Australia: there’s a lot of it to look after.
Thomas Schoch/Wikimedia Commons
Australia is wealthy, but its huge size and relatively small rural economy mean we’ll have to dig deep to find the cash needed to safeguard our environment.
A new understanding of subspecies, such as Reichenow’s Helmeted Guineafowl, can help conserve the birds.
William Warby/Flickr
It’s difficult to sort out the conservation ‘wheat’ from the ‘chaff’ when too many subspecies are defined.
The Simien mountains in Ethiopia are one of the world’s most threatened natural heritage sites.
Simien mountains image from www.shutterstock.com
You’d hope we wouldn’t flatten the pyramids to build a highway. But that’s exactly what’s happening to the world’s natural heritage sites.
Monstrous, or just misunderstood?
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
People are more likely to support conservation for cute rather than creepy-looking animals.
Soybean farmer in Malawi.
IFPRI/Mitchell Maher via Flickr
How can we feed a growing world population while protecting the environment? One key strategy is to improve yields on small farms, which produce much of the food in the world’s hungriest countries.
shutterstock.
Africa Studio
A Christmas tree could be for life, not to be dumped after one festive season.
A blue whale surfaces.
Joy Tripovich
Songs of marine animals can help us discover new populations.
A rare glimpse of a river dolphin in Cambodia.
Erwan Deverre/Flickr
Dolphin-watching tourism has pros and cons — so what should you think about next time you head out?
Timber stockpiled along a logging road.
Day Edryshov/Shutterstock
A new mapping study shows that roads have sliced and diced almost the entire land surface of Earth, leaving huge areas prone to illegal logging, mining and hunting.
The grey mouse lemur (Microcebus murinus ): at 60 grams, nearly the smallest primate in the world. I studied this primate in Madagascar.
Jason Gilchrist, www.jasongilchrist.co.uk
As Donald Trump prepares to enter the White House, there may be dark days ahead for some of the world’s rarest and most beautiful primates.
Traditional hunting poses no threat to dugongs.
Flickr
The real threats to dugongs and turtles are not being addressed.
Red crabs migrate across Christmas Island in their thousands each year.
Ian Usher/Wikimedia
In the coming weeks, Parks Australia will release a 2mm wasp on Christmas Island to control the island’s yellow crazy ant infestation.
Wildlife in the Athi-Kaputiei ecosystem with new development in the background.
Flickr/Kamweti Mutu
Athi-Kaputiei is close to Nairobi where undeveloped land is exceedingly scarce and expensive. This has made it a powerful magnet for people.
These orange-bellied parrot chicks are the species’ last chance.
Mark Holdsworth and Friends of the OBP
Researchers are planning to monitor orange-bellied parrot nests all summer to make sure they raise chicks successfully.
Warner Brothers
In the world of Harry Potter, beasts are to be protected, not feared. But this concern for monsters is hardly modern.
There are fewer than a thousand Graveside gorge wattles in Kakadu National Park.
Parks Australia
We know very little about Australia’s most threatened plants.
Researchers have found that dragonflies have become on average lighter-colored over the past half-century in response to higher temperatures.
norio-nakayama/flickr
Study shows the footprint of climate change is already vast and that species are trying to adapt to rising temperatures.
Shutterstock
Some have a strain that is almost identical to one that infected humans in the middle ages.
Genetically modified crops.
Shutterstock/science photo
Genome editing and synthetic biology are giving rise to new forms of life. But do these organisms have conservation value as part of earth’s biodiversity?
Rainforests sustain stunning numbers of insect species, such as this Horny Devil Katydid from Ecuador.
Copy Morley Read/Shutterstock.
The organisms that we’re now discovering are often more hidden and more difficult to catch than ever before.