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 […]

What could be better than a blog about Nick Cave and palm oil? Nothing, I hear you say. I was humming along to the song ‘Red Right Hand’ the other night. I don’t know all of the lyrics and hence I hum a lot. One line that I do know the words to and that […]

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 […]

The New York Times last week ran a story on the front page about the threat of mass extinction in the ocean. For those of us who work on ocean conservation, this recent study is an interesting synthesis of the distressingly familiar data on decimated fisheries, bycatch and habitat destruction. But to be a front […]

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 […]

The holiday season is coming and if your family is anything like mine that means there will be a lot of chocolate given, eaten and enjoyed. Huzzah! The time of year you can eat chocolate with complete freedom, knowing that you are part of an international movement of chocolate lovers. Not that I’m obsessed with […]

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 […]