CÚCUTA, Colombia — When Daniel Romero worked at a river mine in Canaima National Park, in southeastern Venezuela, he would wait until the sun had slipped behind the ancient sandstone…
Malaysia’s Kinabatangan floodplain, home to orangutans, pygmy elephants and proboscis monkeys, has officially joined UNESCO’s global network of biosphere reserves, protected areas of high biological and cultural diversity. Covering 413,866…
Furry, feisty, and often on the wing, bats are tricky to observe, let alone to protect. Some species hibernate deep in caves or tree cavities for months at a time;…
A controversial proposed mining project in Malawi’s newest UNESCO World Heritage Site is raising opposition from traditional chiefs and conservationists. Mount Mulanje in southern Malawi is a renowned biodiversity hotspot,…
PARAMARIBO, Suriname — With the U.N. Climate Change Conference coming up next week, Suriname finds itself at the center of a global debate about how to reduce carbon emissions and…
JAKARTA — Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto has made bold pledges to achieve 100% renewable energy by 2035 and to phase out coal within 15 years, raising hopes that one of…
Belize sells itself as a small-country answer to a big problem: how to keep the sea alive and the people who depend on it working. The pitch is strong. A…
COLOMBO — In a landmark ruling hailed as a major victory for Sri Lanka’s wildlife conservation, the Colombo High Court in September convicted a person for the illegal possession of…
KATHMANDU — Nepal’s outgoing government, toppled by two days of nationwide Gen Z protests, granted national priority status to six commercial cable car projects, according to documents released by the…
BANGKOK — New data show a recent proliferation of rare earth mines across river basins in Laos, potentially posing a transboundary water pollution threat to Vietnam and the entire Mekong River…
Researchers are raising concerns about the creation of a large-scale open-pit copper-molybdenum mine in Chile’s Valparaíso region, which they say will destroy the habitat of the recently recorded population of…
MINDANAO, Philippines — A nickel mining project in the southern Philippine island of Mindanao is facing renewed calls for closure after a recent government inspection revealed that strip mining there…
COLOMBO — Every dozen years or so, Sri Lanka’s mist-shrouded highlands burst into color. Violet, pink and white carpets of tiny blooms spread across the grasslands of the Horton Plains…
HUAY EE KHANG, Thailand — “Do you hear the birds calling?” asks Noraeri Thungmueangthong, as the vibrant trill of a blue-throated barbet rings through the pine trees looming up ahead.…
Zanzibar has a reputation as an island paradise in the Indian Ocean. Lying 20 kilometers (12 miles) off the East African mainland, it is governed as a semiautonomous zone of…
Illegal cattle ranching has torn through Nicaragua’s rainforests in recent years, supplying a growing international market for meat despite calls for better oversight of the industry. Now, the country is…
For years, gold mining has been one of Peru’s most pressing environmental challenges, with illegal operations clearing the Amazon Rainforest and polluting rivers with chemicals. The industry continues to grow,…
CENTRAL TAPANULI, Indonesia — Since it was first described by scientists in 2017, the Tapanuli orangutan, one of the world’s rarest great apes, was believed to live only in the…
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…
In the southern Argentinian province of Chubut, in the pristine region of Patagonia Azul, arid grasslands give way to steep cliffs, rocky beaches and dense kelp forests, creating a rich…
Hotter and drier conditions could whittle away 80% of land where whitebark pine grows by the middle of this century, according to a recent study. Scattered across the highest parts…
BANGKOK — The long-tailed macaque will remain on the Red List of the IUCN, the global wildlife conservation authority, despite objections from the biomedical industry arguing the designation hampers research that…
Peru is on the verge of rolling back several longstanding protections for Indigenous people and their territories, critics warn. Several bills working their way through Congress would loosen restrictions for…
UNESCO has adopted a new 10-year strategy for its 759 biosphere reserves, set to kick in next year. The Hangzhou Strategic Action Plan 2026-35, launched at the 5th World Congress…
BOGOTÁ, Colombia and SÃO PAULO, Brazil — On Oct. 7 in Brazil’s National Congress in Brasília, lawmakers, Indigenous leaders and civil society representatives gathered to present a global parliamentary investigation…
Measuring a bit more than 20 millimeters (0.8 inches), Pratt’s poison frog (Colostethus pratti) is not the kind of frog that would get attention. Although part of the Dendrobatidae family, known…
BANGKOK — The Mekong countries of Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam lost a combined area of tree cover of nearly a million hectares in 2024, or an area almost…
Few animals tug at Australian hearts like the koala. Yet the marsupial, once common along the eastern seaboard, was declared endangered in New South Wales (NSW) in 2022. Habitat loss,…
KATHMANDU — After delays, Nepal is set to conduct its tiger survey and rhino count starting between December and March next year. The Department of National Parks and…
JAKARTA — Indonesia is seeking to redraw the boundaries of a UNESCO World Heritage rainforest to pave the way for geothermal projects — part of its renewable energy push but…
MARSA ALAM, Egypt — Ras Hankorab is a stretch of Red Sea coastline in Egypt renowned for its pristine beaches, coral reefs, and nesting grounds for endangered green turtles. Located…
For most of its history, conservation has been about preservation: setting aside reserves, managing fisheries, and safeguarding livelihoods in ways that assumed tomorrow would look broadly like today. That assumption…
