The COVID-19 pandemic has raised plenty of questions about whether the planet's declining health is what ails humans. The answer is yes, and it’s not a metaphorical response. Distorting the…
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — In a move that has prompted outrage in Cambodia and beyond, the Phnom Penh Municipal Court on May 5 sentenced five activists from the environmental group…
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Germany’s Chancellor, Angela Merkel, together with two dozen other leaders from around the world, have called for a new international treaty for pandemic preparedness…
Like many sectors, conservation has increasingly been reckoning with issues around inclusivity, representation, justice, and equity. Many of these stem from the sector’s origins in the West, where conservation has…
An invasion of up to 5,000 illegal miners is underway in the Raposa Serra do Sol Indigenous Reserve in Brazil’s Roraima state, Indigenous leaders estimate. Analysts say Jair Bolsonaro’s rhetoric has emboldened the miners.
Over the past 20 years, the conservation sector has increasingly recognized the contributions Indigenous communities have made toward achieving conservation goals, including protecting biodiversity and maintaining ecosystems that sustain us.…
In 2019, animal welfare inspectors visited Pienika Farm, a captive-lion facility in the North West province of South Africa. They found sick lion after sick lion living in conditions inspectors…
With much of the accessible lowland primary forests in Sumatra and Borneo cleared and converted for agriculture and industrial plantations, the Indonesian half of New Guinea is the last stand…
I think about that bat a lot. You know the bat I mean. I think about how it was likely captured from a forest in China— or perhaps somewhere further…
Manaus, the capital of Brazil’s state of Amazonas, has gained worldwide notoriety for its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic, first for the collapse of its hospital system in April 2020…
“Disasters and emergencies do not just throw light on the world as it is. They also rip open the fabric of normality. Through the hole that opens up, we glimpse…
The governor of Amazonas state in an exceptional appeal — apparently bypassing the Bolsonaro administration — is asking for emergency international assistance to combat a devastating new COVID-19 second wave.
Amazon hospital beds and ICUs overflow, and oxygen runs out as a new, maybe more virulent, COVID-19 variant rages. “It’s not a second wave we’re dealing with, but a whole tsunami,” says a doctor.
Like virtually everything in 2020, COVID-19 defined the year for tropical rainforests. Conservation was particularly hard hit in tropical countries.
2020 is a year that many people would like to forget. Here's a look at 10 of the biggest environmental storylines to remember. The COVID-19 pandemic The impact of the…
The COVID-19 pandemic has made it clear that when coronaviruses leap from wild animals to humans, the results can be devastating. A new study from Vietnam provides new insights about…
A thin plume of smoke rises above the lush canopy of the Apyterewa Indigenous Territory, deep in the Brazilian Amazon. A couple of men feed the flames engulfing a wooden…
Avoiding the loss of human life and the economic fallout caused by future pandemics will require a seismic change in our approach to the causes of the emergence of disease-causing…
Wade Davis is a celebrated anthropologist, ethnobotanist, photographer, and author who has written thought-provoking accounts of indigenous cultures around the world. These have ranged from The Serpent and the Rainbow…
Brazil is a leading producer of the world’s beef, but ranching is also the leading cause of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. Now the global pandemic has curbed meat consumption in both Brazil and China.
MANILA — On July 29, the San Miguel Corporation, the Philippines’ largest company by revenue, started planting 25,000 mangrove trees in a coastal area just north of the capital, Manila.…
The COVID-19 pandemic has shown that slaughterhouses are among the outbreak hotspots for the disease because of the low temperatures and crowded production lines. But they are also ideal locations for the emergence of new viruses due to the contact between humans and the blood and entrails of cattle.
Wildlife populations around the world have shrunk by 68% on average in the past nearly 50 years, according to a new report from WWF and the Zoological Society of London. In that…
PALAWAN, Philippines — At the heart of the island province of Palawan in the western Philippines, a verdant mountain range larger than Bangkok stands like a natural bulwark. It’s a…
For the past four years Marie-Cresence Ngobo has travelled between the scattered villages bordering the giant oil palm plantations run by Socapalm (Société Camerounaise des Palmeraies), which are located in Cameroon’s rural coastal…
MANILA — In the Philippines, it’s normal for neighbors to share their food, and — since most areas are still under a form of lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic…
For the rangers protecting one of the most threatened species of cattle in the world, a day at the office can involve facing off against poachers or walking a tightrope…
Sunday – Indigenous Peoples’ Day – felt like anything but a celebration. We are supposed to be celebrating and honoring Indigenous Peoples but – instead – we are mourning the…
In a remote slice of Triunfo do Xingu, deep in Brazil’s northern Pará state, swaths of lush forest have been engulfed by flames in recent days. In another stretch to…
MINDORO, Philippines — On May 12, the Philippine island of Mindoro reported its first confirmed case of a tribal resident being infected with COVID-19. The patient, a 4-year-old Indigenous Mangyan…
