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Conservation news

Environmental science and conservation news

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Donovan Kirkwood, protector of South Africa’s rarest...

Conservation news ·

2025/08/29

In late August, high in South Africa’s Jonkershoek Mountains, a small group of botanists picked their way across steep ground in search of one of the world’s rarest plants. They were surveying Penaea formosa, a critically endangered shrub thought to number fewer than 50 individuals. Donovan Kirkwood, curator of the Stellenbosch University Botanical Garden, was […]

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Tracking rhino horn trade: Interview with...

Conservation news ·

2025/08/29

How are rhinos faring around the world? As per new findings, it’s a “mixed bag.” According to a report published by the nonprofit International Rhino Foundation, the number of Javan rhinos, on the Indonesian island of the same name, have plummeted as a result of poaching. On the other hand, the numbers of black rhinos […]

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Newly hatched Socorro dove chicks bring hope to...

Conservation news ·

2025/08/29

Eight Socorro dove chicks hatched at Chester Zoo in Albuquerque, New Mexico, this year. These brown floofs represent a significant milestone for a species that is extinct in the wild. Socorro doves (Zenaida graysoni) once lived fearlessly on Socorro Island, located 400 kilometers (250 miles) southwest of Mexico’s Baja California coast. Old reports describe birds […]

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As forest elephants plummet, ebony trees decline in...

Conservation news ·

2025/08/29

In 2017, when Vincent Deblauwe joined the Cameroon-based Congo Basin Institute (CBI) to study African ebony (Diospyros crassiflora) — economically valuable pitch-black, dense wood — the Indigenous Baka people accompanied him on his field trips. As they sat around campfires and trekked through the rainforests, Deblauwe tapped into their knowledge of flora and fauna, especially […]

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Data debunks spike in Sri Lanka’s elephant killings,...

Conservation news ·

2025/08/29

COLOMBO — In recent months, elephants have stolen the spotlight yet again in Sri Lanka’s mainstream and social media. The surge in attention to them began when a series of deadly train collisions killed several elephants, followed by the agonizing death of the iconic tusker Bhahiya, whose final days were made into emotional videos. Bhahiya’s […]

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Liberian communities await justice at Salala rubber...

Conservation news ·

2025/08/29

Five months after the World Bank’s private investment arm submitted its action plan to address community grievances against a rubber plantation it funds in Liberia, affected residents are still waiting for its implementation. The case goes back to a 2019 complaint filed by four Liberian NGOs with the internal watchdog of the International Finance Corporation […]

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Brunei built Southeast Asia’s longest bridge. What...

Conservation news ·

2025/08/29

For local communities in Brunei, the longest bridge in Southeast Asia does more than connect remote eastern areas to the country’s urban capital; it also opens up access to rainforests teeming with unique biodiversity and protected species. Ethnic groups in the remote, eastern Temburong region have historically relied on hunting for sustenance, with low impacts […]

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‘It doesn’t make sense’: Marine biologist on Kenya’s...

Conservation news ·

2025/08/29

Kenya is in the process of building its very first nuclear power station. According to forecasts by the Kenya Nuclear Power and Energy Agency (NuPEA), construction is due to start by 2027 and will produce 1,000 MW of power. The town of Uyombo, in Kilifi county on the Kenyan coast, is one of three sites […]

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Brazil’s Atlantic Forest still losing ‘large amounts’...

Conservation news ·

2025/08/28

By 1970, scientists had spent 65 years thinking the black lion tamarin, a small monkey with a spectacular mane, was extinct. That year, locals found a small population of the species (Leontopithecus chrysopygus) clinging to survival in a patch of Brazil’s Atlantic Forest. After decades of efforts, around 1,800 of these football-sized primates now swing […]

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The call of a native frog is heard again in Southern...

Conservation news ·

2025/08/28

THE SANTA ROSA PLATEAU ECOLOGICAL RESERVE, Calif. (AP) — Efforts to restore the red-legged frog to Southern California, where it had all but disappeared, seemed doomed when the COVID-19 pandemic struck and restrictions were put in place at the U.S.-Mexico border. But scientists were able to airlift coolers of frogs’ eggs from a tiny population […]

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Officials struggle with land invasions in Mexico’s...

Conservation news ·

2025/08/28

MEXICO CITY — Mexico’s Balam Kú Biosphere Reserve has been invaded over the past year by people trying to establish a permanent settlement, and officials are racing to remove them before more of the forest is destroyed. Around 450 people have crossed into the reserve in the southern state of Campeche, clearing the forest for […]

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Rewilding project aims to restore resilience to...

Conservation news ·

2025/08/28

Some 30,000 years ago, Stone Age people decorated a cave, today known as Cueva de los Casares, in central Spain with pictures of mating humans (most famously), geometric shapes, and animals. The most popular carved animal is the wild horse. Cueva de los Casares sports at least two dozen images of wild horses. Eventually, these […]

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Indigenous people gain formal role in Amazon...

Conservation news ·

2025/08/28

The Amazon Cooperation Treaty Organization (ACTO) recently announced the creation of a formal role for Indigenous peoples, giving them a voice for the first time in one of the Amazon Basin’s most important intergovernmental bodies. The announcement was made during ACTO’s fifth summit of presidents of Amazonian countries in Bogotá, Colombia, marking a historic shift […]

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Small islands offer big hope for conservation of...

Conservation news ·

2025/08/28

Animals living on small islands are often thought to be more susceptible to extinction compared to those distributed across mainland land masses. Small population sizes, limited habitat availability, and genetic isolation can propel species into a downward spiral. However, new research from Indonesia’s biodiverse Wallacea region suggests that in areas facing intense anthropogenic disturbance, small […]

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Thailand’s living floral heritage takes root in a...

Conservation news ·

2025/08/28

CHIANG MAI, Thailand — During the second half of the 20th century, Thailand’s forest cover plummeted from around 50% to 25% due to urbanization and rapid economic development. Although legislation such as the Community Forest Act of 2019 has helped to slow the rate of deforestation by empowering those who live in the forest, the […]

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Brazilian court restores Amazon soy moratorium, for now

Conservation news ·

2025/08/28

A federal court in Brazil has reinstated the Amazon soy moratorium, a private-sector antideforestation measure that helps protect the Amazon Rainforest against the expansion of soy farms in the biome. The Aug. 25 ruling overturns a suspension issued last week by Brazil’s antitrust regulator, CADE, which had opened an investigation into claims that the two-decade-old […]

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Climate change intensified wildfire weather in...

Conservation news ·

2025/08/28

Hundreds of wildfires across Europe have burned at least 1 million hectares, or around 2.5 million acres, since the start of the year. That’s made 2025 the worst year for the continent since official wildfire records began in 2006. In Türkiye, Greece and Cyprus, which saw deadly fires peaking since June, weather conditions that drove […]

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Giraffe is now officially four species

Conservation news ·

2025/08/28

The IUCN, the global wildlife conservation authority, now officially recognizes four distinct giraffe species, it announced on Aug. 21. Until recently, giraffes across Africa were classified as a single species with eight to 11 subspecies. However, since 2016, when the giraffe’s threat status was last assessed for the IUCN Red List as vulnerable, several studies […]

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In Nepal, artificial ponds offer drought relief...

Conservation news ·

2025/08/28

KATHMANDU — Until the summer of 2024, residents of Rajabahs village in Nepal’s southeastern Madhesh province reeled under a water shortage for more than eight years as wells and springs dried up amid extreme summer heat. “We didn’t even have enough to drink, let alone bathe or wash clothes or irrigate our fields,” farmer Kul […]

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After 160 years, an old drawing leads scientists to a...

Conservation news ·

2025/08/28

COLOMBO — In the mist-wrapped folds of Sri Lanka’s Knuckles Mountain Range, a UNESCO-recognized world heritage site, where clouds softly wrap the rugged peaks in a soft embrace, a group of scientists recently stumbled upon a ghost from the island’s colonial past, in the form of a forgotten orchid. Nestled among the branches of forest […]

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