Competing for rainforest conservation: Q&A with XPRIZE’s Kevin Marriott
SINGAPORE — It’s been a hectic few weeks for Kevin Marriott. On a humid May morning in Singapore, he shuttles between two locations at the city’s Windsor Nature Park. At…
Articles by Abhishyant Kidangoor
Abhishyant is a reporter, writer and video producer with a focus on producing stories about climate change, environment and biodiversity in South Asia. He is particularly interested in stories that fall in the intersection of climate change, health and technology.
A graduate in mechanical engineering, Abhishyant started his career in journalism in 2014 in television news in New Delhi. Later, he worked with TIME for five years in New York and Hong Kong where he produced news and feature videos, while also writing stories on politics, health and climate change in India. He has covered the political unrest in Hong Kong in 2019, the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on rural parts of India and global vaccine inequality—all stories that strongly shaped his perspective and pushed him to explore new approaches to storytelling.
Outside of journalism, Abhishyant is a huge fan of history and historical fiction. He is also always on the lookout for new hiking trails.
Woodpeckers for fire recovery? A new online tool tells you how
Imagine a burned forest in California. The charred remains of trees, the soot on the forest floor and the smoke in the air might make it seem like all is…
A Twitter bot tracks meat production in the Brazilian Amazon
Elon Musk may claim to hate them, but can Twitter bots be put to good use? A new tool that aims to monitor and expose deforestation in the Amazon Rainforest…
Bioacoustic analysis made easier: Q&A with Rainforest Connection CEO Bourhan Yassin
For scientists and ecologists studying wildlife, listening to the sounds of nature is all the rage now. And with good reason. The exponential growth in the use of audio to…
Feathered forecast: Tech tools comb weather data for bird migrations
Ask Andrew Farnsworth about the origins of the BirdCast project, and he would describe it as “ancient history.” The year 1999, when the project was conceived, is a far cry…
Return of the GEDI: Space-based, forest carbon-mapping laser array saved
It was down to the wire for the GEDI mission, but it now seems like the force may have prevailed. In a last-minute decision, NASA has decided to extend the…
Uterine implants and underwater ultrasounds aim to demystify shark births
At first glance, the device resembles an egg-shaped game. But the birth-alert-tag is anything but a toy. Inside, it holds technology that collects data aimed at informing conservation strategies for…
Bioacoustics in your backyard: Q&A with conservation technologist Topher White
Ever wondered about the furry animal you saw scurrying through your backyard? Or the bird singing outside your window? A new eco-device developed by conservation technologist Topher White aims to…
To save Hainan gibbons, Earth’s rarest primate, experts roll out the big tech
Emmanuel Dufourq had a gargantuan task at hand in mid-2019. He had the job of listening to 6,000 hours of audio data collected from Bawangling National Nature Reserve in the…
New app tells donors what communities need to stop deforestation: Q&A with Health In Harmony
How can improving access to doctors and nurses for an Indigenous community in Borneo better protect the region’s fast-depleting rainforest and wildlife? A new app developed by nonprofit organization Health…
Democratizing the deep sea: Q&A with Ocean Discovery League’s Katy Croff Bell
At first, Katy Croff Bell and her team had just wanted to make underwater cameras to give to school students from communities living along the Pacific Ocean. But when the…
Tech companies work to make fishing, aquaculture more sustainable
For people who fish for a living, removing bycatch from nets is a tedious task. It’s expensive, labor-intensive and causes wear to the fishing vessel and gear. For marine animals…
New app transforms data gathering for wildlife in Papua New Guinea
For 13 years, Caleb Bulu recorded the rich wildlife of the Torricelli Mountain Range in northwestern Papua New Guinea by walking up and down the slopes. When he observed animals,…
A flying robot swoops in via Quebec to save endangered plants in Hawai‘i
For far too long, studying plant species endemic to high-altitude cliffs was no small feat. More often than not, it involved researchers abseiling down cliffs to survey rare species and…
Technology makes studying wildlife easier, but access isn’t equal
Studying primates in the wild has historically been a tough task. Alexander Piel knows the challenges too well. Since 2005, the biological anthropologist has been studying primates in countries like…
On the roof of the world, water is life. Or a sign of it, thanks to eDNA
It’s tough enough to study one particular species endemic to Sagarmatha, the Nepali name for Mount Everest. Imagine attempting to catalog the entire wealth of biodiversity that makes its home…
The force is strong with space lasers helping researchers map the Amazon in 3D
For decades, satellite images have clearly captured how rampant deforestation is destroying the Amazon rainforest. But what about the trees that remain standing? What do their dimensions tell us about…
‘Remix it and let it evolve’: Q&A with FieldKit developer Shah Selbe
Shah Selbe and his team were all set to unveil their new product in April 2020. The plan was to launch FieldKit, an open-source environmental sensor platform for conservation researchers,…
‘Amped-up citizen science’ to save the world: Q&A with Conservation AI Hub’s Grant Hamilton
Conservation apps have emerged in recent years as an efficient and cost-effective way to get citizens to monitor and document wildlife across the world. But an Australian initiative is going…
Hear that? Bioacoustics is having its moment, but the technology still needs tuning
Think Sonoma County, and the picturesque valley and vineyards come to mind. But the locale is also home to rich and incredible biodiversity. Soundscapes to Landscapes, a biodiversity monitoring initiative…
Beyond bored apes: Blockchain polarizes wildlife conservation community
How do you raise funds for wildlife conservation in the most 21st century of ways? Non-fungible tokens, or NFTs. In the northeastern forests of South Africa, Wild Funds Tomorrow, a…
‘Fitbit for whales’ and other tagging tech help reshape wildlife conservation
When Alexandra Ross started her study on bridled nail-tail wallabies in central Queensland in Australia in 2017, the wildlife ecologist had a pressing concern. The species was already categorized as…
Special series
Forest Trackers
- Forest behind bars: Logging network operating out of Cambodian prison in the Cardamoms
- Indigenous communities in Argentina’s Chaco fear another heavy fire season in 2023
- As tourism booms in India’s Western Ghats, habitat loss pushes endangered frogs to the edge
- In a Bolivian protected area torn up for gold, focus is on limiting damage
Oceans
- As one Indian Ocean tuna stock faces collapse, nations scramble to save others
- Conservationists aim to save critically endangered European eels on Italy’s Po River
- Expedition to Pacific ecosystems hopes to learn from their resilience
- Illegal trawling ravages Tunisian seagrass meadows crucial for fish
Amazon Conservation
- Majority of Brazil’s Congress votes to restrict Indigenous land advances
- Protected areas store a year’s worth of CO₂ emissions, study reveals
- Indigenous land rights key to curbing deforestation and restoring lands: Study
- World Bank: Brazil faces $317 billion in annual losses to Amazon deforestation
Land rights and extractives
- Dams and plantations upend livelihoods in Ethiopia’s Lower Omo River Valley
- Fish deaths near Rio Tinto mine in Madagascar dredge up community grievances
- Award-winning, Indigenous peace park dragged into fierce conflict in Myanmar
- Logging permit threatens Quilombola bioeconomic ‘paradise’ in the Amazon
Endangered Environmentalists
- Indigenous chief shot in head in Brazil’s ‘palm oil war’ region; crisis group launched
- ‘You don’t kill people to protect forests’: New Thai parks chief raises alarm
- Vietnam’s environmental NGOs face uncertain status, shrinking civic space
- ‘We lost the biggest ally’: Nelly Marubo on her friend Bruno Pereira’s legacy
Indonesia's Forest Guardians
- Pioneer agroforester Ermi, 73, rolls back the years in Indonesia’s Gorontalo
- After 20 years and thousands of trees planted, Kalimantan’s veteran forester persists
- Aziil Anwar, Indonesian coral-based mangrove grower, dies at 64
- A utopia of clean air and wet peat amid Sumatra’s forest fire ‘hell’
Conservation Effectiveness
- Study shows Kenyan elephant shrew may be adapting to human disturbance, drought
- Saving forests to protect coastal ecosystems: Japan sets historic example
- From scarcity to abundance: The secret of the ‘peace farmers’ of Colombia
- For key Bangladesh wetland, bid for Ramsar status is no guarantee of protection
Southeast Asian infrastructure
- Indonesia’s new capital ‘won’t sacrifice the environment’: Q&A with Nusantara’s Myrna Asnawati Safitri
- Small farmers in limbo as Cambodia wavers on Tonle Sap conservation rules
- To build its ‘green’ capital city, Indonesia runs a road through a biodiverse forest
- Robust river governance key to restoring Mekong River vitality in face of dams
