Local stories in Michoacán tell how, when the Spanish invaded what would later be known as Mexico in the 1500s, they found Indigenous communities tapping pine trees and using the…
The story of the American bison is both tragic and uplifting. Once dappling the prairies of North America in the tens of millions, hunting winnowed the number to perhaps a…
The U.S. West is already deep in drought, with forecasts for far worse this century. But there’s hope for water-stressed farms: regulators are testing solutions that rely on cooperation and bold water saving and sharing strategies.
There once was a stretch of Trans-Canada highway so perilous it was known as “The Meat Maker.” The then-infamous section of road that transects Banff National Park, a breathtaking expanse…
Camera traps bring you closer to the secretive natural world and are an important conservation tool to study wildlife. This month we’re meeting the cat with the most extensive range…
As climate change worsens, sea turtles on the U.S. Atlantic and Gulf seaboards, and in other coastal areas around the world, are increasingly at risk from cold-stunning events. But rescuers often await.
The disposable face mask has become the poster child for COVID-19-related waste since the start of the pandemic, showing up on beaches and in waterways all over the world. Hong…
Humanity is living through four interrelated global crises: biodiversity, climate, pandemic, and social justice. Because the nature and scale of threats to the planet and all its life forms is…
Just a day ahead of U.S. congressional hearings on climate change with heads of the largest oil companies in the world, a scathing new report has found that Chevron oil…
Cooking with firewood, diesel and gas all add to climate change and is harmful to health. So innovators have launched solar cookery enterprises that could transform Mexico’s fossil fuel-dependent businesses.
Let’s get one thing straight: I love trees. I love their graceful and varied forms. I love the forest ecosystem in all its wondrous crisscrossing and complexity, its resilience and…
Last month, the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) announced that it was proposing “to remove 23 species from the Federal Lists of Endangered and Threatened Wildlife and Plants…
MANCHIONEAL, Jamaica — Nestled deep in the northeast coast of Jamaica, hidden in the thick fertile forests of Portland parish, sits the multigenerational fishing community of Manchioneal. Families have been…
New research has tracked biomass industry carbon emissions, finding that U.S. wood pellet production, transatlantic shipping, and U.K. and E.U. pellet burning, plus a loss of stored forest carbon, combine in substantial unreported emissions.
Exequiel Ezcurra was dubious when he first heard about the possibility of mangroves on the San Pedro Mártir River in southern Mexico from Carlos Burelo-Ramos, a botanist at Mexico’s University…
Americans love their polar bears. The largest land carnivores in the world, these massive, powerful beasts are fierce, fearless and very much threatened. It’s the threatened aspect of their story…
To the Haudenosaunee, water is life. In their creation story, deep water covered the Earth, until a woman, known as Sky Woman, fell from an island in the sky. Birds…
My name is Krystle Hickman. I’m a photographer, community scientist and public speaker based in Los Angeles, California. My photography revolves around three things: bees, the plants they visit and…
While the pandemic has increased stress levels for many people, the reduction in human activity has coincided with a rare spell of good news for whales. "I think, overall, the…
Canadian oil company Enbridge is just hours away from completing its thousand-mile pipeline from Alberta through north Minnesota to Wisconsin, with oil set to flow the day after Canada’s first…
An analysis of bird sightings in Canada and the U.S. showed that many North American species, from mighty eagles to diminutive hummingbirds, gained ground during COVID-19 lockdowns as humans sheltered…
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…
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,…
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.
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…
A study at the University of Zurich in Switzerland shows that a large proportion of existing medicinal plant knowledge is linked to threatened indigenous languages. In a regional study on the Amazon, New Guinea and North America, researchers concluded that 75% of medicinal plant uses are known in only one language.
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?
We see disposable masks everywhere these days. Littered on the street and sidewalks, hanging out of garbage cans, floating through the neighborhood on a windy day. Unfortunately, the ubiquitous face…
To hear an audio reading of this article listen here: The familiar striped skunk of North America (think of the cartoon Pepé Le Pew) has a lesser-known cousin: the spotted…