday in Zimbabwe…
KATHMANDU — Nepal’s Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation (DNPWC) released 25 critically endangered gharials (Gavialis gangeticus) into a tributary of the transboundary Mahakali River (also known as Sarda…
Populations of protected migratory species are plummeting worldwide and “levels of extinction risk are rising,” according to a landmark report that emphasized the devastating threats facing Southeast Asia’s transboundary wildlife.…
Update 2/23/2024: Delegates to COP-14 approved Brazil's proposal to protect these species under Appendix II. The Amazon is the largest, most biologically diverse basin in the world. Its rainforest, the…
The ancient Sanskrit epic Ramayana has it that Hanuman was a mighty ape god who marshaled an army to build a bridge linking northern Sri Lanka’s Mannar region with South…
KATHMANDU — Until Tuesday afternoon for residents of Urlabari town in the eastern plains of Nepal, snow leopards (Panthera uncia) were animals they knew little about. The leopards they knew…
In the more than 10 years since Angola, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe signed a 2011 treaty to create the Kavango Zambezi (KAZA) Transfrontier Conservation Area – the world’s largest…
Foreign land developers have spent the past several years working to bring Mennonite farming communities from across Latin America to Suriname with the plan of starting a series of agriculture…
KATHMANDU – In December 2022, Hiru Lal Dangaura, Vikram Tiwari and Subam Chaudhary were conducting a routine check on a vulture colony in the western plains of Nepal, when they…