Commentary News

When we routinely flush a toilet, the waste is hurled away so quickly that most of us don’t give it a second thought. But that waste, despite our inclination to…

Once the epicenter of the global trade in gold, illegal mining is once again surging across the Amazon. Its extraction and trade is not only fueling corruption, money laundering and…

"Ecuador is proud to announce the creation of the Hermandad Marine Reserve in the coming days," the country's president declares in an opinion piece shared with Mongabay. His country had…

Two of the world’s most ubiquitous and important crops have a 7,000-year-old backstory, which can be traced to the Andes in South America, where maize and potatoes have long been…

A recent article on the Emirati newspaper The National reports that, according to conservationists, “The increased enforcement by Somaliland in the Gulf [of Aden] and along known smuggling routes, plus the…

Recovering Together, Recovering Stronger. Indonesia adopted this tagline when it took over the rotating chair of the club of the world’s 20 largest advanced and emerging economies, the Group of…

1. The ocean-climate nexus The presence of the ocean was felt more strongly than ever at this year’s U.N. Climate Change Conference (COP 26), held Oct. 31 to Nov. 12…

Over the course of the holiday season, Americans asked themselves why many of their favorite consumer items became difficult to obtain, from board games to apparel to bicycles. Amid pandemic…

I have not traveled anywhere these past 2 years. I couldn’t travel even if I wanted to since Australia, where I live, closed its borders in March 2020 in a…

As of July 2021, deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon rose 22% over the previous year. High levels of deforestation across the entire Amazon region are bringing the rainforest to a…

Many people may not remember the 23rd of June, 1988, or recognize its significance. Many may not have even been alive then. But that was the date when Dr. James…

Countries the world over have this year made milestone pledges at three separate international summits to transform food systems, tackle climate change and protect biodiversity. But the reality is that…

Threats to wildlife and wild places abound. Waters warming due to climate change threaten coral reefs more frequently and with greater intensity than ever before; the expansion of agriculture, infrastructure,…

In the 1970s, coral reefs in the Western Indian Ocean were relatively untouched by people. Today, these same reefs are at a tipping point with more than 69 million people…

Steven Donziger, the U.S. advisory lawyer for the Ecuador legal team that won a $9.5 billion ruling against Chevron over oil contamination in 2011, surrendered to a six-month prison sentence…

A few years ago, alone on the top of a mountain in Zion National Park, in Utah, USA, I had an almost mystical experience that immediately transported me to the…

Why is cooperation within tiger conservation so hard to accomplish? Despite efforts for decades, tigers are threatened with extinction. Twelve years ago, when the Global Tiger Recovery Program (GTRP) started…

“Bornean communities locked into 2-million-hectare carbon deal they don’t know about” - 9 Nov 2021, Mongabay This was the headline Sabah woke up to on the morning of November 10th.…

Have you heard the Taiwanese Indigenous folklore about the island’s clouded leopard species — Lrikulaw — who led two human brothers to a heavenly place 600 years ago? While biologists…

The Glasgow conference saw a plethora of announcements on forests. The most high-profile of these was the Glasgow Leaders’ Declaration on Forests and Land Use, signed by 133 world leaders,…

Countless interventions seek to halt biodiversity loss. Yet thus far these efforts have barely made a dent in global trends of decline. With growing recognition of these failures, organizations have…

Why are transparency and accountability important in tiger conservation? Tiger conservation was already on the agendas of ecologists and biologists long before the U.N. introduced CITES in 1975. There were…

We cannot expect forest countries to halt the bulldozers if we keep paying for the fuel. Yet that is what we will continue to do if the EU doesn’t get…

Humanity is living through four interrelated global crises: biodiversity, climate, pandemic, and social justice. Because the nature and scale of threats to the planet and all its life forms is…

Well-designed natural climate solutions around the globe, and particularly in the Amazon, could be paid for by companies truly making “net zero” carbon emission commitments and overseen by state governments.

The U.N. climate summit now underway in Glasgow, Scotland needs to empower Indigenous peoples to protect the Amazon forest, which in turn stores carbon and helps prevent disastrous climate change.

Ana and her family live one kilometer from the tailings dam that carries toxic waste away from the world’s ninth largest iron ore mine, Minas-Rio, situated in Brazil’s mining heartland…

Public hearings are underway on the proposed reconstruction of BR-319, a highway which will pierce the heart of the Brazilian Amazon, despite vast potential environmental harm, and a failure to consult Indigenous groups.

Hurricane Ida’s warpath is the latest in a litany of natural disasters, estimated to have cost the world $210 billion in damage in 2020, that is shining a spotlight on climate change.…

Let’s get one thing straight: I love trees. I love their graceful and varied forms. I love the forest ecosystem in all its wondrous crisscrossing and complexity, its resilience and…