Driving up the Pacific Coast Highway from San Francisco, you approach the world’s largest contiguous temperate rainforest. But don’t look for any markers or directions. There aren’t any. In fact,…
In 2007, Richard Branson, the British business magnate, offered a $25 million prize to anyone who can invent a device capable of removing significant volumes of carbon dioxide from the…
Overfishing is rapidly pushing many of the world’s sharks and tunas toward extinction. The world’s fastest known shark, the shortfin mako, for example, was recently uplisted to endangered on the…
When Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in 1914, triggering the First World War, Granny was out under the sea half a world away, catching salmon and communicating with her pod…
For thousands of years, people of the Lummi Nation in Washington state have treasured their deep connection to the orca pods that populate the waters of the Salish Sea. It’s…
A mystery disease outbreak that has devastated more than 20 species of starfish along the western coast of North America since 2013 has claimed yet another victim: the sunflower sea…
In 1998, Douglas Clark witnessed Manitoba’s second recorded grizzly bear (Ursus arctos horribilis) sighting of the century. Then a warden in Canada’s Wapusk National Park, he remembers swooping down near…
The red-backed salamander (Plethodon cinereus) is a creature of Earth, although a brief physical description can cast sufficient doubt. One deep red stripe runs the length of its body, though…
Small animals form the majority of animal diversity on Earth, but there are fundamental gaps in our knowledge of how animals too small to wear GPS or satellite tracking tags…
Every year, millions of baby birds leave the security of their nests, flying off into the uncertainty of the outside world. A single chick’s fledging takes just a moment, and…
What do you call seaweed that grows in ponds? Pondweed, of course. This diverse group of freshwater plants provides food and shelter for freshwater fish, birds, invertebrates, and plankton. And…
Despite ongoing deforestation, fires, drought-induced die-offs, and insect outbreaks, the world's tree cover actually increased by 2.24 million square kilometers — an area the size of Texas and Alaska combined…
KUCHING, Malaysia — Conservationists have called on governments and the private sector to do more to mitigate the impact of global shipping activities on marine ecosystems and communities in the…
Monarch butterflies depend on milkweed and its poisonous compounds that are deadly to most other insects. But a new study finds global warming may be making the very plant monarch…
As secret negotiations progress and Donald Trump threatens to walk away from NAFTA, trade experts ask how to make the agreement better for people and planet.
North Atlantic right whales face an increasingly uncertain future. Despite two decades of intensive monitoring and protection, their numbers have hit a seven-year skid, with an estimated 451 right whales…
340+ people have died since 2008, communities have been ravaged, rivers contaminated, drinking water polluted, and fisheries ruined by mining tailings dam failures. Future accidents could be prevented says UN report.
It’s been a rough year for North Atlantic right whales. Fifteen died in the first 10 months of the year, concerning scientists enough that the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration…
Technology above the clouds is helping scientists study sharks beneath the waves. A new initiative combines shark movement data with publicly available vessel identification data—both transmitted to researchers via satellite—to…
The Nebraska Public Service Commission has rejected TransCanada’s preferred tar sands pipeline route through the state, while okaying an alternate route that could mean years of legal hurdles.
19-nation pledge would reduce coal use by 3 percent; COP23 failed to see developed nations ramp up carbon targets, or offer real pathway for financing climate aid to developing nations.
As fossil fuel firms drive bitumen tar sands pipelines toward U.S. and Canadian coasts, a bold alliance of U.S. Native Peoples and Canadian First Nations is successfully blocking their way.
In Bonn, Trump administration delegation provides cover for developed nations to stall financing for climate adaptation and loss for world’s most impacted developing nations.
Trump’s 2018 budget, if adopted, threatens to kill already precarious Northwest salmon fisheries — crippling the local economies of US and Canadian communities and tribal nations.
The CETA trade agreement was supposed to undo past treaty abuses and be a model for future global trade agreements. But critics say CETA still threatens the environment and national sovereignty.
Recent advancements in technology and social media have spurred the growth of citizen science, a phenomenon through which non-scientists contribute to the collection of scientific data. According to Nature, results…
Bats have not historically been a focus of much conservation effort, but starting around 1985, conservationists in Canada and the United States began working to limit human access to bat…
Research published in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment last month that examines how wildlife adapts to the impacts of global climate change focuses on the American pika,…
There are now three species of flying squirrel in North America, and it turns out that the newest member of the family has actually been gliding amongst the treetops of…
Indigenous community residents seeking justice for attacks in Guatemala faced a major setback Thursday. A judge in the Caribbean coastal city of Puerto Barrios acquitted the former head of security…