All told, this was a pretty bleak year. The COVID-19 pandemic brought tragedy and confusion; fires razed parts of Australia, the Amazon, and the Western U.S.; and the world is…
Books have provided a welcome refuge in 2020. The global pandemic has, in many cases, turned even routine travel into a risk not worth taking, and it has left many…
In this well-trodden world, the discovery of a species new to science is an exciting event, a glimmer of the uncharted riches of biodiversity still hidden around the globe. “Every…
While the world focuses on the development of new vaccines against COVID-19, biologists are building the case for using vaccines for the conservation of wildlife. Our own research on the…
Under the thick blanket of smoke, relentless flames spread with dizzying speed over swaths of Pantanal Matogrossense National Park, its grasslands parched by months of drought. In a charred marshland,…
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…
Camera traps bring you closer to the secretive natural world and are an important conservation tool to study wildlife. This week we’re meeting the Eurasian badger. Eurasian badgers live from…
The mountainous forests of northern Madagascar are biodiverse beyond measure, containing plant and animal species found nowhere else on the planet. Other forests in Madagascar have been lost in recent…
The four-wheel-drive bumped over a rutted road. Rain that began as soon as they left the pavement was so thick that the road, compacted by traffic, became slippery, and the…
1. The ocean in a worldwide pandemic As the year that challenged the world with a widespread pandemic draws to a close, COVID-19 has affected almost every aspect of life…
Editor's note: Widodo died of COVID-19 on December 24, 2020. BOGOR, Indonesia — Indonesian biologist Widodo Sukohadi Ramono is one of the longest-standing and most influential figures in the country’s…
Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, biodiversity conservation funding from tourism and donations has dried up. Yet a new report published by The Paulson Institute, Cornell University, and The Nature Conservancy outlining…
The Trans-Sumatran Highway is a $1.1 billion dollar project spanning 2,700 kilometers – from Banda Aceh in the north to Bandar Lampung in the south – and is designed to…
The pungent stench of an elephant carcass filled the acacia plantation. Estimates placed its death at six days before it was found on Nov. 18, 2019. Maggots filled the base…
A plan by Brazil’s Norte Energia, builder and operator of the Belo Monte mega-dam, to drastically reduce Xingu River water flows will be a disaster for habitat, fish, fisheries, and riverine communities, experts say.
The iconic monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) meets the criteria to be listed under the U.S. Endangered Species Act — but will not be listed just yet because priority will be…
World Trade Organization negotiators failed to agree on rules to ban harmful subsidies to fisheries in time to meet a 2020 deadline. Months of intensive online talks ended on Dec.…
Jumar is no stranger to the presence of elephants. Having lived and farmed in the village of Pematang Pudu village in Bengkalis district, in Indonesia’s Riau province, for more than…
An expedition into the cloud forests of the Bolivian Andes has uncovered 20 species new to science, including a frog that may be the smallest in the Andes, a new…
When a trio of beaked whales surfaced off Mexico’s Pacific coast, researchers thought they’d found the elusive Perrin’s beaked whale (Mesoplodon perrini), an endangered species that’s never been officially sighted…
Experts at two of Brazil’s leading wildlife conservation bodies are on high alert following a spate of seizures of hyacinth macaws and golden lion tamarins from alleged traffickers in recent…
For years, Anthony Caere, an anti-poaching pilot at Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), peered through the windows of his helicopter to see a landscape mostly…
The bison circled four times around the holding pen, before the lead animals took them into the 3,400-hectare (8,500-acre) pasture, their new home on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in the…
Today we look at efforts to preserve and restore the biodiversity of the Cerrado in Brazil, the world’s largest and most biologically-rich tropical savanna. Listen here: Comprising more than 20%…
Public attitudes in China have shifted substantially to favor stricter regulations on the wildlife trade and a willingness to stop consuming wildlife, researchers reported recently in the Chinese journal Biodiversity…
Camera traps bring you closer to the secretive natural world and are an important conservation tool to study wildlife. This week we’re meeting the white-faced capuchin. White-faced capuchins have distinctive…
A few months after the first confirmed cases of COVID-19 began to pop up in the U.S., a piece of news came out of the Bronx Zoo in New York…
Brazil’s Serra do Divisor National Park is at risk from a BR-364 branch road running from Acre state to Peru. Brazil’s Congress is about to strip away the park’s protections, risking wholesale deforestation.
North Sumatra is home to 1 of only 8 known great ape species in the world, the newly described Tapanuli orangutan, first classified in 2017 after its habits and DNA…
The COVID-19 pandemic has made it clear that when coronaviruses leap from wild animals to humans, the results can be devastating. A new study from Vietnam provides new insights about…