Environmental headlines

TOKYO — Japan is actively exploring pathways to mine the deep sea of its exclusive economic zone (EEZ), in an effort to lessen reliance on imported mineral resources needed for…

With exponential AI energy demand threatening to soon overwhelm the U.S. electric grid, analysts fear that AI’s rapid entry into Latin America could bring massive energy and water consumption, putting communities at risk.

Mineral extraction is a major cause of contention among the inhabitants of the Pan Amazon. Thousands of families depend on economic activity that originates, directly or indirectly, from the mining…

A team of paleontologists found a giant fossilized skull along the shore of the Napo River in the Peruvian Amazon. To their surprise, the relic belonged to a newly described…

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…

The government in Suriname said it cancelled a controversial pilot program that would have brought hundreds of Mennonites to the country to carry out agricultural activity, likely in forested areas.…

KONO, Papua New Guinea — Chris Malgan sits in his outrigger canoe, singing and shaking a ring of coconut shells in the water next to the boat. The inky skies…

In early January, Brazilian environmental agents went on strike, claiming their salaries do not make up for their risky and highly-qualified work, in a threat to Lula's zero deforestation target.

DHAKA — On Jan. 7, 2024, in a rural area of northwestern Bangladesh, a nilgai, the largest species of Asian antelope, crossed the border from India. It never crossed back.…

Big philanthropic projects like the Protecting Our Planet Challenge usually capture the media spotlight, but how effective are these endeavors? Do they take into consideration the inextricable human rights considerations…

Nature is in crisis. Yet, there’s a massive $700 billion gap between the financing needed to stop biodiversity collapse versus what’s available each year. In December 2022, nearly 200 governments…

During a 2020 field trip to a rural area in Vietnam, Hoa (not her real name), then working for a conservation-focused nonprofit, visited local authorities to discuss forest management. Vietnamese…

On May 9, 1983, Soraida Chindoy Buesaquillo’s placenta was planted in the mountains of Putumayo, where Colombia’s Amazon rainforest meets the Andes. Her mother, Concepción Buesaquillo, was a midwife by…

KOSÑIPATA, Peru – “It’s the best road I’ve ever gone birding on, in terms of the variety of habitats and birds,” says Victor Emanuel, one of the pioneers of modern…

The recent death of a critically endangered freshwater Irrawaddy dolphin in southern Thailand’s Songkhla Lake has brought the plight of the waterbody’s tiny remaining population into stark focus. As few…

The state government of Sabah in Malaysian Borneo has reaffirmed its plans to proceed with an opaque nature conservation agreement despite concerns raised by the United Nations. Representatives of Sabah’s…

Researchers and protection agencies expected a dry season with more fires in Brazil’s Roraima state at the start of 2024, but the effects of an intense and prolonged El Niño have aggravated the situation.

Underground ecosystems are everywhere. From gargantuan lightless mazes to pore-sized bedrock gaps inhabited by microfauna — super tiny animals — these ecosystems are believed to be the most widespread nonmarine…

By now, dozens of countries have some version of a forestry incentive program, with the government paying local property owners to keep their trees in the ground. But a lot…

In some ways, village life on Oman’s Jabal Akhdar Mountain is the same as it has always been. Water still runs through the ancient aflaj channels. People still cultivate pomegranates,…

SOUTH KULAWI, Indonesia — In a forested valley in the interior of Sulawesi Island, Elisabet Heta gathers up a clutch of farming tools used by the Moa Indigenous people and…

A machine learning model of ammonia emissions from the world’s rice, wheat and corn crops shows that optimal fertilizer management could slash ammonia air pollution from these crops by 38%.

IQUITOS, Peru — "Oh, they're so delicious," said Soledad Coronil, an elderly local woman, as she enjoyed a boiled tortoise egg earlier this year. "You have to open the shell…

Kamilo Melo was building a robot shaped like a salamander for his Ph.D. in 2015 when an unexpected assignment came knocking on his door. Two producers at the BBC were…

Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon has continued on a downward trajectory despite a sharp increase in fires associated with the severe drought in the region, reveals data released by Brazil's…

Most used in China, North America, Europe and Australia, TP causes deforestation, needs lots of energy and water to make, and is hard to dispose of. Solutions abound, from the bidet, to recycled paper, bamboo and other alternatives.

The climate emergency has affected development and violated the rights of children and adolescents around the world, and in Brazil. In addition to fires, prolonged, extreme droughts make access to…

For years, detecting illegal roads in remote areas has remained a challenging and labor-intensive task. More often than not, it requires poring over satellite images to identify thin lines cut…

Thousands of miles off the southeast coast of South America lies a set of remote islands, one broad and comma-shaped, the others a series of small dots that trail off…

Amazonian states have gone largely unrepresented at the top of the Brazilian judicial system for decades, a political distortion that has spurred calls for reform.