With national borders created for geopolitical rather than ecological reasons, it’s unsurprising that the ranges of more than half of all terrestrial mammals, birds and amphibians cross at least one…
An international conservation group is pushing forward with ambitious plans for extended elephant corridors in Africa that would allow the animals room to move more freely — not just across…
Animals that eat fruit and spread the seeds in their droppings offer an all-inclusive transportation service for half the world’s flora. But as more seed-dispersing birds and mammals die off…
Gorillas, chimpanzees and bonobos face a bleak future thanks to a perfect storm of human-driven factors, a recent study shows. The triple whammy of the climate crisis, growing human population,…
The world is brimming with bad news about people failing to take care of the Earth. But there is a way to change the narrative, says Canadian conservationist Harvey Locke.…
In 2012, researchers described a teensy, aspirin-sized chameleon, Brookesia nana, from a thin slice of rainforest in northern Madagascar. The species, which experts believe is the smallest reptile in the world, grabbed plenty…
The growing consensus that the earth is in the throes of a sixth mass extinction has focused attention on a centuries-old ecological puzzle: why do species suddenly disappear by the…
The rainforest of Lopé National Park in central Gabon is one of the last safe havens for the endangered forest elephant (Loxodonta cyclotis). But in a new study in Science,…
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.
The devastating wildfires in Australia that have claimed the lives of more than a billion animals, by some estimates, are just one of the effects of global climate change the…
2019 was the year the environment finally broke into the mainstream. Inspired by Greta Thunberg’s youth strikes and Extinction Rebellion, climate activism blossomed around the world, and green concerns were…
The natural world that many of us knew as children is slipping away as the environmental crisis escalates and native species we adored move on or perish; while world leaders dither.
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…
On today’s episode, we talk with the Director General of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), Inger Andersen. Listen here: Founded in 1948 and headquartered in…
New research by scientists at the United States’ University of Washington and Stanford University suggests that the most destructive mass extinction event in Earth’s ancient history was caused by global…
SHARM EL SHEIKH, Egypt — As policymakers, conservation scientists and the global media geared up to attend U.N. climate talks in Poland, discussions on another environment-related global treaty were quietly…
African leaders came together on Nov. 13 to back the restoration of hundreds of thousands of square kilometers of degraded ecosystems ahead of the start of the U.N. Biodiversity Conference.…
Rising temperatures seem to have made a southern African park less hospitable to the tsetse fly (Glossina spp.), the carrier of a dangerous disease-causing microorganism, new research shows. Named for…
Dead whales are a nutritional boon for polar bears, and they’ve likely helped bears survive lean periods during warm spells in the past when much of the Arctic was ice-free.…
The equatorial ecosystems of the Albertine Rift are packed with plants and animals found nowhere else on Earth. Formed as tectonic plates in eastern Africa have slowly pulled away from…
This Atlantic hurricane season saw six Category 3-5 storms batter the Caribbean. Some already threatened species, especially birds, took a major hit. Others endured.
Bamboo-eating lemurs in Madagascar could be slowly starving as a changing climate slashes the availability of their favorite part of the plant, a new study shows. “For extreme feeding specialists…
The changes wrought by climate change on the conditions that support life on Earth force some plants and animals into different ranges. To address this issue, certain conservation strategies aim…
Planet Earth is barreling through its sixth mass extinction right now, and there’s little doubt among scientists that we humans are responsible. Despite the challenges we face, the encouraging twist…
Habitat loss, over-hunting and climate change are just a few of the human-induced changes to the Earth that biologists say are driving the planet’s “sixth mass extinction.” Research has shown…
SUKAU, Malaysia – At first blush, the muddy waters of the Kinabatangan River in northern Borneo seem to laze through a hodge-podge of sleepy fishing and farming villages. The river…
Large mammals living between about 7,000 and 25,000 years ago faced a massive upheaval in their environments on multiple fronts. As the Late Pleistocene was ending, humans were having a big…
A species has just three options in the face of environmental change: move, adapt or die. As global temperatures rise many species are shifting their ranges, particularly towards the cooler…
Evolution can be an exquisite hammer, tapping out finely honed strategies for the survival of life on Earth against the blunt force of the environment. But mess with those surroundings too…
Sometimes for a scientist, the disconnected pieces of years of research come together in a single, “really awesome” point in time. For ecologist Greg Asner, where it happened was about…
