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Environmental Preservation

This year we've seen swelling efforts to protect vast swaths of ocean. Are they scientifically sound?

Do Ocean Preserves Actually Work?

The U.S. now leads the world in protected marine areas. But are they a scientifically sound strategy?

Ocean Legacy has a task not even Sisyphean would envy: picking up, sorting and recycling the vast amount of plastic that ends up on our shores.

Future of Conservation

Turning Ocean Garbage Into Gold

From the common plastic water bottle to the shoes of tsunami victims, one recycling organization tries to find a home for all ocean refuse

In Mexico's Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve, America's most beloved native insect faces threats from illegal loggers and avocado growers.

New Research

The Best Way to Protect the World’s Forests? Keep People in Them

Instead of kicking indigenous groups out, let them continue to manage these lands effectively, argues a new report

A bonfire of elephant ivory burns in Kenya's Nairobi National Park in July 1989.

Ask Smithsonian 2017

Wondering What a Bonfire Does to Your Lungs? We Answer Your Burning Questions

Setting large piles of stuff aflame can have significant environmental and human health impacts

Canada

The Town That Polar Bears Built

Get to know the four-legged residents of Churchill, Canada

A sinkhole recently discovered in northwestern China.

Cool Finds

Massive Cluster of Sinkholes Found Deep in China’s Mountainous Northwest

The network of pockmarks is packed with old-growth forests and giant flying squirrels

With its peace accords up in the air, the Colombia's diverse ecosystems face an uncertain future. Shown here: the valley of Cocora near Salento, Colombia.

How Colombia’s Failed Peace Treaty Could Wreak Havoc on Its Diversity-Rich Ecosystems

A potential influx of legal and illegal mining leaves the country’s megadiverse landscapes—and the communities who depend on them—in jeopardy

Meandering river in Nyingchi, Tibet, China

Trending Today

Watch 32 Years of Our Changing Planet Unfold With Google Timelapse

A satellite-eye’s-view of growing cities and climate change

Roughly 400 people attempted to mount the blockaded Backwater Bridge last night, resulting in another clash between protestors and police.

Trending Today

Police Spray Dakota Access Pipeline Protesters With Water and Tear Gas in Freezing Temperatures

Latest clash comes over access to a barricaded bridge

Cool Finds

World’s Largest Herd of Origami Elephants Takes Over the Bronx Zoo

People around the world folded the paper pachyderms to raise awareness of the elephants’ plight

Spotted: one adventurous female panther.

Cool Finds

Why Scientists Are Psyched About a River-Crossing Panther

This big cat is the first female thought to enter the area in over 40 years

Cool Finds

A Fish Prized Among King Henry’s III’s Court Could Soon Swim Back Into British Waters

Fish passes will allow shad to finally return to their historic spawning grounds

Ranching southern bluefin tuna has been a big-ticket industry in South Australia for years. One company hopes that inviting tourists to swim with the fish will prove successful, too.

A Bizarre “Swimming with Tuna” Attraction Puts Australia’s Controversial Aquaculture in the Spotlight

Is this an opportunity for conservation education, or another example of the government bending to Big Tuna?

Mangroves are rich and biodiverse coastal ecosystems that flood and emerge with the tides. Now villagers are burning these trees to better their lives.

Madagascar’s Mangroves: The Ultimate Giving Trees

Locals already use the trees for food, fuel and building materials. Now they’re burning them to make lime clay

A reservoir on the Snake River in Washington state

Future of Energy

Whoops—Dams and Reservoirs Release Tons of Greenhouse Gases

New study shows reservoirs are actually a major source of carbon emissions

Alaska's yellow-cedar forests are slowly dying as climate change takes root.

Anthropocene

This Music Was Composed by Climate Change

Dying forests make magnificently melancholy listening

Trending Today

Mexican Police Raid Sawmills to Protect Monarch Butterfly Habitat

Federal authorities closed down seven illegal logging operations near the Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserve in Michoacán

Euploea butterflies gather in force in valleys around the country.

Where to See Thousands of Fluttering Butterflies in Taiwan

There’s a reason Taiwan is known as the “butterfly kingdom”

Benjamin photographed at Beaumaris Zoo in 1933.

Remembering the Tasmanian Tiger, 80 Years After It Became Extinct

Today, the animal’s memory is alive and well in Australia

Age of Humans

Mesmerizing Animation Shows Potential Animal Escape Routes in a Warming World

“Migrations in Motion” models the journeys over 2,900 species may take to find new habitats

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