Every day, people protect what matters. These are their stories.
1146 stories
Guardians of the planet, yet sidelined: Indigenous and local communities lead conservation efforts worldwide, despite barriers in global governance.
The people I write about are often described as conservationists, scientists, activists, or defenders. Those labels are accurate, but incomplete. What unites them is not a profession so much as a posture: they stood between something living and the f...
One morning, Deachen Chuksit went to her field to milk the cows, but found one missing. As a native of Ladakh, home to the snow leopard, this was not a shock. She had often heard of the snow leopard's notoriety and how it would kill her neighbor's ca...
In the heart of Namibia, a unique conservation project is quietly preparing for a future no one wants to face. At the Cheetah Conservation Fund, zoologist Dr. Laurie Marker has spent the past 35 years collecting and storing cheetah sperm samples. Her...
Winter has officially arrived in the Northern Hemisphere. With today's winter solstice, the days will start to get a little bit longer, but the cold will stick around. We humans typically handle the dipping temperatures by staying inside, sleeping mo...
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For much of the second half of the 20th century, the American outdoors attracted a particular kind of devotee. They moved easily between disciplines, took seasonal work without much concern for titles, and regarded time in wild places as both educati...
CARTAGENA, Colombia — Cartagena, a city on Colombia's Caribbean coast, is set to ban its iconic horse-drawn carriages and replace them with electric buggies. This move has divided the historic city over tradition, tourism, and animal welfare. For de...
When Mats Janzon found Leya, she was just a tiny baby curled up alone in the grass near his home in Sweden. Janzon was out on a quiet walk in the woods when he heard a soft peeping sound and saw it was a baby otter. He kept his distance for several h...
Mapping California's Fungal Diversity Over the past two years, a dedicated team of mycologists and experienced mushroom collectors have combed California's forests, rivers, and mountains in often remote locations, searching for and collecting fun...
Protecting Jeju Island's Dolphins South Korea's Jeju Island is taking groundbreaking steps to grant legal personhood to its population of approximately 120 Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins. This would be a first for the country, establishing the ...
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For a movement so often framed by loss—and confronting a particularly difficult moment—conservation is relearning how to talk about itself. This shift may signal something deeper than messaging: a recalibration of what persuades people to care, to fu...
Stunning Deep-Sea Discoveries in 2025 Over the past year, researchers from the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute (MBARI) in California guided remotely operated vehicles more than 3,000 feet down to survey the vast biodiversity within some ...
Protected Areas in Africa: Vital but Complex Perceptions Protected areas (PAs) are critical for global biodiversity conservation, yet their social impacts remain contentious. The prevailing narrative often pits the global benefits of biodiversity...
Tanzania's Tree-Climbing Hyraxes Adapt to Life Without Trees Despite their name, tree hyraxes — small, furry, nocturnal African mammals — don't always live in trees. In Tanzania's Pare mountains, near the border with Kenya, they've adapted to lif...
Honeymooning Owls and a Magical Frog Burrowing Owls Stow Away on Cruise Ship A pair of mated burrowing owls stowed away on a cruise ship out of Miami, Florida, and are now living the high life at a Spanish resort. The ship had a Central Park...
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Bhavna Menon, a conservation enthusiast from Pune, has been working with children in the villages around Madhya Pradesh's Bandhavgarh National Park to rewild their forests and promote human-animal harmony. Through her initiative "Prakriti Ki Pathshal...
Kenyan Woman Hugs Tree for 72 Hours in Protest A 22-year-old Kenyan woman named Truphena Muthoni is being celebrated for her endurance in hugging a tree continuously for 72 hours. This feat surpassed her previous record of 48 hours, which was rec...
A Rare Right Whale's Transatlantic Journey In a remarkable sighting, a critically endangered North Atlantic right whale (Eubalaena glacialis) was recently spotted near Boston, U.S., after first being photographed off the coast of Ireland in 202...
Costa Rica's 'Shocking' Wildlife Crisis: Nation Must Move to Prevent Animal Electrocution Costa Rica is renowned for its comprehensive laws protecting forests and wildlife, earning it the Earthshot Prize for Protecting and Restoring Nature. Howev...
North America's 'Largest Wildlife Overpass' is Finally Complete Every day, more than 100,000 vehicles travel up and down Interstate 25, a freeway that connects major cities in Colorado, Wyoming, and New Mexico. The six-lane highway is also a cruc...
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Earth's Freshwater Fish Face Harsh New Climate Challenges Southeast Asia's Mekong River is one of the world's most diverse and productive freshwater ecosystems, home to more than 1,000 fish species, including both the critically endangered Mekong...
Italy's Bears Are Showing Genetic Signs of Domestication Humans have turned many wild animals into pets and livestock over time, from wolves to dogs and wildcats to housecats. Now, scientists have found evidence of domestication in the chromosome...
A Grassroots Group of Women Mapped Air Pollution in Their Indian Village In the village of Jarangdih in Jharkhand, India, the first sound residents hear each morning is the whirring of heavy machinery from nearby coal mines. By afternoon, the air...
Rare Polar Bear Adoption Could Save Cub's Life Scientists in Churchill, Manitoba, Canada (known as the polar bear capital of the world) have confirmed that a wild female polar bear has adopted a cub that is not her own. This rare behavior was cap...
A study published in Nature Reviews Biodiversity in September describes the extensive environmental toll of mining for minerals needed for a transition to green energy. The direct, site-level impacts are well known — deforestation, soil degradation...
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Deep in a sea cave in Greece's northern Sporades, a bulky shape moves in the gloom. It's a huge Mediterranean monk seal, one of the world's rarest marine mammals. Piperi, where the seal has come ashore, is a strictly guarded island in the National Ma...
In Northern Sumatra, Indonesia, the Orangutan Information Centre (OIC) is working to rehabilitate orangutans who have been confiscated from the illegal wildlife trade. These orphaned orangutans are learning the essential skills they need to survive i...
Nearly 900 acres of ancestral territory have been officially returned to the Southern Sierra Miwuk Nation, marking a major milestone in Indigenous land restoration efforts in California. The property, which borders Yosemite National Park and the Sier...
What Frost in Ooty and Cold Nights in Chennai Tell Us About India's Winter From frost-covered mornings in Ooty to rare cold nights in Chennai and Shillong, Frost and Chill Across India Imagine waking up to sparkling frost on your balcony gra...
Icons of winter are sometimes found in unexpected places. In one striking example, a series of oval lagoons in a remote part of Siberia forms the shape of a towering snowman when viewed from above. This image, centered on the remote village of Billi...
Brightcast is dedicated to restoring faith in humanity by highlighting the progress, solutions, and kindness that often go unnoticed. We believe in a balanced worldview.
Read our full mission →
The Tingana Conservation Concession sits in the center of a unique wetland in the Alto Mayo Basin, the highest swamp in Peru with Amazonian characteristics. In its flooded forest, native moriche palms (Mauritia flexuosa, known in Peru as aguaje) an...
Women Sow Seeds, Restore Forests in Guinea, the 'Water Tower of West Africa' In January 2022, Mariame Condé was pregnant and nearly out of food when she collected 20,000 Carapa procera tree seeds around her hometown in Kofilakoro, Guinea. The pro...
Restoration efforts in Brazil's Atlantic Forest are finding success on private lands, according to a newly published study. Researchers evaluated the Atlantic Forest Restoration Pact, a collaborative initiative launched in 2009 to accelerate reforest...
'Living Rocks' Suck Up a Lot of Carbon Among the remarkable flora and fauna in South Africa are "living rocks" called microbialites. These communities are similar to coral reefs and are built up by microbes that absorb and release dissolved miner...
Dinosaur Footprints Discovered in Stelvio National Park Thousands of dinosaur footprints dating back 210 million years have been found in Stelvio national park in northern Italy. The footprints, some up to 40cm (15in) in diameter, are aligned in ...
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Believed to be malevolent to people, goblins are usually not the characters one roots for. That's why their name is often used to describe other creatures being naughty, too; that (goblin) cat stealing the spaghetti you made for dinner, for instance....
Following the path of the tiger isn't easy. Yet the three rangers, clad in camouflage, move lithely through the steep bamboo thicket, tracking the muddy hoofprints of a sambar deer. Out of the snagging vines, they emerge on a forested ridgeline overl...
Across many parts of Africa's Atlantic coastline, the sea is advancing several metres inland each year, destroying homes, infrastructure, farmland and heritage sites. Many coastal communities have already been erased from the map. Several factors c...
Mine-grown Moss Shows Unusual Power to Trap Toxic Metals from Water Toxic metals are seeping into northern waterways at a faster pace as climate change alters soils and drainage patterns. In Finland, researchers now say an unlikely ally may help ...
Cameroon, a nation of roughly 30 million people and over 300 indigenous languages, faces an uncertain future for its linguistic diversity. A long-lasting civil war and other humanitarian crises have triggered concerns about language attrition in the ...