Power of traditional beliefs lies at the heart of an anti-mine campaign in PNG
Emmanuel Peni’s first response to a list of questions about his role in a campaign against a proposed copper and gold mine is to send back an idyllic photo of…
Articles by Jim Tan
Jim is a freelance environmental journalist and copywriter. He covers a broad range of conservation and environmental subjects with a particular interest in the complex interface between conservation, economic and social issues. Jim holds an MSc in Conservation and Land Management and has spent time living and working in South African game reserves.
If there’s an elephant in the room, that’s because it’s not in a protected area
Over the span of 10 years, a team of researchers have been following 102 Asian elephants in Malaysia, collecting more than 600,000 GPS fixes in the process. When they analyzed…
Poaching surges in the birthplace of white rhino conservation
In the first nine months of this year, poachers have killed 190 rhinos in state-run protected areas in South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province. That’s one rhino killed every 35 hours. Most…
Giant kangaroo fossil points to previously unknown species in New Guinea
A previously unknown genus of primitive giant kangaroo that once roamed the rainforests of New Guinea has been described by a team of paleontologists from Flinders University in Australia. The…
Smart Parks, the Dutch technologists tackling poaching with technology
You’ve heard of smartphones, smart cars, smart cities, even smart refrigerators, but have you heard of Smart Parks? Smart Parks is a Netherlands-based team of technologists dreaming up inventive ways…
Wildlife don’t recognize borders, nor does climate change. Conservation should keep up
With national borders created for geopolitical rather than ecological reasons, it’s unsurprising that the ranges of more than half of all terrestrial mammals, birds and amphibians cross at least one…
How many orangutans does $1 billion save? Depends how you spend it, study finds
Over the past 20 years, more than $1 billion has been spent on orangutan conservation. Yet all three species of orangutan are currently classified as critically endangered and continue to…
$1.5 billion Congo Basin pledge a good start but not enough, experts say
On Nov. 2, a group of 12 donors, including the European Commission, United Kingdom, United States and the Bezos Earth Fund, collectively pledged at least $1.5 billion in financing toward…
Infrastructure projects in Congo Basin need greater oversight, report says
How do you develop your economy and provide services in a sustainable manner? That’s a central theme of the U.N. climate summit underway in Glasgow, and in few places is…
OECM concept may bring more inclusive approach to conserving biodiversity
Ever heard of “other effective area-based conservation measures” (OECM)? Snappily named, they are not. But convoluted acronyms aside, supporters of OECMs, a designation by global conservation authority the IUCN, are…
Reforestation holds promise for Europe’s increasingly drier summers
Plant more trees! This message has been one of the cornerstones of the European response to worsening climate change. A new study published in Nature Geoscience suggests that if Europe…
Gabon becomes first African country to get paid for protecting its forests
In 2019, Norway committed to pay $150 million to Gabon to protect its forests under the Central African Forest Initiative (CAFI). After independent verification of the country's deforestation rates in…
Humans are biggest factor defining elephant ranges across Africa, study finds
In an undisturbed ecosystem, elephants move across the landscape in response to the availability of food and water and the type of habitat or competition. But according to a continent-wide…
Growing concern over Okavango oil exploration as community alleges shutout
Reconnaissance Energy Africa (ReconAfrica), a Canadian oil and gas company, has begun public consultations for the second phase of its controversial exploration activities in northeastern Namibia. Critics have raised concerns…
Eye in the Sky: Tech makes satellite imagery increasingly attractive for wildlife surveys
High-resolution satellite imagery, modern digital cameras and drones have opened up new possibilities for surveying remote wildlife populations. But the huge volume of data created presents its own unique challenge…
Alarm as exploratory drilling for oil begins in northern Namibia
On December 21, Reconnaissance Energy Africa (Recon Africa) announced that it had begun exploratory drilling for oil and gas in the Namibian portion of the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA).…
Bushmeat hunting: The greatest threat to Africa’s wildlife?
Poaching for tusks, horns or other body parts is a well-recognized threat to Africa's wildlife, but the impact of hunting for bushmeat may pose a greater threat. Conservationists in Southern…
10-year plan hopes to give western chimpanzees a fighting chance
Western chimpanzees are the most threatened of the four confirmed chimpanzee subspecies. Conservationists estimate that populations of the western chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes versus) declined by 80% between 1990 and 2014.…
East Africa’s reefs being fished at unsustainable rates, study finds
Fish populations in coral reefs off Kenya, Tanzania and Mozambique are being harvested at unsustainable rates, new research has found. In the study published in the journal Marine Ecology Progress…
Breaking down barriers: Cattle and wildlife compete in Southern Africa
The Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area (KAZA) is an audacious project that envisions a vast space where migrating species can cross international borders following their ancient seasonal paths. But there’s a…
Europe-bred rhinos join South African cousins to repopulate Rwanda park
Five eastern black rhinos translocated from European zoos to Rwanda's Akagera National Park have successfully completed an initial period of acclimatization and been moved into larger, 1-hectare (2.5-acre) enclosures. They…
Gabonese timber linked to illegal logging seized in Antwerp
On July 8, Greenpeace forest campaigner Philippe Verbelen was conducting routine monitoring at the Belgian port of Antwerp when he noticed a familiar name attached to a timber shipment: Wan…
Angola pledges $60m to fund landmine clearance in national parks
The Angolan government has pledged $60 million to clear landmines in two national parks that form part of southern Africa’s highly biodiverse Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area. The country’s environment minister,…
Better than sex? For hard-to-breed rhinos, technology strives for a solution
In March 2018, Sudan, the last known northern white rhino (Ceratotherium simum cottoni) male, was euthanized at the Ol Pejeta Conservancy in Kenya. With only two known female northern white…
Salt fiends: Search for sodium puts Rwanda’s gorillas in harm’s way
A sodium craving may be the reason endangered mountain gorillas (Gorilla beringei beringei) from Volcanoes National Park in Rwanda leave the park to raid nearby eucalyptus plantations, according to a…
For orangutans affected by El Niño, change unfolds over time
“It was very peculiar,” says Anne Russon, a primatologist and psychology professor from York University, Toronto, recalling her 2010 study of orangutans in Indonesia's Kutai National Park. Having previously worked…
Orangutan forest school in Indonesia takes on its first eight students
On May 17, 2018, the first eight orange-furred students arrived to begin their studies at a new orangutan forest school in the province of East Kalimantan in Indonesian Borneo. Under…
Citigroup limits financing for mines that dump tailings at sea
Several mines around the world dispose of potentially toxic mine waste directly into the ocean. Environmentalists have criticized the practice, arguing that the waste smothers ocean habitat and leaches harmful…
Rangers face a ‘toxic mix’ of mental strain and lack of support
On April 9, suspected members of an armed militia gunned down five wildlife rangers and their driver in Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo. It was the…
African vultures under the gun as lead ammunition takes a toll
Lead bullet fragments in animal carcasses left behind by game hunters could be poisoning vultures in Botswana, according to a new study that echoes similar findings from elsewhere around the…
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
- 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
- A Twitter bot tracks meat production in the Brazilian Amazon
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
