Conservation

This week government representatives have gathered together in Bonn, Germany for the annual meeting of the World Heritage Committee. Established under the UN’s Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), this 21-member body is charged with bestowing World Heritage status on the relatively few cultural and natural places recognized as having outstanding universal value to all […]

Recent research on global shark and ray landings highlighted Sri Lanka among several countries that have suffered the greatest declines over the last decade. Reading the findings caused me to cast my mind back to my own experience in that country almost exactly a year ago. Dawn had broken at the Negombo market, and most […]

As a marine scientist and conservationist I have traveled and worked around the world. My work has allowed me to explore spectacular places and meet brilliant, hard-working people. But there’s nothing quite like working to protect your home, and that’s why I came back to the Mediterranean. The Mediterranean Sea has provided food and enabled […]

Will Maclennan, UK – one of the four first volunteer interns selected for an assignment with WWF’s Youth Volunteer Internship Programme when it was created in 2005… I got my degree in Zoology from the University of Aberdeen in June 2004 and since then I have not looked back. Today I am a senior marine environmental scientist at […]

Long meetings and animated discussions are usually fuelled by coffee. But at the New Generation Plantations (NGP) annual meeting in Santiago, Chile, most of us were drinking maqui juice. Maqui berries grow wild in the forests of southern Chile. They’re so rich in antioxidants that they make other superfoods look positively ordinary. And, mixed with […]

My name is Denis Pozzebon, and I am a second-generation cane farmer in the Burdekin. In 1954, my father emigrated from Italy. He had nothing in his pocket. (He always tells me that story.) When dad made it up to Queensland, he went off to cut cane by hand. He did that for a few […]

After four days and a hard night of negotiations, governments meeting at the UN last week took a historic step toward ending the centuries-long free for all on the high seas. We have the green light to negotiate the first major UN treaty for 30 years, and we can now look to a future in […]

For those of us who work on water, yesterday was a big day. The World Economic Forum released the results of its 2015 global risk survey, and guess what tops the list for potential impact? Water crises. In a perverse way, I greeted this news with enthusiasm. And I wasn’t alone. My network of water […]

When I think of the Arctic today, the image that comes to mind is one of vultures circling over a wounded animal. Weakened by climate change, its protective ice shield shrinking, the Arctic is vulnerable. Vulnerable and valuable, with oil, gas and mineral resources, shipping routes and fish stocks that are now within reach. I […]

On the evening of 13 November, four gunshots shattered the silence of India’s Manas National Park. The forest personnel, though feeling stressed and demoralized by the recent rise in militancy in the region, didn’t hesitate – they rushed in the direction of the gunshots. At the same time, a rhino monitoring team consisting of armed […]