Environmental headlines

More than a year and a half since the iron ore mining stopped, the lives of Vanusia Souza dos Santos and her community in the heart of Brazil’s Bahia state…

When restoring or replanting vegetation in degraded ecosystems, it may be tempting to let nature run its course, and allow native herbivores to claim their fair share. Yet a new…

The Republic of the Congo is a hotspot for sharks and rays. However, scientists didn’t know how many of these species congregate along the coast until they asked the artisanal…

The Supreme Court in Panama ruled that the contract for the country’s largest copper mine is unconstitutional, requiring it to shut down. Minera Panamá, a subsidiary of the Canadian company…

There are two major cultivated species of coffee: arabica (Coffea arabica) and robusta (Coffea canephora), each with a multitude of varieties adapted to a broad range of ecological conditions. Arabica…

Tropical forests the world over are in trouble. Vast swaths have been razed to the ground, lost forever, and studies indicate that at least 10% of those that remain standing…

'Wabi-sabi' is a world view about finding beauty in nature’s imperfections. It perfectly describes pastoralism in northern Kenya – where nomadic livestock herders scrape out a living by moving their…

Planting trees is widely recognized as a climate-change solution. But what if those trees go up in flames? Converting the grasslands of African savannas into new forests poses a fire…

JAKARTA — Researchers have credited a strong spirit of collaboration for the success of an expedition in Indonesia’s Cyclops Mountains that uncovered new sightings of a rare egg-laying mammal and…

Verra, the world’s largest certifier of carbon credits, has released an update for calculating the climate benefits of the REDD forest conservation projects it certifies. The U.S.-based nonprofit said the…

The Sumatran rhino became a little safer from extinction over the Thanksgiving weekend. On Nov. 25, at around 4 a.m. local time, first-time mother Delilah gave birth to a healthy…

In 2009, a village in southern India became a part of a long experiment. The Shola Trust, an NGO, trained the village’s Indigenous communities to harvest stems of a vibrant…

“Humanity has opened the gates to hell by allowing the climate crisis to worsen”, said Antonio Guterres, UN Secretary-General at the U.N. Climate Ambition Summit in September. This year, 2023,…

MRN, a mining company and aluminum producer, denied consultation rights to long-established Amazon riverine communities when it launched a new mine, impacting their way of life, say local people.

When a glacier melts, all it leaves in its wake is untouched ground. These craggy, lifeless rocks begin to feel sun and rain for the first time in millennia. They…

With their shiny black tops and pure white undersides, the killer whales, or orcas, are the sleekest hunters in the ocean. But being apex predators comes with a great cost.…

Citizen scientists are the main “collectors” of all recorded bird data, especially in the United States. More than 600,000 eBird experts and enthusiasts alike report on the colorful plumage and…

The makeshift road tears through the emerald canopy, splintering one of the Amazon’s most pristine corridors of rainforest.  Along the edges of the road, running through the heart of the…

Renowned primatologist and conservationist Jane Goodall is bringing her youth program, Roots & Shoots, to the Brazilian Amazon in partnership with Indigenous leaders and tech entrepreneur and conservationist Dax Dasilva.…

Only about 100,000 Bornean orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus) remain, less than half of their original numbers. People are killing the iconic orange apes at rates that could lead to their extinction…

In today’s industrialized world, avoiding plastic is virtually impossible. Every trip to the grocery store likely means coming home with food and household items packaged in plastic bottles, tubs and…

Suriname’s recently announced plans to sell carbon credits under the Paris Agreement's emissions trading system have been met with both applause and skepticism by climate experts. The South American country…

With their camouflaged coats, impossibly long tails, and extraordinary tree-climbing skills, clouded leopards are evolutionary marvels. They’re beautifully adapted to a feline life in the trees. But what evolution hadn’t…

One of the world’s largest palm oil companies appears to have overseen a network of companies responsible for deforestation of tens of thousands of hectares, according to a new investigation…

The government of Thailand is about to reverse eight years of progress. Following the elections in Thailand this year, the new government is promising to “unlock” fisheries by reducing regulation…

Coffee and cacao have much in common. Both are descended from understory trees adapted to the low-light conditions of the forest floor. Each have multiple cultivated varieties that differ with…

The early optimism that launched plastic treaty negotiations in 2022 was stymied at talks this month in Nairobi at which large petrostates stonewalled against creating a binding international treaty that would regulate cradle-to-grave plastics production.

Offsetting the carbon emissions released when we fly in a jet or when a company ships its products is one, albeit increasingly controversial, way to address the climate-warming consequences of…

Breathing clean air in Brazil’s Cerrado grassland has become increasingly hard, according to a recent study by researchers in the central state of Goiás. It found a relationship between dying…

Indigenous people and advocates are fighting for the Tanaru Indigenous land to remain an Indigenous territory, but ranchers want to take possession of the plot to turn it into pastures and soy fields.