Forgotten Species: the wonder-inducing giant clam
Everyone knows the tiger, the panda, the blue whale, but what about the other five to thirty million species estimated to inhabit our Earth? Many of these marvelous, stunning, and…
Ten African nations pledge to transform their economies to take nature into account
African elephants at Chobe River in Botswana. Photo by: Tiffany Roufs. Last month ten African nations, led by Botswana, pledged to incorporate "natural capital" into their economies. Natural capital, which…
Scientists: if we don’t act now we’re screwed
Aerial view of the infamous Río Huaypetue gold mine in the Peruvian Amazon. This remote but massive gold mine is known for the destruction of primary rainforest, widespread mercury pollution,…
Scientists to Rio+20: save biodiversity to save ourselves
An as yet unidentified species of gecko on the island of Java, Indonesia. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. World leaders need to do much more to protect the Earth's millions…
Highest priority conservation sites provide essential services for people too
Sunset over the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta in Colombia. This site is the last remaining refuge of 13 highly threatened species, but also provides many benefits to people. For…
Seagrass beds store 20 billion tons of carbon
Researchers say restoring seagrass beds would mitigate climate change. Mangroves above and seagrass below in Vohemar Bay, Madagascar. Photo: © Keith Ellenbogen/iLCP. Just below the ocean's surface lies a carbon…
Consumption, population, and declining Earth: wake-up call for Rio+20
Suburban sprawl in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The average American's ecological footprint is the fifth highest in the world. Photo by: Jeremy Hance. Human society is consuming natural resources as if…
Wildlife in the tropics plummets by over 60 percent
Devastated rainforest in Indonesian Borneo. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. In 48 years wildlife populations in the tropics, the region that holds the bulk of the world's biodiversity, have fallen…
Can loggers be conservationists?
Sawmill in Indonesia. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Last year researchers took the first ever publicly-released video of an African golden cat (Profelis aurata) in a Gabon rainforest. This beautiful,…
Biodiversity loss cripples plant growth
Jungle tree in Ujung Kulon National Park on the Indonesian island of Java. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. For decades scientists have been warning that if global society continues with…
Doing good and staying sane amidst the global environmental crisis
An interview with Dr. Sarah Bexell. The vanishing giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) is just one victim of the global environmental crisis. Photo by: Sarah Bexell. Several years ago while teaching…
Featured video: How to save the Amazon
The past ten years have seen unprecedented progress in fighting deforestation in the Amazon. Indigenous rights, payments for ecosystem services, government enforcement, satellite imagery, and a spirit of cooperation amongst…
For Earth Day, 17 celebrated scientists on how to make a better world
Observations of planet Earth from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on July 11, 2005. Photo by: NASA. Seventeen top scientists and four acclaimed conservation organizations have called for radical…
U.S. gobbling illegal wood from Peru’s Amazon rainforest
Logged wood off the Ucayali River in Peru. Photo by Toby Smith/EIA. The next time you buy wood, you may want to make sure it's not from Peru. According to…
Smoking gun for bee collapse? popular pesticides
A honeybee tagged with an RFID microchip for tracking its movements. Photo © Science/AAAS. Commonly used pesticides may be a primary driver of the collapsing bee populations, finds two new…
As world bodies dally, private sector, local governments forge ahead on valuing nature
Shifts in the carbon market, according to Forest Trends. Click image to enlarge Despite slow progress via the U.N. process and other intergovernmental bodies, national governments, municipalities, and the private…
Over 5,000 vital biodiversity sites remain unprotected
Macaya reserve in the Massif de la Hotte, southwest Haiti, is the number one AZE site containing 13 frog species found nowhere else in the world. Photo © Robin Moore/iLCP.…
Amazon plant yields miracle cure for dental pain
The world may soon benefit from a plant long-used by indigenous people in the Peruvian Amazon for toothaches, eliminating the need for local injections in some cases. Researchers have created…
Alaskan fishermen tell government to focus on salmon, not logging
Tongass temperate rainforest. Photo of Southeast Alaska, courtesy of BigStock. Alaskan fishermen and tour operators visited Washington D.C. last week to urge the federal government to shift the focus from…
California cap-and-trade law spurs U.S. forest carbon projects
Male lion in the Okavango Delta. © National Geographic Entertainment. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Now that California's carbon market has arrived, an Australian-based company that specializes in forest carbon…
Majority of protected tropical forests “empty” due to hunting
WARNING: Graphic photos below. Hunter in the Colombian rainforest. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Protected areas in the world's tropical rainforests are absolutely essential, but one cannot simply set up…
More big companies disclosing impacts on forests
Largescale clearing of Amazon rainforest for soy fields in Brazil. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. More companies are reporting on the impact of their operations on global forests, finds a…
New meteorological theory argues that the world’s forests are rainmakers
The Amazon rainforest meets cleared area for cattle pasture. A radical meteorology theory argues that loss of forest, both in temperate and tropical regions, will lead to less precipitation over…
Protecting original wetlands far preferable to restoration
Even after 100 years have passed a restored wetland may not reach the state of its former glory. A new study in the open access journal PLoS Biology finds that…
Economic slowdown leads to the pulping of Latvia’s forests
Aerial view over Latvian forests—please note almost all cutting patches are fresh, not yet regenerated. Photo by: R.Matrozis, 2007. The economic crisis has pushed many nations to scramble for revenue…
Recognizing value of nature could boost income for the world’s poor
The rural poor would substantially boost their income if the ecological services of the ecosystems they steward were valued and compensated by the rest of the world, claims a new…
Disease kills 6 million bats in North America
In just six years around six million bats have succumbed to white-nose syndrome in North America, according to U.S. federal researchers. The number, somewhere between 5.7 and 6.7 million bats,…
How lemurs fight climate change
An interview with Kara Moses, a part of our on-going Interviews with Young Scientists series. Kara Moses with the ruffed lemurs at Dudley Zoo, conducting undergraduate research. Kara Moses may…
Is the Russian Forest Code a warning for Brazil?
Recent deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Brazil, which last week moved to reform its Forest Code, may find lessons in Russia's revision of its forest…
Locals key to saving primate-rich wetlands in Cote D’Ivoire
One of the world's top 25 most endangered primates: the roloway monkey (Cercopithecus diana roloway) photographed in the Munich Zoo. Saved from being converted into a vast palm oil plantation…
Special series
Forest Trackers
- Bolivia’s El Curichi Las Garzas protected area taken over by land-grabbers
- Authorities struggle to protect Bolivian national park from drug-fueled deforestation
- Poverty and plantations: Nigerian reserve struggles against the odds
- Logging, road construction continue to fuel forest loss in Papua New Guinea
Oceans
- Warming seas push India’s fishers into distant, and more dangerous, waters
- No protection from bottom trawling for seamount chain in northern Pacific
- Annual ocean conference raises $11.3b in pledges for marine conservation
- Caribbean startups are turning excess seaweed into an agroecology solution
Amazon Conservation
- Deforestation haunts top Peruvian reserve and its Indigenous communities
- Amid record-high fires across the Amazon, Brazil loses primary forests
- A web of front people conceals environmental offenders in the Amazon
- Brazil boosts protection of Amazon mangroves with new reserves in Pará state
Land rights and extractives
- Women weave a culture of resistance and agroecology in Ecuador’s Intag Valley
- Hyundai ends aluminum deal with Adaro Minerals following K-pop protest
- Brazil’s illegal gold trade takes a hammering, but persists underground
- Maluku bone collector unearths troubling consequence of coastal abrasion
Endangered Environmentalists
- Indonesian activists face jail over FB posts flagging damage to marine park
- Vietnamese environmentalist sentenced to 3 years in prison for tax evasion
- Son of slain Quilombola leader will still strive for community’s rights
- Video: Five Tembé Indigenous activists shot in Amazonian ‘palm oil war’
Indonesia's Forest Guardians
- Fenced in by Sulawesi national park, Indigenous women make forestry breakout
- In Borneo, the ‘Power of Mama’ fight Indonesia’s wildfires with all-woman crew
- Pioneer agroforester Ermi, 73, rolls back the years in Indonesia’s Gorontalo
- After 20 years and thousands of trees planted, Kalimantan’s veteran forester persists
Conservation Effectiveness
- The conservation sector must communicate better (commentary)
- Thailand tries nature-based water management to adapt to climate change
- Forest restoration to boost biomass doesn’t have to sacrifice tree diversity
- How scientists and a community are bringing a Bornean river corridor back to life
Southeast Asian infrastructure
- Study: Indonesia’s new capital city threatens stable proboscis monkey population
- Indonesia’s new capital ‘won’t sacrifice the environment’: Q&A with Nusantara’s Myrna Asnawati Safitri
- Small farmers in limbo as Cambodia wavers on Tonle Sap conservation rules
- To build its ‘green’ capital city, Indonesia runs a road through a biodiverse forest
