Justin Stewart left for Mount Chimborazo in August 2022 to collect fungal samples from the Ecuadoran volcano at an elevation of 4,000 meters, or about 13,000 feet. Given that vegetation…
SINGAPORE — For a while now, researchers and policy experts have touted the transition to a circular economy as a way to sustainably handle the world’s growing waste and pollution…
Freshwater dolphins navigate the waterways of the Amazon Basin. In the wet season, water spills from the rivers, flooding parts of the forests. The dolphins go, too, using their exceptionally…
In 2017, a camera installed on the fringes of Corbett Tiger Reserve in northern India photographed an unsuspecting woman. The local forest staff had set up the device discreetly to…
Debbie Saunders’s quest to make wildlife tracking more efficient started in the early 2000s. The wild ecologist was studying swift parrots (Lathamus discolor) in Australia and found it challenging to…
“O poplar tree, O poplar tree, how carbon-dense are thy branches …” Trees are a major tool in our fight against climate change by sucking up carbon dioxide, but one…
TRA VINH, Vietnam — In the heat of Tra Vinh's dry season, rice farmer Thach Ren stands on a recently harvested field holding a smartphone. The once lush and green…
The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) produces around 70% of the global supply of cobalt and it is also Africa’s leading producer of copper. Despite the billions of dollars in…
The old Figlenski Ranch in Washington state’s Tunk Valley is a rugged land of canyons and scrubby sage-brush steppe. This valley with the ranch at its center connects the Cascade…
It was supposed to be a night like any other. Luis Crespo and his team would walk the beach of Maunabo, Puerto Rico, looking for leatherback sea turtles (Dermochelys coriacea).…
A major cause of forest restoration project failures is lack of long-term monitoring. Now, satellites, lidar, drones and in-forest sensor networks are bringing detailed, long-term, real-time data to tree-planting initiatives.
Drones flying above the treetops of a limestone forest on the border of Vietnam and China are helping conservationists develop plans to recover one of the world’s rarest primates: the…
Seed-sowing drones and the latest biotechnology could help restore degraded forests at an unprecedented scale — a high-tech nature-based climate solution already at work, and one that shows tremendous promise.
Complex computer models, aided by artificial intelligence and laboratory testing, can help select the right tree species for the right place, giving reforestation projects a stronger start and better chance of thriving.
Climate change has generated a rush in tree planting, with many hurried initiatives failing. But high-tech solutions — artificial intelligence, robotics, satellites and sensors — can help tree-planting projects succeed every step of the way.
SINGAPORE — A huge drone hums and hovers above the canopy of a tree. Just as one might start to think that the show is over, the action begins. Slowly,…
Agribusiness magnate from the USA, who is already the biggest producer of corn-based ethanol in Brazil, plans to leverage “green” investments from governments and banks to meet negative carbon emissions using an unproven method.
For Jake Robinson, Greno Woods was an easy choice. This large, old forest in South Yorkshire county in the U.K. has historically undergone timber harvesting, quarrying and fires. Plantations of…
It seems a cache of biodiversity data was hiding in plain sight all along. In the midst of hazardous particulate matter trapped in the filters of two air quality monitoring…
SINGAPORE — Macaques look on from trees as a round of applause breaks out. After repeated attempts, a team has managed to fly a drone and drop a sensor platform…
ROBERTSPORT and MARSHALL, Liberia — On a mild Friday afternoon, Emmanuel Appleton beamed with smiles as he defied the waves of the Atlantic Ocean and landed his canoe on the…
The latest recipe is here: you’ll need a cup of minerals, two tablespoons of air and water, a few billion microorganisms, a teaspoon of organic matter and … a pinch…
When Hurricane Dorian blazed its trail of destruction through the Bahamas in 2019, it ravaged the country’s mangroves. Almost overnight, coastal communities were deprived of a natural barrier that protected…
KATHMANDU — With the start of the monsoon season in Nepal in mid-June, rivers originating from the mountains and the hills of the country become swollen and reach the peak…
SINGAPORE — It’s been a hectic few weeks for Kevin Marriott. On a humid May morning in Singapore, he shuttles between two locations at the city’s Windsor Nature Park. At…
Imagine a burned forest in California. The charred remains of trees, the soot on the forest floor and the smoke in the air might make it seem like all is…
Elon Musk may claim to hate them, but can Twitter bots be put to good use? A new tool that aims to monitor and expose deforestation in the Amazon Rainforest…
For scientists and ecologists studying wildlife, listening to the sounds of nature is all the rage now. And with good reason. The exponential growth in the use of audio to…
SHAMSHY, Kyrgyzstan — “I was only 9 when I first saw a snow leopard with my father. He was a ranger bringing injured animals found in the mountains to the…
On March 12, a team of scientists gathered in the control room of the RV Falkor (too), an oceanographic research vessel operated by the Schmidt Ocean Institute. They watched the…