When the COVID-19 pandemic first struck, and national governments responded with lockdowns of varying degrees, conservationists warned it would lead to a surge in illegal logging in tropical countries. They…
Covering a vast peninsula that juts out into the Gulf of Thailand on Cambodia’s southern coast, Botum Sakor is one of the largest national parks in the country and known…
In May, female turtles will start emerging from the Mediterranean onto the shores of Turkey, Greece and Libya, as well as onto islands such as Cyprus, Crete and Sicily. They…
In July 2019, Australian authorities on the island of Tasmania received a report of a footprint spotted by an unnamed individual on a walk up to Sleeping Beauty Mountain in…
The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) is carrying out an investigation into whether Singapore-based agribusiness giant Olam deforested more than 25,000 hectares (62,000 acres), in contravention of sustainability criteria it had…
On May 15, authorities in the northeastern province of Si Sa Ket in Thailand arrested two Cambodians and six Thai workers for illegally removing a large Siamese rosewood tree from…
Dramatic images of orangutans being rescued from clear-cut forests are ubiquitous on the web and in nature magazines, but new research suggests that rather than being a crucial tool for…
Wildlife conservation and animal welfare groups say the COVID-19 pandemic ought to spell the end for one of South Africa’s most controversial businesses: the captive breeding of lions. Industry representatives…
The World Rainforest Movement (WRM) has accused Singapore-based agribusiness company Olam of making meaningless “zero deforestation” pledges about a major oil palm development in Gabon and neglecting the rights of…
Toward the end of 2014, Tanya Rosen, a former New York-based international lawyer, found herself being followed by a car while walking back to her apartment in Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan.…
One fine day in late November in 1998, while standing on a knife-edged, precipitous ridge some 3,500 meters (11,500 feet) above sea level in Bolivia’s Cordillera Apolobamba, I came across…
Groundbreaking reforms to the $320 billion legal wildlife trade are being put up for discussion at a major international conference this month as campaigners seek to modernize a system they…
Forestry companies that manage huge areas of rainforest in the tropics have failed to commit themselves to policies of “zero deforestation,” according to an analysis of their environmental policies by…
Business-as-usual Brazilian deforestation could result in loss of 606,000 square kilometers of forest by 2050, triggering local temperature rise of up to 1.45 degrees Celsius: study.
A prototype system to identify rare species in real time using thermal-imaging cameras mounted on unmanned aircraft, or drones, passed its latest test when it successfully identified orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus)…
An illegal timber trade supply chain stretching from Chinese companies operating out of two countries in West Africa to major hardware stores located throughout the U.S. has been uncovered. A…
The world’s leading companies involved in the soy trade are being challenged to come clean about their impact on the environment and to completely eliminate deforestation from their operations. The…
Environmentalists in Indonesia have vowed to “never stop” in their fight to halt the construction of a hydroelectric project they say threatens the world’s rarest great ape species with extinction,…
An influential group of U.S. senators, including possible candidates for the 2020 presidential race Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, is calling on investment firms to take responsibility for deforestation caused…
Industries that cause the loss of rainforest and peatlands in Southeast Asia were bankrolled to the tune of $62 billion between 2013 and 2018, according to new data released by…
Social anthropologist Liana Chua leads a project, POKOK, that aims to reduce the killing of orangutans in Indonesian Borneo through deeper engagement with local people. The project came about as…
Companies and their investors are exposing themselves to massive legal and financial risks by trading, sometimes unwittingly, in products derived from illegally harvested timber, according to a new report. Published earlier…
A Christmas advertisement deemed too political to air in the U.K. but that has been viewed more than 70 million times online has rekindled the debate about how to save…
LONDON — A broad alliance of 30 global banks and financial institutions have pledged to stop wildlife trafficking by pressuring the pocketbooks of criminal syndicates. Tracking the flow of “dirty…
James Fair is an experienced reporter and editor specialising in wildlife conservation. Now freelance, for 18 years he was a writer and commissioning editor for BBC Wildlife Magazine, where he covered a wide range of issues ranging from the illegal wildlife trade to the impacts of farming on wildlife. He also acted as the magazine's travel editor, and has been on assignment to places as far afield as China, Tasmania, Svalbard, Gabon and the wild, wet and windy west coast of Scotland. Before taking up this role with the BBC, James lived and worked in Bolivia, where he worked on a project to reintroduce an orphaned Andean bear cub into the wild, and Ecuador, where he managed a cloud forest reserve. He lives in rural Gloucestershire with his partner, two young sons and a small black cat who brings no end of shame on the family in her fondness for killing local wildlife. He now writes for a number of BBC publications and other environmental news outlets. He tweets at @jamesfairwild 
