Protecting the Climate Means Protecting Territorial Rights

The world cannot claim to protect the climate and nature while opening Indigenous Peoples' and local communities' territories to industrial activities that threaten their rights, livelihoods and ways of life. Yet governments increasingly recognize these communities' contributions to climate and biodiversity protection while authorizing mining, oil drilling, industrial agriculture and infrastructure projects that can undermine the very territories they safeguard.

The UAE’s Great Leap: Building the City of the Future

I have stood on the corniche of Abu Dhabi at many moments over more than thirty years. Each time, I reflect on the distance this city has travelled: from a shoreline shaped by modest commercial buildings and dwellings to a capital whose architecture, institutions and ambitions look far beyond the horizon. Glass towers catch the Gulf light. The dome of the Louvre Abu Dhabi scatters sunlight across the water. Yet the transformation that interests me most is not the skyline itself. It is the thinking behind it.

Pacific Scientists Build a Regional Picture of a Changing Ocean

The Pacific Ocean connects thousands of islands, and understanding how ocean acidification is unfolding across the region requires more than individual research projects or monitoring stations.

New Biodiversity Funding Brings Hope for Armenia’s Lake Sevan

The midday sun shines brightly over Lake Sevan. In the still waters, a flock of cormorants drifts silently, their black feathers glistening in the autumn light.

New Biodiversity Pledges Emerge at COP17, But Funding Gap Persists

The second week of COP17 was dominated by discussions on biodiversity finance, with new pledges announced and donor outreach intensifying. Yet as the summit approached its close, the financing gap for implementing the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (KMGBF) remains largely unchanged.

COP17 Celebrates Indigenous Leaders Amid Demand for Greater Inclusion in Biodiversity Decisions

At the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) COP17, the presence of Indigenous Peoples and Local Communities (IPLCs) is impossible to miss. Indigenous representatives speak at side events, participate in contact groups, advise negotiators and engage across multiple forums shaping the future of global biodiversity policy.

The World Is Watching Norway. Will the Country Protect Antarctica?

A global boycott of Antarctic krill products is gathering support. As a Norwegian, I want my country – the world’s largest krill-fishing nation – to change course when it comes to protecting Antarctica.

Farwiza Farhan’s Fight To Save Tropical Hotspot of Indonesia – the Leuser

Forty-year-old Farwiza Farhan’s eyes light up instantly when she talks about the Leuser Ecosystem – a national strategic area encompassing a national park, a wildlife reserve, protected forests and other land uses.

How Conflict Brings Biodiversity to the Brink

Less than 100 metres from military positions facing each other across the Armenia-Azerbaijan border, the forest suddenly disappears.

International Day of Climate Action 2026

 
The world is getting hotter. And the consequences are already being felt. From devastating floods and prolonged droughts to intensifying heatwaves, climate change is disrupting lives and livelihoods across the globe.

What a Seawater Sample Can Tell Scientists About Ocean Health

A fishing boat’s catch tells only part of the story of the waters around World Heritage sites. Species that escape the net, shelter inside reefs or pass through deeper channels can go unrecorded, leaving communities and conservation officials with an incomplete picture of the marine life supporting coastal livelihoods.

The Sámi People and Reindeer Herding – a Struggle for Sápmi’s Whole Nature

The Sámi, Europe's last recognised Indigenous community, have faced threats to their existence throughout history. Norway, in 2024, apologised for its forced assimilation policy following the findings of a Truth and Reconciliation Commission report, and in September 2026 Sweden has recently been told to do the same.

From Small Islands to Antalya: COP31 Must Move Climate Promises from Paper to People

When you grow up on a small island, the ocean is not scenery. It is your neighbour, your livelihood, and the measure of time itself. For decades, as I walked the beaches of Seychelles, I watched the subtle shifts that scientists were warning the world about. The tide crept a little higher up the sand each year. After a warm season, vibrant coral gardens turned ghost-white. Storms that once belonged to rare memory began arriving with unsettling regularity.

Finding Silver Linings Amid Haze of Climatic Uncertainty

With the city enveloped in a cloak of haze, the urgency of tackling the climate crisis could hardly have been clearer as the four-day Global Tipping Points Conference 2026 drew to a close at Malaysia’s Sunway University on Thursday.

If the UN COP17 Is Serious About Biodiversity, It Needs to Follow the Money

On Monday, governments from across the world will gather in Armenia for COP17, the UN biodiversity summit, to assess progress on the global agreement to halt and reverse biodiversity loss. For anyone who cares about the livability of our planet for future generations, and the richness of life on earth, the stakes could hardly be higher. Policy makers will debate targets, implementation, and the lack of money to protect nature, in particular the failure of developed countries to fulfil their obligations. But there is a more basic question that should put at the center of those discussions: what happens when the financial system governments are counting on to fund nature protection is also financing its destruction?

World Lost More Than 7 Million Hectares of Forest in 2025

The world lost more than 7 million hectares of forest to deforestation in 2025, a modest improvement on recent years but still far from what is needed to meet global forest protection targets by 2030, according to a new assessment of international conservation efforts.

Protection That Holds: Keeping Nature Safe From Extraction

When governments gather in Yerevan this month for the 17th UN Convention on Biological Diversity, they will weigh a promise nearly 200 countries adopted six years ago: to effectively conserve at least 30 percent of land, inland waters, and sea by 2030. Achieving the ambitious 30x30 target is essential to sustaining the systems humanity relies on for survival—including crop pollination, purification of water and air, and climate regulation—as well as the biodiversity that underpins food production, fisheries, and tourism.

The Late Arrivals

One night, many years ago now, on a remote beach in the outer islands of Seychelles, I sat in the darkness and watched a green turtle come ashore. She had waited for the heat of the day to leave the sand. Under a sky crowded with stars, she hauled herself slowly above the tideline, dug with a patience no human hand could match, and laid her eggs. Then, in the small hours, she turned back toward the water. She did not hurry. She paused once, as though listening, and then made her slow, unhesitating way down the sand, back to a home older than any I could imagine.

New Ocean Report Warns of Rising Seas, Ocean Heat and Acidification

Fatuma Makame learned to farm seaweed in the shallow water where her parents worked. These days, she grows it farther from shore.

What Faith Can Teach Agriculture

Years ago, standing in a small farmer's field in Haiti, I began to suspect that we had agriculture backward. The development world saw a man in need of rescue. I saw a farmer who might help rescue the rest of us.