In late September 2014 a besuited and bearded Leonardo DiCaprio stood at the grey marble dais in the UN General Assembly in New York and declared somberly that world leaders had to ‘make history or be vilified by it.’ The pressure was mounting for climate action and governments, companies and NGOs responded with a blizzard […]
To help address the biodiversity crisis, momentum has been gaining around establishing and tracking protected areas (PAs) and Other Effective area-based Conservation Measures (OECMs) to achieve 30-by-30, the conserving of 30% of our Earth by 2030. However, a wide variety of conservation efforts occur beyond PAs and OECMs, often led by actors that are traditionally […]
Our ocean is being hit hard by global warming. Marine heatwaves are devastating coral reefs, triggering the largest global mass bleaching event on record last year, while ocean wildlife — already struggling from overfishing — faces mounting challenges. New research shows a 56% decline in marine species populations since 1970. Simply put, our blue ocean […]
The world’s leading conservationists will flock to Cali, Colombia, this October for the U.N. biodiversity conference, COP16. Within Cali’s bustling urban environment, it’s easy to forget that the city lies at the foothills of Los Farallones de Cali, a major biodiversity hotspot and national park in the Andean mountain range. Migratory birds fly overhead and […]
Nguyen Thi Thanh Thuy, a waste worker from Binh Dinh, Vietnam, has worked in the waste collection industry for four decades. She has spent every day at the landfill – her home and source of income – since she was a child. Like many developing economies in the region, Vietnam has limited household waste separation. […]
A pioneering law under attack The world’s governments have long acknowledged the need to halt and reverse the loss of the planet’s precious forests, not least because of the contribution that loss is having on the global climate. There is also consensus that by far the largest driver of deforestation – and associated negative impacts […]
With the past 10 years, the hottest on record, and four days in July the hottest ever recorded, the climate emergency is coming ever more into focus. Directly linked to the acceleration of species extinction and ecosystem collapse, the need to take bold steps to curb climate change, including reducing fossil fuel emissions, is clear. […]
Scientists, communities and government officials from five African countries agree that the freshwater fish stocks in the Kavango and Zambezi River systems are in severe trouble. Delegates representing all three of these stakeholder groups came together in Windhoek, Namibia in July 2024 to share their knowledge and find ways to address this urgent situation. The […]
PANDEGLANG/JAKARTA, Indonesia — A recent revelation that up to 26 Javan rhinos may have been poached, out of a total population of 70-odd, has come as a major blow to conservation efforts in Indonesia. The still-unfolding case has highlighted flaws in security management at Ujung Kulon National Park, the last place on Earth where this […]
Vietnam is a mountainous country, with three-quarters of its land area covered by mountains and hills. However, according to the Vietnamese Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, forest cover was only 42.02% as of June 2022. Furthermore, more than two-thirds of Vietnam’s natural forests are considered degraded. The World Bank Group reports that “two-thirds of […]
Uneven governance is wrecking the co-management model that is supposed to be the pride of Belize conservation. I’ve been conducting research on Belize’s biodiversity and fisheries on and off since 2010, but since 2023, I’ve been part of a group of researchers that make up the Belize Fisheries Project, which brings together a team of […]
I once had a sweet, brown pit bull mix named Thembi, who had impressive musculature and a magnificent nose. Often on our walks, I would feel the leash go taut and know she’d sniffed out something tantalizing, likely a squirrel or a rabbit. She would snuffle excitedly, muzzle to the ground, tracing her quarry’s skittish […]
This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network. LUBUMBASHI, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) — On Oct. 13, 2023, on National Road 39, a police officer gestures for us to slow down. The narrow road has been reduced to a single lane from the usual two. A damaged truck lies […]
“April is the cruelest month,” wrote T.S. Eliot in the poem The Waste Land. For the 30 million residents of India’s southern state of Kerala, this April was particularly cruel, with the India Meteorological Department (IMD) declaring the first ever recorded heatwave in the state. The heatwave also came at a time when Kerala, along […]
We are now in a make-or break-moment for the landmark law to halt imported global deforestation into the European Union. Global forest defenders watch with bated breath as in the next few days, the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen will either decide to support the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR), or to […]
Monarch butterflies are returning to gardens across the United States, but a few months ago, I stood in a mountain forest in Mexico where the monarchs spend the winter. They clustered on trees by the thousands and when the sun hit them, they swarmed in a cloud of bright orange confetti. I was surrounded by […]
It’s a hot and humid afternoon in Vientiane, the capital of Laos. Our contact at Burapha Agro-Forestry welcomes us to an empty boardroom full of maps. The meeting goes smoothly, though we can’t help noticing that our contact is the only employee in office. “Why is it empty?” we wonder. Before we get the answer, […]
The Business of Conservation conference was held in Rwanda in August 2023. In the lead up, my social media feeds were full of NGOs I follow advertising their attendance and the sessions they were involved in. The small NGO I was working with, only a year old, decided against attending, mainly a strategic decision around […]
Western hoolock gibbons (Hoolock hoolock), native to the forests of northeastern India, western Myanmar, and eastern Bangladesh, are among the world’s most threatened primates, listed as endangered on the IUCN Red List. Previously, they were listed among the 25 most endangered primates, and Bangladesh’s gibbon population may be the most precarious, with an estimated 300-400 […]
Reporting for this story was supported by the Dom Phillips Grant of the Rainforest Journalism Fund in collaboration with the Pulitzer Center, and it won the 2025 International Anti-Corruption Excellence (ACE) Award for Investigative Journalism. IQUITOS, Peru — On the Peruvian side of the Yavarí River, overlooking the lush Brazilian shore, a weary Matsés man […]
