RAJA AMPAT, Indonesia — Nearly a million people visit the Shark Reef Aquarium on the Las Vegas Strip in Nevada every year. There’s a chance they see zebra sharks (Stegostoma…
States jostling for territorial dominance in the South China Sea have inflicted untold damage on the marine environment, according to a new investigation by the Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (AMTI)…
Gold is universally recognized as a form of money that has retained value over decades, centuries and millennia. Since it is non-corrosive and precious, approximately 95% of the gold mined…
Environmental advocates routinely oppose mining and hydrocarbon-development projects because they believe that remote areas of the Amazon should remain pristine. Typically, they organize their opposition during the environmental review process…
Mineral extraction is a major cause of contention among the inhabitants of the Pan Amazon. Thousands of families depend on economic activity that originates, directly or indirectly, from the mining…
IQUITOS, Peru — "Oh, they're so delicious," said Soledad Coronil, an elderly local woman, as she enjoyed a boiled tortoise egg earlier this year. "You have to open the shell…
ANTANANARIVO — Madagascar recently released its first fisheries transparency report, part of an effort to open up, democratize, and improve the sustainability of its fisheries sector. The report is a…
EL ARROZAL, Guatemala – A Yucatán black howler monkey, an endangered species, swung from a branch in its enclosure at the ARCAS wildlife rescue center in northern Guatemala. It was…
PURSAT, Cambodia — On the outskirts of the western Cambodian city of Pursat, some 180 kilometers, or 110 miles, north of Phnom Penh, tourists and travelers stream out of minivans…
In September 2021, Colombian police received an alert from a shipping company urging them to inspect some cardboard boxes that were about to be exported to Hong Kong from El…
LAMONGAN, Indonesia — Wawan has traded in stingrays for years out of the port in Lamongan, a district in Indonesia’s East Java province. At dawn, fishers are often seen returning…
PHNOM PENH — In late December 2023, on a remote island in Preah Sihanouk province, off the southwest coast of Cambodia, a team of conservationists uncovered nine nests belonging to…
Western hoolock gibbons (Hoolock hoolock), native to the forests of northeastern India, western Myanmar, and eastern Bangladesh, are among the world's most threatened primates, listed as endangered on the IUCN…
Shark finning bans have had little effect on protecting global shark populations, according to new research. However, shark mortality decreased in pelagic fisheries, which suggests that regulatory measures in regional…
In December, the Spanish government issued sanctions against 25 Spanish-flagged vessels that fished near the border of Argentina’s territorial waters between 2018 and 2021. The sanctions were for repeatedly turning…
DHAKA — Bangladesh’s strong economic growth over the past two decades has lifted millions of the country’s citizens out of poverty. It’s also led to a booming elite class —…
Illegal placer gold mining along the scenic Indus River in the area of Nizampur, District Nowshera, has escalated to alarming levels, posing a dual threat to national assets and the…
LUBUMBASHI, Democratic Republic of the Congo — On Dec. 2, Togolese authorities intercepted 38 monkeys at the airport. They were being sent from Kinshasa, the capital of the Democratic Republic…
The trade in shark fins is still underway in the United States, despite legislation making such activities illegal, an investigative report has found. Environmentalists say this indicates that officials need…
A three-year project supporting alternative livelihoods has shown success in changing the behavior of hunters living on the northern edge of Cameroon’s Dja Faunal Reserve. Participants signed on to reciprocal…
Indonesia’s shark and ray trade is highly regulated but poorly monitored, opening the door for illegal activity alongside the legal sale and purchase of these fish and their products. Finding…
JAKARTA — Most of the habitat of the Javan hawk-eagle is protected, but threats of forest degradation and isolation loom over the surviving population of Indonesia’s national bird, a new…
In a new, tersely-worded letter to Congress, President Biden uses a word that – just a few short years ago – was seemingly foreign to the lexicon of most Americans. Threatening…
The government of Thailand is about to reverse eight years of progress. Following the elections in Thailand this year, the new government is promising to “unlock” fisheries by reducing regulation…
AYACUCHO, Peru — From the sky, cleared areas periodically interrupted the green grasslands and steep mountains of the Asháninka Communal Reserve and Otishi National Park in Peru. Wide expanses of…
In November 2018, Pesqueras Echebastar, a Spanish tuna fishing company, received a certificate of sustainability from the London-based nonprofit Marine Stewardship Council, the world’s largest ecolabeling scheme for wild fisheries.…
CHITWAN, Nepal — When Hemanta Malla Thakuri, former deputy inspector-general of the Nepal Police, started training the country’s frontline wildlife crime investigators last year, he realized they operated similarly to…
In 2020 a report titled “Wildlife-snaring crisis in Asian Forests” was published by World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), estimating that over 12 million snares engulf Indochinese forests (Cambodia, Laos,…
Researchers studying “stop-and-search” seizures from Brussels’ international airport estimate that around 4 metric tons of bushmeat are trafficked into Europe each month through this gateway from countries such as the…
On Sept. 4, African Parks, a multinational nonprofit conservation organization, announced that it had purchased Platinum Rhino, John Hume’s controversial intensive rhino breeding operation, and intended to rewild the more…