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Wild dolphins in New York Bight

Global ocean faces ‘deepening crisis,’ but governance is improving: UN report

Elizabeth Claire Alberts 12 Jun 2026
Community members protest fossil fuels at a beach in Tolú, a town on the Gulf of Morrosquillo in Colombia, in November 2025. Crude oil is exported from the area.

Sour on the ‘blue economy,’ small-scale fishers seek ‘blue justice’ instead

Edward Carver 12 May 2026
A man on the Philippine island of Boracay walks beside a drainage pipe discharging untreated sewage into the ocean in 2018.

Nearly three in four marine protected areas undermined by wastewater pollution

Elizabeth Fitt 29 Apr 2026
Design by Grist / Carrie Johnson.

Indigenous peoples’ health cannot be separated from the environment, U.N. delegates warn

Aimee Gabay 22 Apr 2026

At the U.N., Indigenous leaders tackle how to enforce global climate court rulings

Joseph Lee 21 Apr 2026
Image by Grist / Taylar Irvine.

War, climate change, and AI on the agenda at this year’s U.N. Indigenous forum

Anita Hofschneider 20 Apr 2026
A yellow-fronted canary from South Africa. The songbird tops the list of wild birds exported from Africa to Asia.

Nearly a million birds shipped from Africa to Asia in 15 years; canaries top the list

Spoorthy Raman 15 Apr 2026
Great hammerhead (Sphyrna mokarran).

Migratory species summit adopts new marine protections amid extinction warnings

Francesco De Augustinis 8 Apr 2026

At high seas treaty summit, a dispute over fisheries managers’ role in conservation

Edward Carver 7 Apr 2026
Nickel mining on Manuran Island. Image courtesy of Auriga Nusantara.

Indonesia’s deforestation surges 66% in 2025, reversing years of decline

Hans Nicholas Jong 3 Apr 2026
Sea turtles, another migratory species, need safe ocean passageways to move between feeding grounds and nesting beaches.

Outlook for migratory species worsens amid habitat loss & avian flu, report finds

Gloria Dickie 12 Mar 2026
A deckhand watches groundfish in a trawl net be hauled aboard the Cassandra Anne, which is based in Oregon, U.S., in 2023. Image by Chris Peterson/Action Works Photography courtesy of Oregon Sea Grant via Flickr (CC BY-NC-SA 2.0).

25 years after ‘disaster’ declaration, major U.S. fishery makes a comeback

Jules Struck 5 Mar 2026
UC Santa Cruz researcher in Hazmat suit taking nasal sample from elephant seal pup, Ano Nuevo State Park, California, USA.

Avian flu strikes California’s northern elephant seals; area quarantined

Christine Heinrichs 27 Feb 2026
Camps Bay, Cape Town, South Africa.

A ‘new baseline’: Study captures accelerating sea-level rise in Africa

Edward Carver 30 Jan 2026
Smoke rises from a coal-burning power plant. Refuse-derived fuel (RDF), which includes large amounts of plastics, is replacing fossil fuels in some energy and industrial furnaces. But critics say this practice is merely replacing one dirty fuel for another.

Boom in burning waste for fuel could put human health and environment at risk

Sean Mowbray 10 Dec 2025
A soy plantation borders native Cerrado vegetation, highlighting pressures on Brazil’s ecosystems and the need for community-led bioeconomy alternatives.

New financial tools boost traditional bioeconomy projects in the Amazon

Sarah Brown 8 Dec 2025
Solar panels in an arid part of Sudan.

Negotiating Africa’s Energy Future

26 Nov 2025
A woman lights her stove to prepare lunch, in the village of Zorro, Burkina Faso.

Fossil fuel failure eclipses Africa’s wins at COP30

David Akana 26 Nov 2025
Cleared forest in the foreground, rainforest in the background in East Kalimantan on the island of Borneo in Indonesia. Photo by Rhett Ayers Butler.

Saving forests won’t be enough if fossil fuels beneath them are still extracted, experts warn

Hans Nicholas Jong 26 Nov 2025
An engineer observes the operation of solar panels in Cotonou, Benin.

Experts say wealthy nations owe Africa double its climate adaptation needs

Victoria Schneider 21 Nov 2025
Solar panels in an arid part of Sudan.

‘The perfect ingredients’: WRI Africa deputy director shares vision for the continent’s energy transition

John Cannon 19 Nov 2025
Technicians in Zimbabwe inspect solar panels. Image © UNDP Zimbabwe.

What does the just energy transition mean for Africa?

John Cannon 10 Nov 2025
Coal truck

Rise in Chinese off-grid coal plants in Indonesia belies pledge to end fossil fuel support

Jeff Hutton 10 Nov 2025

Indigenous delegates prepare for COP30 with focus on justice, land and finance

Sonam Lama Hyolmo 7 Nov 2025
A shepherd watches livestock near Khi Solar One, a solar thermal plant that converts the sun's light energy into electricity, outside Upington, South Africa. Solar offers vast untapped potential in Africa. Image by AP Photo/Themba Hadebe.

At COP30, Africa can lead the way to a sustainable future — but will it? (commentary)

Samuel Ogunsona 3 Nov 2025
U.N. special rapporteurs Mary Lawlor, left, and Clément Voule in 2023. Image courtesy of U.N. Photo/Evan Schneider.

Rise in persecution of climate defenders in Europe slammed by UN expert

Shanna Hanbury 21 Oct 2025
A Philippine tarsier (Carlito syrichta)

First assessment of UNESCO sites finds widespread climate impacts

Keith Anthony Fabro 14 Oct 2025
A Waorani indigenous youth prepares to use his blowpipe in Yasuni National Park in the Upper Napo Valley of the Western Amazon region in Ecuador, Saturday Aug. 21, 2010. Yasuni National Park, a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve since 1989 and home to the Tagaeri-Taromenane and Waorani indigenous communities, holds close to 1 billion barrels of crude. Image by AP Photo/Dolores Ochoa.

Indigenous voices shape UNESCO’s new 10-year plan for biosphere reserves

Keith Anthony Fabro 13 Oct 2025

China, world’s largest carbon polluting nation, announces new climate goal to cut emissions

Associated Press 24 Sep 2025
An oceanic white tip shark (Carcharhinus longimanus) with pilot fish (Naucrates ductor). Image courtesy of Renata Romeo/Ocean Image Bank.

‘Super big deal’: High seas treaty reaches enough ratifications to become law

Edward Carver 23 Sep 2025

As UN climate talks loom in Brazil, many would-be participants fear they can’t afford to attend

Associated Press 22 Sep 2025
A protestor sums up INC-5.2’s failure with the slogan: “Consensus kills ambition.”

As plastics treaty talks break down, are there paths to a breakthrough?

Charles Pekow 29 Aug 2025

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