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,…
CHITWAN NATIONAL PARK, Nepal — The rhino sniffs the morning air and grunts. Our wooden canoe slowly passes the grove where the 2-ton prehistoric animal is grazing. Here, in Chitwan,…
For at least the past 20 years, there has been regular talk about the need to break down silos in conservation. The argument is straightforward: to be successful, the field…
COVID-19 has devastated communities around the world, but for some Indigenous groups, the pandemic posed an existential threat. Few people are better placed to speak to the impact COVID is…
Almost eight years after Typhoon Haiyan barreled into Busuanga Island in the western Philippines, the lesson it left is still etched in the mind of village leader Annabel Dela Cruz.…
BEIRUT, Lebanon — Beaches across the planet emptied as COVID-19 spread in 2020, with the first full lockdowns in many places coinciding with sea turtle nesting season. With less noise,…
The iTaukei, an Indigenous people of the Fiji Islands’ Ra province, have strong cultural ties to both land and sea. With their unparalleled knowledge of their home, these traditional Fijians…
The past 18 months have been a time of upheaval around the world, prompting a wide range of companies, institutions, and organizations to re-evaluate how they operate. The conservation sector…
2021 continues to be a year like no other. From record heat and wildfires in western North America to the flooding in China, the impacts of climate change and environmental…
“Let me turn on my video,” says David Obura halfway through our Zoom call. He holds up his phone so I can see the landscape behind him: rows of green…
In the wake of George Floyd's killing last year, long-running concerns about discrimination, colonial legacy, privilege, and power dynamics in conservation have gained prominence, forcing many organizations in the sector…
