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…
The women of Chelem, a fishing community on the northern coast of the Mexican state of Yucatán, hadn’t planned to work in mangrove restoration. At first, it was simply an…
In northeastern California, the Upper Pit River undulates through evergreen forests, wet meadows and rugged mountains. It's part of the snow-fed headwaters of the Sacramento River, the largest river in…
MEXICO CITY — Officials have acknowledged the environmental damage caused by Tren Maya, and say they’re exploring ways to restore cenotes and rainforests disrupted by the railway’s construction through the…
Over the past few decades, the harvesting of the Cortez oyster in western Mexico’s Marismas Nacionales — or the Marshes Biosphere Reserve — in Nayarit state has shifted from suffering…
Javier Monzon has been deploying camera traps for close to two decades. He likens retrieving the equipment and the data to opening a present. “You just don’t know what’s inside…
In the Mexican port city of Acapulco, in southwestern Guerrero state, human activities have put so much pressure on the most important lagoons that the mangrove areas in this city…
Agroforestry, the ancient agricultural system of integrating trees and shrubs with crops and livestock, has seen a revival in recent decades in the U.S. Around the country, agroforestry projects have…
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…
Panamanian authorities seized six longliner vessels on Jan. 20 for fishing illegally in protected waters. They also opened an investigation into an additional 10 vessels that surveillance data showed had…
Edward Faison, an ecologist at the Highstead Foundation, stood quietly in a patch of forest that stretched for miles in all directions. Above him, the needles from white pine trees…
Rhythmic clicks, grunts and roars fill the Año Nuevo Island Reserve in California, home to a large breeding colony of northern elephant seals (Mirounga angustirostris). For nearly 60 years, scientists…
What better way to track whales than listening in on them? Passive acoustic monitoring, in which microphones are placed underwater to pick up any sounds, has long helped scientists detect…
Half a million barrels of toxic waste lurking beneath the waves just miles from California's coastline sounds like the plot of a Hollywood thriller. Yet this environmental catastrophe is real,…
In March 1995, a few wolves cautiously exited their pens into the melting snow of Yellowstone National Park, returning there 70 years after guns, traps and poison had wiped them…
MEXICO CITY —No place attracts more foreign investment in tourism in Mexico than the state of Baja California Sur, where developers are trying to replicate the success of top resort…
An independent analysis by Mongabay found that almost half of Mexico’s 232 federally protected areas (46.5%) do not have protected area management plans. Among the 108 without plans are protected…
MEXICO CITY — Fewer than 10 vaquitas, the world’s smallest porpoise, survive in the wild today, experts say. Illegal fishing has decimated their population in the Gulf of California, the…
This month, Mexico’s two legislative houses are expected to approve an amendment that will prohibit the cultivation of transgenic corn in the country’s Constitution, a historic decision that farmers’ organizations…
After sea level rise significantly ate away at their town, most residents of Mexico’s El Bosque community have been relocated by the government. However, the residents, who mostly depend on…
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…
MEXICO CITY — A court in Mexico on Monday halted the construction of two controversial train lines that critics said could damage the environment. But the decision comes so late…
This month Washington banned salmon aquaculture over environmental concerns, making it so there are no active operations on the U.S. West Coast. A new lawsuit now takes aim at operations…
How can dried plant specimens protect a rainforest? In myriad ways. Kept in collections known as herbariums, they store critical data on the physical characteristics, or morphology, of plants, as…
It’s been one year after Mexico’s government announced the creation of 20 new protected areas, covering roughly 2.3 million hectares (5.7 million acres). But the country’s environment ministry, Secretariat of…
Nestled in the thorny shrubs of the dry forests of Veracruz in the Gulf of Mexico, a small bird lights a spark for a promising future. After flying under scientists’…
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…
Groundbreaking research in the late 1990s showed that Arctic-dwelling bowhead whales could live more than 150 or even 200 years — longer than any other mammal. New research, inspired by…
As the long summer days of August turn into nights, a few dozen volunteers gather in the small community of Witless Bay, a tiny town on the Atlantic coast about…
Wikipedia defines a 'nothing-burger' as “a situation that receives a lot of attention but which, upon closer examination, reveals to be of little to no real significance.” That unfortunately applies…
In 2015, AquaBounty Technologies became the first company in North America, and likely the world, to get regulatory approval to sell a genetically engineered animal for human consumption. Its Atlantic…
SILVANIA, Colombia — On a warm but overcast afternoon, hundreds of Indigenous representatives and spiritual leaders gathered to witness a remarkable convergence of native nations from across the Americas. Serving…
