Environmental headlines

  On an expedition in the tepuis, or “sprouting rock,” landscape of the Guiana Highlands in South America, Mateusz Wrazidlo snapped a photo of an orchid he had never seen…

Earth’s future looks decidedly bleak, according to a group of 17 prominent international scientists. But understanding the magnitude of the world’s problems is not an easy feat, even for knowledgeable…

On a calm, cloudy morning in May 2019, a lookout on a research vessel lowered his binoculars and shouted, “Beaked whales! Beaked whales!” As Massimiliano Rosso, one of the scientists…

The world is not prepared for climate change, a new U.N. report warns, highlighting how far behind countries have fallen in implementing adaptation measures. "The hard truth is that climate…

JAKARTA — An upgrade to a road that cuts through one of Southeast Asia’s last great swaths of intact rainforest is driving deeper encroachment by humans into blocks of forest…

EAST LAMPUNG, Indonesia — It’s early December and Sujiono is busy trimming the branches of a ficus tree in his village in Sumatra’s Lampung province. It’s not your typical pruning…

For our first episode of 2021, we’re taking the opportunity to look at some of the most important trends and issues that will be affecting rainforest conservation over the next…

Two or three strokes, and it's gone: in less than five minutes, 10 years collapse. If it's some other palm tree native to the rainforest such as açaí (Euterpe oleracea), soon…

On the second day of 2021, a whale shark drifted into Kendari Bay, in eastern Indonesia, and became trapped when the tide quickly turned. After a 10-hour struggle in murky,…

Deep inside the Brazilian Amazon, in areas still inaccessible to the outside world, the wildlife follows its natural cycle. Their remoteness guarantees a certain degree of isolation from human civilization,…

JAKARTA — A controversial new law that makes sweeping cuts to environmental regulations may also pave the way for greater corruption in Indonesia’s forestry sector, academics have warned. An analysis…

An area of forest roughly the size of California was cleared across the tropics and subtropics between 2004 and 2017 largely for commercial agriculture, finds a new assessment published by…

Camera traps bring you closer to the secretive natural world and are an important conservation tool to study wildlife. This week we’re meeting one of the most endangered seal species…

As a marine ecologist who has long worked at the intersection of gender equality, conservation and fisheries, Sangeeta Mangubhai knows the importance of getting the language right. She asks to…

Many of the visuals we're used to seeing in conservation are ones of despair: forests being torn down for palm oil production, pangolins and rhinos being slaughtered for the scales…

Thanks to the rollout of free, high-resolution satellite imagery, the job of monitoring deforestation in tropical forests just got a lot easier. Last year Norway’s Ministry of Climate and Environment…

2020 was supposed to be a landmark year for taking stock on climate and biodiversity commitments and determining how societies move forward to address the world's most pressing problems. Instead,…

When Yuri Hooker was young, he lived on the coast of Huanchaco in northern Peru. He grew up fascinated by the creatures and objects he found by the sea, and…

Two gorillas at San Diego Zoo in California have tested positive for COVID-19, in the first reported cases of great apes contracting the novel coronavirus. Three of the primates showed…

Six rangers working at Virunga National Park in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo were killed in an ambush by a local militia group on Sunday, according to the park’s…

JAKARTA — Activists have called on financiers and clients of Asia Pulp & Paper (APP), one of the world’s biggest paper producers, to stop doing business with the company, citing…

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…

MINDANAO, Philippines — Efforts to conserve the critically endangered Philippine eagle, one of the rarest raptors in the world, soared high even amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the global havoc…

The Siona are a binational people, their territory straddling two countries: Sucumbíos province in northeastern Ecuador and in the Putumayo department in southeastern Colombia. But the forest they depend on…

The Brazilian Amazon is home to public lands that span an area the size of Spain — undesignated forests that are at growing risk of land grabbing encouraged by the…

In September 2020, the United States Coast Guard (USCG) released a new USCG IUUF Strategic Outlook. The USCG created such a comprehensive position and strategy in reiterating the U.S.'s strong…

An ocelot, a spotted and striped carnivore twice the size of a house cat, had just stopped at a water hole for a drink. But something was waiting for him:…

David Bonderman is one of the best known figures in private equity, having made his name and fortune by taking over undervalued companies and turning them around. Bonderman, the founding…

The Catatumbo River originates in northeastern Colombia’s Norte de Santander Department and flows to Venezuelan Lake Maracaibo. For generations, it has provided passage for fishermen and small farmers; but increasingly,…

Bogotá — As the world became fixated on the coronavirus pandemic in 2020, the situation for environmental defenders across the globe has only become more precarious. In 2019, 212 environmental…