Environment

Written by: Harry Kretchmer On the misty slopes of the High Andes, villagers are at work planting trees. Some have bundles of seedlings tied to their backs, others have babies. They have been doing this for 20 years. Small teams like...

Courtesy of Forests News Written by: Will Anderson and Aaron Minnick Everyone is talking about trees. In January, the World Economic Forum founded the Trillion Trees initiative (1t.org), an effort to protect and grow enough trees to fight climate change and build healthy...

Written by: Evan Bourtis In the southwesternmost corner of Arizona, the Colorado River weaves in between Mexico and the lands of the Native American Cocopah Tribe. Many spots along the river’s shore are lined with dense thickets of invasive reeds called...

Written by: Mohan Qin It’s become common to read that microplastics – little bits of plastic, smaller than a pencil eraser – are turning up everywhere and in everything, including the ocean, farmland, food and human bodies. Now a new term...

Written by: Aida Cuní Sanchez, Martin Sullivan, and Phil Platts Tropical forests are well known for being the “lungs” of our planet. Through photosynthesis, the trees in these forests produce oxygen and remove enormous amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, helping to mitigate...

Written by: Kate E. Smith, Diane Hanano, and Dominique Weis There’s a good chance you live in a city — or will soon. According to estimates by the United Nations, two out of every three people will live in an...

Written by: Stephanie Manuzak Rainforests are an important defense against climate change because they absorb carbon. But many are being destroyed on a massive scale. In the tropics, farmers often slash and burn forests to clear fertile land for crops. The...

Written by: Mike Gaworecki New research finds that large filter feeders in the waters of Indonesia could be ingesting dozens to hundreds of microplastic particles every hour. Due to their filter feeding strategy, manta rays and whale sharks must swallow hundreds...

Written by: Tom Pegram and Julia Kreienkamp As governments around the world roll out COVID-19 vaccine programmes and seek to kickstart their economies back to life, recovery seems to be within reach. However, hard questions must not be sidestepped. How...

Written by: Matthew Harris If you have turned on a TV or read the news during the past few months, you have probably heard of the widespread fires that wrought havoc on the Amazon rainforest this year. Fires occur in...