They say you should never smile at a crocodile. But that’s exactly what happened on Sept. 9 when a team of researchers discovered a group of eight Siamese crocodile (Crocodylus…
The fires that tore through South America’s Pantanal region in 2020, destroying 30% of its area, are still scorched in memory. And now, the world’s largest wetland that fans out…
Hurricane Ida hit New Orleans and surrounding areas in the U.S. state of Louisiana this past Sunday, serving as a grim reminder of the power of coastal storms — which…
Over the past 27 years, mining for copper by Minera Escondida, a company co-owned by Anglo-Australian mining giants BHP and Rio Tinto, has resulted in a dramatic reduction of water…
On one of the first dry, hot days of summer, Rachel Langley walks past farmhouses and tractors, heading for the edge of the Colne Estuary in Essex, U.K. She’s on…
QUITO — For almost five years, Andres Durazno and his niece Elizabeth would march, block roads, and confront mining authorities and police together. They were leading the fight against mining…
Soybean farming accounts for most of the agrochemicals used in Brazil, and the farming activity concentrated in the state of Mato Grosso is now seeing those chemicals washing downstream to the Pantanal wetlands.
LAKE ALAOTRA, Madagascar — Madagascar’s environment minister, Baomiavotse Vahinala Raharinirina, celebrated World Wetlands Day last month by planting native reeds and sedges along the shore of sprawling Lake Alaotra in…
Reconnaissance Energy Africa (ReconAfrica), a Canadian oil and gas company, has begun public consultations for the second phase of its controversial exploration activities in northeastern Namibia. Critics have raised concerns…
Swamps, sloughs, marshes, bogs, fens; water purification, flood control, wildlife nurseries, nutrient providers, carbon sinks: wetlands have many names and serve many environmental purposes. But for centuries they have been…
In 2005, farmers in Antananarivo discovered an unfamiliar creature in their rice paddies. It was a crayfish unlike any other in Madagascar, and it soon spread throughout the country’s central…
Srongpol Chantharueang remembers his parents telling him as a boy always to protect the local wetland forest when he grew up. They told him that the ecosystem would be important…
JAKARTA — An Indonesian government initiative that fell short of its goal to rehabilitate degraded peat forests will get another chance to do so — plus the added task of…
It was August 26, 2020. Dirlene Mejía, a park ranger who works in the area around Concepción Lake, a protected area located in eastern Bolivia, had just left for her…
On December 21, Reconnaissance Energy Africa (Recon Africa) announced that it had begun exploratory drilling for oil and gas in the Namibian portion of the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA).…
Under the thick blanket of smoke, relentless flames spread with dizzying speed over swaths of Pantanal Matogrossense National Park, its grasslands parched by months of drought. In a charred marshland,…
For centuries, Lake Andranobe in Madagascar's central highlands has nourished the surrounding communities. Over the past 16 years, its dependents have come together to restore the ailing lake. Now, that…
Brazilian armed forces accused of incompetence, funding misappropriations in 2020 Amazon deforestation prevention and fire suppression operations: Critics.
Ousado the jaguar could hardly walk. Fires had blown through his territory in the Pantanal region of Brazil, scorching the very ground the animal was running upon as he tried…
On Oct. 22, four gunmen shot and killed anti-mining activist Fikile Ntshangase in her home in South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province. The murder points to escalating pressure on communities across South…
2020’s record Brazilian fires, which devastated the Pantanal wetlands, also reached the Amolar Mountains in recent weeks, a refuge for jaguars and other wildlife, and home to traditional Indigenous villagers.
Indigenous people say the fires “came from outside” and “destroyed everything,” including the food and medicinal plants that form an important part of their culture.
Fernando Tortato usually spends his time scanning camera trap footage to monitor jaguars in the Pantanal, the world’s largest tropical wetland, a region that sprawls across Brazil, Bolivia and Paraguay.…
Firefighters are working around the clock to protect a forested ranch in Brazil’s Mato Grosso state that’s an important refuge of the threatened hyacinth macaw. The Pantanal wetlands in which the ranch is located are experiencing severe wildfires, sparked by human activity and exacerbated by drought and climate change.
A new study provides an in-depth look at the detrimental impacts of human activities on wildlife in the Neotropical region of the Americas over the past 500 years. The study,…
Mauritius, envied the world over for its azure waters, alluring beaches and marine riches, is facing one of its worst environmental disasters after a ship ran aground on a coral…
Argentina’s Paraná Delta is on fire, and conservationists are sounding the alarm, warning that this major ecosystem could be devastated beyond repair. The delta system, which spans 19,300 square kilometers…
A canopy of thick smoke blanketed a vast patch of Brazil’s Pantanal wetlands, stretching as far as the eye could see. Underneath, flames were engulfing the yellowed grasslands of the…
BOGOTA — The first time biologist Luis Jorge Vargas visited the Conejera wetlands in 1993 it was as an undergraduate doing research. He said he and his fellow classmates remained…
The threshold beyond which the world’s mangrove forests can survive could be reached within the next 30 years if sea levels continue to rise at their current pace and greenhouse…
