Erle C. Ellis, University of Maryland, Baltimore County and James Watson, The University of Queensland
To save what’s left of nature on this increasingly human planet, conservation needs to become a top priority around the world, from the wildest of wildlands to the densest of cities.
Camera trap image of adult female chimpanzee with her offspring in fallow area in Moyamba district of Sierra Leone foraging on oranges.
Tacugama Chimpanzee Sanctuary
Studies show that West Africa's critically endangered chimpanzees are finding ways of adapting to their rapidly changing habitat, but they still remain highly at risk.
Splashing in the Zambezi River at Botswana’s Chobe National Park.
Shutterstock
Lifting the trophy hunting moratorium in Botswana is more about politics and less about elephant conservation.
The West Moberly First Nation would like to see biodiversity-rich riparian areas in the Peace River Valley, in northeastern British Columbia protected. They will be destroyed by the Site C hydro dam, currently under construction.
Garth Lenz
National parks and nature reserves are vital for conservation, but are also great places for recreation. Balancing the two is tricky, but it can be done if we realise parks are not just playgrounds.
Do people in Nosey Be Madagascar benefit equally from ecotourism income and training opportunities?
Flickr.com/tatogra
The world's national parks cover an area bigger than South America. But a new survey finds that one-third of this area is subject to pressure from human developments, potentially putting wildlife at risk.
The Tongariro Crossing is one of New Zealand’s most popular walks in a national park.
AAP
New Zealand's wildlife and natural wonders are major draw cards for tourists, but tourism companies operating in national parks contribute little to conservation.
Cleared habitat in Niassa Reserve, Mozambique.
James Allan
Conservationists are increasingly looking to translocating rhinos. This not only ensures their safety but also enables improvements to their genetic health.
Lower Falls of the Yellowstone River, protected as the world’s first national park in 1872. But how do we best protect nature in the future?
YellowstoneNationalPark/flickr
You can't simply 'value' nature as though it were a commodity able to be bought and sold.
The potential rezoning of Tasmania’s Wilderness World Heritage Area for tourism development begs the question: just what is wilderness, and what is it good for?
The Wilderness Society/AAP
The Tasmanian government this month released a draft of the revised management plan for the Tasmanian Wilderness World Heritage Area, which proposes rezoning certain areas from “wilderness zones” to “remote…
Kakadu National Park is Australia’s largest – but we need to make sure parks are actually protecting wildlife from threats.
Rita Willaert/Flickr
While we can never know for sure, an extraordinary number of animals and plants are threatened with extinction — up to a third of all mammals and over a tenth of all birds. And the problem is getting worse…
Diversity is the key.
Agricultural Research Service
The scene was typical for an international gathering of governments: bureaucrats, sat behind nameplates and speaking through interpreters. But the less than typical result of the votes cast at this 1992…