Populations of bees, bats, butterflies and other pollinators have been declining for decades due to habitat loss, disease, pesticides and climate change. Now, scientists have documented yet another threat to…
When tropical forests are felled and converted into land for oil palm or rubber plantations, it’s easy to think of the orangutans or the tigers that may lose their lives…
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 Tapanuli orangutan (Pongo tapanuliensis) of Sumatra is both the world’s newest known great ape species and its most threatened, after being officially categorized this week as “Critically Endangered,” or…
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…
While walking through the forests of Guyana's Potaro Plateau one night in 2014, herpetologist Andrew Snyder noticed a flash of bright cobalt blue peeking out of hole in a rotting…
ANKAFOBE, Madagascar — When he first told colleagues at the Missouri Botanical Garden that lemurs still lived in the forest in Ankafobe, Jean Jacques Rasolofonirina said he was met with…
Across the swath of vertebrate lifeforms that inhabit Earth, scientists have a pretty good idea about where most of the known land mammals, birds and amphibians live. That makes identifying…
The conservation NGO WWF UK is calling on consumers to cut back the amount of meat they eat. Land used to produce feed crops for livestock and farmed fish threatens…
The changes wrought by climate change on the conditions that support life on Earth force some plants and animals into different ranges. To address this issue, certain conservation strategies aim…
From the Caribbean island of Puerto Rico, scientists have described two new species of Pisonia trees — a group of notorious "birdcatcher trees" known to produce sticky seeds that can…
Scientists can now rapidly read the DNA of an organism—even a plant—anywhere. Researchers at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, have recently reported on their use of a handheld real-time DNA…
How do you solve a conservation problem? Do you protect a wild leopard that has entered a village by removing it and releasing it into a forest far, far away?…
A biodiversity crisis is looming upon us. We are now in the middle of a “sixth great extinction” of animal species, scientists warn, with loss of species about 1,000 times…
PUERTO GARZA, Colombia – A Colombian conglomerate is moving ahead to build a nearly 400-foot-tall hydroelectric dam along the Samaná Norte River in northwestern Colombia, which threatens to extinguish critically…
Tropical forests are home to more than 50 percent of terrestrial biodiversity, and they also play a globally important role in storing and sequestering carbon. Forest conservation can therefore help…
It’s crowded in the tropics. Take the plant world: 1,000 tree species can coexist in a small equatorial area of only a quarter kilometer squared, according to one forest ecologist,…
Naturalists in India have rediscovered a rare flowering plant -- Arisaema translucens -- after nearly 80 years. Botanist Edward Barnes first collected this plant in 1932 from the Nilgiri mountains in southern India. The…
Humans make quite a racket, and all of the excessive noise we make is not just a problem in urban areas. About 14 percent of the land mass in the…
When talking about endangered species, we tend to think of African elephants that are killed in huge numbers every year for their tusks; the majestic tiger that is poached for its skin,…
Wildlife crime plagues nearly half of the world's natural UNESCO World Heritage sites, according to a new WWF report. Illegal harvesting -- poaching, illegal logging and illegal fishing -- of…
Unseen for decades in the wild, many species are now feared extinct. Some exist only as museum specimens, others are only known from old drawings or photographs. But some of these missing…
The Earth is losing species at a rate about a hundred times faster than historical (also called "background") levels. For specific groups, that number is higher still, with research indicating…
As the earth gets warmer, nations are putting their hope in tropical rainforests. Located along the equatorial belt of the planet, scientists estimate tropical forests are home to around half…
In a remote mountainous rainforest in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), scientists have discovered a new species of wild ginger. The newly described plant -- discovered on the…
Roads have been described as “an enormous net over the land” and “the largest human artifact on earth.” There are more than four million miles of roads in the United…
Discovering a new species is always exciting -- it shows that much of our world remains to be explored and described. This year, too, scientists discovered and described several thousand new…
Richard Evans Schultes was a Harvard professor, a scientist, an explorer, a writer, and a photographer. He is often referred to as “the father of ethnobotany,” a field of study…
On November 24, activists in Bangladesh began a ‘March towards Dhaka’, demanding the cancellation of the proposed Rampal power plant, which is slated to be built very close to the Sundarbans, the world’s…
At first glance, grasslands may look like monotonous stretches of green or gold. But closer inspection reveals a bounty of diverse grasses, clovers and wildflowers coexisting within small areas. These…
