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…
United States News
New research sheds light on Canada lynx-snowshoe hare cycle, human impacts
Open any ecology textbook and you’ll find the Canada lynx, the snowshoe hare, and their wildly oscillating population cycles offered as a classic example of the intimate relationship between predator…
Angling for answers, this saltwater fishing group boosts research for better conservation
Saltwater fishing is both big business and a pastime in the U.S., with millions of Americans working in the industry – from commercial trawlers to professional fishing guides and gear…
As renewable diesel surges, sustainability claims are deeply questioned
Renewable diesel is a biofuel made from vegetable oils and animal fats touted by proponents as an almost miraculous “drop-in” transition fuel able to drastically cut greenhouse gas emissions while…
At the U.N., mining groups tout protections for Indigenous peoples
This story is published through the Indigenous News Alliance. In mid-April, the Trump administration cleared the way for a controversial copper mine proposed for western Arizona. The mine would destroy…
Science lays out framework to assess climate liability of fossil fuel majors
As billion-dollar climate disasters pile up, and world leaders fail to act against global warming, lawsuits on behalf of impacted states, cities and other government entities have increased in number…
Warming climate is already too hot to handle for 2% of amphibians, study shows
For about 2% of the world's amphibian species, it’s already getting too hot to survive in their natural habitats, according to a new study in Nature. If the planet keeps…
Wood pellet maker Drax denied pollution permit after small town Mississippi outcry
Jimmy Brown has lived less than a mile from the Drax wood pellet manufacturing plant in the tiny town of Gloster in Amite County, Mississippi, since it opened in 2016.…
The Metals Company applied to the U.S. for a deep-sea mining license
This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center’s Ocean Reporting Network, where Elizabeth Claire Alberts is a fellow. Mere days after the Trump administration rolled out a controversial executive order…
Under Trump, US retreats from global fisheries and oceans leadership
This is Part 2 of a two-part series on fisheries management and oceans governance under the second Trump administration, which took office Jan. 20. Part 1 looks at the potential…
‘We belong to one ocean’: Indigenous leaders push for seat at the table of high seas biodiversity treaty
This story is published through the Indigenous News Alliance. In Native Hawaiians’ genealogical stories, says Solomon Kahoʻohalahala, the coral polyp is considered the oldest ancestor, and they hold spiritual relationships…
Indigenous nations fought for a new national monument. Will it survive Trump?
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…
Sweeping cuts and deregulation imperil U.S. fisheries, experts warn
This is Part 1 of a two-part series on fisheries management and ocean governance under the second Trump administration, which took office Jan. 20. Part 1 looks at the potential…
15 years after the BP oil spill disaster, how is the Gulf of Mexico faring?
PLAQUEMINES PARISH, U.S. — Down past New Orleans lies Plaquemines parish, a narrow sliver of land at the tip of Louisiana that reaches southward like a finger pointing into the…
Meet the 2025 Goldman Environmental Prize Winners
Seven environmental activists from around the world will be awarded the Goldman Environmental Prize on April 21. Known as the “Green Nobel Prize,” the Goldman Prize honors activists from the…
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…
As US agroforestry grows, federal funding freeze leaves farmers in the lurch
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…
Deep-sea miner TMC seeks U.S. approval, potentially bypassing global regulator
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…
Beyond reforestation, let’s try ‘proforestation’
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…
Rep from American Samoa calls for opening protected Pacific waters to tuna fishing
U.S. Congresswoman Amata Radewagen, who represents American Samoa, has urged the Trump administration to reopen most of an enormous marine protected area in the Central Pacific Ocean to industrial fishing…
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…
500,000 barrels of DDT in the sea: Interview with documentary directors on California coast crisis
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,…
Re:wild and Age of Union announce conservation partnership
Two of the conservation world’s most innovative organizations are joining forces to expand their impact — combining funding, grassroots activism and immersive storytelling to raise awareness and create action on…
How one woman’s wolf ‘moon shot’ changed Yellowstone forever: Interview with director Tom Winston
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…
Indonesia seeks alternative funding as USAID freeze delays marine conservation efforts
JAKARTA — A freeze on foreign aid funding from U.S. government agencies, including USAID, has delayed several marine conservation programs in Indonesia, according to senior officials in the world’s largest…
‘Without us, no scrutiny’: Indonesia’s independent media count cost of US funding cuts
Last November, Jakarta-based Muhamad Heychael, program director at nonprofit media organization Remotivi, began offering small grants to local journalists to report on the nickel mines and smelters proliferating in remote…
The U.S. terminated its 30×30 conservation plan but this also presents an opportunity (commentary)
In his first week in office back in 2021, U.S. President Joe Biden signed a historic commitment to conserve 30% of America’s lands and waters by 2030. Two years later,…
US security think tank warns of China’s grip over Indonesian nickel industry
JAKARTA — More than 75% of the nickel refining capacity in Indonesia, home to the biggest reserves of this critical mineral, is controlled by Chinese companies, many with affiliations to…
Salmon farms under fire on U.S. East Coast after being shuttered on West Coast
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…
Right whales can live to 130, but in North America they die young
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…
Warming threatens flies more than bees, raising pollination concerns
Life can’t function without insects. At least, not for long. They pollinate, break down waste, cycle nutrients, and touch every node in the web of life, filling endless niches across…
How the U.S. got no old growth forest protections from the Biden Administration (commentary)
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…
Special series
Forest Trackers
- 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
- Fires rip through Indigenous territories in Brazilian Amazon
Oceans
- Southeast Asia’s fisheries thrive despite decades of overfishing warnings: Study
- Peruvian fishers sue for additional compensation after big December oil spill
- Smuggling networks exploit migrant debt to fuel tiger poaching in Malaysia, study shows
- Community-based conservation cuts thresher shark fishing by 91% in Indonesia: 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
- ‘Colombia’s Amazon peoples provide solutions’: Interview with José Homero Mutumbajoy
- Should mining companies consider no-go zones where isolated Indigenous peoples live? (Commentary)
- Brazil sets a date to remove illegal miners from Munduruku land, more details await
- Peruvian logger loses FSC label after latest clash with isolated Mashco Piro
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
