The forces shaping forests in the coming decade extend beyond any single driver. Shifts in politics, finance and technology are unfolding at once, often in ways that reinforce each other.…
NEW YORK — Catherine Quayle has been caring for sick and injured wild animals in New York City for the past 12 years, first as a volunteer at the Wild…
For decades, conservation has depended on a deceptively simple act: counting. Scientists tally birds along migration routes, measure forest cover from satellites, or track wildlife populations through camera traps.…
On paper, the sea is increasingly protected. Governments have designated vast marine protected areas (MPAs) and pledged to conserve 30% of the ocean by 2030. Maps shaded in reassuring blues…
Conservation has long depended on measurement. Populations are counted, habitats mapped, trends plotted against baselines that often extend back only a few decades. Yet many ecosystems began changing long before…
For most of modern history, the open ocean has been treated as a place apart. Beyond the 200-nautical-mile limits of national jurisdiction, it was governed by custom, fragmented rules, and…
In the forests of the Sierra Nevada, the black-backed woodpecker is without parallel. The bird appears almost born of fire, thriving on the flames that flicker through California’s coniferous forests…
Amid growing pressure for beef supply chains to be deforestation-free, a new certification system in Brazil will allow meatpackers, importers and retailers to guarantee that the meat cuts they sell…
A new study suggests that the Zambezi River, Africa’s fourth-longest, is 11% longer than previously thought, with its most distant source lying in Angola, not Zambia. While the finding leaves…
LUSAKA — As Zambia looks to profit from the growing global demand for copper and other transition minerals — essential for the world’s green energy future — the story of…
For several years, illegal gold mining, loggers and other invaders have impacted the territory of the Indigenous Wampís people (or Huambisa) of the northern Peruvian Amazon. To combat these threats…
In Colombia’s Amazon, two communities have worked for more than a decade to guard their territory and to protect the right of other Indigenous peoples to remain isolated. The community…
NAIROBI — In May and June, the Food and Agriculture Organization’s commission for controlling desert locust outbreaks in West and Northwest Africa warned that heavy rainfall and vegetation in North…
Real-time monitoring has captured images of lionesses with cubs in Cameroon’s Bouba Ndjida National Park, but conservationists warn human pressure makes it unlikely all the cubs will reach adulthood. There…
Camera traps are ubiquitous in conservation. They’re deployed to monitor biodiversity, study animal behavior, observe habitats over long periods of time, and enforce effective conservation action on the ground. However,…
KAFUE NATIONAL PARK, Zambia — At a bend in Zambia’s Kafue River, the bicolored waterberry trees resemble an avenue planted along a city boulevard. Their evergreen crowns stretch as far…
KAFUE NATIONAL PARK, Zambia — “Hippos ahead.” The warning comes from the lead canoe. Hippos are dangerous — highly territorial and fiercely protective of their young. They are capable of…
African Parks, the conservation NGO, has a 20-year agreement with Zambia’s Department of National Parks and Wildlife (DNPW) to co-manage Kafue National Park. Running through the heart of the park…
A crocodile flips over on the river’s surface right in front of the canoe, then disappears into the white water frothing through the narrow channel. It’s too late to stop,…
Chisomo M’hango is a trainee field ecologist at Musekese Conservation (MC), a nonprofit whose research station is located deep inside the Musekese-Lumbeya section of Zambia’s Kafue National Park. M’hango and…
KAFUE, Zambia — “Three cattle on the left, 20 elephants on the right,” shouts the expedition leader from the bow seat of the first of five canoes snaking along a…
Many conservationists dedicated to protecting the endangered Andean cat have never seen one in the wild, with the species known to science by just a few photos until the late…
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…
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…
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…
Prochlorococcus, a genus of bacteria that’s key to oxygen production in the ocean, tends to disappear when faced with marine pollution. It lives throughout the sunlit layer of tropical oceans…
BANGKOK — Ouk Mao, a Cambodian environmental journalist, was reporting on the continued logging of Prey Lang Wildlife Sanctuary when he was attacked on March 24 by a group of men…
JAKARTA — Researchers have called out the Indonesian government’s claim of having reduced deforestation by 90% over the past decade, pointing to cherry-picked data and a skewed baseline that paint…
Named after a river in the state of Goiás, Corumbá the puma was named after a river in the central Brazilian state of Goiás. Between 2022 and 2023, as much…
KAPILVASTU, Nepal — At his fish pond near his home in Krishnanagar Municipality in western Nepal’s Kapilvastu, Imtehaj Khan closely watches a large TV screen mounted on a wall. For…
JAKARTA — Indonesia’s efforts to ensure its commodity exports are free of deforestation are ramping up as the European Union Deforestation Regulation, or EUDR, nears enforcement. One of the biggest…
Since the dawn of civilization, humans have traded wildlife and wildlife products, such as ivory, shells, fur and feathers. Over the centuries, the trade has evolved, involving sophisticated networks, tens…
