Every day, people protect what matters. These are their stories.
Humans are so enmeshed with the lives of wild creatures, it can be hard even for scientists to see when our presence is causing problems. For three decades, scientists have tracked Bonelli’s eagles in southern Spain. The area is home to much of the endangered European population of the massive bird,...
Earth’s orbit is getting crowded with broken satellites and leftover rocket parts. Researchers say the solution is to build spacecraft that can be repaired, reused, or recycled instead of abandoned. They also want new tools to collect old debris and new data systems that help prevent collisions. The...
Delegates at a global summit to update international wildlife trade rules have agreed on sweeping new protections for more than 70 shark and ray species. The move marks a significant step toward effectively tightening the legal trade in some of the world’s most threatened marine life. The meeting in Samarkand, Uzbek...
Farmers plant or preserve riparian buffers for various reasons, such as improving water quality, controlling erosion, or maintaining hunting habitat. Now, a new study from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign underscores the benefits of riparian buffers to terrestrial biodiversity, finding th...
In 1997, ecologists Daniel Janzen and Winnie Hallwachs approached an orange juice company in Costa Rica with an off-the-wall idea. In exchange for donating a portion of unspoiled, forested land to the Área de Conservación Guanacaste — a nature preserve in the country's northwest — the park would all...
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From 2018 to 2020, no one in Dorset, England saw hide nor hair (or rather, fin nor snout) of a single spiny seahorse off the sandy beaches of Studland Bay. But in 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic offered a silver lining. Without the constant influx of tourists and boats, the endangered seahorses re-emerg...
Laundromats are an important source of airborne microfibers, according to a new study. The fix could be as simple as installing an extra filter on clothes dryers to trap the fibers, another study focusing on home dryers suggests. “Our clothes dryers are emitting microfibers into the air, but this is...
A University of Toronto team has designed a new method for capturing carbon dioxide directly from the air. The technique called evaporative carbonate crystallization could cut the hefty price tag of current technologies by 40 percent. It s essentially a passive system that leverages capillary action...
Huellelhue means “place for swimming” in Mapudungun. It’s also the name of one of the rivers that flow through the Lafken Mapu Lahual Multiple-Use Conservation Area, established in 2005 in southern Chile’s Los Lagos region. The name of this area is more than just a grouping of words, says Eduardo Va...
Back in April, scientists read the tea leaves — or, more accurately, heaps of data — and predicted an above-average hurricane season over the summer and autumn, with nine or 10 named storms, four of which could grow to major strength. Yet hurricane season ended Sunday without even one of them making...
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Founder s Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries. Paul Barnes, who leads the Zoological Society of London’s EDGE of Existence program, has spent the past few years listening to the frustrations of early-career conserva...
MUSTANG, Nepal — Sudip Thakali now plans to change the roof of his family house from mud to blended cement concrete (BCC) to avoid water leakage during the rains. This is not the first time the 37-year-old is trying to make his ancestral home in the Trans-Himalayan village of Thini in Mustang distri...
In the waters off Isla el Pardito, where rocky reefs meet mangrove swamps in Mexico s Gulf of California, marine biologists and veteran fishers are using the power of the sun to protect endangered sea turtles. This region has some of the highest reported rates of turtles being accidentally caught in...
Episode Description: In this special Thanksgiving mini-episode of The Optimist Daily’s Weekly Roundup, Karissa and Arielle press pause on the usual headlines to say thank you. They share what they are personally grateful for this year, celebrate the Emissaries and listeners who keep solutions journa...
The hills of Kentucky might seem like a separate world from the Selva Maya rainforest in Central America. But they are just a song away. When someone hears the twitter of the tiny Kentucky warbler in the woods of Appalachia, the sounds are inextricably linked to what’s happening to this imperiled ju...
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For the last 12 years, volunteers have ventured out in freezing temperatures to Finland’s Lake Saimaa every winter. It is here that the Saimaa ringed seal — one of the world’s most endangered seal species — is trying to survive.For most of history, the blistering cold winters drove snow into meters-...
Welcome back to our weekly behind-the-scenes glimpse at what’s getting our team talking. Tell us what you ve been reading at info@reasonstobecheerful.world and we just might feature it here. Pedal power We know a bunch of bike lovers who ve visited the Netherlands and come home extolling its gloriou...
Founder s Briefs: An occasional series where Mongabay founder Rhett Ayers Butler shares analysis, perspectives and story summaries. Off the western coast of Sumatra, Indonesia, the Mentawai Islands rise from the Indian Ocean in a patchwork of forests and rivers where macaques, gibbons and hornbills ...
COLOMBO — From time to time, curious tales of “fish rain” grab media attention: fish seemingly fall from the sky, far from any bodies of water, following heavy downpours. The most recent incident occurred in northern Sri Lanka in October, after a thunderstorm, when residents discovered snakehead fis...
Researchers studying Yellowstone’s depths discovered that small earthquakes can recharge underground microbial life. The quakes exposed new rock and fluids, creating bursts of chemical energy that microbes can use. Both the water chemistry and the microbial communities shifted dramatically in respon...
