New Future

Part one of the World Trade Organization ’s treaty to ban harmful fisheries subsidies finally came into force Sept. 15. WTO member states adopted the treaty in June 2022 following a grueling 21-year negotiation.

This is Part 2 of a short series on efforts to decarbonize the global shipping industry. Part 1 discussed international policy and politics. This part looks at efficiency measures. Those in the shipping business have long had some incentive to make their vessels travel more efficiently: saving money on fuel.

The European Union’s anti-deforestation law will come into effect on Dec. 30, 2025, after a one-year postponement. It requires producers of soy, cattle, cocoa, coffee, palm oil, rubber and timber to prove that their products are not sourced from land deforested after December 2020.

The latest tally from Global Witness is a grim ledger. In 2024 at least 146 people were killed or disappeared while defending land, water and forests. That brings the total to at least 2,253 deaths and disappearances since 2012, a steady toll that turns local acts of stewardship into mortal hazards.

New satellite analysis shows that wells and roads for a project in Uganda feeding Africa’s longest heated oil pipeline have progressed significantly within a protected area and near a critical wetland.

A journey into Nepal’s Limi Valley is always profound.

Planting fruit trees on farms improves dietary quality, according to new research from Malawi that tracked nearly 1,000 households over 10 years. The study, published in Conservation Letters, found that families who had trees on their farms ate more fruits and vegetables than those without trees.

MADRID — Spain said Tuesday that summer 2025 was the hottest on record for the southern European nation, which like the entire Mediterranean region is being hard hit by climate change. Its national weather service said that the country had an average temperature of 24.2 C between June 1 and Aug. 31.

KAKAMEGA, Kenya — A Monday morning finds 50 members of the Nzoia Community Forest Association trekking through rain-drenched thickets in the 5,300 hectare Nzoia Forest Plantation. They are returning to an area designated as Compartment One, the 42 hectares deep inside the plantation. Two weeks ago, they planted maize here.

LEMBATA ISLAND, Indonesia — A horde of children from Tapobali village rush out of Wulandoni 4 Junior High School to the sorghum field clasping blades and gathering starchy panicles into woven baskets.

JAKARTA — Norway’s $1.6 trillion state pension fund has dropped French miner Eramet from its investment portfolio over its role in a vast Indonesian nickel mine accused of destroying rainforest and threatening one of the world’s few remaining uncontacted Indigenous groups. The Government Pension Fund Global, the world’s largest sovereign wealth fund, held a 0.

An international tribunal of environmental rights activists recently found extensive evidence that the Canadian mining sector is “guilty for the violation of Rights of Nature across South America and Serbia.

EASTSOUND, Wash. — Once again, an endangered orca in Washington state has been seen carrying her dead newborn calf in an apparent effort to revive it.

Sea ice floating atop the Arctic Ocean reached its minimum extent for 2025 on Sept. 10, covering 4.602 million square kilometers concluding this year’s summer melt-out. That’s far from a record low and represents a recovery, in some ways, from where things stood earlier this year.