Nearly 100,000 small hydropower dams exist or are planned worldwide, and science has done little to study or inform policymakers about cumulative environmental impacts.

The arduous task of assessing animal populations in the wild takes plenty of sweat and tears. Now a group of scientists is adding blood to that mix, in an innovative…

Rubber plantations cover around 86,000 square kilometers (33,200 square miles) in Southeast Asia and conservationists worry they are posing an increasingly major threat to the region’s rainforests. A new study…

The International Committee for the Recovery of the Vaquita reported in 2017 that there were just 30 vaquita left in the Upper Gulf of California, the species’ only known habitat. The…

In China, where most rivers are deprived of large mammals due to habitat destruction and over-exploitation, a healthy population of Eurasian otters (Lutra lutra) was recently found to thrive right…

Industrial fishing takes place across more than 55 percent of the world’s oceans, according to a new study published in Science. Fishing is vital for food security and livelihoods across…

Illegally sourced South African abalone (Haliotis midae), a marine snail considered a delicacy in East Asia, continues to flood Hong Kong markets, according to a new report by TRAFFIC, the…

Few urbanites have seen an otter. Fewer still have seen a “romp” of them. Yet in Singapore, the most urbanized country in the world, commuters can watch whole families breakfast…

In a historic move, 49 Hong Kong lawmakers voted on Jan. 31 to end all domestic ivory trade by 2021 and passed the Endangered Species of Animals and Plants (Amendment) Bill…

BOLIVIA — A skull rests in the hands of a hunter. It is a jaguar’s skull that has all of its teeth in place, except the four fangs that the…

JAKARTA — Global demand for biofuels containing palm oil looks set to grow sixfold by 2030, potentially driving the destruction of Southeast Asian rainforests the size of the Netherlands, a…

Thai authorities seized 12.5 kilograms (27.6 pounds) of rhino horn from South Africa in December, leading to the arrest of a key figure in Southeast Asia’s illicit wildlife trade. “[This] specific…

China's ivory trade ban is now in effect, making it illegal to sell and buy ivory in the country. China, one of the world's largest markets for both legal and…

For years, sovereign rights in the South China Sea have been an object of fierce contention among the states that border it: the Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia and Vietnam (all…

One of the world's rarest birds — the tiny spoon-billed sandpiper — could soon lose a critical habitat to land reclamation projects, warns a new report by Greenpeace. Every year, the…

Think of the illegal wildlife trade, and elephant tusks and rhino horns come to mind. But another of the world’s largest land mammals is slipping under the radar: the common…

NORTHERN SHAN STATE, Myanmar - Looking back, it just seemed natural for Aung Tin Oo* to become a timber smuggler. Especially given that he hails from a central trading point…

BHAMO, Myanmar – Bhamo is a small, busy town set on the bank of the Irrawaddy River in Myanmar’s Kachin state. Its location – at the juncture between the river…

KATHA, Myanmar – The train rocked from side to side like a sketchy funhouse. It was the rainy season in northern Myanmar and we had been traveling for nearly a…

BHAMO, Myanmar – A trader turns off his truck’s engine at yet another checkpoint and, again, the soldiers ask him for cash. His truck is filled with charcoal from Myanmar,…