By Jessica Perelman, PhD Student at the University of Hawaii at Manoa “95% of our oceans have never been explored.” This is a statistic that I hear regularly, and it holds a pretty strong message. What’s out there beneath the surface? How is the ocean changing? One of the greatest challenges in conveying the significance…
By Kyaw Thinn Latt “It used to be quite easy to catch enough fish to feed my family and for me to sell the surplus in the market,” laments Mr. Than Zaw Htay, a coastal fisher in the Kyeintali area of Myanmar, “but these days it is harder and harder to catch enough.” This situation…
By Cheryl Chetkiewicz [Note: this is the third and final blog in this WCS series during the Global Climate Action Summit, taking place in San Francisco this week, examining the role of Indigenous Peoples in protecting forest resources and mitigating climate change.] At 5.6 million square kilometres, Canada’s boreal region is one of the largest forests…
By Lilian Painter [Note: this is the second in a 3-part series during the Global Climate Action Summit, taking place in San Francisco this week, examining the role of Indigenous Peoples in protecting forest resources and mitigating climate change.] This week in San Francisco, government and business leaders, investors, and average citizens are gathering to inspire…
By Deo Kujirakwinja and Michael Painter [Note: this is the first in a 3-part series during the Global Climate Action Summit, taking place in San Francisco this week, examining the role of Indigenous Peoples in protecting forest resources and mitigating climate change.] In eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the Batwa people have played a…
By Safina Center Staff One commercial fishing company is cruising off the shores of New York, taking whales’ food. One year ago we reported that small, herring-like fish called menhaden, a major food source for whales, dolphins and large fishes, were making a comeback in New York waters. But then, last year, fisheries managers decided…
It’s a misty, bracing morning on the banks of the Koeye River. Before long, the summer sun will rise to burn off the fog and reveal a world dazzling in shades of greens, blues, and sandy beige, and buzzing with biodiversity. But in these soft, quiet morning hours, a different shade of gold slinks along…
By Rhett Bennett Sharks have been cruising the world’s oceans for millions of years. We know them as ferocious hunters, built for the kill. And some are. However, most shark and ray species have somewhat less aggressive feeding behaviour and, of course, many end up as food themselves. These magnificent creatures have adapted to an…
By Hollie Booth This Shark Week, take a moment to consider the manta ray. This much-loved gentle giant of the shark and ray (elasmobranch) family is a large, slow-growing and long-lived species, which makes it particularly vulnerable to overfishing. Unfortunately, fishers have increasingly targeted mantas in recent decades to meet emerging demand for their gills…
This article is brought to you by the International League of Conservation Photographers (iLCP). Read our other articles on the National Geographic Voices blog featuring the work of our iLCP Fellow Photographers all around the world. On July 11th Nathaniel ‘Nat’ Reed, a great environmental advocate, passed away at age 84. Mr. Reed had many accomplishments and tirelessly…
This article is brought to you by the International League of Conservation Photographers (iLCP). Read our other articles on the National Geographic Voices blog featuring the work of our iLCP Fellow Photographers all around the world. Text by iLCP Fellow Peter Mather It is 1am as I drive down Alaska’s straightest and smoothest road. We are on our…
During a lifetime in the Florida woods, I have only seen two Florida panthers in the wild, both times fleeting glimpses, never long enough to take a picture. For the past two years I have been pursuing panthers almost full time for a National Geographic project. Custom-made camera traps have been the only reliable method…
By Safina Center Staff Pebble Limited Partnership is the mineral exploration corporation behind a proposed project to build a gold and copper mine in the headwaters of Bristol Bay, Alaska, imperiling the world’s last great sockeye salmon run. Environmentalists, scientists and local residents have criticized the project as a wish for certain destruction of this…
By Paul Greenberg, Safina Center Fellow The money shot of climate change is without doubt that of a polar bear stranded on a tiny island of ice, seemingly hopelessly adrift while the world around melts into oblivion. But as we pulled into an anchorage off Spitsbergen Island in the territory known as Svalbard this weekend,…
Celebrated sea captain James Cook implanted a British flag down into the rocky, icy ground on the shore of South Georgia in 1775. When he did so, he claimed ownership of the icy, mountainous Antarctic island not only for his country’s humans, but, inadvertently, also for its rodents. From the arrival of Cook onward, ships…