Hoffman's two-toed sloth (Choloepus hoffmanni) at La Selva Biological Station, Sarapiqui, Costa Rica. Photo by: Geoff Gallice/Creative Commons 2.0. Tropical forests support the greatest diversity of species in the world,…
Small hydropower projects fragment forests in India's Western Ghats Aerial view of the Kadmane small hydroporject in the Western Ghats. Photo by: Niren Jain. Rising energy demand and global efforts…
Aztec drawing showing smallpox victims after first contact with Europeans in the 16th Century. Estimates vary but many scholar believe disease wiped out around 95 percent of the pre-Columbian population…
Straw-colored fruit bat (Eidolon helvum) at the Zoological Garden Berlin, Germany. This species, along with other fruit bats, is present in the Ebola impacted area and may have been a…
Green revolutions have spared land in the past, but might not in the future Agriculture is the primary driver of tropical deforestation. Indeed, most global food production occurs in the…
Persistence is the key factor in the two most common human stressors on tropical wildlife. In Malaysian Borneo, hunting continually diminishes wildlife populations, whereas the negative impacts from selective logging…
An agouti in Panama. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. In order to disperse their seeds, large-fruited tropical trees probably relied on massive mammals that roamed the earth over 10,000 years…
Ranger using a camera phone on patrol in Java. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Smartphones beeping in the woods may be a welcome presence that augurs the increased ability of…
Biodiversity conservation is huge field, but at its heart we find something very small: the seed. From seeds come the plants we need and food for the animals we hope…
Dallying means less nature to study. Forest conversion for oil palm in Malaysia. Conservation science, though mission-driven, often achieves only “tenuous relevance” to conservation policy, asserts a recent commentary in…
Orangutan in Sumatra. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Orangutans are in dire need of a revised conservation approach, according to a new study in the Annals of the New York…
Oil palm plantation in Malaysia. Photo by Rhett Butler. Colombia is targeting a six-fold increase in crude palm-oil production by 2020. Conservationists fear this may compromise the nation’s natural ecosystems,…
Deforestation of tropical forests for oil palm plantations in Sabah, Malaysia. Palm oil is one of over 15,000 commodities in a recent study that have been linked to biodiversity loss…
Grassland in Kenya As the world warms, scientists are working rapidly to understand how ecosystems will change, including which species will benefit and which will falter. A new study in…
