On Feb. 28, a landslide of earth and waste from mines in Myanmar's Hpakant township engulfed dozens of miners and scavengers looking for jade in this remote, mountainous region. Official…
COLOMBO — For decades, the small population of Indian pangolins found in Sri Lanka has faced a single consistent threat: the domestic meat market. Pangolin meat is considered a delicacy…
President Joe Biden signed an executive order today aimed at protecting old-growth forests on federal lands across the United States. Federal agencies are directed to define, inventory, and better protect…
JAKARTA — Indonesia’s fish stock has declined in the past five years as more of the country’s waters are now fully exploited, according to new government data. The latest data…
Gomon. In Seychellois Creole, this has generally been the word to refer to anything “green and slimy,” says biologist and marine turtle expert Jeanne Mortimer. “You have gomon in the…
It’s just before noon on a Saturday in the forest shared by the San Juan Totolapan ejido, or communal farming village, in central Mexico. Not a single bird can be…
KATHMANDU — When Nepali ornithologist Hem Bahadur Katwal reviewed the existing literature to prepare a proposal for his Ph.D., he came across a subject barely explored, not just in Nepal,…
Even after more than 1,000 people were arrested last year, protesters in British Columbia, Canada, continue to fight against the logging of the Fairy Creek old-growth forests. Blocking roads and…
As hot and muggy as most tropical rainforests are, you only need to leave their florid confines and step onto a recently razed plot of land to feel an immediate…
Caribou are proudly displayed on Canada's 25-cent coin, but in the wild, their populations are on the verge of annihilation. Carmen Richter from the Saulteau First Nations is working to change that. She's…
While at university studying chemical ecology and aquaculture, Andy Rhyne picked up a job at an aquarium shop to raise money for a cross-country bike trip. Though he didn’t know…
Dams fragment rivers, endanger aquatic species, emit large amounts of carbon and methane, cause deforestation, and hurt traditional communities, but we still need their benefits. Scientific management may be the answer.
When you look at a tropical rainforest, the landscape is usually dominated by shades of green and brown. But every now and then, the trees erupt into flower all at…
KATHMANDU — Scientists in Nepal have recorded three carnivore species outside the country’s protected area network for the first time, highlighting the potential for more discoveries in the little-explored Trans-Himalayan…
In 1993, the democratically elected president of Burundi, Melchior Ndadaye was assassinated in a coup. At the time, the country’s democratic institutions were still only three months old. The incident…
Today we’re looking at the upcoming conference of the parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, or COP15, where delegates will meet to finalize a global strategy for safeguarding…
Before Jair Bolsonaro took office as Brazil’s president in 2019, Canadian investment bank Forbes & Manhattan was facing problems with its business activities in the Brazilian Amazon. The situation began…
Trees and soils keep a lot of carbon trapped in the forest, pulling it from the atmosphere, where it can do more harm than good. In fact, roughly 30% of…
While trying to put together a review of what happened to Venezuela’s environment in 2021, conservationists ran into a problem. The government publishes virtually no statistics on things like deforestation,…
It may be a straw man argument to suggest a distinction between an amateur and professional naturalist (a word that may still mean something). "Natural history" was once like history…
Women-led philanthropy garnered renewed attention after MacKenzie Scott, former wife of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, announced in March that she had given away $3.9 billion in grants to 465 organizations…
Uganda’s Bwindi Impenetrable National Park is a sanctuary for half of the world’s remaining population of endangered mountain gorillas, alongside forest elephants and many other species. But two road projects…
JAKARTA — The Indonesian government’s controversial plan to move the nation’s capital from Jakarta to Borneo has hit one of several snags that critics have long warned about: the presence…
Slice through a tree trunk, and you’ll find a series of rings that tell a story of how that tree grew over the course of its life. These rings are…
South African President Cyril Ramaphosa declared a national emergency on April 18 as the death toll from floods in KwaZulu-Natal province climbed over 440, with dozens of people still missing.…
MANAUS, Brazil — In the historic center of Manaus, the largest city in the Brazilian Amazon, a giant mural depicting the city’s Indigenous history looms above pedestrians jostling for space…
In early 2022, the public in Labuan Bajo, the gateway to Indonesia’s popular Komodo National Park, was both pleased and dissatisfied with the Indonesian Ministry of Environment and Forestry’s decision…
JAKARTA — Indonesian prosecutors have charged a top trade ministry official and three palm oil executives in connection with a scarcity of cooking oil that has driven up protest and…
Bangladesh, a country of some 180 million people, has one of the smallest carbon footprints in the world. Its emissions reduction targets under the Paris Agreement are similarly modest: 5%…
Alto Jequitinhonha in northeastern Brazil’s Minas Gerais state is where three of the country’s biomes meet: the Cerrado savanna, the Atlantic rainforest, and the Caatinga scrubland. It’s also home to…
