Biodiversity

How Saving Cattle in Zimbabwe is Saving Its Lions

By Busani Bafana
A 12-year-old male lion slipped out of Zimbabwe’s Hwange National Park one winter morning and killed a 7-year-old boy in a village it wandered into.

What 1.5°C Overshoot Means for Small Islands

By Alison Kentish
The world is now expected to breach the 1.5 degrees Celsius warming limit that small island states have spent years defending as a threshold for survival.

Between the Reef and the Stars
A reflection on humanity’s twin longings.

By James Alix Michel
There is an older wisdom, quieter than the noise of our times, that whispers a simple truth: we are not the architects of nature, only its guests. Long before there were nations, economies, or even language, there was the pulse of the tide, the patience of coral, the breath of forests exchanging air with the sky. Into that ancient conversation we arrived — late, curious, and forgetful — mistaking our cleverness for sovereignty and our tools for wings.

The Drylands Dividend: The Smart Investment for Powering a Water-Scarce World

By Éliane Ubalijoro and Salina Abraham
Open a can of something fizzy and the reason the sugar doesn’t separate immediately is gum arabic, tapped by hand from acacia trees across the Sahel. Spray on perfume and the reason the scent is still there at dinner is frankincense, a resin cut from Boswellia trees on the dry escarpments of the Horn of Africa. The fat that gives a chocolate bar its snap may well be shea, gathered and pressed by women in the parkland belt of West Africa. The cashmere jumper came from goats that can only be raised on cold, dry rangelands.

Africa’s Pastoralists Need More Than COP17’s $1.2 billion Rangelands Pledge

By Kizito Makoye
When the rains fail across Tanzania’s northern Maasai Steppe, herders drive their cattle farther in search of pasture and water.

The Indian Ocean Is Sounding the Alarm and Its Islands Are Among the First to Hear It

By James Alix Michel
Across this vast ocean, the latest monitoring by Mercator Ocean International shows marine heatwave conditions ranging from moderate to severe. At the same time, the World Meteorological Organization expects a strong El Niño to intensify through August to October, with a positive Indian Ocean Dipole also likely to develop. These are not distant scientific signals. They are an urgent warning that the ocean system on which millions depend is under mounting stress.

Beyond the Horizon: Raising a Generation to Protect the Blue Pacific

By Sera Sefeti
For generations, Pacific children have grown up with the ocean as part of everyday life. It is where families fish, where stories are passed down, where livelihoods begin and where cultures are rooted.

Grand Planetary Challenges Need a Grand Coalition to Solve Them

By Lulseged Tamene Desta and Cargele Masso
Several coalitions exist today to defend the territories in which people live and work. Global leaders have long understood the importance of shared responsibility for collective security and have invested significant time in establishing networks, partnerships and alliances. In 2025, global spending on defense reached a record $2.9 trillion.

GEF Proposes $140 Million Program to Strengthen Drought Resilience

By Kizito Makoye
For pastoralists in Arvaikheer — a village in Mongolia’s dry central plains — rain can determine whether there is enough grass for cattle to roam, whether waterholes are replenished and whether families make it through another dry season. But as climate change makes rainfall increasingly unpredictable, even a wet season may no longer provide water and pasture needed to sustain people and livestock.

Indigenous Peoples Call for Meaningful Influence in Climate Discussions — Nia Tero

By Naureen Hossain
Indigenous communities have long advocated for the environment through the lens of their traditional knowledge systems and cultures. But much more work needs to be done to translate their presence into influence.

Nairobi Biodiversity Talks Set the Stage for Key COP17 Decisions

By Stella Paul
Despite record participation in global biodiversity reporting and planning processes, countries remain off track to meet the world's 2030 biodiversity goals, according to discussions that concluded this month at two key meetings under the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).

As Mongolia Hosts COP17, Pastoralists Demand Space to Move, Survive and Restore

By Kizito Makoye
After moving more than 6,000 km across Eurasia, the Silk Road Caravan has reached Mongolia with stories from pastoralists whose livelihoods are increasingly threatened by drought, degraded land and shrinking access to grazing areas.

“Kingston’s Disappointment Should Not Extinguish Our Hope for the Deep Ocean”

By James Alix Michel
Earlier this year, I called publicly for a precautionary pause on deep-sea mining, arguing that it is not a rejection of progress, but a commitment to sound science.

Accepting What It Cannot Control, CARICOM Focuses on What It Can

By Alison Kentish
From wars that drive up fuel prices to supply chain disruptions, inflation and increasingly frequent climate disasters, Caribbean leaders say many of the forces shaping the region's future lie beyond their control.

Human-Caused Climate Change, Not El Niño, Drives Most Coral Bleaching Events – Research

By Kizito Makoye
Every morning, as the Indian Ocean retreats from the reef off Zanzibar's Jambiani village, Chiku Chande steps into the knee-deep lagoon carrying bundles of seaweed seedlings. Years of farming these waters have taught her about every channel and coral outcrop. But lately, the corals that once glowed in brown and gold have become chalky white.

ALBANIA: ‘The Public Only Learns about These Development Megaprojects Once Construction Machinery Arrives’

By CIVICUS

 
CIVICUS discusses land grabs and environmental damage linked to a luxury coastal resort project with Eva Kushova, Director of Destination Management Organisation Albania, a civil society organisation that supports sustainable tourism in Albanian destinations, seeking to preserve culture and nature while maximising benefits for communities.

As Gold Prices Soar, Communities Pay the Price in Poisoned Rivers, Vanishing Forests and Organized Crime

By Kizito Makoye
The sweltering heat inside a London conference hall did not deter Indigenous leader Jackeline Mendoza Díaz from condemning the sheer destruction of the Peruvian Amazon. Her voice occasionally trembled with emotion but delivered a strong message — painting a picture far removed from the glittering gold bars traded in the world’s financial capitals.

Why Pastoral Production Requires Regional Coordination, Harmonised Policy

By Isaiah Esipisu
At the 64th sessions of the Subsidiary Bodies (SB64) under the UNFCCC in Bonn, Germany, the Local Communities and Indigenous Peoples Platform (LCIPP) underscored the importance of ethically and equitably incorporating indigenous values and knowledge and local knowledge systems such as pastoralism into climate policies and actions ahead of the 31st Conference of Parties on climate change (COP31).

Invasive Prickly Pear Turned into Food, Clean Energy Source

By Wilson Odhiambo
An international academic partnership is helping turn one of Laikipia County’s most destructive and invasive plants, the prickly pear cactus (Opuntia stricta), into a source of food security and clean energy while also helping end perennial resource conflict in the region.

Inside GEF’s Blended Finance Push: Turning Public Money Into Private Capital Leverage

By Kizito Makoye
For most of the Eighth Global Environmental Facility (GEF) Assembly last month, the atmosphere inside Samarkand’s sprawling Congress Centre echoed a growing confidence of global environmental policymakers.

Abu Dhabi’s Coral Promise to the Future

By James Alix Michel
In just the first half of this year, Abu Dhabi’s Environment Agency has cultivated 302,415 new coral colonies, bringing the total under the Abu Dhabi Coral Gardens Project to around 1.8 million – a scale of restoration that demands global attention.
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