Here’s an all-too-frequent out-of-office autoreply from conservationists these days:
I am currently away from the office attending a UNDP meeting. Following this I am participating in a CBD working group, an IUCN advisory committee, an NGO roundtable, then presenting at a Millennium Declaration follow-up, and attending a regional conservation forum convened by aid agencies as part [...]

Too bad that feeling guilty isn’t enough to reduce carbon emissions. But we’re excited that California passed efficiency standards to cut television electricity use in half by 2013. And how about the recovery of a rare giraffe species in Africa? Not bad news for a cool green morning.

There’ll be no more energy-sucking televisions in the state where TV was born, now that [...]

I just started writing this blog on freshwater conservation, so I should be talking about river flows and floodplain fisheries and such. But last night I saw Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band perform in Cleveland and I can’t get it out of my head.
In his words, Springsteen was continuing the “lifelong conversation” he [...]

What am I trying to illustrate in the above photo (a picture of cattle and elephant dung)? That conservation planning is a pile of poop?
No. But this mixture of excrement does show why such planning needs to incorporate extreme events like drought or flooding – especially for the impacts of those events on local people.
In [...]

Bogdkhan Uul, just south of Ulanbator, Mongolia, is the oldest national park in the world. That’s right — it predates Yellowstone by over 100 years. Established by the Mongolian government in 1778, it was originally chartered by Ming Dynasty officials in the 1500s as an area to be kept off limits to extractive [...]

Generally, giving struggling species a helping hand is considered a good thing — like saving the vaquita porpoise and anything cute and cuddly (read: koalas). But there’s hot debate over whether helping plants migrate as climate change transforms their habitat is positive or not. Read on for the latest on these cool green topics, and more.

We’re [...]

Ecotourism is often presented as the savior for wildlife and wild places — providing local communities with financial incentives to preserve nature while also reducing poaching and development pressure.
But, lately, others question whether rich Westerners jetting around the world really help much at all: They disturb animals, create demands for new development and only employ [...]

My husband returns to the same reefs every year in the Bahamas, where he has been teaching a coral reef ecology class for the last 14 years. On his 2008 trip, he noticed that the reef fish were missing. The culprits were quickly identified — and during his 2009 course, he and his students were [...]

It’s indeed a bright green morning today, with positive news everywhere: International Climate Day of Action a big success! Smart meters galore! And here’s the big news: a new study shows your personal actions can make a difference in the fight against climate change! Take that, all you climate change pessimists.

Bill McKibben says we need to “stop whining [...]

Some days you wake up and find everything you’re doing and believing is wrong — like eating tomatoes or thinking your fellow Americans trust the scientific consensus that man is causing climate change. This, ladies and gentlemen, is one of those days. But tomorrow is Climate Action Day, so…maybe slice a tomato and take [...]