Overlooked and underfoot, mosses play a mighty role for climate and soil

It’s easy to miss the mosses, the ubiquitous green, silver and brown carpets that drape across nature’s surfaces, from forest to fen. It’s also easy to underestimate just how big a role these small but mighty organisms play in maintaining ecosystems and countering climate change. A recent study in the journal Nature Geoscience looked into […]

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More evidence backs Indigenous territories as best safeguard against Amazon deforestation

Kanamari Indigenous people carry out their workProtected areas and Indigenous territories in the Amazon Rainforest experienced just one-third the amount of primary forest loss as non-protected areas, according to a new report. The Monitoring of the Andean Amazon Project (MAAP), a U.S.-based nonprofit, examined primary forest loss across the entire Amazon biome between 2017 and 2021. Over the five-year study period, […]

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Meet the 2023 Goldman Environmental Prize Winners

Six grassroots environmental activists received the Goldman Environmental Prize on April 24. Known as the “Green Nobel Prize,” the Goldman Prize honors environmental activists from the six continental regions. The prize was founded in 1989 by U.S. philanthropists Rhoda and Richard Goldman. This year’s winners include a conservationist who created a new marine protected area […]

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Camera trap images of rare gorillas with infants bring hope in DRC

Newly captured images from camera traps in the Tayna Nature Reserve in the Democratic Republic of the Congo have recorded two mother-infant pairs of critically endangered eastern lowland gorillas. These images confirm the presence of healthy family groups of this great ape in Tayna, considered one of the gorillas’ last strongholds. The eastern lowland gorilla, […]

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Do elections spur deforestation? It’s complicated, new study finds

Sections of the Amazon Rainforest are set on fire by farmers to be cleared for agriculture.Ahead of the presidential election in Brazil last October, deforestation in the Amazon reached its highest level in 15 years. Was this an anomaly, or part of a pattern? Are elections and deforestation somehow linked? To answer these questions, a group of researchers examined deforestation and election data from 55 countries in the tropics between […]

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Canopy bridges connect forests, wildlife, and international researchers

Roads and highways wind through forests worldwide, forming an expanding network that connects humans but can hurt animals. Animals are hesitant to cross roads, and for those that move only through the treetops, such as arboreal mammals, a road can represent an impassible barrier. “For arboreal animals, the barrier effect is profound. They will not […]

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To restore large carnivore populations, make people wealthier, study finds

A Bengal tiger.The decline of big carnivore populations like lions, bears and lynx is most closely associated with rapid economic growth, according to a study published this week in Nature Communications. The study looked at 50 species of large carnivores worldwide over the past 50 years and found that social and economic factors, like people’s quality of life, […]

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In PNG, researchers find a large pigeon lost to science for 140 years

Black-naped Pheasant-Pigeon caught on camera, likely a second individual. Photo: Doka Nason/American Bird ConservancyAfter 140 years, a pigeon subspecies lost to science has been found again on Fergusson Island off eastern Papua New Guinea. Using a remote camera trap, researchers photographed the black-naped pheasant-pigeon (Otidiphaps nobilis insularis), a large, ground-dwelling bird, for the first time since it was described in 1883. “After a month of searching, seeing those […]

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