Everyone’s lives have been upended by coronavirus, but perhaps nowhere have the impacts been as devastating as in Mesoamerica’s indigenous territories. In March, just before the pandemic really hit the…
There has been much media hype about improved air quality in Sri Lanka, and particularly in the island’s commercial capital, Colombo, during the COVID-19 lockdown phase. However, a close examination…
The coronavirus (covid-19) pandemic has created a profound crisis for conservation efforts in eastern and southern Africa as a result of the sudden cessation of all international travel in a…
I used my Brazilian name above, but in my community, I am known as Wino Këyashëni. I belong to the Marubo people, one of the seven ethnic groups that inhabit…
Yohanes Terang, the well-known and respected Dayak poet who took up social and environmental activism long before it became a mainstream concern in West Kalimantan, Indonesia Pak (Mr) Yohanes, as…
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…
The world is facing unprecedented challenges. At the time of writing, the coronavirus COVID-19 has infected over 3.57 million people globally and as of the 4th of May 250,134 people…
Even amid the Covid-19 pandemic, wildlife roam free in their protected grounds, and in our imaginations. We can picture an elephant herd at a water hole, lion cubs tussling in…
Impacts of the coronavirus pandemic on vulnerable communities in the Global South go far beyond the looming public health emergency. The broader economic and environmental ramifications are of profound importance…
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…
When threatened, the pangolin — also known as the scaly anteater — curls up into a ball, hiding its head and face under its tail. While helpful in the short…
The European Union Timber Regulation (EUTR), which came into force in 2013, prohibits operators from placing illegally harvested timber on EU markets. EUTR implementation relies on a due diligence process…
It’s such a simple idea: plant a tree, let it grow, and each year it will capture more and more carbon from the atmosphere. This is the logic behind a…
Every day for the past week or so, I have woken up only to find a daily dose of more than 300 messages on my mobile phone. Piled up overnight…
In Peru, communities in the Andes and the Amazon have come together to defend the health of people and families affected by pollution from toxic metals. To achieve this, they…
The lion. The king of the jungle. It’s certainly one of Africa’s (if not the world’s) most iconic animals. It is on the ‘must see’ list of just about every…
Poaching is threatening wildlife conservation in Africa. Elephant (Loxodonta africana) and rhino (Ceratotherium simum and Diceros bicornis) populations have been devastated and the bush meat trade is severely impacting wildlife…
Fire is not natural to Australia, as incomprehensible as that may seem today. When humans first landed on the northern shores it was a very different continent. Most of Australia…
A forest in Brazil is set on fire to make way for soy plantations. An oil pipeline leak in South Dakota threatens the drinking water of local communities. A Honduran…
Every year, thousands of apes and monkeys are cruelly bought and sold as part of the illegal wildlife trade. The recent outbreak of the coronavirus, believed to have originated in…
A surfeit of disinformation is hampering public health efforts to contain and counter the coronavirus disease before it turns into a fully-fledged global pandemic. Various conspiracy theories are circulating about…
The extinction of the Chinese paddlefish, announced by researchers in January 2020, is entirely the result of human impacts on the Yangtze River over the last 50 to 60 years.…
Every day, tourists to lodges along the Kinabatangan River catch glimpses of Borneo’s “Big Five”: orangutan, proboscis monkey, pygmy elephant, rhinoceros hornbill, and estuarine crocodile. I wish I could tell…
The recent fires in Australia bring flashbacks of last August in the Brazilian Amazon, when news of massive blazes also captured the world’s attention (and for many, provoked intense concern…
In the past, wetlands — marshes, fens, peatlands, flooded forests, mangroves — were widely considered unproductive wastelands full of disease and danger. In a world where the human instinct was…
This was meant to be a moment of triumph in the long battle to save the world’s forests. The year when the bold commitment hundreds of companies made to eliminate…
Brazil is the most biologically diverse country in the world, harboring 10 to 18% of the world’s total biota. This biodiversity, however, is rapidly declining due to habitat degradation, overexploitation,…
As the COP25 climate conference in Madrid, Spain came to a close with little progress earlier this month, the future of the Brazilian Amazon remained dangerously unclear. The Amazon is…
A ceaselessly growing human population and an ever-expanding world economy based on the unsustainable demands of a few over-consuming nations, have already caused habitat degradation, forest fragmentation, and forest loss…