Wearing nothing more than leaves hanging from belts of woven vegetation, the three scientists stand in the rain with little idea of what to expect. They’ve lived and worked with…

SIERRA NEVADA DE SANTA MARTA, Colombia — Asdrúbal Torres Torres places the thin, opaque leaf between his cheek and gums and begins to chew a sacred plant that has perhaps…

Reports of illegal trafficking in elephant ivory or rhino horn abound, but plants are actually more frequent victims of the illicit trade than wildlife. In fact, roughly 30,000 of the…

Read the other stories in this three-part profile of the Yiaku’s management of their ancestral forest: A forest of their own: The Yiaku as Kenya’s model forest stewards Kenya: Bees…

New research finds that seed banking alone is not sufficient to conserve the world’s threatened plant and tree species. According to a paper published in the journal Nature Plants this…

PAKULI INDUK, Indonesia — In a remote village on the Indonesian island of Sulawesi lies a small garden of near-mythic repute — a place whose stewards grow not mere plants, but…

On today’s episode, we’ll get an update on an ambitious effort to document traditional indigenous healing and medicinal practices in the Amazon and speak with the reporter behind Mongabay’s popular…

The natural world is full of medicines, many of which have been tapped by pharmaceutical companies to derive products that adorn our drugstore shelves and bathroom cabinets. But humans aren’t…

Today, Malaysia is one of the world’s biggest producers of palm oil. Together with Indonesia, the Southeast Asian country contributes some 85 percent of the global supply. But this has…

TENA, Ecuador - Benjamin Mamallacta Alvarado and his wife Dalia Tapuy Calapucha were both recently sick, but instead of going to a pharmacy to pick up medication, they went into their…

Scientists say that the Amazon’s rich diversity of life and the knowledge of its indigenous peoples could be paired with recent advances in biological, digital, and material science technologies to…

Concentrated in the Congo Basin, lush Guineo-Congolian rainforests stretch across Africa's midsection, from West Africa down to northern Angola and eastward towards the Great Rift Valley. But only one small…

As the human population continues to grow, the effects of climate change and rapid development increasingly threaten and destroy agricultural lands vital to feed the 7.3 billion people now inhabiting…

Tropical forests provide countless goods and services that help sustain human life. Given the rapid conversion of forests to agricultural lands, scientists say it is critical that we prioritize conservation…

Mark Plotkin speaking at TED Global in October in Brazil. If you have ever wondered about the connection between giant hallucinogenic frogs, uncontacted peoples, conservation, and climate change — and…

Portrait of a Matsés woman. Photo by Alicia Fox. Tribes in the Amazon are increasingly exposed to the outside world by choice or circumstance. The fallout of outside contact has…

Red mangroves of Uttar Kannada. Photo by: Viraj Singh. In the Uttar Kannada district of the Western Ghats, the livelihood of the average individual depends largely on the well being…

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…

Red-and-green macaws (Ara chloroptera) eating clay in order to aid digestion. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. As humans we take many things for granted. When we come down with a…

A yew tree in the Himalayas that produces the chemotherapy drug, Taxol, is in danger of extinction. An update to the IUCN Red List, has moved the tree, named Taxus…