Conservation leadership News

NGADA, Indonesia — Marselus Selu wanted to be a musician from an early age, but he didn’t have the money back then to buy a flute. Today, he’s a master…

KATHMANDU — The National Trust for Nature Conservation was set up in 1982 as a semi-governmental body to spearhead conservation activities in Nepal. Today, it manages some of the most…

LOMBOK, Indonesia — In the northern foothills of Mount Rinjani, an active volcano, lies a coffee plantation and processing facility that doubles as a training ground. Here, among the arabica…

PANGKALAN BUN, Indonesia — For 20 years, Redansyah has awakened every day at 5 a.m. to plant trees here in the Pesalat forest area of Central Kalimantan province. The Indigenous…

MAKASSAR, Indonesia — Andi Fadly Arifuddin is known to millions of Indonesians simply as Fadly, the vocalist for the alt-rock band Padi that shot to fame in the early 2000s.…

SORONG, Indonesia — Thriving across half a hectare in the hills of West Papua’s Mariat district are mustard greens, long beans, spinach, chilies and tomatoes. There’s also fruit such as…

Aziil Anwar, a prolific planter of mangroves on coral damaged by blast fishing in Indonesia’s West Sulawesi province, rallying many children to his cause, died in hospital on May 6.…

For years, seabird ecologist Jennifer Lavers longed to survey the colonies of short-tailed shearwaters on Figure of Eight Island off the coast of Western Australia. She’d identified this remote island…

BENGKALIS, Indonesia — On the east coast of the island of Sumatra lies a grove of timber, fruit and native trees known as the Marsawa Peat Arboretum. This shady grove,…

When Milka Chepkorir Kuto took the stage on July 18 at the opening ceremony of the Africa Protected Areas Congress (APAC) in Kigali, Rwanda, she came with a sobering message…

In late June, New Zealand parliamentarian and Māori activist Debbie Ngarewa-Packer boarded an international flight to begin a 40-hour journey to Lisbon to attend the U.N. Ocean Conference. At various…

CHELEM, Mexico — In Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula, a few words describe the most common occupations: fisher, merchant, mother. Over the past decade, the port town of Chelem has seen the…

Salatou Sambou, a fisherman and father of five, has been involved in the Kawawana ICCA (Indigenous and Community Conserved Area) in Senegal since 2008. One of the first members of…

Alexandra Narváez and Alex Lucitante, two young Indigenous leaders from the A’i Cofán community of Sinangoe, located in the Ecuadoran Amazon, have been awarded the 2022 Goldman Environmental Prize for their…

KATHMANDU — Kamal Devkota, who campaigns for snake conservation in Nepal, doesn't always have an easy time convincing people of his cause. On one occasion, he recalled, as part of…

MARERENI, Kenya — One day in April, at a few minutes past six in the morning, the sun’s golden rays lit up the sea on Kenya’s coast. A few early-rising…

KAMALCHHORI, Bangladesh — Anupam Chakma, 60, has lived in the hilly village of Kamalchhori in Bangladesh all his life. When his grandfather and his contemporaries arrived in the region many…

“Recover Citatah Karst, Make People Prosper.” That’s the call printed in red letters on a huge white banner pinned on a limestone cliff in Indonesia’s West Java province. “We put…

Baby West African slender-snouted crocodiles come into the world doubly watched over. Females of the species, Mecistops cataphractus, guard their nests on the riverbanks in the Tano River Basin until…

In February 2020, lightning struck Figure of Eight Island in Western Australia’s Recherche Archipelago, igniting a fire that burned through most of its vegetation in just a few days. While…

Conservation biologist Estrela Matilde has won the 2022 Whitley Award for her work to save sea turtles on the island of Príncipe in Africa’s Gulf of Guinea. The awards, often…

There’s no one way to describe Noah Idechong. Born in the small Pacific island country of Palau, Idechong has donned different hats over the past 40 years. He’s been a…

MAROS, Indonesia — Forty-two kilometers, or about 26 miles, north of the bustling port city of Makassar in Indonesia’s South Sulawesi province, undulating karst formations dominate the landscape. Covering an…

SHOUF BIOSPHERE RESERVE, Lebanon — Late afternoon light falls across Talal Riman’s weathered face as he stands under the ancient cedars he’s tended for almost three decades in Lebanon’s Shouf…

Traditional fishers scattered in isolated communities along Madagascar’s 4,800-kilometer (3,000-mile) coastline are grappling with falling fish stocks and competition from industrial trawlers, mostly owned by foreigners. As a young woman,…

QUITO — Its a sad moment for any Indigenous community when spiritual leaders, those who hold the knowledge of sacred ceremonies and traditions, pass away from this world. But Sabino…

Today we look at two Indigenous conservation initiatives in the United States. Listen here: The importance of Indigenous stewardship and traditional ecological knowledge is increasingly recognized as vital to the…

Update 2/2022: In late January, correspondence found among the late E.O. Wilson’s papers connected him with J. Phillipe Rushton, whose research in the 1980s and 1990s has been linked with white…

Years before the obsession with wild-borne pathogens latching onto humans gripped the world, Gladys Kalema-Zikusoka was already dealing with disease spillovers. Except, she worried about humans infecting gorillas in her…

Today, being an environmental defender in the Peruvian rainforest means challenging death. It means facing narcotrafficking, land encroachment, deforestation, and illegal logging and mining. It implies traveling hundreds of kilometers,…