The concrete industry is a major carbon emitter and polluter, with severe human health impacts. But circular solutions, including electrifying cement plants, making low-carbon cement, and bio-architecture could offer relief.
TOKYO — The train to the farm rose from Tokyo’s labyrinthine subway network, revealing a hodgepodge of gray and tan buildings stretched on either side. The world’s largest metropolitan area,…
A paper generated by the Merz Institute, an Aotearoa New Zealand-based research institute, and published in the journal Science Progress in 2023, hypothesizes that the environmental crises our planet faces…
With rising demand for infrastructure development in Bangladesh, both private and public, the demand for bricks has increased over the decades. To meet the demand, production has also risen. The…
KATHMANDU — The Bagmati River, coursing through Nepal’s capital, Kathmandu, has transformed into a sewer canal in recent decades, with untreated raw sewage discharged into its waters. Officials are now…
In India, the majority of the population resides in rural areas, and the concept of development is often associated with urbanization. However, in environmentalist Ravi Chopra’s mind, rural development must…
As the sun rises over the wetlands on the shores of Lake Victoria, papyrus harvesters set out into the swamps to harvest stalks of papyrus. At the docks, fishermen returning…
An unprecedented time-series study in the basin of the Tapajós River, a major tributary of the Amazon, assesses the level of degradation of small rivers threatened by agribusiness expansion.
With its iconic skylines and waterfront vistas, Singapore is today a bustling city-state with one of the highest population densities in the world. Two centuries ago, before the British chose…
A professor at the University of Florida, Michael Heckenberger has been visiting and studying Indigenous peoples at the Upper Xingu River for decades and says the Amazon is already facing its tipping point: “It’s a tipping event.”
MAKASSAR, Indonesia — Daeng Bau says he has no plans to move from his home on the tiny island of Lae-Lae, a stone’s throw across the seafront here in Makassar,…
In mid-April, the government of Thai Binh province on Vietnam’s north-central coast quietly issued a decision that has since spawned growing controversy. The decision removed protection from almost 90% of…
KATHMANDU — On a hot and humid day in Bardibas, a town in the lowlands of Nepal, the sun beats down on the dusty roads where vans, cars and motorcycles…
NORTH PENAJAM PASER, Indonesia — When an expectant mother is around three days from entering labor, the Suku Balik prepare a container out of coconut palm containing fruit, tobacco and…
Four thousand students planted nearly 10,000 trees on public school grounds in the city of São Paulo, Brazil, in 2022, and another eight mini-forests will be planted in 2023.
Indonesia is readying a fleet of drones to launch over Nusantara, its new capital city, as part of efforts to protect the under-construction site in Borneo from wildfires, officials told…
Urban green spaces — parks, gardens and other green areas where people can go to enjoy some fresh air — are more than just pretty places to relax. New research…
Bangladesh has been swept up in the massive heat wave scorching large parts of Asia, with temperatures among the highest in six decades. The country’s capital, Dhaka, saw the temperature…
KATHMANDU — The B.P. Koirala Memorial Cancer Hospital in Nepal’s central Bharatpur city, Chitwan District, bustles as patients, most of them from the country’s northern hilly areas, line up for…
La Campana National Park, located in Chile’s Valparaíso region, is considered a jewel. It’s a biodiversity oasis in one of the most densely populated areas of the country. Inside the…
PHNOM PENH — On the edges of Boeung Tamok, Phnom Penh’s largest lake, 25-year-old Kong Khun sheltered from the late June heat in a bamboo hut. Despite clear skies, Khun…
Jean Wiener should be elated. The organization he leads, FoProBim, has just won a series of grants to help protect mangroves in Haiti. In the coming months, he and his…
KATHMANDU — As the monsoon draws to a close in Nepal, workers are putting the finishing touches on a dam designed to breathe life back into a sacred river that’s…
Environmental regulation runs up against political roadblocks in many nations, but the trend is especially strong in authoritarian countries like Turkey, where weak laws, lack of transparency, and repression are rife.
It was over twenty years ago when locals in Bolivia’s northern plains told archaeologist Heiko Prümers, with the German Archaeological Institute in Bonn, about mysterious mounds of earth in the…
Pollution is currently responsible for at least 9 million premature deaths a year worldwide, accounting for one in six deaths, according to a new report. Published in Lancet Planetary Health,…
Human transgressions of the biodiversity, land-use, pollution and climate planetary boundaries are altering gut microbiomes across species, impacting human health and ecosystems. But there’s hope.
MANAUS, Brazil — In the historic center of Manaus, the largest city in the Brazilian Amazon, a giant mural depicting the city’s Indigenous history looms above pedestrians jostling for space…
Urban development projects surrounding a protected lake in Paraguay are threatening the recovery of local ecosystems and raising questions about the government’s ability to circumvent conservation mandates. Wetlands around Lake…
KAVREPALANCHOK, Nepal — Ram Shrestha is spraying pesticide on his potato plants next to a paved road. The cracked earth seems lifeless here in this part of Kavrepalanchok district, a…