Ecosystem Services News

Much is being said lately about wild animals and epidemics.  And it is true, the majority of viral emergent epidemics start in animals and are passed on to humans, in…

As Earth's largest rainforest, the Amazon is the planet's single greatest repository of biodiversity, houses the largest number of uncontacted indigenous tribes, and is home to the world's mightiest river.…

Last December, I flew to Brazil to learn everything I could about Amazon conservation.  As a global citizen, I wanted to understand more about deforestation and how I can help.…

The only positive effect of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic is that it has generated public awareness of the risks of emerging diseases. One may hope that this will result in…

Dung beetle species populations are moving toward collapse in parts of the Brazilian Amazon apparently due to climate change-driven drought, fires, and other human disturbances.

New research finds that if humans carry on with business as usual and the environmental degradation that results, we will pay a steep price — quite literally. Researchers with WWF,…

2019 closed out a "lost decade" for the world's tropical forests, with surging deforestation from Brazil to the Congo Basin, environmental policy roll-backs, assaults on environmental defenders, abandoned conservation commitments,…

The 2010s opened as a moment of optimism for tropical forests. Widely available satellite imagery via platforms like Google Earth brought new levels of accountability which, for the first time,…

Life is reshuffling itself at an unsettling clip across Earth’s surface and in its oceans, a new study has found. The research, published Oct. 18 in the journal Science, drills…

The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund are holding their annual meetings this week, Oct. 14-20, in Washington, D.C. Amid the discussions around jobs, poverty reduction and value chains,…

As Indonesia’s forests go up in smoke, the world may be losing a lot more than we currently understand.

Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro likes to assert that foreigners deserve no say over the fate of the Amazon because it is a national sovereignty issue. His logic: Brazilian Amazon is…

Scientists call it flood-retreat agriculture. As a swollen river blankets a dry plain and then recedes, it replenishes the thin soil with enough nutrients to sprout grass for cattle and…

A blessed country of spectacular landscapes and the most diverse array of cultures on Earth, Papua New Guinea is also a global hotspot for biodiversity. Just in terms of species,…

“I once asked a Matapí elder if he could spare an hour or two to tell me about what palms he knew, and how he used them,” says Rodrigo Cámara-Leret,…

The way humans have changed the forests of Central and South America may be making it impossible for subsistence hunters to continue their way of life, according to two conservation…

The World Health Organization (WHO) approved the inclusion of traditional Chinese medicine in the revision of its influential International Classification of Diseases for the first time on May 25, touching…

Life on this planet, in all its wide diversity, is disappearing more quickly now than it has at any time in human history, and some 1 million species of plants…

In the East African savanna landscape, hippos and their poop play a critical role. By chomping on large amounts of silica-rich grass at night, then defecating into the Mara River…

The elephant poaching epidemic continues to tear across the African continent. It’s even reached remote refuges in recent years, like the Luangwa Valley in Zambia, where poaching deaths began surging…

Deforestation can reduce communities’ access to clean drinking water, according to a recent study conducted in Malawi. A lot of prior research on how deforestation impacts water dynamics has shown…

The chief minister of the Malaysian state of Sabah has called on construction crews working on the multi-billion-dollar Pan Borneo Highway project to avoid breaking up the region’s forests and…

As the “Green New Deal” (GND) takes shape to decarbonize the economy, promote economic growth, and address environmental injustice, it is crucial to incorporate the key sectors of the blue economy…

Giraffes have to search a wider area for food and water when people live nearby, according to a recent study. “Giraffes are huge browsing animals that live in African savanna…

Ecologists know that when we humans start tugging at the threads of a food web, the unraveling that results is often catastrophic to the connected species, paving the way for…

Ecosystems in their natural state are disappearing quickly around the globe. On that most scientists agree. But how to stem those losses through conservation is hotly debated. Many believe that…

Thirteen conservation organizations have banded together to ask policymakers to protect the world’s last wilderness areas by setting aside nearly one-third of the Earth for conservation. “The planet is losing…

Stretching from the historic Chesapeake Bay, down along the Atlantic coastline, across the Gulf of Mexico, into the mysterious bayou swamps of Louisiana, then into eastern Texas and up the…

It was an ambitious project from the start: to capture the Congo Basin rainforest in the pages of a book. Stretching across an area larger than Saudi Arabia, the world’s…

2018 was a difficult year for the world's tropical rainforests. Below are of some of the biggest rainforest storylines for the year, but we couldn't cover everything, so if there…