Articles by Ian Morse

The past decade has seen a paradigm shift in the way the world looks at lighting. Homes, offices and streets have turned off wasteful incandescent lights and fluorescent ones that…

Players in the carbon offset market say they offer a solution to the climate crisis. When an emitter releases carbon in one place, they can support a project elsewhere that…

Scientists and companies are looking to a small section of the textile market to address the clothing industry’s threats to climate and ecosystems. Cellulose fabrics are fibers extracted from plants,…

Pelenatita Kara travels regularly to the outer islands of Tonga, her low-lying Pacific Island home, to educate fishers and farmers about seabed mining. For many of the people she meets, seabed mining…

A Canadian company may become the first to receive a license to mine the deep Pacific after the island nation of Nauru triggered a last-resort procedure to expedite the creation…

Despite a 2019 self-imposed ban, Facebook continues linking wildlife traffickers with buyers around the globe, while the U.S. government has so far done little to regulate trade facilitated by Facebook and other social media firms.

More numerous than stars, our planet’s microbes play an integral role in helping life thrive on Earth. But what happens when climate change, pollution and ocean acidification impact microbes? — We don’t know.

So far, the Sumatran serow has eluded Pungky Nanda Pratama. Some villagers tell him the animal, a type of goat-antelope, sleeps in the trees hanging by its horns, or scales…

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,…

On the Åland Islands, a small, sparsely populated archipelago in southern Finland, a team of ecologists spend two weeks each autumn surveying the habitat of a particular butterfly species. The…

Spurred by a deadly Brazilian dam disaster in early 2019, a partnership between the U.N. and industry leaders has released new guidance on managing mining waste. Released Aug. 5, the…

A coalition of more than 5,000 villagers and a provincial government in Papua New Guinea has built a legal challenge against the world’s most productive battery nickel plant. The company,…

JAKARTA — As Indonesia ramps up its mining sector to feed the world’s hunger for zero-emission vehicles, it is faced with a problem: what to do with all the waste.…

For the first time last August, indigenous groups felt the global community was taking seriously their potential contributions to climate crisis policy. Indigenous peoples have long been labeled among the…

Julian Hunt is tasked with scouring the Earth, its libraries, and his own mind to engineer a way to cleaner energy. At the multi-government-funded International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis…

This article was co-published with The Gecko Project. KOKOE, Indonesia — For years, this eastern Indonesian village of fishermen and seaweed farmers simmered with anger over the pollution of its…

LAKE POSO, Indonesia – In the aftermath of a violent communal conflict that set neighbor against neighbor around this ancient lake in the mountains of eastern Indonesia, local leaders were…

TANGKENO, Indonesia — Teenagers pound cowhide drums to dancers weaving their feet between bamboo stalks on this stage beneath the stars. It’s the island of Kabaena’s annual indigenous culture festival,…

BITUNG, Indonesia – Animals and humans alike have been caught by surprise the excavators, roads and factories that have appeared in the last few years in this port city in…

As the forests of South Kalimantan province were whittled away by extractive industries, just one district in this corner of Indonesian Borneo remained free of both mining and oil palm…

TAPULAGA, Indonesia — Over the past several years, Bakring, 56, has bought more than 20 live sea turtles. According to the law, each of these transactions could earn him five…

KENDARI, Indonesia — A conflict between residents of a remote Indonesian island and a nickel-mining company trying to operate there has gained national attention. In September, the National Commission on…

ROKO-ROKO, Indonesia — Residents of this village on the island of Wawonii look like they’re preparing for a battle. Men with chainsaws guard four jerry-rigged huts they’ve built to protect…

KENDARI, Indonesia — Next year will mark the completion of a nearly mile-long bridge being built over this booming industrial city’s iconic bay, say government officials here. But researchers studying…

TAPUWATU, Indonesia — Muhammad Arfa says he thinks a miracle saved his home. A wave of mud that swept through this riverside village on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi when…

ARU ISLANDS, Indonesia — In one of this country’s most isolated places, Ipus Apalem believes he has finally found a way for his village of 400 to improve its lot.…

PALU, Indonesia — Few people knew about the luscious coral off Palu, in Indonesia’s Central Sulwaesi province, before an earthquake turned it into an underwater wasteland. “You didn’t even need…

MAROANGIN, Indonesia — One day in March last year, Rahim was shocked and furious to find an excavator rolling through his rice field, turning the bright green grains into piles…

MAKASSAR, Indonesia — “Hi, This is Kamaruddin calling in, just parking my car.” “Great, go ahead and share your experience with this broadcast’s theme with the Natural Resources Conservation Agency.”…

MARAFENFEN/LORANG, Indonesia — Benedictus has to go out just after dark to check his traps. If he goes any earlier, the palm cockatoos will still be awake and hear him…