Poverty News

Girl in village in Madagascar. One of the world's poorest countries, it has been estimated that about 70 percent of Malagasy people suffer from malnutrition. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler.…

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)'s last herd of zebra run free in Upemba. Photo courtesy of the FZS. Zebra racing across the yellow-green savannah is an iconic image for…

SOCCKET: the soccer ball that produces electricity. Photo courtesy of Uncharted Play. Recently, Jessica O. Matthews and Julia Silverman, both Harvard graduates, were awarded Harvard Foundation’s Scientists of the Year…

Deforestation of tropical forests for oil palm plantations in Sabah, Malaysia. Palm oil is one of over 15,000 commodities in a recent study that have been linked to biodiversity loss…

Lion with kill in the Serengeti ecosystem. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. In the effort to protect the Serengeti—arguably Africa's most famous ecosystem—one of the major problems is the bushmeat…

Vegetables in a Congo market. Photo by: Nancy Butler. Compiling over 1,000 foreign land deals from 2000-2010, a new report finds that 702,000 square kilometers (271,043 square miles) of agricultural…

A Malagasy girl. While Madagascar faces widespread deforestation and erosion, it is estimated that 70 percent of its people suffer from malnutrition. The Rio+20 Summit is attempting to tackle both…

Turkana children from northern Kenya, a region which suffers prolonged and extreme droughts. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. The Climate Change Task Force (CCTF)—made up of 30 climate scientists, other…

Cattle ranches carve into the Amazon rainforest in Brazil. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. As world leaders, officials, NGOs, businesses, and experts gather in Rio de Janeiro for the UN…

Aerial view of the infamous Río Huaypetue gold mine in the Peruvian Amazon. This remote but massive gold mine is known for the destruction of primary rainforest, widespread mercury pollution,…

Contrary to conception, the Sahara Desert’s most common feature is really the Hamada, or stone plateaus and gravel plains, which cover over three quarters of its surface, and harbors at…

Aerial view of jungle and delta in Indonesian Papua. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. A palm oil company has paid indigenous Moi landowners in Indonesian Papua a paltry $0.65 per…

Deforestation in the Amazon for cattle pasture. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Twenty-two conservation, indigenous, health and science groups have called on U.S. President Barack Obama to attend the up-coming…

An interview with the Nature Conservancy's China Program. TNC staff and volunteers repairing signage at Meili Snow Mountain National Park in northwest Yunnan. Community benefits and ecotourism are at the…

Suburban sprawl in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The average American's ecological footprint is the fifth highest in the world. Photo by: Jeremy Hance. Human society is consuming natural resources as if…

Livestock lay dead during the East Africa famine last year. Photo by: Oxfam East Africa. The UN warns that a million children in Africa's Sahel region face malnutrition due to…

Keyboard finds its way to Agbogbloshie. Photo by: David Fedele. Shirtless boys rapidly pull the computer apart, discarding bits and pieces, until they expose the wires, yank them out, and…

Observations of planet Earth from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on July 11, 2005. Photo by: NASA. Seventeen top scientists and four acclaimed conservation organizations have called for radical…

Illegal gold mining boat in Peru. Photo courtesy of Katy Ashe. On the back of a partially functioning motorcycle I fly down miles of winding footpath at high-speed through the…

Aerial photographs of Talangaye oil palm nursery in Nguti subdivision of Herakles Farms planned oil palm plantation. Photographs taken in February 2012. Photographer wishes to remain anonymous. Eleven top scientists…

Improving the evidence base for African great ape conservation: An interview with Sandra Tranquilli. Silverback gorilla in Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, Uganda. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Our closest nonhuman…

Local fishing in Madagascar. Photo by: Julie Larsen Maher/WCS. With the government of Madagascar planning to increase marine protected areas by one million hectares, a group of researchers have laid…

Moth larvae munching on a host plant. Photo by: Tom Corcoran. For anyone who works in conservation in Madagascar, confronting the complex difficulties of widespread poverty is a part of…

A village in South Sudan. Photo by: Steve Evans. The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the World Food Program (WFP) have warned that South Sudan is facing a food…

The rural poor would substantially boost their income if the ecological services of the ecosystems they steward were valued and compensated by the rest of the world, claims a new…

A hesitant response by the international community likely led to thousands of unnecessary deaths in last year's famine in East Africa finds a new report released by Oxfam and Save…

Pristine coastal vegetation: Misool island, Raja Ampat. Photo by: Dimtry Telnov, 2009. Entomologist Dmitry Telnov hopes his new pet project will inspire and disseminate research about one of the world's…

Children in Madagascar. Seventy percent of Malagasy people suffer from malnutrition. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Last year saw the highest average food prices since recording began in 1990, according…

An interview with Kara Moses, a part of our on-going Interviews with Young Scientists series. Kara Moses with the ruffed lemurs at Dudley Zoo, conducting undergraduate research. Kara Moses may…

The common hippo (this one in Botswana) is considered Vulnerable to extinction. Photo by: Tiffany Roufs. It may appear unintuitive that special toilets could benefit hippos and other wetland species,…