Scientists rethink Serengeti migration numbers with satellite, AI tools
If you’ve watched The Lion King, you probably remember the scene where Mufasa falls into and is trampled by a massive herd of stampeding wildebeests. In real life, as one…
Technology And Conservation News
To track a unicorn: Laos team goes all out to find the last saolas
Few people have the opportunity to meet near-mythical beasts in real life — but Rob Timmins has. He’s one of the few biologists ever to spend time with a saola,…
Turning camera traps into real-time sentinels: Interview with Conservation X Lab’s Dante Wasmuht
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,…
Indigenous women in Peru use technology to protect Amazon forests
In 2017, when Betty Rubio began patrolling the forests of her ancestral land, she began to question why she was doing it. It wasn’t easy. She knew that tackling environmental…
How AI helps conservationists better understand and protect giraffes
Monica Bond and Derek Lee’s “love and obsession” for giraffes started during a trip to Uganda in 2005. Since then, they said, their mission was clear: return to Africa and…
Meet the DJs of nature, inspired by biodiversity
Nature is taking the stage. The sunset starts to fade on a cloudy summer day next to the Main River in an industrial neighborhood of Frankfurt, Germany. The main artist…
Ani Dasgupta watched wetlands tame floods in Kigali. He believes nature is infrastructure we can fund.
Ani Dasgupta has spent a career trying to make cities fairer and the planet more livable, first as an architect in training, then as a World Bank hand in the…
Tracking rhino horn trade: Interview with International Rhino Foundation’s Nina Fascione
How are rhinos faring around the world? As per new findings, it’s a “mixed bag.” According to a report published by the IUCN, the number of Javan rhinos, on the…
Local forest governance helps jaguars and forests flourish in Guatemala
CRUCE A LA COLORADA, Guatemala — It’s mid-May and Luis Antonio Juarez, also known as Tonito, has just received a phone alert about a wildfire in the Maya Biosphere Reserve.…
Learning to live with lions: Interview with Claw Conservancy’s Andrew Stein
Andrew Stein had been working across Africa for more than 15 years when he first heard of lion poisoning incidents in Botswana. In a bid to protect their livestock, communities…
Microbiomes may be corals’ secret weapon against climate change: Study
As ocean temperatures set new heat records, coral reef scientists are on a mission to identify which species and reefs can tolerate heat stress the best. But how and why…
Where there’s political will, there’s a way to stop tropical deforestation, study finds
Political will is among the most important factors in preventing tropical deforestation, according to a group of experts surveyed for a new study — with strong political commitment often arising…
Saving polar bears and beluga whales: Interview with Alysa McCall
Before pivoting her focus to the Arctic, Alysa McCall worked extensively in the grassland ecosystem. There, the interventions required for ecosystem restoration and wildlife protection were much less complicated. You…
In Cameroon, forest mapping app helps Baka protect biodiversity and way of life
SALAPOUMBÉ, Cameroon — Freddy Mbengue, a 24-year-old farmer in a black polo shirt and denim shorts, keeps a watchful eye on the forest. Mbengue is from the Baka community in…
DNA sequencing to meet global biodiversity goals: Interview with Tyler Kartzinel
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…
Endangered humphead wrasse gets a lifeline from facial recognition tech
Among the many spectacular reef fishes swimming the Indo-Pacific corals, from Africa to Oceania, is the big-eyed, bulge-faced, thick-lipped, blue-green humphead wrasse, also known as the Napoleon wrasse. It’s among…
Checkout counter tech eases wildlife identification in the field
The experience of watching your groceries slide across a supermarket checkout counter is almost universal. In this everyday process, an electronic device scans the barcode and identifies each product. There’s…
New map highlights complex web of marine migrations
Where are all the marine animals going? Given the vastness of the oceans, the countless species that live in them, and the lack of a global data set, it’s not…
Radio tags help reveal the secret lives of tiger salamanders
Where are the salamanders hanging out? Answering that question has been Jake Kushner’s mission — especially in the face of a proposed project by an energy company that will lay…
New report reinforces critical role of Amazonian protected areas in climate fight
A new report adds to the already overwhelming case that protected areas and Indigenous territories in the Amazon Rainforest serve as a critical carbon sink. The report, based on satellite…
AI uncovers how birds remix their songs over time
If you thought only humans had unique musical tastes that differed drastically across geographies and generations, think again. Researchers have long suspected that migration and population dynamics shape the musical…
Scientists team up for Snapshot USA nationwide mammal survey
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…
Brazil is speeding-up forest fire prevention to avoid dangerous tipping points in the Amazon (commentary)
Brazil is facing an alarming surge in forest fires. Last year, the country registered 237,000 fires and over 30.8 million hectares of vegetation were consumed by flames—an area the size of Italy. This represented a 79% increase in…
Rare polar bear cub footage offers crucial conservation insights
To a layperson, it’s footage of adorable polar bear cubs with their moms against the backdrop of endless Arctic snow. For researchers who study the animals, however, it’s a rare…
Fish-tracking robot aims to make fishing more sustainable in developing nations
LAKE CHILWA, Malawi — When fishers on Lake Chilwa cast their nets, they don’t know whether there are fish below, or something else entirely. “We don’t go out in the…
Counting whales by eavesdropping on their chatter, with help from machine learning
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…
Ugandan researcher wins ‘Emerging Conservationist’ award for work on golden cats
The Indianapolis Prize, a prestigious award that recognizes leaders in wildlife conservation, has awarded its second Emerging Conservationist Award to Mwezi Badru Mugerwa. A Ugandan researcher and conservationist who combines…
Bangladeshi researchers pin hopes on irrigation method with real-time methane monitoring
When Bloomberg published a report on Apr. 8, 2021, identifying Bangladesh as the 12th largest methane emitter globally, attributing a significant share to rice cultivation, the country’s rice researchers were…
Can a new DNA test save the world’s rarest turtle?
It might sound hyperbolic to say that finding even one female turtle can revive an entire species. However, nothing could be truer for the critically endangered Yangtze softshell turtle, a…
Mammals, birds in Vietnam’s rare coastal forests revealed by camera traps
In 2019, scientists rediscovered a species of miniature deer long lost to science within the dry coastal forests of southern Vietnam’s Nui Chua National Park. A victim of snaring, the…
How to tell if mangrove restoration is working? Listen to the birds
The soundscape in mangrove forests can be wonderfully complex. If you prime your ears, you might chance to hear mudskippers sloshing their bellies across silky mud, or fiddler crabs pattering…
Digitizing 6 million plant specimens: Interview with Gunter Fischer & Jordan Teisher
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…
Special series
Forest Trackers
- Satellite data show burst of deforestation in Myanmar rare earth mining hotspots
- Narco airstrips beset Indigenous communities in Peruvian Amazon
- 15 illegal narco-trafficking airstrips found near Peru Indigenous communities
- Satellite data show bursts of deforestation continue in Indonesian national park
Oceans
- Post-Blob, California’s kelp crisis isn’t going away
- Global tracking study reveals marine megafauna hotspots lie largely unprotected
- First-ever assessment highlights threats to Atlantic cold-water corals
- Major coral loss in Vietnam’s first marine protected area: Study
Amazon Conservation
- ‘World’s largest’ carbon credit deal in the Amazon faces bumpy road ahead
- New conservation model calls for protecting Amazon for its archaeological riches
- Brazil dredges Amazon rivers to ease drought isolation, raising environmental concerns
- ‘We need white men on our side to save the Amazon from destruction,’ 92-year-old Indigenous Chief Raoni says
Land rights and extractives
- Amid Venezuela’s illegal gold heist are armed groups, gangs & elites, report says
- Indigenous women in Peru use technology to protect Amazon forests
- In Argentina, lithium exploration proceeds amid community disputes
- Indigenous Amazonians win landmark ruling against mercury pollution in Colombia
Endangered Environmentalists
- Environmental & rights activists flee and hide as M23 captures DRC’s cities
- Environmental journalist in Cambodia shot and killed by suspected logger
- Vietnam sentences yet another energy expert over renewables research
- Mother Nature Cambodia activists sentenced to prison — again
Indonesia's Forest Guardians
- On a Borneo mountainside, Indigenous Dayak women hold fire and defend forest
- Fenced in by Sulawesi national park, Indigenous women make forestry breakout
- In Borneo, the ‘Power of Mama’ fight Indonesia’s wildfires with all-woman crew
- Pioneer agroforester Ermi, 73, rolls back the years in Indonesia’s Gorontalo
Conservation Effectiveness
- How effective is the EU’s marquee policy to reduce the illegal timber trade?
- How sharing and learning from failures can transform conservation (commentary)
- Is planting trees as good for the Earth as everyone says?
- Failure in conservation projects: Everyone experiences it, few record it
Southeast Asian infrastructure
- An ‘ocean grab’ for a property megaproject leaves Jakarta fishers grounded
- Study: Indonesia’s new capital city threatens stable proboscis monkey population
- Indonesia’s new capital ‘won’t sacrifice the environment’: Q&A with Nusantara’s Myrna Asnawati Safitri
- Small farmers in limbo as Cambodia wavers on Tonle Sap conservation rules
