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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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 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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
Across the globe, no other human activity currently affects the survival of wildlife species more than where we choose to grow our food. Alongside other impacts like hunting and climate…
Say you want to see how the world is faring when it comes to biodiversity and ecosystem protection. Is it progressing fast enough? Are we on track to meet the…
The Bangladeshi government’s forest department recently added surveillance drones to their arsenal of conservation tools. Wildlife inspectors started using this technology to prepare a dragnet around a poaching hotspot with…
Next-generation geothermal technologies are gaining steam as a source of clean, renewable energy and an alternative to fossil fuels. With demonstration projects across the globe now showing strong potential, enhanced…
Over the course of his career, Peter Houlihan has hauled light traps across dense jungles to study insects, even climbing up trees to string them up in the canopy. Earlier…
Satellite data have long told us where forests are and how they’re faring. Lidar, laser-based radar mounted on planes or satellites like the International Space Station, has helped us map…
Where are mangrove restoration projects taking place? How many of them are successful? If they’ve failed, what happened? Finding answers to these questions isn’t easy. But those answers are critical…
Imagine you purchased a swanky new chair. The paperwork claims the piece of furniture was made from legally sourced wood. But how can you be sure? After all, global supply…
The task at hand was nothing short of grueling. In the depths of the Amazon Rainforest earlier this year, it was a mad scramble as six teams deployed cutting-edge technology…
For many years, the North Atlantic Ocean warmed more slowly than other parts of the world. In 2023, that changed — dramatically. Over the last year and a half, North…
Zoe Jewell was working in Zimbabwe in the 1990s when a harsh reality dawned on her. The female black rhinos (Diceros bicornis) she was helping monitor were suffering from a…
It sounds like a simple solution: Spread some crushed silicate rock atop the world’s vast agricultural lands to absorb atmospheric carbon and thereby tackle climate change at a large scale.…
