Among the ambitious commitments made at COP27 were plans for a methane monitoring satellite system that would improve tracking in the energy sector where the majority of global greenhouse gas…
“My son was covered in burns, poor boy – he just died,” says María Grefa, a Kichwa from Sinchiurco, a community in the northern Ecuadorian Amazon. The tragedy took place…
DHAKA — Md. Dulal Mia, 50, ferries passengers in his small boat from one end of the Buriganga River to the other. He has been living along the river for…
Food safety in Bangladesh faces a serious threat from heavy metal contamination, according to recent studies, with one of the country’s most widely consumed vegetables, the eggplant, containing potentially cancer-causing…
BANTAENG, Indonesia — Stepping into Mustajab Syahrir’s home in the village of Papan Loe feels like treading on a beach of fine sand. “What am I supposed to do?” Mustajab…
KATHMANDU — From early to mid-October, as Nepali Hindus celebrated the festivals of Dashain and Tihar, the skies over the Kathmandu Valley stayed a clear blue. To the north lay…
KATHMANDU — Hindus in Nepal marked Tihar this past week, the festival of lights that takes place at the same time as the better-known holy day of Deepavali. But for…
The Bangladesh government has taken no effective steps to implement the e-waste management regulations it introduced more than a year back, as the rules relating to it are stuck in…
New research looks beyond the known physical effects of plastic ingestion in seabirds and suggests it can cause on-going harm in various body organs, impacting health.
Rahayu, a juvenile female orangutan, arrived at a rehabilitation center on the Indonesian part of Borneo island feverish, unresponsive and almost comatose, recounts Karmele Llano Sanchez, program director at International…
“People’s post-traumatic stress levels are extremely high,” says Rafaela Facchetti, a researcher at Brazil’s National School of Public Health, or ENSP. The people in question are the residents of Petrópolis,…
Diseases affecting domestic animals, such as canine distemper, are increasingly infecting tropical wildlife, including wild felids, presenting a threat to biodiversity; so far solutions are few and funding is scarce.
From oil to diamonds, offshore prospecting looms over South African fishing town DORINGBAAI, South Africa — On Sept. 23 and 24, 150 women in the small fishing town of Doringbaai,…
A thick dark stain spreads near the Piedra Negra ravine, a source of water for the Kichwa community of 12 de Octubre in Loreto. The Indigenous community members say that…
In 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic consumed humanity’s attention, our species ran through 4.5 trillion doses of myriad pharmaceuticals. In India alone, one drug, paracetamol — a pain reliever used to treat…
“Should I have kids?” is an age-old question, but the urgent context we find ourselves in today isn’t, as we climb rapidly toward 1.5° Celsius (2.7° Fahrenheit) of warming above…
An environmental think tank in Cameroon has raised the alarm over the pollution of rivers in the country’s east and north. The Centre for Environment and Development (CED) says two…
DHAKA — Muzammel Hoque, 40, lives in the village of Konda, near the largest landfill that services the city of Dhaka, some 30 kilometers (19 miles) away. “The landfill has…
As freshwater “Day Zero” looms for the climate change-stressed Nelson Mandela Bay Metropolitan Municipality, home to 1.28 million people, officials face a difficult choice: risk failure of short-term groundwater supplies or seek long-term solutions.
The community of Deus é Pai (“God is our Father”) sits by the Tefé River in Brazil’s Amazonas state. As children play in a creek on a sunny afternoon, a…
JAKARTA — In May, Indonesians breathed a sigh of relief when President Joko Widodo announced that masks were no longer required to be worn outdoors as a guard against COVID-19.…
The increasing difficulty of accessing clean water is forcing young women in coastal areas of Bangladesh to try to halt their menstrual cycles by misusing contraceptive pills, putting their long-term…
JAKARTA — Jakarta’s recent episode of world-beating air pollution has highlighted what activists describe as belligerent inaction by the Indonesian government to address the source of the problem, even in…
“Many people have died on this railroad, killed by the trains,” says Deusimar de Oliveira Santos, a resident of the community of Auzilândia in Brazil’s Maranhão state, echoing a common…
DHAKA — Air pollution in Bangladesh is the worst in the world, contributing to a reduction of nearly seven years in the average life expectancy, according to a new study.…
Plastic has been found in the most unexpected places: in the deepest parts of the ocean, in the remote mountain air, in human blood. And now, it’s even been found…
Thirty years ago, Brazil issued a decree officially recognizing the ancestral land of the Yanomami people as an Indigenous territory. The new designation made the area, located deep in the…
Cannabis, marijuana, pot, bud, grass or herb — no matter its nickname, this go-to drug has long been associated with the essence of “green” and connected to eco-friendly movements. Yet,…
Despite some amazing rebounds, six decades after Rachel Carson’s call to curb pesticide use, the world’s birds are in deep trouble — assaulted by toxic chemicals, lost habitat, hunting, invasive species, and climate change.
Pollution is currently responsible for at least 9 million premature deaths a year worldwide, accounting for one in six deaths, according to a new report. Published in Lancet Planetary Health,…
