The Next Great Extinction Could Be Coming Sooner Than You Think

It’s no secret that wildlife around the world is under severe stress. The most recent Red List from the International Union for the Conservation of Nature estimated that 33% of the species evaluated by the group are at least threatened. The causes are many—hunting, disease, habitat loss, invasive species, even climate change—but they mostly boil [...]

Climate: Why It’s a Mistake to Ban Research on Geoengineering

Although most of the attention on the end of last week’s meeting of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in Nagoya focused on the modest agreement made to reduce biodiversity loss, that wasn’t the only outcome of the two week-long summit. Member nations at Nagoya also agreed on a possible moratorium on research into the [...]

Wildlife: Nations Agree on a Historic Deal for Biodiversity in Nagoya

Bucking the trend of global environmental summits over-promising and under-delivering, representatives from nearly 190 nations came together in Nagoya at the end of the two week-long Convention on Biological Diversity and signed an important deal that aims to greatly expand the portions of the planet that are under protection and fairly divide up the world’s [...]

Wildlife: Putting a (Very High) Price on Nature

Can you put a price on a tree? How about a babbling brook? Or an unspoiled mountain vista? It turns out you can—and this is not a Mastercard commercial. Early this morning at the Nagoya meeting of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), the United Nations released The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) study, [...]

Wildlife: How Do We Divide Up the World’s Biological Resources?

As we wrote yesterday, the meeting of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in Nagoya has a long agenda. That’s what happens when you convene a global meeting to save wildlife on the planet Earth. But beyond the dire warnings about disappearing animals and emptying seas—and the grand, if fuzzy promises governments will make—there’s some [...]

Wildlife: A Global Convention on Biodiversity Opens in Japan, But Can It Make a Difference?

    The story of non-human life on the planet Earth over the past few decades is a simple one: loss. While there are always a few bright spots—including the recovery of threatened animals like the brown pelican, thanks to the quietly revolutionary Endangered Species Act—on a planetary scale biodiversity is steadily marching backwards, with [...]

Wildlife: A Bevy of New Species Discovered in Papua New Guinea

Life always surprises. That’s the lesson that should be taken from the discovery of 200 new plants and animals in the forest-covered mountain of Papua New Guinea. Today the environmental group Conservation International (CI) announced that it had discovered never before seen plants, frogs, mammals, insects and spiders—including several that were so different from existing [...]