Tourism News

Oil palm plantations have been rapidly expanding across the tropics for the better part of the past twenty years due to high returns from palm oil production. But palm oil…

There are more than 5,000 different mammal species across the globe, but with this number being dwarfed by the 10,000 bird species, it is little wonder that bird-watching has become…

Before the arrival of humans—with their dogs, cats, and wild pigs—the northern Bahamian rock iguana ruled its home range, being pound-for-pound among the biggest land animals on the islands. In…

The crystal-clear waters of Cayo Arena in the Dominican Republic. Photo by: Tiffany Roufs. Finding true ecotourism companies isn't easy. While the tourism industry worldwide has latched onto the term…

If you fly over the Great African Rift Valley from its northernmost point in Ethiopia, over the great national parks of Kenya and Tanzania, and follow it south to the…

A hundred years ago, nature-oriented travel to places like tropical Africa and Asia was often associated with big game hunting. Today cameras have mostly replaced guns as nature-lovers travel to…

The sunlight poured through the canopy, casting dappled shade over Makara, a large silverback mountain gorilla, as he cast his eyes around the forest clearing, checking on the members of…

One kilometer off the Philippine island of Palawan lies the Rasa Island Wildlife Sanctuary; here forest grows unimpeded from a coral island surrounded by mangroves and coral reefs. Although tiny,…

Lesser flamingoes in Kenya. One third of the world's lesser flamingoes nest in Tanzania's Lake Natron. Photo by: Steve Garvie. In a choice between flamingoes and a soda ash plant,…

Baoting Li and Miao Autonomous County, Hainan Island, China. Photo by: Anna Frodesiak. An award-winning forest activist, Liu Futang, is facing trial in China for printing books without the proper…

This has become Watt's most popular and widely viewed photo to date. It was taken on a foggy February day in a haunting clearcut near the Avatar Grove. It has…

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…

Trachylepis cristinae, a newly described skink that is only found on Abd Al Kuri Island. Photo by: Fabio Pupin. Few people have ever heard of the Socotra Archipelago even though,…

Turkey's stunning landscapes and wildlife are under threat due to government ambivalence. Here, the sun sets outside Igdir, Turkey. Photo by: Cagan Sekercioglu. Turkey: the splendor of the Hagia Sophia,…

View Larger Map The Cambodian government has handed over nearly 20 percent of Botum Sakor National Park to a Chinese real-estate firm building a massive casino and resorts in the…

Map, Bahuaja Sonene National Park, Grasshopper Mimicking a Wasp. Photo by: David Johnston. Research and exploration in the Neotropics are extraordinary, life-changing experiences. In the past two decades, a new…

Mountain gorillas in Uganda's Bwindi Impenetrable National Park. The price of a daily gorilla permit has more than doubled since this photo was taken in 2006. Rwanda has raised the…

The giant river otter. Photo by: Frank Hajek. Behavior and conservation of the Amazon's giant river otter. Charismatic, vocal, unpredictable, domestic, and playful are all adjectives that aptly describe the…

The towering Puya raimondii is the world's largest bromeliad. Photo by: Giacomo Sellan. Found in the Andes of Peru and Bolivia, the world's biggest bromeliad Puya raimondii is imperiled by…

Traveling on the Kerong River with the Penan. Photo courtesy of Gavin Bate. News about the Penan people is usually bleak. Once nomadic hunter-gatherers of the Malaysian state of Sarawak…

Ecotourism doesn't hurt biodiversity, and in some cases may even safeguard vulnerable areas, concludes a new study from the Amazon in Mammalian Biology. Surveying large mammals in an ecotourism area…

Members of the collaring team with male, Gading. Don't worry the elephant is tranquilized. Photo courtesy of DGFC and HUTAN. Researchers have fitted three Bornean elephants with satellite collars to…

Kenyan native, Paula Kahumbu is the executive director of WildlifeDirect. She is the Winner of the National Geographic/Buffett award for conservation leadership in Africa 2011 and a National Geographic Emerging…

An Asian elephant wanders through tea fields in the Western Ghats. Photo © Kalyan Varma. When one thinks of the world's great rainforests the Amazon, Congo, and the tropical forests…

Snow leopard in the Wakhan Corridor caught on camera trap. Photo by: Wildlife Conservation Society. Decades of war and poverty has not exterminated snow leopards (Panthera uncia) in Afghanistan according…

Tiang migration across Boma-Jonglei-Equatoria Landscape, South Sudan. Photo credit: © Paul Elkan/Wildlife Conservation Society. At midnight local time on Friday, South Sudan became the world's newest nation. As celebrations continue…

Serengeti National Park in Tanzania, an immense expanse of East African savanna, is a world famous tourist destination because of its plentiful megafauna, particularly the great migrating herds of wildebeest.…

Forest temple in protected area in Thailand. Photo by: Katharine Sims. While few would question that conserving a certain percentage of land or water is good for society overall, it…

A line of tourist jeeps clogs the road in a dry forest, as all eyes—and cameras—are on a big cat ambling along the road ahead; when the striped predator turns…

Thousands of lesser flamingoes (Phoenicopterus minor) crowd in Lake Bogoria in Kenya. Nearly all of these flamingoes will breed in Tanzania's Lake Natron, now a proposed site for soda ash…