The forests of the Gran Chaco in Paraguay continue to be the target of illegal deforestation, prompting one of the world’s last uncontacted Indigenous nations to reportedly reach out to…
Medical, public health, and conservation experts are calling for greater pathogen surveillance and regulation of the legal wildlife trade in order to quickly identify pathogens and prevent the next pandemic.
In August 2021, authorities at Malaysia’s Kuala Lumpur International Airport discovered a shipment of eight hornbills, caged but alive, en route to international markets. The Department of Wildlife and National…
An increase in the number of licenses for Brazilian beef exporters is a worrying sign that illegal deforestation could rise in some of the most vulnerable parts of the Amazon,…
Home to a third of the planet’s tropical forests, Brazil accounts for only 0.17% of the world’s main forest-friendly exports, new research has found. Significantly smaller nations — both in…
At a global level, the rate of deforestation is increasing year after year, driven by demand for products like timber, rubber, palm oil, cattle and coffee. Growing and cultivating these…
In May 2020, Shivaprakash Nagaraju, senior scientist at The Nature Conservancy in India, was working in New Delhi when he contracted COVID-19. “I had breathing problems and other symptoms, and…
The new, more contagious COVID-19 Delta variant is raging worldwide, while new pandemics are emerging at an ever-faster rate. But we’re still not taking the urgent action needed to prevent the next zoonotic disease outbreak, experts say.
The Mexican government will no longer protect the habitat of the critically endangered vaquita in the Upper Gulf of California, but has opened the area up to fishing, according to…
A new report shows that the world’s top fishing nations are using subsidies worth billions of dollars to exploit the high seas and the waters of other nations, including some…
Soybean farming accounts for most of the agrochemicals used in Brazil, and the farming activity concentrated in the state of Mato Grosso is now seeing those chemicals washing downstream to the Pantanal wetlands.
Despite a 2019 self-imposed ban, Facebook continues linking wildlife traffickers with buyers around the globe, while the U.S. government has so far done little to regulate trade facilitated by Facebook and other social media firms.
In 2019, Hong Kong customs authorities inspected a cargo ship bound for Vietnam. Hidden beneath slabs of frozen meat were 8.3 metric tons of illegal scales from about 13,800 pangolins,…
Toxic Bubble Bounce Mushrooms or Green Iguana Disco Mushrooms may sound like psychedelic drugs, but they are, in fact, names of live corals available for sale online. These brilliantly colored…
The United Nations Basel Convention regulates international transport of hazardous waste, which in 2021 expanded to include plastics. But the U.S. has never fully implemented the agreement; Biden may change that.
Shoes, watches, wallets and bags — anything made from exotic reptile skins — were plucked from the shelves in Selfridges, a high-end department store in the U.K., in February 2019.…
It’s been called a “river monster,” and for good reason. The arapaima (Arapaima gigas) is a freshwater fish that can grow longer than a horse and weigh up to 200…
Consumption patterns, especially in wealthier countries, are eating away at forests in some of the world's most biodiverse regions. In the U.S., the thirst for coffee drives forest loss in…
Ocean shipping is presently the world’s sixth-largest carbon emitter. But a push by entrepreneurs is addressing the climate crisis and trying to revolutionize the industry with a next generation of wind-powered vessels.
JAKARTA — Palm oil giants Indonesia and Malaysia are teaming up to fight what they call a smear campaign targeted at the commodity. The move sets the stage for what…
Pangolins, orchids and chameleons — these are just a few species that are regularly traded in local and international wildlife markets, contributing to a global industry worth billions of dollars…
An average 75% of respondents in 12 European nations say the gigantic EU-Mercosur trade pact should not be ratified if Jair Bolsonaro’s Brazil doesn’t end Amazon deforestation; EU governments are listening.
JAKARTA — The songbird trade in Indonesia has battered the wild population of the Sunda laughingthrush, an important seed disperser in the primary forest ecosystem, a new study shows. Bird…
Brazil’s biggest beef companies have been directly linked to more than 17,000 hectares (42,000 acres) of illegal deforestation in the Amazon state of Pará. According to a recent investigation by…
A day after Brazil announced 11,000 square kilometers of annual deforestation, France, the EU’s biggest buyer of Brazilian soy flour, announced plans to become more self-sufficient on the commodity.
JAKARTA — Two major pulp and paper producers associated with widespread deforestation and land conflicts in Indonesia may also have skimped on $168 million in taxes through a web of…
Almost a fifth of Brazil’s soy and grains already flow down Amazonia’s rivers. Now a boom in private river port construction, with little government oversight, further threatens the region’s waterways.
A hunger for shark fin soup — a brothy, gelatinous dish that’s considered a delicacy in East Asia — is responsible for the deaths of about 73 million sharks each year.…
In 2009, traditional Brazilian Amazon communities and Catholic nuns brought the transnational mining company to the negotiating table and galvanized Amazonia’s land rights struggle.
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.
