Author: Jeremy Hance

  • Rivers worldwide in peril

    Dams, agricultural runoff, pesticides, sewage, mercury pollution from coal plants, invasive species, overconsumption, irrigation, erosion from deforestation, wetland destruction, overfishing, aquaculture: it’s clear that the world’s rivers are facing a barrage of unprecedented impacts from humans, but just how bad is the situation? A new global analysis of the world’s rivers is not comforting: the…

  • Myanmar creates world’s largest tiger reserve, aiding many endangered Southeast Asian species

    Myanmar has announced that Hukaung Valley Tiger Reserve will be nearly tripled in size, making the protected area the largest tiger reserve in the world. Spanning 17,477 square kilometers (6,748 square miles), the newly expanded park is approximately the size of Kuwait and larger than the US state of Connecticut.

  • Backbone of marine food chain in alarming decline

    Tiny marine algae, known as phytoplankton, are the backbone of the marine food chain, yet a new study in Nature has found that this backbone is disintegrating. Researchers discovered that since 1950 phytoplankton has declined by approximately 40 percent across the Northern Hemisphere, a decline that corresponds to warming waters due to climate change. Given…

  • ‘Prepare for war’: tensions rising over Brazil’s controversial Belo Monte dam

    Tensions are flaring after Brazil’s approval of the Belo Monte dam project last month to divert the flow of the Xingu River. The dam, which will be the world’s third larges, will flood 500 square miles of rainforest, lead to the removal of at least 12,000 people in the region, and upturn the lives of…

  • World’s ‘number one frog’ faces extinction from New Zealand government

    Archey’s frog is a survivor: virtually unchanged evolutionarily for 150 million years, the species has survived the comet that decimated the dinosaurs, the Ice Age, and the splitting of continents. Seventy million years ago New Zealand broke away from Australia, essentially isolating Archey’s frog and its relatives from all predatory mammals. Yet, if the New…