For wildlife on Brazil’s highways, roadkill is just the tip of the iceberg
Brazil, one of the largest countries in the world, is crisscrossed by a network of roads and highways that run more than 1.7 million kilometers (1.06 miles) — enough to…
Environmental headlines
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Meet the 2022 Goldman Environmental Prize Winners
Seven grassroots environmental activists will receive the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize today, on May 25. Known as the Green Nobel Prize, the Goldman Prize honors environmental activists from each of…
Sri Lankan wins Linnean Medal, the ‘Nobel Prize for naturalists’ (commentary)
Looking at the roll call of Linnean Medal winners is to witness the history of natural history, taxonomy, and nature conservation since Darwin. The medal is tangential to the orbit…
Caribbean incursion into Amazon sparked a flurry of life, with lessons for the future
Scientists already knew that where the western Amazon rainforest sits today was once a vast wetland, almost four times the size of Texas and periodically flooded by pulses of seawater.…
Tale of two pandemics as mining thrived while communities faced restrictions
CASILLAS, Guatemala — Evelin Cante got involved in the protest camp right from the start. Her village isn’t far from the Escobal silver mine in southern Guatemala, and she was…
Efforts bloom to save southern Brazil’s last butiá palm groves
The butiá landscapes of Brazil’s Rio Grande do Sul state are exotic, even by the standards of tropical forests. The palm trees that make up these forests, from the genus…
In Sierra Leone, local fishers and foreign trawlers battle for their catch
FREETOWN, Sierra Leone — As dawn breaks, the fishing wharf at Tamba Kula in Freetown buzzes with the movement of early-morning commerce. Fishers just back from days spent far out…
For reef mantas, Indonesia’s Komodo National Park is a ray of hope
Tangled up too often in fishing nets, manta rays have been plunging toward extinction as fishing pressure and other stressors take a toll on their populations. But the species has…
In the Mekong’s murky depths, giants abound, new expedition finds
An underwater expedition has confirmed the presence of some of the world’s largest and most threatened freshwater fish in a remote and barely studied stretch of the Mekong River in…
Tiger-centric conservation efforts push other predators to the fringes
KATHMANDU — The monsoon season in Nepal is expected to begin in the second week of June, which means officials in the country's prime habitats for Bengal tigers (Panthera tigris…
200 mysterious sea turtle deaths: Q&A with Kenyan fisherman and turtle rescuer Daniel Katana
MARERENI, Kenya — One day in April, at a few minutes past six in the morning, the sun’s golden rays lit up the sea on Kenya’s coast. A few early-rising…
Rachel Carson’s ‘Silent Spring’ 60 years on: Birds still fading from the skies
Despite some amazing rebounds, six decades after Rachel Carson’s call to curb pesticide use, the world’s birds are in deep trouble — assaulted by toxic chemicals, lost habitat, hunting, invasive species, and climate change.
Stained by oil: A history of spills and impunity in Peru, Colombia, Ecuador and Bolivia
On some days, a strong smell of oil wafts through the Indigenous Kichwa community of October 12, located in Peru’s Amazonian region of Loreto. Residents going outside to see what…
Investors force Home Depot to review wood-sourcing policy over logging concerns
Pressure from investors and conservationists has forced Home Depot to reevaluate how it does business, following findings that some of the plywood it sells may be coming from mega diverse…
Ecotours aimed at saving monkeys are likely stressing them out, study finds
The first time you see a proboscis monkey (Nasalis larvatus), you might be hit with a mix of fascination, joy and perhaps some confusion: muscular limbs attached to a pot-bellied…
Devastated by a typhoon, community foresters in the Philippines find little support
PALAWAN, Philippines — On a dreary April day, agroforestry worker Jimmy Tablason frowns in the sweltering heat as he trudges through the ruins of forests protected for decades by his…
‘The promise was a lie’: How Indonesian villagers lost their cut of the palm oil boom
This story won an Excellence in Reporting award from the Society of Publishers in Asia (SOPA) in 2023. When the Indigenous villagers of Tebing Tinggi agreed to give control of…
Easing of crackdown sees Vietnam boats encroach into Indonesian waters
BATAM/JAKARTA, Indonesia — A recent spate of illegal fishing incursions into Indonesian waters by Vietnamese vessels has sparked calls from local fishers and environmental activists for increased monitoring and security.…
That ‘killer’ spider story you read online? Fake news, most probably
The prevalence of political and scientific misinformation in the media is a hot-button topic these days, and rightfully so — it has serious negative consequences for society. Emerging research shows…
Researchers compile largest-ever photo database of Amazon wildlife
In the world’s largest rainforest, wildlife crawls, hops, flies and prowls through every nook and cranny. Most animals are adept at hiding from humans, though, so finding them can be…
A whiz and a buzz: Bee attacks at Sri Lanka rock fortress point to need for toilets
COLOMBO — They’ve been called, erroneously, wasps and hornets, but the aggression is undeniable. The giant honeybees (Apis dorsata) of Sigiriya, an ancient rock fortress in central Sri Lanka that’s…
The price of oil spills in Peru and Colombia? Millions of dollars in fines
Over the past four decades, there have been more than 400 reported oil spills in the Peruvian Amazon. In Ecuador, the Amazon suffered from 1,202 spills between 2011 and 2021,…
In Singapore, a forensics lab wields CSI-like tech against wildlife traffickers
“Initially we were all excited because we had intercepted a record-breaking ivory shipment,” says veterinarian Charlene Fernandez of Singapore’s new Centre for Wildlife Forensics. “But when we started carrying the…
Drivers of Colombia’s peacetime deforestation weave a complex web
When the Colombian government struck its historic peace accord with the paramilitary group FARC in 2016, heralding an end to one of the world’s longest-running wars, scientists and journalists were…
Cambodia: Development threatens a last refuge of wildlife rescued from illegal trade (commentary)
For over 20 years the Phnom Tamao Wildlife Rescue Center (PTWRC), run by the Cambodian Forestry Administration and supported by the international NGOs Wildlife Alliance and Free the Bears (covered by…
Results of mining tax for reforestation in the DRC leave more questions than answers
LUBUMBASHI, Democratic Republic of Congo – Through taxes, in particular the reforestation tax, logging and mining operators in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) must pledge to restore landscapes they…
Conflict over resources in Kenya hits deadly highs with firearms in play
BARINGO COUNTY, Kenya – Last December in the town of Marigat, in Kenya's central Baringo county, Paul Chepsoi had to excuse himself from a dinner of nyama choma (roasted goat)…
As biomass burning surges in Japan and South Korea, where will Asia get its wood?
The UK and EU were the primary users of woody biomass for energy. But Japan and South Korea have drastically stepped up their burning of wood pellets — potentially threatening forests, biodiversity, and the climate.
9m deaths a year from pollution, the ‘largest existential threat’ to humans
Pollution is currently responsible for at least 9 million premature deaths a year worldwide, accounting for one in six deaths, according to a new report. Published in Lancet Planetary Health,…
In Bangladesh, a community comes together to save a life-giving forest
KAMALCHHORI, Bangladesh — Anupam Chakma, 60, has lived in the hilly village of Kamalchhori in Bangladesh all his life. When his grandfather and his contemporaries arrived in the region many…
