Wild plants are hidden in your pantry. Mixed into herbal medicines, teas, aromatherapy oils, liquor and beauty products, wild-harvested plants are a multibillion-dollar industry. But with no labeling standard for…
Using the customizable app ForestLink, traditional forest guardians (people living within and around the forest) can send near-real-time, geo-tagged alerts about illegal logging and mining activities to authorities and other…
You may have noticed a little green frog on the chocolate, coffee or tea packages in your pantry. This tiny logo means a product has the Rainforest Alliance seal of…
Turtles and tortoises in trouble On the island of Madagascar, locked gates, razor-wire fences, and 24-hour armed guards protect one of the world’s rarest treasures. That treasure, worth roughly $50,000…
Climate change threatens ecological and economic systems. That is why investors are increasingly looking to invest in companies with a plan to address one of the largest drivers of climate…
An Asiatic wild ass made history when it became the first of its species to cross into the eastern steppe in Mongolia in nearly seven decades. The Gobi-Steppe is among…
Investing in forests to fight climate change seems like a sure bet. Trees absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, pump out oxygen, and live for decades. What could go wrong?…
The giant panda, tiny tamaraw buffalo, riverine rabbit and Iberian lynx all have something in common: they join a growing list of animals on the brink of extinction. A newly…
Newly released video footage gives us a glimpse of a rarely seen behavior: baby humpback whales nursing in the sheltered breeding grounds of Maui. Here, the young calves must drink…
Small, social, fast-moving animals like bats are notoriously difficult to study. Where do they go? Who do they spend time with? Now, scientists have a new tool to answer questions…
European spiny lobsters create quite the rumble. By rubbing an antenna across its face, a spiny lobster can create a sound that might, under the right underwater conditions, be detectable…
COVID-19 in the Amazon COVID-19 represents a particularly insidious threat for remote villages in the Amazon, where the nearest ICU bed is, on average, 315 kilometers (nearly 200 miles) away. The…
The Bukit Tigapuluh landscape in Indonesia has been sliced and diced by roads, opening its forests to threats from the outside. As forest vanishes in the region, so too does…
The side of the road isn’t usually thought of as ideal habitat. But for insects, such as butterflies and their caterpillars, the long expanses of land along roads and utility…
Life can’t function without insects. At least, not for long. Dutifully, they pollinate, break down waste, cycle nutrients, move seeds, and touch every node in the web of life, filling…
The famed entomologist Terry L. Erwin, a prolific scholar who revolutionized the scientific understanding of the diversity of life on Earth and set up some of the world’s first global…
In Brazil, indigenous lands make up 13.5% of the national territory and are home to half a million indigenous peoples speaking 280 distinct languages. New research, published in the journal…
Insects touch nearly every corner of life on this planet, filling endless functional roles and providing services too vast to name — and they are disappearing. According to the largest…
Up in the cool Mexican mountains, countless monarch butterflies gather together for the winter. When the sun warms their wings to just the right temperature, the mass of monarchs take…
For the past 40 years, researchers have studied Amazonian bird communities in the world's longest-running experiment on tropical forest fragments. This research, summarized in a newly published paper in The…
A new green pit viper species discovered in a Himalayan biodiversity hotspot has been named Trimeresurus Salazar, or the Salazar’s pit viper, after Salazar Slytherin, a character from J.K. Rowling's…
Flamingos form lasting friendships, but they also have foes. A new study, published in the journal Behavioural Processes, found that close social bonds existed not only between flamingo couples but…
Fast fashion and the environment We live in a world of fast fashion, a model that relies on frequent, trend-driven, impulse buying of cheaply manufactured clothing that often ends up…
It was one of the worst environmental disasters the world has witnessed. Ten years ago, on April 20, 2010, the BP Deepwater Horizon exploratory rig exploded, killing 11 people and…
Satellites are an excellent tool for monitoring forests. Those who work in the areas of forest management, policy development and environmental conservation are increasingly making use of these eyes in…
The COVID-19 pandemic is giving “cancel culture” a new meaning. Weddings, graduations, academic conferences, sports events and birthday parties are all postponed until further notice. Among the laundry list of…
As the Beagle traversed the frigid waters of Tierra del Fuego on its famed voyage, Charles Darwin noted the diversity of life teeming in the dense foliage below. Now, nearly…
Sneaking up on animals can be tough. That’s why wildlife researchers often turn to motion-sensing cameras, also known as camera traps, to study animals in the wild. However, most of…
As the COVID-19 pandemic unfolds, gorilla conservation teams are working to ensure that Africa’s endangered mountain gorillas (Gorilla beringei beringei), and the people who protect them, remain safe. Gorillas are…
Air pollution has significantly decreased over China amid the economic slowdown caused by the COVID-19 outbreak, signaling unanticipated implications for human health. “Given the huge amount of evidence that breathing…
