New Future

Researchers reviewing the diversity of bats in the Western Himalayas in India recently confirmed a new-to-science species from Uttarakhand state. Named the Himalayan long-tailed myotis in a new study, the bat boasts a tail nearly as long as its body.

Around half of West Africa’s remaining rainforests are in the small coastal nation of Liberia. They’re home to species like western chimpanzees and pygmy hippos, valuable stands of hardwood — and hundreds of thousands of people.

How do scientists determine whether climate change is driving extreme weather events like the floods, heat waves and droughts that we’re experiencing today?

KATHMANDU — Debate is growing in Nepal over moves to start breeding the Bengal florican, a critically endangered bird, in captivity.

A solar-powered canoe initiative originally launched in Ecuador’s Amazon in 2017 has now expanded to Indigenous coastal communities in Brazil, Peru, Suriname and the Solomon Islands. Researchers say the effort helps communities in tropical regions reduce gasoline and diesel use, avoid road expansion and develop non-extractive income projects like tourism and forestry products businesses.

Marc Stalmans, who died of natural causes on August 30th at 66, spent much of his life restoring life to a landscape once stripped of it.

BANYUMAS, Indonesia — As youngsters, Ari and Junianto would clamber over the upland above Sambirata village, gathering sap to glue-trap the birds nesting below Java’s Mount Slamet.

Villa Blanca Reef off Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula is home to emblematic and endangered species, and is the site a coral restoration project with 35 platforms growing different species of coral.

In Cape Town, South Africa, an ongoing conflict between people and baboons has escalated to the point that local authorities are considering culling 117 animals from four troops, roughly a quarter of the local population.

I write this while waiting for my tablet to die. Tomorrow, I’ll return to air-conditioning, stable WiFi and refrigeration, but here in Long Moh, deep in the remote Upper Baram region of Sarawak, there has been no electricity for two weeks.

Over the last several years, the Colombian government has taken steps to end oil and gas drilling in the Amazon. It pledged to stop issuing new exploration licenses and signed onto treaties to phase out current production, which has shown some signs of decline.

Fish and other marine organisms, though deeply affected by human activities, don’t respect human borders. The ranges of many commercially important species in fact straddle the borders of countries’ exclusive economic zones and international waters, known as the high seas.

Events this August raise a critical question: Can the United Nations process to combat global plastic pollution ever reach agreement? Or is some other way forward necessary? The Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee on Plastic Pollution set a goal in 2022 of a legally binding treaty by the end of 2024.

Most plants get their coloration from pigments, but an endangered South African cycad gets its unique silvery-blue hue from wax crystals and an underlying chlorophyll-rich layer, according to a recent study. Researchers say understanding how such layers work could pave the way for creating materials that protect from UV and water exposure.