Palm trees are iconic figures in tropical landscapes, providing food, tools, medicine and materials for homes to millions globally and playing key roles in many ecosystems. Now, researchers have determined…
Coconut crabs, known in Indonesia as ketam kenari, are the world’s largest land crab. They’re also quite an unusual species: these invertebrates can live up to 60 years and measure…
The forests of northwestern Papua New Guinea are home to a group of wide-eyed and reclusive marsupials known as tree kangaroos. As their name suggests, they spend a lot of…
Ever heard of “other effective area-based conservation measures” (OECM)? Snappily named, they are not. But convoluted acronyms aside, supporters of OECMs, a designation by global conservation authority the IUCN, are…
MARSEILLE, France — Delegates at this year’s global conservation summit have voted overwhelmingly in support of a motion that calls for a moratorium on deep-sea mining and the reform of…
MARSEILLE, France — Indigenous delegates to this year’s global conservation congress have launched a “Global Indigenous Agenda” for conservation, calling for approaches to the biodiversity crisis that center land rights…
When Frank Mbago, a Tanzanian botanist, learned that the IUCN, the global conservation authority, had declared the Erythrina schliebenii plant extinct, he was wary. His skepticism was justified: in 2011, a team…
Few people likely associate the United Arab Emirates, a federation of seven mostly oil-rich emirates on the Western shores of the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman, with biodiversity…
The California condor has been teetering on the brink of extinction for decades. When the species was first assessed in 1994 for the IUCN Red List, the global authority on…
As recently as 1980, hunters in the forests of the Torricelli Mountains of northwestern Papua New Guinea could count on bagging at least a couple of tree kangaroos in a…
The area of protected land on Earth has increased to seven times the size of India since 2010, according to a report released May 19 by the United Nations Environmental…
Shoes, watches, wallets and bags — anything made from exotic reptile skins — were plucked from the shelves in Selfridges, a high-end department store in the U.K., in February 2019.…
Flamingos form lasting friendships, but they also have foes. A new study, published in the journal Behavioural Processes, found that close social bonds existed not only between flamingo couples but…
2020 was shaping up to be a good year for global policy on biodiversity. With momentum building from dire reports on biodiversity loss and climate change, policymakers were set for…
Scientific monitoring and protection measures aimed at helping a critically endangered species of fish in the Caribbean appear to be working, according to a recent study. The research, published Jan.…
PORT MORESBY, Papua New Guinea — The upstart deforestation over the past year and a half that's sidling up to Pochon Lili’s land has him worried. "As a landowner, I'm…
VIRUNGA NATIONAL PARK, Democratic Republic of Congo — Seven meters. It’s one of the first instructions you get from the guides at Virunga National Park, nestled against the eastern border…
Elephant poachers are using logging roads to infiltrate some of the last remaining pristine forests in Central Africa, according to a study published in July. The study’s authors also revealed…
From rays to deep-sea snails, primates to rosewood trees, the latest IUCN Red List update paints a gloomy picture for our world’s species. The update, which includes assessments of 105,732…
When a team of herpetologists led by Mendis Wickramasinghe found a group of webless shrub frogs in a remote montane ecosystem in Sri Lanka in 2010, it was an encounter…
The bleaching of coral reefs could permanently change the composition of the fish communities that inhabit them, a new study has found. The research, published online June 18 in the…
The length of roads in Congo Basin logging concessions has doubled since 2003, according to new research, raising concerns about the impacts of these incursions into the world’s second-largest bank…
The global trade of products that come at the expense of tropical forest is driving many primate species closer to extinction, a new study suggests. The research, published June 17…
Wild cat conservation group Panthera has signed an agreement with a member of the Saudi royal family to help protect leopards worldwide, especially perhaps the rarest subspecies in the world,…
BUKIT BAKA BUKIT RAYA NATIONAL PARK, Indonesia -- In the heart of Indonesian Borneo, a dwindling population of orangutans is getting a new lease on life thanks to a group of…
The way humans have changed the forests of Central and South America may be making it impossible for subsistence hunters to continue their way of life, according to two conservation…
The World Health Organization (WHO) approved the inclusion of traditional Chinese medicine in the revision of its influential International Classification of Diseases for the first time on May 25, touching…
It’s hard to imagine how the oceans might operate without the sway of human activity. The recent assessment by the U.N. Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services found…
It might seem harmless enough at first. The big eyes and the rambunctious, bounding play of the tiny cats and monkeys on your social media feed draw you in, and…
Life on this planet, in all its wide diversity, is disappearing more quickly now than it has at any time in human history, and some 1 million species of plants…
