With scientists, advocates and communities across the world making increasingly dire assessments and warnings about the planet’s health, knowing what problems to focus on becomes ever more complex. Over the…
How do you get a small rancher to give up cutting trees for pasture and instead produce high-value and sustainable agricultural products without the requisite skills, money, or access to…
This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center. Mario Quispe Hermoza, 37 years old and from the Peruvian Andes, is a man with long hair, deep reflections on nature and…
Farming in eastern Wyoming is not for the faint of heart. The semiarid landscape receives unpredictable weather and is considered an unforgiving environment for agriculture. Despite this, farmers have grown…
About a quarter of the world’s land is degraded. A new farming system intercrops agave and mesquite, then ferments it into cheap fodder, promising restored semiarid croplands and a peasant farming revival.
We’ve got two stories of marine conservation for you today: one that looks at seashells and what they can tell us about the health of the oceans, and another about…
The greenhouse gases humans have released into the atmosphere over the past 100 to 150 years, mostly in the form of carbon dioxide, have led to a 1.1° Celsius (2°…
Record extreme weather in the U.S., Brazil, China and elsewhere is impacting food production this year, with the future expected to be far worse. Agriculture requires “transformational change” to meet the climate crisis, say experts.
New agri-technologies and traditional farming practices done right could combine to offer significant benefits and hope for the global environment and health.
A new study has identified 2050 as the tipping point by which stakeholders in the Mekong Delta will no longer be able to mitigate the issue of saltwater intrusion, which…
Combining to hamstring Mexico’s climate-friendly biodiesel industry: a lack of regulatory support, a president favoring fossil fuels, competition from other industries for used cooking oil, and a crime network.
Biogas may play a key role in the global renewable energy transition, helping communities and nations meet multiple U.N. Sustainable Development Goals and their pledged Paris Agreement emissions cuts.
Cambodians have long used charcoal to cook their food, with its use ingrained in the culture. Innovative entrepreneurs, using education and briquettes made from coconut shell and woody waste, are changing norms.
The push to halt climate change too often neglects the interconnected issue of biodiversity loss, according to a recent report from a panel of scientists with the United Nations. “What…
Today we’re taking a look at the potential for transformative change in environmental conservation in the US and beyond. Listen here: The administration of US President Joe Biden released a…
To stay within planetary boundary safe limits, we must protect soils by conserving global habitat and revamping industrial agribusiness — and do it fast.
"Tell me what you eat, and I shall tell you what you are," the French lawyer Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin wrote in his 1826 opus, Physiologie du Goût. This is quite…
Every item of food has a story to tell. Kiwifruits may grow in New Zealand, but they can be flown across the world to sit on a grocery store shelf…
Today we discuss Planetary Boundaries, nine environmental systems identified by scientists as essential to Earth’s ability to sustain life and the limits to how far out of equilibrium we can…
More than a decade after the Planetary Boundaries framework was first proposed by top scientists, we are no closer to changing our destructive trajectory — but 2021 gives us three opportunities to act.
Luísa Carvalheiro says she remembers a time when açaí was just a humble berry, a staple for the Amazon's Indigenous communities. That was before the inky purple berries became all…
Today we’re taking a look at agroecology, an approach to sustainable farming that emphasizes working with and even enhancing local ecosystems. Agroecology is changing the way food is produced, especially…
ANTANANARIVO, Madagascar — As drought pushes more than 1 million people toward famine in southern Madagascar, violent winds have been veiling the sky with dust and sand, at times blotting…
Today we’re taking a look at how agroforestry, an ancient indigenous technology that is increasingly being adopted by farmers around the world, can help solve many of the major environmental…
Aid agencies amass nutrition data diligently from the scorched south of Madagascar. But on the ground, the sale of kitchen utensils is a real red flag for aid workers —…
A new tiny orchid species with fiery orange flowers has been discovered on a mountain peak in the northern Philippines’ Cordilleras range. The wild orchid species was named Dendrochilum ignisiflorum…
Brazil is a leading producer of the world’s beef, but ranching is also the leading cause of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. Now the global pandemic has curbed meat consumption in both Brazil and China.
ALBAY, Philippines — Josefina Dayta is among the fortunate Filipinos who haven’t had to experience job insecurity amid one of the harshest lockdowns imposed by any government during the COVID-19…
KURUNEGALA, Sri Lanka -- With the COVID-19 pandemic contained following a strict two-month lockdown, Sri Lanka relaxed restrictions in late May 2020. But now, several farming communities are facing a…
Pixaim is one of the remaining quilombos on the Atlantic coast, an Afro-Brazilian settlement already gravely impacted by upstream dams. Now climate change could doom it.
