Governments and wildlife advocates are working to protect 30% of Earth’s lands and waters for nature by 2030. An ecologist explains why creating large protected areas should be a top priority.
An ape that lived 21 million years ago was used to a habitat that was both grassy and wooded.
Corbin Rainbolt
Contrary to the idea that apes evolved their upright posture to reach for fruit in the forest canopy, the earliest known ape with this stature, Morotopithecus, lived in more open grassy environments.
California’s snowpack was more than twice the average in much of the state in early March 2023.
Mario Tama/Getty Images
Reservoirs and streams are in good shape in California and the Great Basin, but groundwater and ecosystems are another story. And then there’s the Colorado River Basin.
Humanity’s biggest challenges are not technical, but social, economic, political and behavioural. Effective actions are still possible to stabilise the climate and the planet, but must be taken now.
A plateau pika (Ochotona curzoniae) emerges from its burrow.
John Holmes/Alamy Stock Photo
Large-scale tree-planting projects are politically popular and media-friendly, but without effective planning and long-term management, they can do more harm than good.
Grasslands can store carbon reliably under increasingly hot and dry climates.
Shutterstock
Large areas targeted for forest restoration in Africa are covered by savanna and grassland, which provide important ecosystem services that would be lost should they be converted to forests.
Restoring former prairies that have been plowed under for farming delivers land, wildlife and climate benefits. But a new study finds that the weather plays a surprising role.
John Glover’s paintings show open savannahs and grasslands in Tasmania. (1838)
Art Gallery of NSW
North America’s prairies once were home to millions of wild animals. Today, most of that land is farmed or developed, but some grasslands have never been plowed and could be rewilded.
Burning invasive, nonnative grasses on federal land at Lower Table Rock, Oregon.
BLM
Affiliate Full Professor, University of Washington; Research Associate, African Climate and Development Initiative and FitzPatrick Institute, University of Cape Town; CEO, Stable Planet Alliance, University of Washington