Archive for May 2024

States could be in for another summer of unhealthy wildfire smoke as ‘zombie fires’ resurface in western Canada and more blazes break out in the dry conditions.

This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network. LUBUMBASHI, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) — On Oct. 13, 2023, on National Road 39, a police officer gestures for us to slow down. The narrow road has been reduced to a single lane from the usual two. A damaged truck lies in […]

JAKARTA — Self-medicating in animals has been reported before, but scientists noted something particularly special when they observed a wild orangutan in Sumatra treating a wound on its face with a plant known to have healing properties. It was June 22, 2022, when the research team in the Suaq Balimbing area of Indonesia’s Gunung Leuser […]

When the machines and men came to bury toxic sludge on a property near her house in the Mexican state of Tabasco, Lorenza Castro Castro at first thought it was a kind of fertile soil. Companies contracted by Mexico’s state-owned oil giant, Petróleos Mexicanos, or Pemex, had come with truckloads of black earth and set […]

War is wreaking havoc on land, water and critical infrastructure in Ukraine and Gaza. Two experts on peace and conflict explain how to include such impacts in peace agreements.

Almost all 2,500 households — mostly fisher folks — on Nijhum Dwip, a national park that has the second-largest mangrove forest in Bangladesh, used solar PVs LED bulbs at night and recharge table fans and button phones. However, since October 2023, the island has been connected to the national grid, primarily powered by a 15 […]

The Rarámuri Indigenous people of Bosques de San Elías Repechique have traveled a long road to defend their community territory in northern Mexico. Living in the state of Chihuahua, the Rarámuri have fought for decades to protect a coniferous forest damaged by logging, airport construction and a gas pipeline. After a long legal battle, a […]

MINDO, Ecuador—Natalia Greene ducks her head underneath the fronds of a giant fern. It is pitch black in the Chocó Andino cloud forest and Greene is searching for spiders, frogs and other nocturnal creatures.  “Ah, found one!” she shouts, steadying the beam of her flashlight on a sinewy spider.   Greene marvels at the tiny tarantula […]

ORLANDO, Fla.—Addressing the human-caused emissions warming the global climate and contributing to impacts here like hotter temperatures, rising seas and more damaging hurricanes could no longer be part of Florida’s energy policy, under legislation before Gov. Ron DeSantis. The measure, approved earlier this spring by the Republican-controlled legislature, would erase several instances of the words […]

Two new reporters will lead the organization’s agriculture coverage.