Biodiversity
Europe’s butterflies are vanishing as small farms disappear
Each week for the last 25 summers, biologist Constantí Stefanescu has walked a line through a series of fields in Catalonia, counting butterflies. On a sun-beaten day last July, near where the Pyrenees Mountains slip into the Mediterranean Sea, he stepped into what had once been the most butterfly-rich meadow of them all. In the… » Read More
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Brazil’s Amazon beef plan will ‘legalize deforestation’ say critics
For many, the overriding image of agriculture in the Amazon is one of environmental destruction. About 80 percent of deforestation in the region has been attributed to cattle ranching, tainting beef exports. Brazil’s beef industry hopes to tempt buyers back to the Amazon region, which covers about 40 percent of the country’s total area, with a new… » Read More
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One Alaska bay is booming with salmon, for now
On a mid-July afternoon, when the tide was starting to come in on the Naknek River, the Bandle family’s commercial fishing nets lay stretched across the beach, waiting for the water to rise. With the fishing crew on break, Sharon Bandle emerged from a tar-paper-sided cabin that serves as kitchen and bunkhouse with a plate… » Read More
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The Atlantic36 Million Website Visitor a Month5 Million Social Users Reached1.9 Million Print Readers
Farming boom threatens Biden’s climate and conservation ambitions
On a sunny, sultry summer day, Joe Blastick, a land steward with The Nature Conservancy, scans the hilly pastures north of Clear Lake, South Dakota, and rattles off the names of plants he sees. Silver leaf scurf pea, purple prairie clover, green needle grass, and dozens of others blend into a cacophony of color and… » Read More
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26 MILLION WEBSITE VISITORS A MONTH220 MILLION SOCIAL USERS REACHEDNational Geographic
Can fashion help small farmers preserve the Amazon?
On a rainy March afternoon, Rogério Mendes strides through the dripping vegetation of a tract of virgin Amazonian forest and stops at a tree with scars arranged in neat diagonal rows across its trunk. From his back pocket he produces a wood-handled tool with a blade on one end, called a cabrita, and cuts another diagonal line… » Read More
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6.4 million page views per monthThe New Republic
This farm relies on birds — not pesticides — to control pests
Dennis Tamura never set out to be a bird-watcher. He’s been a farmer for over 35 years, and he and his wife grow organic vegetables and flowers on Blue Heron Farms outside Watsonville. But birds have become a part of the farm’s ecosystem. About 15 years ago, a bird-loving neighbor put up small wooden bird boxes… » Read More
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Broadcast on more than 60 public radio stations in California, with more than 330,000 listenersThe California Report
In the Amazon, farming the forest to save the forest
Open a new road in the Amazon and deforestation most often follows, creating a landscape of big sky, white cows, and green pastures. But on back roads around the frontier town of Nova Califórnia, in a remote corner of northwestern Brazil, a renewed verdant canopy closes in. As we crawl down a slick, red-mud road… » Read More
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26 million website visitors a month220 million social users reachedNational Geographic
The battle to control America’s ‘most destructive’ species: feral pigs
A layer of frost clings to the grass on the morning Anthony DeNicola sets out to check his trap. It’s late January in South Carolina. The sun is rising, the fog is lifting, and the frogs are croaking from somewhere in the dark loblolly pines. In a whisper, DeNicola explains what will happen. “I wait… » Read More
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26 MILLION WEBSITE VISITORS A MONTH220 MILLION SOCIAL USERS REACHEDNational Geographic
Widely used neonic insecticides may be a threat to mammals, too
On an overcast January day in Estelline, South Dakota, Jonathan Lundgren zips his quilted jacket over a fleece, pulls down a wool cap, and crunches through the snow on Blue Dasher Farm to his barn, a milking parlor that he has kitted out as a biochemical laboratory. This story is part of our biodiversity initiative. In this… » Read More
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26 MILLION WEBSITE VISITORS A MONTH220 MILLION SOCIAL USERS REACHEDNational Geographic