• Updates on missing biodiversity targets, US nature assessment, migratory species.

• Features about bioprospecting, species turnover, pitcher plants in peril, bioeconomy.

• Journal papers on helpful hyenas, Japan’s bear crisis, tropical insects, Nepal’s tiger boom, the power of awe, the Global Biodiversity Framework Fund, and more.

• Plus, the usual mix of news from around the world, useful resources, jobs and opportunities for environmental journalists, and more.

Taking The Pulse

Biodiversity: More than 120 countries have now submitted their national reports to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). The CBD Secretariat’s press release implies that reports submitted after the 28 February deadline “cannot be considered in the global report now being prepared by the Secretariat”. This is worrying as some of the late reports are from countries — Brazil, China, India — that are among the most biodiverse.

The Secretariat’s report will take stock of progress towards the four goals and 23 targets of the Global Biodiversity Framework. Early indications are that there won’t be much to celebrate. India is only on track to meet two targets by the 2030 deadline, reports Shimali Chauhan. The United Kingdom says, in its national report, that it is on course to achieve only three targets. In response, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds published recommendations for getting back on track with seven of the targets — see the press release or the full report.

Target 3 — protect 30 percent of land and sea by 2030 — has received most media attention. In a new blog post, Frida Beatriz Arriaga Cinta of the Inter-American Development Bank covered recent analysis showing that achieving this ‘30x30’ target in Latin America and the Caribbean could cost only 0.2 percent of the region’s GDP. But the area protected is not all that matters. Jonas Geldmann of the University of Copenhagen says the ‘30x30’ target will fail unless parties to the CBD shift from simply expanding protected‑area coverage to prioritizing representativeness, connectivity, durability, effective management and fair governance.

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US nature: Early in President Trump’s second presidency, he cancelled the inaugural National Nature Assessment, which would have provided the first full picture of the status of biodiversity in the United States. Undeterred, some scientists engaged in that process pushed ahead to produce an independent assessment, which they are calling The Nature Record. On 6 March, they released their draft report and opened a window for readers to comment. The report concludes that a third of plant species and 40 percent of animal species are at risk of extinction but also identifies a range of solutions. On 4 March, The Nature Conservancy released a related report, compiling research from 1,500 sources to identify the economic, health and safety benefits of investing in nature.

Migratory species: Nearly half of the species protected under the UN Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species (CMS) have declining populations and a quarter face extinction, according to a report published ahead of this month’s conference of parties to the convention. The report warns that these proportions have both increased in just two years — see the press release. When parties to the CMS meet from 23-28 March in Brazil, they will discuss how to improve the status of species protected by the convention and consider proposals to add more species to the list. See also the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s position paper and webpage for the CMS conference of parties, the Earth Negotiations Bulletin’s overview of the CMS and the conference, and the Wildlife Conservation Society’s policy positions and CMS-focused podcast.

In The Spotlight

• Feng Yingxin wrote about China’s efforts to develop new medicines from marine organisms, the challenges slowing progress and the need to consider ocean conservation and fair benefit‑sharing.

• Fred Pearce wrote about research suggesting that species turnover — nature’s mechanism for maintaining diversity in ecosystems — is slowing down, undermining ecological resilience to climate change.

• Pitcher plants in Sumatra, Indonesia are at risk from overharvesting to meet growing demand for a traditional recipe alongside a range of other threats, reports Gresi Plasmanto.

• Sarah Derouin wrote about new research showing that restoring Brazil’s Atlantic Forest could succeed if landowners can earn income from the bioeconomic potential of native plants.

From The Journals

• Many tropical insect species have limited scope for coping with rising temperatures — read the press release or the full paper.

• Biodiversity benefits of high-tech, low-input ‘smart farming’ will not come automatically — read the full paper.

• Assessing the aftermath of tripling the tiger population in Nepal — read the full paper.

• How a climatic anomaly drove Japan’s 2025 bear crisis — read the full paper.

• The economic and carbon values of waste disposal by hyenas and other scavengers in an Ethiopian city — read the press release or the full paper.

• Mining threatens to pollute rivers in priority conservation areas worldwide — read the full paper.

• Awe merits greater attention because of its influence on pro-environmental behaviour — read the full paper.

• The Global Biodiversity Framework Fund’s progress and challenges — read the full paper.

• Pathways to a nature positive agricultural sector in Australia — read the full paper.

What Caught My Eye

• A new report from Global Witness shows how powerful elites in Guatemala are using social media to run smear campaigns against anti-corruption activists, environmental defenders and Indigenous leaders — see the press release.

• The Convention on Biological Diversity’s Cali Fund is a year old and now has a website — but has only a thousand dollars.

• A new report by Earth League International — based on ten years of infiltrating criminal networks engaged in environmental and wildlife crime — shows how corruption works in practice.

• The European Commission announced an investment of 103 million euros in seven environmental and climate projects across Europe.

• On 10 March, Chile expanded marine protected areas, resulting in more than half of its territorial waters now being protected — exceeding the UN target of 30 percent.

• Chile also is the only country on track to meet the UN target of halving pesticide risk by 2030, reports Mike Gaworecki.

• “We risk putting the whole legislation into the trash bin” — Ashoka Mukpo interviewed Member of the European Parliament Delara Burkhardt about the ups and downs of the twice-delayed EU Deforestation Regulation.

• What is environmental (in) justice? Meera Subramanian and Danica Novgorodoff answer in graphic novel style.

• The International Finance Corporation announced its support for the launch of the Ecuador’s first biodiversity bond, which will raise private capital for conservation and ecological restoration.

• Coverage of climate change by US television networks fell for the third year in a row in 2025, according to Media Matters for America, which showed that the four main networks devoted a total of only 505 minutes to climate change in their news shows.

• The EU’s court of justice fined Portugal 10 million euros for failing to comply with laws to protect biodiversity, with further fines of 40,000 euros per day until it does, reports Lisa O’Carroll.

How to Support Global Nature Beat

I publish this newsletter as a free service to thousands of readers in more than 120 countries. If that is something you can support, please consider becoming a paying subscriber for less than £1 a week. If you can spare that, you will be helping me to keep Global Nature Beat going for those who cannot afford to pay.

Subscribe now

Tips And Resources

• Michael C. Bradbury and Madeline Ostrander wrote a ‘survival‑guide’ with practical advice to help environmental journalists stay safe, financially resilient and better connected with their audiences in an increasingly perilous media landscape.

• On 17 March, Covering Climate Now is hosting a press briefing on new analysis from The Climate Majority Project showing that most people want systemic change but stay quiet as they think they’re in a minority — register here.

• On 30 March, the Earth Journalism Network has a webinar on covering challenges to marine conservation in the Mediterranean — register here.

• IUCN’s initiative on nature-based solutions for climate adaptation released factsheets on 14 projects in Africa.

• Psychologist Colleen Crary’s new column at The Revelator aims to help readers “navigate the emotional and mental-health challenges of working toward a greener, healthier planet”.

See past editions for more tips and resources.

Jobs And Opportunities

• Mongabay-India and ALT EFF invite journalists to apply for funding and support to develop short news documentaries on ’solutions for heat resilience’ —deadline 13 March.

• Nigeria-based journalists can apply to join a two-day virtual training and story lab on climate–agriculture reporting — deadline 16 March.

• Nature is hiring a US-based reporter — deadline 27 March.

• The Earth Journalism Network is offering fellowships for journalists to cover the Global Environment Facility’s 8th Assembly in Samarkand, Uzbekistan — deadline 31 March.

• The Carter Center has fellowships for journalists covering climate change and mental health — deadline 3 April.

• The John B. Oakes Award for outstanding climate and environmental reporting is open for entries — deadline 22 April.

• The FRONTIERS Science Journalism in Residency Programme is accepting applications — deadline 25 May.

Bonus content: There are 39 jobs, grants, fellowships and other opportunities listed here for Global Nature Beat’s paying supporters. Paid subscriptions are less than £1 per week.

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On The Horizon

21 March: International Day of Forests.

23-29 March: The 15th Conference of Parties to the Convention on Migratory Species takes place in Campo Grande, Brazil.

21-24 April: The 4th Conference of Parties to the Escazú Agreement takes place in Nassau, Bahamas.

12-15 April: The 4th Global Soil Biodiversity Conference takes place in Victoria, Canada.

Bonus content: The full calendar for Global Nature Beat’s supporters includes nature-related intergovernmental negotiations, scientific conferences, report launches, and other events up until 2028.

Whose Eye Was It?

The eye belongs to a leopard. Photo credit: Timothy A. Gonsalves — Wikimedia Commons.

Thanks for reading. For past editions, see the Archive. If you found it interesting or useful, please share and subscribe. If you want to get in contact, you can reach me at: thenaturebeat@substack.com.

Take A Trip to Planet Ficus

My other newsletter Planet Ficus is devoted to stories about the world’s most fascinating plants — the strangler figs and their kin, which have shaped our world and our species in profound ways. Take a trip there for a rich mix of stories about the ecological and cultural importance of these trees.

Planet Ficus

Astounding stories of how fig trees shaped humanity and the world about us.

By Mike Shanahan

• Updates on UK climate and nature aid, missing biodiversity reports, India’s environment, next steps for roadmaps on deforestation and fossil fuels, environmental crime.

• Features about biodiversity journalism, bird declines, community forests, river restoration, AI poacher monitoring, and more.

• Journal papers on plants and climate change, nature connectedness, conservation agriculture, overstated biodiversity declines, nature and the human brain, gaps in seed banks, the Global Biodiversity Framework, and more.

• Plus, the usual mix of news from around the world, useful resources, jobs and opportunities for environmental journalists, and more.

Taking The Pulse

Biodiversity: Only half of the 196 parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) met the 28 February deadline for submitting national reports on their progress towards the targets of the Global Biodiversity Framework — see Daisy Dunne’s analysis for Carbon Brief. The reports are essential for the CBD’s first global review of progress, which will be shared at the UN Biodiversity Conference later this year. As of today, 101 parties have submitted their reports. But still absent are reports from some of the world’s most biodiverse countries such as Argentina, Brazil, China, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Papua New Guinea.

UK climate and nature aid: As Fiona Harvey reported on 2 March, the UK government is quietly slashing major climate and nature aid programmes for developing countries, undermining its international finance pledges and its purported international leadership on climate change and biodiversity. Also on 2 March, a group of 86 civil society organisations wrote to Prime Minister Keir Starmer to call for an increase in climate funding, to be financed by taxing polluters and redirecting subsidies for fossil fuel companies. Last month, 25 environmental groups published another letter to Starmer urging his government to invest in the Tropical Forest Forever Facility and to ensure that nature-based solutions and forest protection and restoration “demonstrably and transparently” represent one-third of the UK’s international climate finance commitments.

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Roadmaps: Brazil — as current President of the UN climate change negotiations — has invited contributions to the two roadmaps it is developing to guide the transition away from fossil fuels, and to halt and reverse deforestation and forest loss by 2030.

Environmental crime: Justin Gosling of the Environmental Investigation Agency wrote about how UN negotiations on tackling environmental crime collapsed last week without agreement after powerful countries resisted a new protocol.

India: Down To Earth published videos and presentations from last week’s Anil Agarwal Dialogue — the Centre for Science and Environment’s annual conclave on environment-development challenges facing India and the world. See also news stories from the event on invasive species, rising human-wildlife conflict linked a ban on hunting, ecological and social limits to current conservation approaches, and the 2026 State of India’s Environment report.

In Focus: Global Biodiversity Framework

Three new papers touch on different aspects of the Global Biodiversity Framework — the strategy to halt and reverse the loss of nature by 2030 that parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity adopted in 2022.

• Stuart Pimm and colleagues note “a disconnect between unsupported claims about impending planetary doom and carefully documented evidence of conservation’s successes and failures”. They recommend quantitative targets for conservation and nature restoration, identify four key knowledge gaps and call for transparent communication about conservation outcomes — read the full paper.

• Pil Pedersen and colleagues presented a way to rigorously assess national contributions to the GBF’s ‘30×30’ target — to protect 30 percent of land and sea by 2030. Applying the framework to Denmark revealed that official reporting significantly overestimates progress towards the target by failing to reflect whether protection is effective — see the press release or the full paper. The researchers say: “Without rigorous evaluation, the 30x30 target risks becoming a symbolic rather than transformative driver of change.”

• Erik Petter Axelsson and Ulrik Ilstedt wrote about how slow ecological recovery in tropical forests undermines the Global Biodiversity Framework’s short‑term timelines. They argue that this demands far longer‑term protection, restoration, and policy commitments than current goals allow — read the full paper.

In The Spotlight

• John Cannon wrote about how the world’s ambitious biodiversity targets are colliding with stark funding shortfalls with the new Global Biodiversity Framework Fund delivering only a tiny fraction of the money needed to halt nature loss.

• Melissa Hobson, Fonda Mwangi, Alex Sugiura and Kendra Pierre‑Louis reported on an artificial intelligence model that can detect gunshots in noisy rainforests, potentially enabling real‑time monitoring to help rangers stop poaching.

• Warren Cornwall wrote about scientists uncovering steep, climate‑linked declines in insect‑eating birds across intact tropical forests.

• In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, more than 100 active mining permits overlap community forests intended to promote sustainable livelihoods and conserve biodiversity, reports Jonas Kiriko.

• bioGraphic published a special package of four stories showing how biodiversity protection and conservation science are changing one year into the second term of US President Donald Trump.

• Juliet Grable wrote about how the Klamath River is rapidly rebounding after dam removal, with Tribal‑led crews reseeding thousands of acres and salmon swiftly reclaiming long‑inaccessible habitat.

• Ruth Thornton wrote about how the biodiversity crisis is gravely under‑reported compared with climate change and how better storytelling could help drive meaningful action to protect nature.

From The Journals

• Climate change is causing some tropical plants to flower weeks earlier or later than they used to — read the press release or the full paper.

• Conservation agriculture boosted crop yield by up to 122 percent in an Ethiopian trial — read the full paper.

• The Living Planet Index and ‘planetary boundaries’ for biodiversity integrity overstate claims of wildlife collapse and risk distracting from evidence‑based conservation — read the full paper.

• Study links accelerating declines in North American bird abundance with agricultural intensity — read the press release or the full paper.

• Historical newspaper archives can enrich biodiversity databases by providing insights into changing patterns of species distribution — read the full paper.

• A review of more than one hundred studies shows how spending time in nature triggers changes in the brain that calm stress and restore attention — read the press release or the full paper.

• Nature connectedness is significantly higher in the Global South than the Global North — read the full paper.

• The likely number of bee species is thousands higher than previously thought — read the press release or the full paper.

• A global network of seed banks holds samples of only 7.2 percent of critically endangered plant species and, for most of them, the numbers and diversity of seeds are low — read the full paper.

What Caught My Eye

• California approved US$60 million in grants to protect biodiversity, restore important wildlife habitats, and improve public access to nature.

• Environmental journalism in the Western Balkans is failing to match the region’s escalating ecological crises according to research by the Earth Journalism Network — read the summary article or the full report.

• Britain’s biggest asset manager, Legal & General, has committed up to US$1 billion to invest in ‘debt-for-nature’ swaps over the next five years.

• Fourteen African governments pledged to mobilize US$400 million for responsible forest management, restoration and value-added forest industrialization.

• Only a third of the world’s land is covered by formally documented ownership, tenure or use rights, according to the Status of Land Tenure and Governance report— see the press release.

• The meat and dairy sector is not only the biggest driver of deforestation but also the top threat to grasslands, savannas and wetlands, reports Georgina Gustin.

• Jeremy Hance reported on growing concerns about an emerging mental health crisis in the conservation sector.

• Members of the Global Youth Biodiversity Network wrote about being sidelined at a recent meeting under the Convention on Biological Diversity and why meaningful youth participation is essential.

• Isaiah Esipisu interviewed Luther Bois Anukur —the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s Regional Director for Eastern and Southern Africa — about how Africa can shift from dwindling donor support to community‑centred and nationally financed conservation.

• Condors appear to be nesting in Northern California for the first time in 100 years.

• Mongabay’s new Indigenous Desk will expand independent environmental journalism focusing on Indigenous perspectives and sources.

• TRAFFIC published a report on Germany’s role in the global trade in wild plants.

• Miguel Ángel Gómez‑Serrano says small changes to EU law could curb the harmful impacts of pet animals on biodiversity.

• Toxic chemicals from discarded screens are accumulating in endangered dolphins and porpoises, reports Tara Russell.

How to Support Global Nature Beat

I publish this newsletter as a free service to thousands of readers in more than 120 countries. If that is something you can support, please consider becoming a paying subscriber for less than £1 a week. If you can spare that, you will be helping me to keep Global Nature Beat going for those who cannot afford to pay.

Subscribe now

Tips And Resources

• On 4 March, Dialogue Earth is hosting a webinar asking: Will 2026 bring real progress on ocean justice?

• Joseph A. Davis wrote a backgrounder on recent studies showing that enforcement of US environmental protection laws fell to a record low in the first year of the current Trump administration.

• The Nature Crime Alliance published a briefing paper on challenges facing investigative journalists reporting on environmental crime worldwide, and ways to strengthen the field.

• On 5 March, the Secretariat of the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species is holding a media briefing on the 15th Conference of Parties taking place later this month — register here.

• Skyler Ware shared tips on how to fund and plan reporting trips.

See past editions for more tips and resources.

Jobs And Opportunities

• Jamma Conservation & Communities has grants for Africa-focused stories that explore conservation through a human lens — deadline 8 March.

• Nature is advertising a science journalism internship — deadline 9 March.

• The Earth Journalism Network has grants for media organizations in low- and middle-income countries proposing projects that strengthen media reporting on biodiversity issues — deadline 28 March.

• Mongabay invites applications for its Portuguese-language reporting fellowship — deadline 31 March.

• WBHM public radio in Alabama, United States, seeks an environmental reporter — no deadline listed.

• South Asia Speaks launched a fellowship for writers in the region working on book-length projects that engage seriously with science — deadline 30 March.

• The Eric and Wendy Schmidt Awards for Excellence in Science Communications, are open for entries — deadline 3 April.

Bonus content: There are 38 jobs, grants, fellowships and other opportunities listed here for Global Nature Beat’s paying supporters. Paid subscriptions are less than £1 per week.

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On The Horizon

21 March: International Day of Forests.

23-29 March: The 15th Conference of Parties to the Convention on Migratory Species takes place in Campo Grande, Brazil.

21-24 April: The 4th Conference of Parties to the Escazú Agreement takes place in Nassau, Bahamas.

12-15 April: The 4th Global Soil Biodiversity Conference takes place in Victoria, Canada.

Bonus content: The full calendar for Global Nature Beat’s supporters includes nature-related intergovernmental negotiations, scientific conferences, report launches, and other events up until 2028.

Whose Eye Was It?

The eye belongs to a serrated hinged terrapin. Photo credit: Bernard Dupont— Wikimedia Commons.

Thanks for reading. For past editions, see the Archive. If you found it interesting or useful, please share and subscribe. If you want to get in contact, you can reach me at: thenaturebeat@substack.com.

Take A Trip to Planet Ficus

My other newsletter Planet Ficus is devoted to stories about the world’s most fascinating plants — the strangler figs and their kin, which have shaped our world and our species in profound ways. Take a trip there for a rich mix of stories about the ecological and cultural importance of these trees.

Planet Ficus

Astounding stories of how fig trees shaped humanity and the world about us.

By Mike Shanahan

• Updates on biodiversity negotiations and deforestation in the Amazon.

• Features about whale sharks, invasive mussels, conflict with baboons, militarized rhino protection, vulture safe zones, and more.

• Journal papers on ecological impacts of wildfire smoke, key biodiversity areas, commodity-driven deforestation, fish food webs, biodiversity monitoring, and more.

• Plus, the usual mix of news from around the world, useful resources, jobs and opportunities for environmental journalists, and more.

Taking The Pulse

Biodiversity: Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) met in Rome last week for the latest meeting of their Subsidiary Body on Implementation. While the CBD Secretariat’s press release put a positive spin on the meeting, most of the key texts that negotiators discussed remain full of square brackets indicating disagreement — see Stella Paul’s reporting or the Earth Negotiations Bulletin’s summary of the meeting.

Later this year, the Conference of Parties will conduct the first review of progress under the Global Biodiversity Framework, which sets out 23 targets to be achieved by 2030. The review depends on countries submitting their latest national reports. But at the time of writing, only six of the CBD’s 196 parties — the European Union, Japan, Lesotho, Sudan, Switzerland and Uganda — had submitted their reports. The deadline of 28 February is looming. The CBD secretariat’s interim analysis of the national strategies and targets that parties have developed shows that, despite some progress, there are major gaps.

Amazon: Brazil is on track to record the lowest rate of Amazon deforestation since 1988, says its environment minister Marina Silva. As Yale e360 reports, this is the result of increased enforcement against illegal deforestation by miners, loggers and farmers. But there are now widespread fears that this progress could be rapidly reversed as soy farmers abandon a ten-year old voluntary moratorium on expansion into the Amazon. Members of the Forests & Finance coalition of environmental and research organizations are urging banks that finance the soy producers to require them to comply with the moratorium’s core principles — see the commentary by Ginger Cassady, head of coalition member Rainforest Action Network.

In The Spotlight

• With support of a training project, coastal communities in India have saved and released more than a thousand endangered whale sharks caught in fishing nets, reports K.A. Shaji.

• Sofia Moutinho wrote about the rapid spread of the invasive golden mussel into the Amazon, where it is damaging ecosystems, infrastructure and livelihoods, while outpacing efforts to control it.

• The Gecko Project reported how the president of Sierra Leone ignored evidence that a senior politician enabled illegal encroachment of a national park so elites could build mansions.

• Jaylan Sims reported on how an invasive vine — once promoted as a ‘miracle plant’ — intensifies wildfire risks across the southern United States.

• Adam Welz reported on Cape Town’s controversial plans for dealing with escalating conflicts between people and baboons.

• Tulani Ngwenya wrote about how foreign funding and hi‑tech tools have transformed South Africa’s rhino protection efforts into a militarised system that monitors people as much as wildlife.

• Citizen scientists in India are generating millions of biodiversity observations but, as Sahana Ghosh reports, there is a lack of expert capacity, infrastructure and long‑term support needed to turn this data into policy‑shaping science.

• Sean Mowbray wrote about the challenges of creating vulture safe zones in Africa and Asia.

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From The Journals

• How to build a modern, integrated biodiversity monitoring system for Europe — read the press release or the full paper.

• Direct, indirect and cascading effects of wildfire smoke on organisms and ecosystems — read the full paper.

• Global patterns of commodity-driven deforestation and associated carbon emissions — read the full paper.

• The first global audit of the planet’s key biodiversity areas and their use by governments, businesses and others — read the full paper.

• We know little about the effects of releasing millions of mallard ducks for recreational hunting — read the full paper.

• Implications of African infrastructure development for threatened species — read the full paper.

• Fish food webs have changed substantially over recent decades, even in places where the number of species has remained stable — read the press release or the full paper.

What Caught My Eye

• Investigations are underway after 72 — yes, seventy-two — tigers died this month at two wildlife parks in Thailand.

• A Malaysian court has issued three Vietnamese nationals with fines totalling almost US$32 million and 12-year jail sentences after convicting them of illegally possessing endangered wildlife parts.

• Marina Adami spoke with Anthony Feinstein about his research on mental health risks among climate reporters in the Global South.

• Chidinma Iwu wrote about a nongovernmental organization working with coastal communities in Nigeria to address a growing problem with ghost nets.

• Researchers say the global ‘30×30’ biodiversity targets must recognize African spiritual landscapes.

• Ben Deighton wrote about how US-led cuts to international development funding have eroded science journalism worldwide by ending grants that support investigative reporting.

• Indonesia is preparing a policy framework, pilot projects and implementation roadmap for high integrity biodiversity credits, reports Sugiharto Budiman.

• Artificial mangrove roots are being installed on Thai beaches to trap sediment and aid mangrove restoration, reports Shuchita Jha.

• Liam Ferguson wrote about how Indigenous researchers are working to define and protect culturally significant species by embedding their knowledge and authority into Australia’s national biodiversity laws and management systems.

• The Commonwealth Secretariat and Guyana announced plans for a Commonwealth Centre of Excellence for Biodiversity.

• Tom Peeters wrote about Serbia’s eastern imperial eagles rebounding thanks to determined conservation work.

• The latest edition of the annual State of Global Environmental Governance report is out.

How to Support Global Nature Beat

I publish this newsletter as a free service to thousands of readers in more than 120 countries. If that is something you can support, please consider becoming a paying subscriber for less than £1 a week. If you can spare that, you will be helping me to keep Global Nature Beat going for those who cannot afford to pay.

Subscribe now

Tips And Resources

• On 25 February, Project Drawdown has a webinar looking at whether mainstream media is under-reporting the most urgently needed climate solutions — register here.

• Related to this, Amanda Royal recently delivered a fiery rebuke of mainstream coverage of climate change, slamming its failure to inspire action and calling for a solutions-focused reset.

• On 26 February, Journalismfund Europe has a webinar on environmental investigations and the law — register here.

• On 12 March, Journalismfund Europe has a webinar all about how to launch an environmental investigative podcast — register here.

• Rhett Ayers Butler wrote a useful explainer about how marine heatwaves are driving increasingly severe global coral bleaching.

See past editions for more tips and resources.

Jobs And Opportunities

• The Environmental Journalism Story Incubator mini-fellowship includes a one-day workshop, registration for the Society for Environmental Journalists’ conference and a stipend for travel and lodging —deadline 2 March.

• The Guardian is hiring an assistant environment editor — deadline 5 March.

• Apply here for the Introduction to Investigative Journalism training course offered by GIJN and iMEdD — deadline 6 March.

• The Guardian US is hiring a senior climate justice reporter — no deadline listed.

• The Center for Media Research–Nepal invites Nepali journalists to apply for its Climate Change Reporting Fellowship 2026 — deadline 15 March.

• Dialogue Earth is hiring a regional editor for Mexico and Central America — deadline 16 March.

Bonus content: There are 41 jobs, grants, fellowships and other opportunities listed here for Global Nature Beat’s paying supporters. Paid subscriptions are less than £1 per week.

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On The Horizon

16-19 February: The UN Convention on Biological Diversity’s Subsidiary Body on Implementation meets in Rome, Italy.

25–27 February: 25th World Sustainable Development Summit takes place in New Delhi, India.

23-29 March: The 15th Conference of Parties to the Convention on Migratory Species takes place in Campo Grande, Brazil.

12-15 April: The 4th Global Soil Biodiversity Conference takes place in Victoria, Canada.

15-19 April: The International Journalism Festival takes place in Perugia, Italy.

20-24 April: The Species on the Move conference takes place at Sun Moon Lake, Taiwan.

Bonus content: The full calendar for Global Nature Beat’s supporters includes nature-related intergovernmental negotiations, scientific conferences, report launches, and other events up until 2028.

Whose Eye Was It?

The eye belongs to a lineated barbet . Photo credit: Mahmudul Bari— Wikimedia Commons.

Thanks for reading. For past editions, see the Archive. If you found it interesting or useful, please share and subscribe. If you want to get in contact, you can reach me at: thenaturebeat@substack.com.

Take A Trip to Planet Ficus

My other newsletter Planet Ficus is devoted to stories about the world’s most fascinating plants — the strangler figs and their kin, which have shaped our world and our species in profound ways. Take a trip there for a rich mix of stories about the ecological and cultural importance of these trees.

Planet Ficus

Astounding stories of how fig trees shaped humanity and the world about us.

By Mike Shanahan

• Updates on climate change, EU progress towards biodiversity targets, Indigenous Peoples in national biodiversity strategies.

• Features about light pollution, sacred bats, turtle trade, protected areas, and more.

• Journal papers on climate and whales, noise pollution and birds, harmful subsidies in Australia, peatlands in Brazil, payments for ecosystem services in Vietnam, a price tag for tropical forest rainfall, river recovery in China, and more.

• Plus, the usual mix of news from around the world, useful resources, jobs and opportunities for environmental journalists, and more.

Taking The Pulse

Climate change: On 12 February, the United States repealed the 2009 ‘endangerment finding’ that provided the basis for the federal government to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. By rejecting evidence that such emissions are harmful, the administration itself engages in endangerment. On 11 February, scientists warned that we are closer than previously believed to tipping points that could trigger runaway global warming and a shift to a “hothouse Earth” — see Damian Carrington’s story or the full paper. Against this backdrop, some positive news. Ember recently reported that the European Union generated more electricity from wind and solar than fossil fuels for the first time in 2025. And — as Carbon Brief reported on 12 February — China’s carbon dioxide emissions have been flat or falling for 21 months.

Biodiversity: The European Union is making progress with its implementation of the Global Biodiversity Framework but needs to accelerate action, according to its 7th National Report to the Convention on Biological Diversity. The report says the EU has achieved two of its 45 targets, and is on track to achieve 16 more by the 2030 deadline. For another 25 targets, there is progress but not at the pace required. For the final two targets, the extent of progress is not known. See the European Commission’s news story.

Indigenous conservation: Asian countries do not adequately empower and support Indigenous Peoples to contribute to the goals of the Global Biodiversity Framework, according to a new report and policy brief from the Asian Indigenous Peoples Pact. The report assessed how 15 countries engaged with Indigenous Peoples while revising their national biodiversity strategies and action plans. It found that these documents increasingly acknowledge Indigenous Peoples, but do not adequately grant decision-making authority or ensure resources to support effective Indigenous-led conservation.

In The Spotlight

• Phoebe Weston reported on a Belgian national park’s effort to remove unnecessary streetlights to restore natural darkness and protect wildlife, despite local concerns about safety.

• Coby Hobbs and Eung Sea reported how mining, agribusiness and a proposed hydropower dam pose mounting threats to a key Cambodian wildlife sanctuary and its community protected areas.

• Daisy Dunne and Orla Dwyer interviewed David Obura — chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services — about the prospects for halting nature loss, biodiversity as a justice issue, hopes for this year’s UN biodiversity conference, and more.

• Paul Hormick wrote about examples of ecologically important bats benefitting from cultural protections in China, India and Indonesia.

• Spoorthy Raman reported on research showing that Indonesia’s legal turtle trade cannot provide livelihoods for harvesters without parallel illegal trade that threatens endangered species.

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From The Journals

• Tropical forests generate rainfall worth many billions of dollars — read the press release or the full paper.

• Policies to halt wildlife declines must address multiple threats simultaneously, rather than one by one — read the press release or the full paper.

• Five years after a ban on fishing in China’s Yangtze River, a decades-long decline in biodiversity has halted — read the press release or the full paper.

• Global warming is driving a decline in the reproductive rate of Southern right whales — read the press release or the full paper.

• In Vietnam, villagers in biodiversity corridors earned 25 percent more — primarily from forest restoration and payments for watershed protection — than villagers outside earned from acacia plantations and forest products — read the full paper.

• Analysis covering 160 species worldwide shows how noise pollution affects bird behaviour and physiology — read the press release or the full paper.

• An assessment of biodiversity-harmful subsidies in Australia and the scope for reform — read the full paper.

• Brazil’s climate and biodiversity policies overlook peatlands — read the full paper.

What Caught My Eye

• India’s national framework for sharing benefits from the commercial use of biodiversity has passed a milestone, having now disbursed more than 1,450 million rupees (US$16 million) to district-level biodiversity management committees.

• Why species on East-West coasts are more at risk than those on North-South coasts.

• Why did landlocked Malawi ratify the High Seas Treaty? President Arthur Peter Mutharika explains.

• Rob Hutchins reported on the first meeting of the Ocean Pioneers, a coalition of nations committed to ambitious ocean governance and protection.

• Mongabay published a short film about notorious bird-egg smuggler Jeffrey Lendrum.

• Richard Seifman calls for stronger, clearer media reporting of the interconnected threats to human, animal and environmental health.

• Global Witness says the EU’s Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive has been significantly weakened, limiting its power to hold companies accountable for environmental and human rights abuses.

• On 15 February, a coalition of conservation and animal welfare organisations launched a global petition to end commercial whaling.

• Jiang Mengnan and Tom Baxter dug into China’s new mining guidelines to assess whether they will improve standards at home and abroad.

• Manuel Suter wrote about his research into how economists and scientists differ in how they see the world’s environmental problems and solutions.

• Citizen scientists in South Africa rediscovered an emerald-green moth last seen nearly 150 years ago, reports Ryan Trustcott.

• The UN Environment Programme released its 2025 Annual Report — see the press release.

How to Support Global Nature Beat

I publish this newsletter as a free service to thousands of readers in more than 120 countries. If that is something you can support, please consider becoming a paying subscriber for less than £1 a week. If you can spare that, you will be helping me to keep Global Nature Beat going for those who cannot afford to pay.

Subscribe now

Tips And Resources

• Science journalist Saugat Bolakhe shared twelve tips for pitching to editors.

• The Carnivore Conservation Compendium is a new website sharing media coverage, research papers and other resources about carnivores and their conservation around the globe.

• CASW Connector shared a tip sheet and video recording of its recent conversation with investigative science reporters Charles Piller and Liza Gross.

• On 18 February, the World Resources Institute and Systems Change Lab are hosting a webinar on ‘tracking systems change for people and planet’ — register here.

See past editions for more tips and resources.

Jobs And Opportunities

• The 2026 Covering Climate Now Journalism Awards are open for submissions — deadline 31 March.

• Scientific American will award US$80,000 to support the production of a short documentary film about scientists researching and conserving endangered species — deadline 8 March.

• Investigative Journalism for Europe has grants for freelancers and for cross-border teams — deadline 13 April.

• Climate Tracker Latin America’s climate journalism mentoring program is open for applicants — deadline 1 March.

• Mongabay is hiring a production editor (global) and a contributing editor (Asia-Pacific) — no deadline listed.

• The Economist is offering a paid, three-month science and technology internship — deadline 6 March.

• Wyoming Public Media is hiring an environmental reporter — no deadline listed.

Bonus content: There are 42 jobs, grants, fellowships and other opportunities listed here for Global Nature Beat’s paying supporters. Paid subscriptions are less than £1 per week.

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On The Horizon

16-19 February: The UN Convention on Biological Diversity’s Subsidiary Body on Implementation meets in Rome, Italy.

25–27 February: 25th World Sustainable Development Summit takes place in New Delhi, India.

23-29 March: The 15th Conference of Parties to the Convention on Migratory Species takes place in Campo Grande, Brazil.

Bonus content: The full calendar for Global Nature Beat’s supporters includes nature-related intergovernmental negotiations, scientific conferences, report launches, and other events up until 2028.

Whose Eye Was It?

The eye belongs to a Bothrops bilineatus pit viper . Photo credit: Jean-nature — Wikimedia Commons.

Thanks for reading. For past editions, see the Archive. If you found it interesting or useful, please share and subscribe. If you want to get in contact, you can reach me at: thenaturebeat@substack.com.

Take A Trip to Planet Ficus

My other newsletter Planet Ficus is devoted to stories about the world’s most fascinating plants — the strangler figs and their kin, which have shaped our world and our species in profound ways. Take a trip there for a rich mix of stories about the ecological and cultural importance of these trees.

Planet Ficus

Astounding stories of how fig trees shaped humanity and the world about us.

By Mike Shanahan

• Updates on business and nature, plastics treaty, biodiversity negotiations, climate journalism, conservation evidence, and more.

• Features about frogs in Ecuador, savannahs in India, safeguarding seeds in Chile, community forests in Nepal.

• Journal papers on forests and floods, pesticides and wildlife, bending the curve of biodiversity loss, positive criminology for environmental crimes, payments for ecosystem services, and more.

• Plus, the usual mix of news from around the world, useful resources, jobs and opportunities for environmental journalists, and more.

Taking The Pulse

Business and nature: Every business both depends on and affects biodiversity, so has a role to play in halting and reversing the loss of nature. This is the core message of an assessment published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) on 9 February. The report highlights a perverse situation: the growth of the global economy has come at a cost to nature, which is now unravelling in ways that pose a systemic risk to the economy, financial stability and human wellbeing. More than 150 governments approved the assessment. It highlights more than a hundred actions that businesses, governments, financial institutions and civil society can take. Businesses no longer have an excuse to avoid their responsibilities. As the IPBES press release states, they “can either lead transformative change or risk extinction”.

Berta Cáceres: A new report says the murder of Honduran environmental activist and indigenous leader Berta Cáceres in 2016 was funded by money originating from international development banks. It says a criminal network spent some of the millions of dollars it diverted from the Agua Zarca hydroelectric project to pay for illegal surveillance, armed incursions and the assassination of Cáceres — all to protect the interests of the project and its investors.

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Biodiversity: From 16-19 February, Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) will be in Rome, Italy for the sixth meeting of the convention’s Subsidiary Body on Implementation. Negotiations will focus on elements of work to implement the CBD’s Global Biodiversity Framework — including on finance, capacity building and gender. Also on the agenda are updates on national biodiversity strategies and action plans, national targets and national reporting that will feed into this year’s global review of progress in the implementation of the Global Biodiversity Framework — see the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s position paper or the Earth Negotiations Bulletin’s daily coverage.

Plastics: Governments met in Geneva on 7 February to choose a new chair of negotiations towards a global treaty on plastic pollution. AFP reports that oil producing states had backed a representative of Pakistan and called for more time to reach a consensus, which some other countries dismissed as delaying tactics. Instead, voting took place and Chilean diplomat Julio Cordano was elected.

Conservation evidence: An editorial in Nature argues that global conservation efforts are undermined by weak, inaccessible evidence. It calls for a major push to improve how research is gathered, assessed and used in policymaking. Writing for Mongabay, Tanya O’Garra — chair of the Society for Conservation Biology’s Impact Evaluation Working Group — says conservation programs must make causal evaluation standard practice to understand what truly works and avoid wasting scarce resources. “Without causal evidence, we are effectively engaging in ‘magical thinking’, spending limited funds and hoping for impact,” she writes. “With biodiversity in crisis, we can’t afford to keep guessing whether our actions work.”

The Planet Burns in Darkness

As Sammy Roth reported on 4 February, the Washington Post has fired at least 14 members of its climate change team as part of wider layoffs of more than 300 staff. The sackings come just four years after then-executive editor Sally Buzbee called global warming “perhaps the century’s biggest story”.

Brianna Sacks, the paper’s disaster correspondent, wrote on LinkedIn that there are now only four reporters to cover climate change globally. “During his call this morning announcing the layoffs, Executive Editor Matt Murray even called out the Climate Team for our stellar work,” she wrote. “And then they fired nearly everyone on it.”

It is not just the Washington Post. In the past few years, the number of climate change stories published by five major US media outlets has fallen by about one-third — see Chris Mooney’s chart.

“The scaling back of climate reporting is not just a loss of stories,” writes Rhett Ayers Butler, founder of Mongabay. “It represents a thinning of the informational infrastructure that allows societies to recognize problems early enough to respond.”

In The Spotlight

• Scientists are racing to document Ecuador’s extraordinary frog diversity before habitat loss, disease and climate change drive many species to extinction, reports Tali Santos.

• Sharmila Vaidyanathan reported on research showing that centuries of traditional Marathi-language literature challenge the idea that savannah ecosystems in Maharashtra, India, are degraded forests.

• John Bartlett wrote about Chile’s remote Initihuasi seed bank — a genetic ‘Noah’s Ark’ safeguarding the nation’s rare and endangered plants for a climate‑stressed future.

• Nepal’s community forests are producing large volumes of timber that remain unsold, leaving local groups without funds to implement sustainable forest management, reports Mukesh Pokhrel.

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From The Journals

• YouTube content on wildlife engages audiences but rarely drives meaningful conservation action — read the press release or the full paper.

• Soundscape data shows how biodiversity has recovered through Costa Rica’s system of paying farmers to restore forests — read the full paper.

• Five ways positive criminology can help to halt and reverse biodiversity loss — read the full paper.

• Pesticide harm to wildlife is rising globally despite a global pledge to halve it by 2030 — read the press release or the full paper.

• Global models exploring how to reverse biodiversity loss are rare and most do not consider climate change, highlighting a need for integrated action — read the full paper.

• Half of the world’s coral reefs suffered major bleaching during a recent global heatwave, and an even more severe event has begun — read the press release or the full paper.

• The conventional view that forests cannot mitigate large floods is scientifically indefensible — read the full paper.

What Caught My Eye

• Dataphyte published research on how Nigerian media outlets cover biodiversity-related issues, with recommendations for improving the quality and impact of reporting.

• Belize became the 38th member of the Forest & Climate Leaders’ Partnership.

• Mexico is considering reducing the protected habitat of the critically endangered vaquita by more than 85 per cent.

• Marie Hale argues that slowing biodiversity loss depends on community‑centred conservation approaches that recognise landscapes as interconnected social–ecological systems.

• Carbon Brief spoke to biodiversity scientists about the chances of reversing nature loss — to read their responses, scroll down here to find the ‘can humans reverse nature decline?’

• The government of Laos has approved a strategy for integrating biodiversity conservation and sustainable use into its agriculture and forestry sectors.

• Almost half of the world’s aquatic environments are severely contaminated by waste, say researchers in Brazil.

• Reina Otsuka and colleagues introduced a tool for assessing countries’ digital readiness to implement their biodiversity commitments.

• Conservationist Rick MacPherson outlines what “honest” protection can look like if the world fails to properly protect 30 percent of the ocean by 2030.

• Pesticide Action Network warns that 49 pesticides would receive unlimited approval under the European Commission’s proposed new rules for food and feed safety.

• Bolivia has created four new protected areas covering 907,244 hectares of Amazon lowlands and Andean highlands, reports Maxwell Gladwin.

• An underwater acoustic deterrent system could prevent 90 percent of fish from entering a UK nuclear power plant’s water intake pipes but will cost £700 million, reports Jillian Ambrose.

• Thousands of non-native plant species could now find suitable conditions in the Arctic because of global warming, reports Austin Burgess.

How to Support Global Nature Beat

I publish this newsletter as a free service to thousands of readers in more than 120 countries. If that is something you can support, please consider becoming a paying subscriber for less than £1 a week. If you can spare that, you will be helping me to keep Global Nature Beat going for those who cannot afford to pay.

Subscribe now

Tips And Resources

• Rowan Philp shared tips for impactful climate change reporting.

• The Environmental Investigation Agency expanded its Global Environmental Crime Tracker — a public database — to include new and improved information on illegalities in the timber sector

• Australia’s new Nature Media Centre aims to improve media coverage of biodiversity by connecting journalists with trusted sources, knowledge and solutions, writes Tom Nicol — see also Mongabay’s new Australian Biodiversity Special Reporting Project.

See past editions for more tips and resources.

Jobs And Opportunities

• The Poynter Institute has a new US$10,000 prize for climate change reporting — deadline 13 February.

• Journalists from Indonesia and Vietnam can apply to attend the Earth Journalism Network’s workshop on forest governance — deadline extended to 13 February.

• Politico is hiring a California energy, environment and climate editor — no deadline listed.

• Montana Free Press is hiring a reporter to cover wildlife, public lands, water and wildfire, and their impacts on communities and landscapes in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem — no deadline listed.

• The Earth Journalism Network has grants for media outlets to cover natural resource management and green growth in Nepal — deadline 15 February.

• Dialogue Earth invites pitches from photojournalists and visual storytellers in Southeast Asia on underreported issues at the intersection of environment, conflict and political change — deadline 19 February.

• Historias sin Fronteras invites journalists in Latin America to apply for a grant to develop a cross-border story on the dialogue between science and ancestral knowledge in the conservation of biodiversity — deadline 20 February.

• The Pulitzer Center has grants for environmental journalism focusing on transparency and governance — deadline 28 February.

Bonus content: There are 43 jobs, grants, fellowships and other opportunities listed here for Global Nature Beat’s paying supporters. Paid subscriptions are less than £1 per week.

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On The Horizon

14-16 February: The Corals, Coasts and One Health conference takes place in Saudi Arabia.

16-19 February: The UN Convention on Biological Diversity’s Subsidiary Body on Implementation meets in Rome, Italy.

25–27 February: 25th World Sustainable Development Summit takes place in New Delhi, India.

23-29 March: The 15th Conference of Parties to the Convention on Migratory Species takes place in Campo Grande, Brazil.

Bonus content: The full calendar for Global Nature Beat’s supporters includes nature-related intergovernmental negotiations, scientific conferences, report launches, and other events up until 2028.

Whose Eye Was It?

The eye belongs to a California condor. Photo credit: Kong of Lasers — Wikimedia Commons.

Thanks for reading. For past editions, see the Archive. If you found it interesting or useful, please share and subscribe. If you want to get in contact, you can reach me at: thenaturebeat@substack.com.

Take A Trip to Planet Ficus

My other newsletter Planet Ficus is devoted to stories about the world’s most fascinating plants — the strangler figs and their kin, which have shaped our world and our species in profound ways. Take a trip there for a rich mix of stories about the ecological and cultural importance of these trees.

Planet Ficus

Astounding stories of how fig trees shaped humanity and the world about us.

By Mike Shanahan

• Updates on ocean sustainability and geopolitics, the business case for nature, the US Endangered Species Act.

• Features about saving the whales again, forest education for a million schoolkids, protecting Ukraine’s rare plants, Indigenous journalists in the Amazon, a once-reviled and now-revered bird, and forests as health protectors.

• Journal papers on sponge cities, ocean equity, mining and biodiversity, tree planting to mitigate climate change, the biosphere in the Anthropocene, and more.

• Plus the usual mix of news from around the world, useful resources, jobs and opportunities for environmental journalists, and more.

Taking The Pulse

Business and biodiversity: Representatives of 152 governments are meeting in Manchester, United Kingdom on 3-8 February for the 12th Plenary Session of the Intergovernmental Panel on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). The major news will be their expected approval and launch of a new IPBES assessment of how businesses affect and depend on biodiversity. The report, developed over three years, will provide guidance for businesses and financial institutions to move towards nature-positive outcomes. For a preview, see the IPBES primer on the report or listen to the new episode of the IPBES podcast. The Earth Negotiations Bulletin will provide daily coverage of the meeting — see also the British Ecological Society’s new beginner’s guide to IPBES.

US Endangered Species Act: On 28 January, the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) sued the Trump administration for failing to release public records about regulatory reforms that would remove Endangered Species Act (ESA) protections for hundreds of species. One day earlier, CBD staff published research stating that 2,204 species should be considered for protection under the ESA. The CBD notes that the budget for such assessments has been slashed, and there is already a backlog of 400 species awaiting decisions. With an average of just 32 species approved for protection each year, it says many species could be extinct before they are even considered — see the press release. Meanwhile, new research highlights that while the ESA is species-focused, benefits cascade to other species and broader ecosystems.

Ocean: Karina Barquet, Jonathan Green and Maria Sköld say 2026 will be defined by a powerful tension between rising ambition for ocean‑based climate and biodiversity action and escalating geopolitical competition over marine space and resources. A case in point is the upcoming decision of where to host the headquarters of the new treaty on biodiversity in international waters. As Jiang Mengnan, Daniel Cressey and Regina Lam explain, China’s bid to host the secretariat is a strategic move to expand its influence in global ocean governance amid geopolitical tensions.

In The Spotlight

• Erica Gies reported on research showing that being in forests may boost lung and immune health, though the scale and mechanisms of these benefits remain uncertain.

• Catherine Early wrote about the growing threat to whales from ship collisions, and solutions ranging from ship re-routing and speed reductions to acoustic sensors and thermal imaging technology.

• Cecilia Nowell reported on the Ukrainian botanists racing to save rare plants as Russian occupation cuts off key biodiversity sites and threatens the country’s scientific heritage.

• Over ten years, the Forest Department of India’s Madhya Pradesh state has brought nearly one million schoolchildren into forests to learn about biodiversity, conservation and coexistence through direct experience, writes Pradeep Mishra.

• Kamala Thiagarajan wrote about the ‘army’ of 20,000 women in Indian villages who have transformed attitudes towards a once‑reviled species of stork through grassroots conservation.

• Leonardo Coelho wrote about Sumaúma’s Mycelium program, which is training a new generation of ‘forest journalists’ who blend Indigenous storytelling with traditional reporting to reshape how Amazon stories are told.

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From The Journals

• China’s Sponge City Program reconciles stormwater management with biodiversity conservation and has lessons for other Asian countries — read the full paper.

• The Ocean Equity Index: a framework for assessing and improving equity in ocean initiatives, projects and policies — read the press release or the full paper.

• Social movements are key allies for biodiversity conservation — read the press release or the full paper.

• The many pathways of mining impacts on biodiversity — read the full paper.

• Tree planting in northern forests could help Canada become carbon neutral by mid-century — read the press release or the full paper.

• Synthesis study shows agricultural diversification increases long-term financial profitability, biodiversity, soil quality and climate change mitigation benefits — read the full paper.

• Land needed for carbon removal projects to address climate change overlaps with areas important for biodiversity — read the press release or the full paper.

• Eighteen open-access papers on the biosphere in the Anthropocene — read the full papers.

What Caught My Eye

• Unexpectedly healthy polar bears on the island of Svalbard may be adapting to global warming through dietary shifts, reports Benji Jones.

• Amal Ahmed reports that lawmakers in the US state of Oregon are considering a 1.25 percent tourism tax increase to generate US$30 million a year for conservation, potentially creating a model for other states.

• Aida Greenbury says errant companies, not taxpayers, should be paying to restore Indonesia’s damaged forest ecosystems.

• Stefano Giglio, Joachim Rillo and Johannes Stroebel wrote about the economic implications of biodiversity loss in the Asia‑Pacific region.

• Italy has roughly 440 million abandoned olive trees — Federica Romano explains why this is a problem and how people are trying to address it.

• An annual survey shows that Malaysia has lost about 20 percent of its coral reefs since 2022, reports Benjamin Lee.

• International trade controls alone will not protect sharks from overfishing, says researcher Hollie Booth.

• The Global Landscapes Forum selected five candidates from Brazil, Cameroon, Indonesia, Peru and Uganda as its latest cohort of Restoration Stewards for oceans, forests, drylands, mountains and wetlands.

• Biodiversity-friendly tea certification could strengthen rural livelihoods in China, says a new report.

• Sophus zu Ermgassen wrote about his new research on how to tell if nature credits are real.

• Wetlands International launched a new ten-year strategy including plans for conserving and restoring five million hectares of wetlands.

• Armenia plans to host a Leaders’ Summit on biodiversity in Yerevan, ahead of the 2026 UN Biodiversity Conference.

• Johan Rockström — director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research — presents the case for healthy, planet-friendly dietary shifts.

• More than a ton of pangolin scales were seized in Kinshasa on 26 January, says Adams Cassinga, the founder and head of Conserv Congo..

How to Support Global Nature Beat

I publish this newsletter as a free service to thousands of readers in more than 120 countries. If that is something you can support, please consider becoming a paying subscriber for less than £1 a week. If you can spare that, you will be helping me to keep Global Nature Beat going for those who cannot afford to pay.

Subscribe now

Tips And Resources

• On 18 February, the European Federation for Science Journalism is hosting a webinar in which journalists from Oxpeckers Investigative Environmental Journalism will demonstrate how to incorporate data into environmental investigations — register here.

• On 4 March, David Cooper, the former Deputy Executive Secretary and Acting Executive Secretary of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, will share his views on progress with the Global Biodiversity Framework — register to attend online or in person in Oxford, United Kingdom.

• IUCN published a policy brief on recent progress under the UN Convention on Biological Diversity in recognizing the roles, rights, and contributions of Indigenous Peoples and local communities in the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity.

• Michael Svoboda reviewed six books about journalism and storytelling on climate change.

• A new video from IUCN explains the ‘nature and biodiversity pillar’ of the Green Agenda for the Western Balkans — see related news of the first meeting of IUCN’s Western Balkans thematic groups on ecosystem restoration and biodiversity conservation.

See past editions for more tips and resources.

Jobs And Opportunities

• The International Center for Journalists is accepting nominations for its 2026 Knight International Journalism Award — deadline 8 February.

• Journalists can apply to join the Metcalf Ocean Nexus Academy fellowship program — deadline 8 February.

• Macaranga invites journalists to join a 3-day workshop on Constructive Journalism, Climate Disinformation and Indigenous People from 3-5 March 2026 — deadline 13 February.

• The Wake Forest University invites applications for its 2026 Environmental and Epistemic Justice Journalism Fellowship — deadline 15 February.

• The Metcalf Institute invites applications for its Annual Science Immersion Workshop for Journalists, focusing this year on ‘Pollution, Plastics and PFAS’ — deadline 16 February.

• Resurgence & Ecologist is hiring a part-time assistant editor— deadline 16 February

• The Earth Journalism Network is hiring an Africa-based project director for its Forest Governance Media Initiative — deadline 19 February.

• Climate and Political Influence in The Age of Information Crises is a free 3-day online course in March — apply by 20 February.

• The Earth Journalism Network is offering grants to media organizations in Liberia, Ghana, Cameroon, Vietnam and Indonesia to support projects that increase or improve media coverage of forest governance — deadline 26 February.

• The Earth Journalism Network has story grants for journalists in Indonesia reporting in depth on the private sector and climate change — deadline 28 February.

• Journalists can apply for grants to tell Africa-focused and human-centred conservation stories — deadline 8 March.

Bonus content: There are 43 jobs, grants, fellowships and other opportunities listed here for Global Nature Beat’s paying supporters. Paid subscriptions are less than £1 per week.

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On The Horizon

7 February 2026: The Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee developing an international treaty on plastic pollution will meet in Geneva to elect a new chair of the negotiations.

14-16 February: The Corals, Coasts and One Health conference takes place in Saudi Arabia.

16-19 February: The UN Convention on Biological Diversity’s Subsidiary Body on Implementation meets in Rome, Italy.

Bonus content: The full calendar for Global Nature Beat’s supporters includes nature-related intergovernmental negotiations, scientific conferences, report launches, and other events up until 2028.

Whose Eye Was It?

The eye belongs to a bull skink. Photo credit: Jean and Fred Hort — Wikimedia Commons.

Thanks for reading. For past editions, see the Archive. If you found it interesting or useful, please share and subscribe. If you want to get in contact, you can reach me at: thenaturebeat@substack.com.

Take A Trip to Planet Ficus

My other newsletter Planet Ficus is devoted to stories about the world’s most fascinating plants — the strangler figs and their kin, which have shaped our world and our species in profound ways. Take a trip there for a rich mix of stories about the ecological and cultural importance of these trees.

Planet Ficus

Astounding stories of how fig trees shaped humanity and the world about us.

By Mike Shanahan

• Updates on nature loss as a national security threat, the new State of Nature Finance report, Brazil’s biodiversity strategy, the EU-Mercosur trade deal, the High Seas Treaty.

• Features about natural capital accounting, concerns about complicity of conservation NGOs in Indonesia, efforts to save the Great Barrier Reef, declining dugongs in Thailand, and African plant conservation.

• Journal papers on urban trees and heart health, birds and fire, greening drylands, decarbonizing diets, snakes on trains, citizen wetland monitors, living wall biodiversity, and more.

• Plus the usual mix of news from around the world, useful resources, jobs and opportunities for environmental journalists, and more.

Nature Loss Threatens National Security, Says Report UK Government Tried to Suppress

An official report the UK government tried to suppress set out how global biodiversity loss is now a serious threat to national security. In just 11 pages of clear text and graphics, it delivers stark warnings. “Every critical ecosystem is on a pathway to collapse,” it states, meaning “irreversible loss of function beyond repair”.

The report spells out the consequences of failing to stop this: More poverty, food insecurity and migration; increased pandemic risks; political instability and new opportunities for organized crime and terrorist groups to control scarce resources; and intensifying geopolitical competition, with rising risks of conflict within and between states.

None of this will surprise anyone who has been listening to the scientists documenting biodiversity loss and warning, with growing urgency, that it threatens humanity. As the report puts it: “All countries are exposed to the risks of ecosystem collapse within and beyond their borders.”

The assessment was prepared for the Joint Intelligence Committee, which oversees the British security services. Last October, Fiona Harvey and Helena Horton revealed that the government had blocked the report’s publication. The version published on 20 January — and only after a freedom of information request — is merely a summary. The full document remains secret.

This attempt at suppression echoes the Australian government’s refusal to publish an Office of National Intelligence assessment of national security threats posed by global heating. Such secrecy is reckless. Political support for addressing nature loss and climate change demands clear-eyed accounts of what is at stake.

By warning that disinformation will increase, the UK report also strengthen the case for broadcasters to televise a national emerging briefing on climate and nature.

Taking The Pulse

Nature finance: The UK report (above) makes a clear case for increasing investment in protecting and restoring nature worldwide. Yet, as the UN Environment Programme stated in a report released on 22 January, the world is spending 30 times more on activities that destroy nature than protect it — for details, see the story by Stuart Braun.

Brazil: Brazil published its overdue National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan. It was worth the wait. It includes a headline target of conserving 80 percent of the Brazilian Amazon rainforest, and 30 percent of other ecosystems, by 2030. This would exceed the target of the Global Biodiversity Framework. For more detail, see the analysis by Daisy Dunne and Giuliana Viglione, who looked at six parts of the plan and how Brazil aims to achieve its targets.

Trade: After 25 years of negotiations, officials from the European Union and the South American trade bloc Mercosur signed a free trade agreement on 17 January. The deal will create the world’s largest free trade area. But as Sam Meadows and Flávia Milhorance report, the agreement is ambiguous about environmental compliance and some academics say it could lead to an increase in deforestation and carbon emissions. On 21 January, the European Parliament forced a delay by referring the deal to the European Court of Justice to rule on its compatibility with EU treaties. Ultimately, the agreement must gain the consent of the European Parliament and be ratified by Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay before it can be implemented.

High seas: China has proposed hosting the secretariat for the High Seas Treaty on marine biodiversity in international waters, which entered into force on 17 January, reports Laura Zhou. By proposing Xiamen, a city in Fujian Province, China joins Belgium and Chile in hoping to host the secretariat. Parties to the agreement will decide among these options when they meet for the first time later this year. Rhett Ayers Butler (here) and Sandra Condon (here) have both written useful overviews of what the treaty entails and what is needed to ensure it is effective.

In The Spotlight

• Kiley Price explored how economists and ecologists are developing natural capital accounting to quantify nature’s economic value and the financial risks of environmental degradation.

• Arrum Harahap says some conservation organizations working in Indonesia risk becoming complicit in the degradation of local ecosystems.

• Benji Jones wrote about Australia’s massive, high‑tech effort to keep the Great Barrier Reef alive through coral breeding and restoration.

• Victor Nsereko Wantate argues that plant conservation in Africa is undermined by the vast number of species lacking recent — or any — status assessments, and calls for a new approach pairing global data with local field intelligence.

• Gloria Dickie reported on the dramatic collapse of Thailand’s dugong population, tracing how seagrass die‑offs, pollution, climate‑driven stress and tourism pressures have harmed the species.

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In Focus: Human-Wildlife Conflict

Three new stories published by Down To Earth highlight patterns of human-wildlife conflict in South Asia:

• Leopard attacks in northern West Bengal, India are no longer seasonal and now take place year-round, reports Deepanwita Gita Niyogi. This is linked to growth in the leopard population and farmers shifting from rice to tea production — itself a response to elephant raids on rice farms.

• In Nepal, bears have attacked maize farmer Dorje Dundul three times in the past five years, writes Geoff Childs, explaining how demographic trends contribute to a recent increase in such attacks in rural communities.

• In the Indian section of the Sundarbans mangrove forest, there may be a gendered pattern to crocodile attacks — with most victims being women collecting prawns, report Aliya Bashir and Deepanwita Gita Niyogi.

Dispatch from Planet Ficus

At Planet Ficus, I wrote about how Indian ecologist Madhav Gadgil’s lifelong engagement with culturally and ecologically important fig trees shaped his radical, people‑centric vision for conservation, blending science, traditional knowledge and community rights to protect forests.

Planet Ficus

Figs, Forests and the Fight for People-Focused Conservation

In 1974, Madhav Gadgil was alone in a forest in the Western Ghats of southern India. With light fading fast and wild elephants trumpeting and breaking branches nearby, trekking through the forest in darkness was not an option. Instead, he hauled himself up a fig tree — a…

Read more

2 months ago · 8 likes · 5 comments · Mike Shanahan

From The Journals

• Urban trees may reduce cardiovascular disease but grassy areas may increase it — read the press release or the full paper.

• Exposure of western United States bird communities to predicted high severity fire — read the full paper.

• Intensive farming of açaí palms is bad for birds in the Brazilian Amazon — read the full paper.

• Nearly 30 percent of global drylands got significantly greener since 2001, largely because of human activities — read the press release or the full paper.

• Environmental impacts from European food consumption can be reduced with carbon pricing or reforms to value-added tax — read the press release or the full paper.

• Accidental train journeys may be altering the distribution of king cobras and other snakes in southern India — read the full paper.

• Well-designed living walls can deliver meaningful urban biodiversity benefits — read the press release or the full paper.

• Citizen scientists should be at the core of monitoring wetland restoration — read the press release or the full paper.

• Adding ‘Social’ to the European Union’s Green Deal could reinvigorate the flagging policy — read the full paper.

What Caught My Eye

• Colombia’s deforestation rate declined again in 2025, reports Maxwell Radwin.

• Warren Cornwall covered new research in which scientists say zoos risk becoming dysfunctional as their animals age and reproduce less.

• As temperatures rise, penguins are breeding earlier and this is creating problems for two of the rarest species, reports Seth Borenstein.

• The official Indonesian language dictionary has redefined oil palm as a tree — an editorial in Tempo argues that this could lead to more deforestation.

• Low-cost ‘healthy’ diets could cut food-related carbon emissions by one-third, reports Yanine Quiroz.

• The world is depleting freshwater faster than nature can replace it, pushing many regions into “water bankruptcy,” reports Bobby Bascomb.

• David Akana interviewed Kenya’s environment minister Deborah Barasa about the country’s ambitious tree-planting goal of planting 15 billion trees by 2032.

• The World Economic Forum launched the Forest Future Alliance to encourage investment in responsible forest conservation, restoration and stewardship.

• Annie Roth reported on a promising new method for controlling invasive crown‑of‑thorns starfish that are devastating Indo‑Pacific coral reefs.

• An ecologically significant seaweed “regime shift” may be underway in the ocean, reports Damien Gayle.

How to Support Global Nature Beat

I publish this newsletter as a free service to thousands of readers in more than 120 countries. If that is something you can support, please consider becoming a paying subscriber for less than £1 a week. If you can spare that, you will be helping me to keep Global Nature Beat going for those who cannot afford to pay.

Subscribe now

Tips And Resources

• Yessenia Funes wrote about how solutions‑focused journalism can empower readers, strengthen reporting, and highlight community‑driven responses to environmental crises.

• The International Union for the Conservation of Nature published new ‘Explainer briefs’ on citizen science and a regenerative blue economy.

• On 19 February, Covering Climate Now is running two training sessions on how journalists working various beats can add climate change angles to their coverage —register for 11am UK time or 6pm UK time.

• An updated second edition of Story-Based Inquiry: A manual for investigative journalists by Mark Lee Hunter is now online for free download.

See past editions for more tips and resources.

Jobs And Opportunities

• The Society of Environmental Journalists is offering travel stipends for its Annual Conference in Chicago — deadline 30 January.

• Journalists in Europe can apply for a two-day training on investigative climate reporting — deadline 31 January.

• The Association of British Science Writers invites entries for its 2026 awards — deadline 31 January.

• The Tyee is hiring a biodiversity reporter based in British Columbia, Canada — deadline 8 February.

• The Covering Climate Now Academy is offering free, live online training for journalists worldwide — deadline 16 February.

• Nature is offering a paid, full-time science writing internship in one of its US offices — deadline 27 February.

• The Earth Journalism Network has grants for stories on biodiversity in the Western Balkans — deadline 28 February.

• WIRED is hiring a senior science editor — no deadline listed.

• Mongabay is hiring a TikTok journalist (French) for Mongabay Africa.

• The Council for the Advancement of Science Writing invites applications for its Taylor/Blakeslee Graduate Fellowships for graduate study in science journalism — deadline 16 March.

• The Journalism Science Alliance has grants for collaborations between media and academia or research institutions — deadline 23 March.

• The Council for the Advancement of Science Writing is accepting entries for the Sharon Begley Science Reporting Award — deadline 30 April — and the Evert Clark/Seth Payne Award for a young science journalist — deadline 30 June.

Bonus content: There are 43 jobs, grants, fellowships and other opportunities listed here for Global Nature Beat’s paying supporters. Paid subscriptions are less than £1 per week.

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On The Horizon

3-8 February 2026: The 12th Plenary of the Intergovernmental Panel on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services takes place in Manchester, United Kingdom.

7 February 2026: The Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee developing an international treaty on plastic pollution will meet in Geneva to elect a new chair of the negotiations.

14-16 February: The Corals, Coasts and One Health conference takes place in Saudi Arabia.

16-19 February: The UN Convention on Biological Diversity’s Subsidiary Body on Implementation meets in Rome, Italy.

Bonus content: The full calendar for Global Nature Beat’s supporters includes nature-related intergovernmental negotiations, scientific conferences, report launches, and other events up until 2026.

Whose Eye Was It?

The eye belongs to a golden-eyed tree frog. Photo credit: Charles J. Sharp — Wikimedia Commons.

Thanks for reading. For past editions, see the Archive. If you found it interesting or useful, please share and subscribe. If you want to get in contact, you can reach me at: thenaturebeat@substack.com.

• Updates on Indonesia’s forests, the Convention on Biological Diversity, the International Waterbird Census, the High Seas Treaty.

• Features about deep-sea mining, elephant winners and losers, involuntary parks, sand dredging impacts, climate-driven wildfires.

• Journal papers on wildlife fashion, unprotected rivers, environmental crime, tourists and deforestation, invasive species, tropical forest recovery and more.

• Plus the usual mix of news from around the world, useful resources, jobs and opportunities for environmental journalists, and more.

Taking The Pulse

Indonesia: A government task force has reclaimed a Switzerland-sized area of land — and collected more than US$130 million in fines — from companies operating plantations and mines illegally in forest areas. As Hans Nicholas Jong reports, the task force began its work last year and could seize a similar area in 2026. Civil society groups say the lack of clarity about what will happen to the money and the seized lands creates room for abuse and could spark conflict. Meanwhile, as Jeff Hutton reports, deforestation is accelerating in Indonesia — notably through the planned clear-felling of two million hectares in Papua. Indonesian forester and sustainability expert Aida Greenbury says the recent deadly floods in Sumatra have shifted public opinion about deforestation, with more Indonesians now openly discussing its impacts.

Waterbirds: One of the world’s biggest, longest-running and most influential citizen science initiatives is underway. For the 60th year, people around the world are heading out to wetlands around the world to count birds for the annual International Waterbird Census. Wetlands International says the census provides data on population trends for 570 bird species and has identified and ensured protection for a large area of important wetland habitat.

High Seas Treaty: The new UN Agreement on Marine Biological Diversity of Areas Beyond National Jurisdiction, will enter into force on 17 January. So far, 146 countries and the European Union have signed the treaty, and 83 of them have ratified it. Among other things, the treaty provides a legal framework for creating marine protected areas in international waters. The first conference of parties is expected to happen within one year.

Biodiversity: Most (143 of 196) parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) have submitted national targets that align with the Global Biodiversity Framework — the strategy for halting and reversing nature loss by 2030. But so far only 69 have submitted a new National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan aligned with the strategy. The CBD Secretariat has reminded parties to submit their 7th National Reports ahead of the 28 February deadline. The reports are important as this year’s conference of parties to the CBD, in October, will provide the first review of progress towards the strategy’s goals and targets. Before that, the CBD’s Subsidiary Body on Implementation will meet next month in Rome, where negotiators will work on decisions for the conference of parties to adopt — for more details, join the CBD ‘s webinar series on 22, 23 and 28 January.

In The Spotlight

• Christian Elliott wrote about scientists racing to understand whether deep‑sea ecosystems can recover from mining as governments and companies push ahead with plans to extract metals from the ocean floor.

• Sophy Roberts reported on the contrasting fortunes of elephant populations in different parts of Africa — with some hunted to near extinction and others becoming so numerous they are creating problems for local people.

• Grace Ekpu reported on how intensive sand dredging in Lagos, Nigeria is reshaping the coastline, destroying fisheries, and deepening social and environmental risks for waterfront communities.

• Ashley Kirk and Pablo Gutiérrez reported on — and mapped — how climate‑driven wildfires have doubled global tree‑cover loss in two decades, accelerating a dangerous warming–fire feedback loop.

• Annelise Gisburt wrote about ‘involuntary parks’, the wildlife refuges created by armed conflict.

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From The Journals

• The wildlife fashion industry’s claims to support conservation should be treated with caution — read the full paper.

• Most US rivers lack any protection from human activities — read the press release or the policy brief (the full paper is paywalled).

• The first nationwide assessment of prosecutions for environmental crimes in Australia finds illegal vegetation clearance, fishing and wildlife trafficking to be most prevalent — read the full paper.

• More tourist visits means less deforestation inside Madagascan protected areas, but more deforestation outside them — read the full paper.

• Insects are overlooked victims of invasive animal and plant species — read the press release or the full paper.

• Tropical forests can recover twice as fast after deforestation when their soils contain enough nitrogen — read the press release or the full paper.

• Biological invasions cost Morocco an estimated US$1-5 billion each year — read the full paper.

• South Africa’s biodiversity policies and programmes in the face of climate change threats — read the full paper.

Take A Trip to Planet Ficus

My other newsletter Planet Ficus is devoted to stories about the world’s most fascinating plants — the strangler figs and their kin, which have shaped our world and our species in profound ways. Take a trip there for a rich mix of stories about the ecological and cultural importance of these trees.

What Caught My Eye

• Prevention of environmental crime is moving from niche interest into the diplomatic mainstream, writes Robert Muggah.

• Scientists are concerned about the misuse of research permits to trap songbirds in Spain.

• Scientists have cast doubt on the validity of studies claiming that microplastics are present throughout the human body, reports Damian Carrington.

• The Australian government will spend up to A$13 million to establish at least eight new Indigenous Protected Areas.

• The first global review of its kind identified more than 800 important areas for sharks and rays — read the press release or the full report.

• Warren Cornwall reported on new research showing that microbes living on tree bark play a previously unrecognized role in limiting global warming.

• Oil and gas licences overlap with 7,000 protected areas worldwide, and the total overlap area is bigger than France, report Alexandre Brutelle, Daniela Sala and Yann Philippin.

• A unilateral US takeover of Greenland threatens to disrupt open scientific collaboration that is helping us understand the threat of global sea-level rise, writes Martin Siegert.

• Chronic low-dose exposure to a common pesticide chlorpyrifos shortened the lifespans of wild fish in China and may pose similar aging-related risks in humans, reports Erik Stokstad.

• Ruth Kamnitzer reported on the first year of implementation of the Global Biodiversity Standard, a certification scheme helping forest restoration projects prove real biodiversity gains.

• Victoria Molloy spoke to former hunters and poachers of wildlife in Canada, Mexico, Nigeria and the United States who are now active conservationists.

• Mongabay launched its Newswire Desk to deliver bite-sized news on nature.

How to Support Global Nature Beat

I publish this newsletter as a free service to thousands of readers in more than 120 countries. If that is something you can support, please consider becoming a paying subscriber for less than £1 a week. If you can spare that, you will be helping me to keep Global Nature Beat going for those who cannot afford to pay.

Subscribe now

Tips And Resources

• The Talanoa Institute has produced guides for journalists and newsrooms on adaptation to climate change in English, Portuguese and Spanish.

• The UN Environment Programme’s World Conservation Monitoring Centre announced it has merged its databases on protected areas and other effective area-based conservation measures (OECMs) into a single World Database on Protected and Conserved Areas.

• WWF published a report on how OECMs can advance inclusive conservation in Bolivia, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Mexico, and Peru.

• On 21 January, ThinkLandscape is hosting an online discussion on the pros and cons of using synthetic biology to conserve nature — see also, how to implement the International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s policy on synthetic biology.

See past editions for more tips and resources.

Jobs And Opportunities

• The Earth Journalism Network is hiring a program officer — no deadline listed.

• The New York Times is hiring an assistant editor, climate — no deadline listed.

• Journalists from Indonesia and Vietnam can apply to attend the Earth Journalism Network’s workshop on forest governance — deadline 6 February.

• The Club of Rome is accepting applications for its Communications Fellowship 2026 — deadline 20 February.

• Journalists from Ghana, Mexico and the Philippines can apply to attend the Earth Journalism Network’s virtual workshops on the Global Biodiversity Framework’s 30x30 marine conservation target — deadline extended to 19 January.

• The US National Association of Science Writers invites entries for its Science in Society Journalism Awards — deadline 1 February.

• The One World Media Awards are open for entries — deadline 9 February.

• The Centre for Investigation Journalism is offering ten climate-focused training scholarships — deadline 11 February.

• The Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism invites applications for its fellowship programme — deadline 13 February.

• The University of Colorado at Boulder invites applications for its Ted Scripps Fellowship in Environmental Journalism — deadline 1 March.

• Free University invites applications for a five-month online training and mentoring programme designed for Russian-speaking journalists in exile who cover Europe’s environmental and climate challenges.

Bonus content: There are 37 jobs, grants, fellowships and other opportunities listed here for Global Nature Beat’s paying supporters. Paid subscriptions are less than £1 per week.

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On The Horizon

19-23 January: The World Economic Forum’s annual meeting takes place in Davos, Switzerland.

3-8 February 2026: The 12th Plenary of the Intergovernmental Panel on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services takes place in Manchester, United Kingdom.

7 February 2026: The Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee developing an international treaty on plastic pollution will meet in Geneva to elect a new chair of the negotiations.

14-16 February: The Corals, Coasts and One Health conference takes place in Saudi Arabia.

16-19 February: The UN Convention on Biological Diversity’s Subsidiary Body on Implementation meets in Rome, Italy.

Bonus content: The full calendar for Global Nature Beat’s supporters includes nature-related intergovernmental negotiations, scientific conferences, report launches, and other events up until 2026.

Whose Eye Was It?

The eye belongs to a Western Lowland Olingo. Photo credit: P. Asimbaya y L. Velásquez — Wikimedia Commons.

Thanks for reading. For past editions, see the Archive. If you found it interesting or useful, please share and subscribe. If you want to get in contact, you can reach me at: thenaturebeat@substack.com.

• Updates on President Trump’s retreat from global environmental action, and a packed year for treaty talks.

• Features about rebounding species, wetland restoration, windfarms and migratory birds, falcon poaching, fortress conservation, megafires and birds.

• Journal papers on trophy hunting perceptions, roads and deforestation, zoonotic disease, primate conservation, grapes versus chameleons, and more.

• Plus the usual mix of news from around the world, useful resources, jobs and opportunities for environmental journalists, and more.

Taking The Pulse

Treaty talks: Global Nature Beat is back after a break and energized for what will be another packed year in the story of our species and its living planet. Multilateralism on environmental issues will be tested again, as 2026 is a ‘triple COP’ year — with conferences of parties to all three of the UN conventions agreed at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. In August, the 17th Conference of Parties to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification takes place in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia. In October, the UN Biodiversity Conference (COP17) takes place in Yerevan, Armenia. And in November, the UN Climate Change Conference (COP31) will take place in Antalya, Turkey. This year will also have resumed negotiations towards a global treaty on plastic pollution. In March, Brazil will host the 15th Conference of Parties to the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species. And — next week — the high seas treaty on marine biodiversity enters into force. I’ll be tracking all of these and much more here at Global Nature Beat.

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Trump: On 7 January, Donald Trump announced that the United States would withdraw from the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and other international bodies set up to respond to environmental challenges. His Presidential Memorandum explains that the decision is based on a report by Secretary of State Marco Rubio into US membership of organizations, treaties and so on that are “contrary to the interests of the United States”.

As well as the UNFCCC and IPCC, the list includes: the US-Canada-Mexico Commission for Environmental Cooperation; the UN Collaborative Programme on Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries (UN-REDD); the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES); and the International Union for Conservation of Nature. To say that participating in and supporting efforts to understand and counter the threats of climate change and biodiversity loss is not in the interests of the United States is palpable nonsense.

In The Spotlight

• Once-rare species are bouncing back on a Galapagos island cleared of invasive rats and cats, reported Sophie Hardach.

• Xu Na wrote about the prospects for balancing China’s wind farm development with the needs of endangered migratory birds.

• Annonciata Byukusenge and Freddie Clayton reported on efforts to restore wetlands across the Rwandan capital Kigali to reduce flood risks.

• Oscar Nkala exposed how a former justice minister of Botswana secured a trophy hunting concession for an infamous South African hunter, sparking community unrest.

• Gloria Dickie wrote about how California’s fire-adapted birds are faring as megafires become more frequent.

• Soaring demand for elite racing and breeding falcons in the Middle East is driving the illegal capture of wild peregrines in the United Kingdom, reports Phoebe Weston.

• Davide Lemmi and Marco Simoncelli wrote about how Tanzania’s creation of new game reserves is forcibly displacing Maasai communities.

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From The Journals

• What climate change means for mammals that hibernate — read the full paper.

  German public perceptions of trophy hunting in sub-Saharan Africa — read the full paper.

• Mechanized grape harvesting kills many chameleons in Israel — read the full paper.

• Road expansion risk predicts future hotspots of tropical deforestation — read the full paper.

• A bat-borne virus has been identified as the cause of an unexplained disease outbreak in Bangladesh — read the press release or the full paper.

• The positive and negative roles of social media in primate conservation — read the full paper.

• Only 59 percent of parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity included the contributions of traditional knowledge to biodiversity governance in their most recent national reports — read the full paper.

• Nine sources of strain that drive environmental crime among communities living near a national park in Vietnam — read the full paper.

• When long-term environmental data becomes a target, our ability to understand and respond to global change is profoundly compromised — read the press release or the full paper.

Take A Trip to Planet Ficus

My other newsletter Planet Ficus is devoted to stories about the world’s most fascinating plants — the strangler figs and their kin, which have shaped our world and our species in profound ways. Take a trip there for a rich mix of stories about the ecological and cultural importance of these trees.

What Caught My Eye

• Joe Lo reports that Indian police have raided the homes and offices of climate activists, accusing them of jeopardizing India’s energy security by campaigning against fossil fuels.

• Shimali Chauhan reports that the UN Convention on Biological Diversity’s official reporting system will no longer be restricted to governments, so that all sectors of society can provide information on actions contributing to the goals of the convention.

• From 2018 to 2024, the proportion of UK media stories mentioning “net zero” that also referred to climate change or global warming fell from 90 percent to just 42 percent.

• Stingless bees from the Amazon have become the first insects to be granted legal rights anywhere in the world, reports Damien Gayle.

• Nearly half of Africa’s grasslands are grazed beyond their sustainable capacity, reports Musinguzi Blanshe.

• Young Atlantic salmon have been seen in three English rivers for the first time in a decade, reports Hannah Al-Othman.

• The European Union’s anti-deforestation law has been hollowed out, says the policymaker who drafted it.

• Lucy Almond, chair of the Nature4Climate coalition, shared four predictions for 2026 about investments in nature-based solutions to climate change.

• The Earth Journalism Network shared 19 solutions-based climate and environmental stories by journalists it supported in the Asia-Pacific region.

• Ronald Musoke wrote about how African policymakers, scientists and community leaders recently met to design a continent‑wide, transboundary conservation programme aimed at strengthening ecosystem connectivity and resilience.

How to Support Global Nature Beat

I publish this newsletter as a free service to thousands of readers in more than 120 countries. If that is something you can support, please consider becoming a paying subscriber for less than £1 a week. If you can spare that, you will be helping me to keep Global Nature Beat going for those who cannot afford to pay.

Subscribe now

Tips And Resources

• The International Union for the Conservation of Nature published a briefing paper on the “state of play” for crimes affecting the environment.

• Anna Napolitano wrote an explainer on the latest science on ocean acidification and why it matters.

• The UN Environment Programme published a quick guide to the National Biodiversity Strategies and Action Plans that parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity develop and implement.

• The European Federation for Science Journalism published reporting guides for journalists in Bulgaria and Turkey.

• Scientists published a global compendium of nature-based solutions on small and medium-sized islands.

See past editions for more tips and resources.

Jobs And Opportunities

• The Solutions Journalism Network seeks consultants in India and Brazil for two-year contracts — deadline 19 January.

• Resilience.org is hiring a managing editor — deadline 21 January.

• The Fund for Investigative Journalism is offering grants of up to US$10,000 — deadline 30 January.

• Carbon Pulse is hiring an Asia-Pacific Environmental Markets Correspondent and a Toronto/Vancouver-based Environmental Markets Correspondent — deadline 31 January.

Bonus content: There are 34 jobs, grants, fellowships and other opportunities listed here for Global Nature Beat’s paying supporters. Paid subscriptions are less than £1 per week.

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On The Horizon

19-23 January: The World Economic Forum’s annual meeting takes place in Davos, Switzerland.

3-8 February 2026: The 12th Plenary of the Intergovernmental Panel on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services takes place in Manchester, United Kingdom.

7 February 2026: The Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee developing an international treaty on plastic pollution will meet in Geneva to elect a new chair of the negotiations.

16-19 February: The UN Convention on Biological Diversity’s Subsidiary Body on Implementation meets in Rome, Italy.

Bonus content: The full calendar for Global Nature Beat’s supporters includes nature-related intergovernmental negotiations, scientific conferences, report launches, and other events up until 2026.

Whose Eye Was It?

The eye belongs to a northern sulphur-crested cockatoo. Photo credit: H. Zell — Wikimedia Commons.

Thanks for reading. For past editions, see the Archive. If you found it interesting or useful, please share and subscribe. If you want to get in contact, you can reach me at: thenaturebeat@substack.com.

• Updates on US$372 million for climate and biodiversity projects, proposals to protect 42 new species under the Convention on Migratory Species, progress with the EU nature restoration law, and persecution of reintroduced eagles.

• Features about illegal fishing, capitalist rewilding, deep-sea mining, invasive mussels, community forests and tree-killing beetles.

• Journal papers on the world’s rarest rhinos, environmental DNA, repression of protest, river biodiversity and insect trafficking.

• Plus the usual mix of news from around the world, useful resources, jobs and opportunities for environmental journalists, and more.

Goodbye 2025

This will be the final edition of Global Nature Beat for 2025. Before I share the regular content, I want to thank all my subscribers — especially those who pay to receive the newsletter. Your support helps to keep Global Nature Beat alive, ensuring I can continue to share high quality information with journalists and other readers in more than 125 countries around the world.

It has been a busy year. The newsletter has covered the ups and downs of international negotiations on biodiversity, climate change, plastics, wildlife trade, wetlands, and many more processes related to nature. I have also shared the following carefully curated content:

• 230 scientific papers on biodiversity and related topics

• 167 feature stories

• 171 tipsheets, webinars and other resources

• 450 news stories from around the world that caught my eye

• 216 jobs and other opportunities for environment journalists.

I expect 2026 to be just as busy, but for now I plan to spend some time (mostly) offline. I’ll be back again in January. Until then, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

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Taking The Pulse

Money: The Global Environment Facility (GEF) — which manages money for the UN’s environmental treaties — has approved US$372 million in funding for projects on biodiversity, climate change, pollution and other environmental issues in 59 countries. This includes US$28.2 million from the GEF-managed Global Biodiversity Framework Fund, which helps countries to implement their commitments under the UN Convention on Biological Diversity. This funding will support projects in Colombia, Indonesia and Madagascar.

Migratory species: The Secretariat of the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS) has shared a list of 42 species that countries are proposing for inclusion in the lists of species protected under the convention. They include striped hyenas, snowy owls, giant otters and several shark species. Decisions on these proposals will take place in March 2026 at the 15th Conference of Parties to the CMS.

Restoration: Member states of the European Union (EU) are making mixed progress with their implementation of the EU Nature Restoration Law, according to a new evaluation by BirdLife, ClientEarth, the European Environmental Bureau and WWF. The analysis covers 23 member states and assesses their efforts to develop National Restoration Plans, as required by the law. While some countries are making good progress, others are lagging. The report calls for stronger political support, greater public awareness and an acceleration of measures for restoring nature.

Raptors: Police in England, Scotland and Wales are investigating the disappearances of white-tailed eagles that are part of a program reintroducing the species to the British Isles after a gap of more than 200 years. Helena Horton and Patrick Barkham report that, in two of the recent cases, satellite trackers had been cut from the birds. The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds is offering a GBP10,000 reward for information leading to a conviction.

In The Spotlight

• Phoebe Weston wrote about the invasive mussels harming the ecology and infrastructure of Lake Geneva in Switzerland.

• Costa Rica’s fuel subsidy program is inadvertently financing illegal fishing, overfishing and even drug trafficking, reports Johnny Sturgeon.

• Severin Carrell reported on claims that an aggressively profit‑driven “regenerative capitalism” model for rewilding could bring big profits to its investors.

• Anita Hofschneider wrote about how the Trump administration’s push for deep‑sea mining in 2025 collided with scientific warnings and Indigenous resistance across the Pacific.

• Across large areas of Greece’s Peloponnese mountains, drought is weakening fir trees and enabling beetles to attack and kill them, reports Tam Patachako.

• Elodie Toto and Crispin Kyalangalilwa wrote about a project in the Democratic Republic of the Congo that is creating a 1-million-hectare biodiversity corridor of community-managed forests connecting two protected areas.

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From The Journals

• The Sumatran rhinoceros will likely be functionally extinct by around 2040 but Indonesia has a slim chance to prevent this — read the full paper.

• DNA captured on air filters and stored since the 1960s reveals changes in biodiversity — read the press release or the full paper.

• Rural settlement expansion causes more biodiversity loss than urban spread — read the full paper.

• How 14 countries criminalize and repress climate and environmental protest — read the full paper.

• European protected areas provide limited benefits for river biodiversity — read the full paper.

• Laws do not adequately address insect trafficking — read the press release or the full paper.

Take A Trip to Planet Ficus

My other newsletter Planet Ficus is devoted to stories about the world’s most fascinating plants — the strangler figs and their kin, which have shaped our world and our species in profound ways. Take a trip there for a rich mix of stories about the ecological and cultural importance of these trees.

What Caught My Eye

• Rhett Ayers Butler shared 70 obituaries he wrote for environmental defenders and conservationists who died in 2025.

• Brown bears living near villages in central Italy have evolved to be less aggressive — because angry bears are more likely to be shot.

• Mexico launched its Sustainable Ocean Plan.

• In India, a high-speed train hit a herd of elephants crossing the train tracks, killing seven of the animals.

• Campaigners in Spain have defeated plans to extend Bilbao’s Guggenheim Museum into a nature reserve, reports Sam Jones.

• The indigenous Juruna and Arara peoples have revoked consultations used by a Canadian company to justify licensing of a huge gold mine on the banks of the Xingu river, in Brazil’s Para state.

• The US Fish and Wildlife Service has lost 18 percent of its staff under the Trump administration.

• Japan has ratified the High Seas Treaty on marine biodiversity beyond national jurisdictions.

• Cyril Zenda reported on Botswana’s sharp increase in wildlife hunting quotas and its plan to allow year‑round elephant hunting.

• Tajikistan’s forest cover has fallen from 20 percent to just 3 percent.

• A new European Union regulation aiming to prevent microplastic pollution from plastic pellets took effect on 16 December.

• Malaysian-linked companies control 65 of 67 permits for deforesting areas of Papua New Guinea, reports Sonam Lama Hyolmo.

How to Support Global Nature Beat

I publish this newsletter as a free service to thousands of readers in more than 120 countries. If that is something you can support, please consider becoming a paying subscriber for less than £1 a week. If you can spare that, you will be helping me to keep Global Nature Beat going for those who cannot afford to pay.

Subscribe now

Tips And Resources

• The World Resources Institute updated its Q&A on the EU Deforestation Regulation.

• Brazilian outlet O Eco launched a new series of articles and resources on protected areas, which will continue until the next World Congress on Protected and Conserved Areas in 2027. [In Portuguese]

See past editions for more tips and resources.

Jobs And Opportunities

• Journalists in India can apply for an Investigative Reporting Fellowship from The Reporters’ Collective — deadline 31 December.

• The Uproot Project is inviting mid-career environmental or climate journalists to apply for its Metcalf Ocean Nexus Academy fellowship — deadline 9 January.

• Mongabay invites journalists from biodiversity hotspots in tropical countries to apply for a Y. Eva Tan Conservation Reporting Fellowship — deadline 1 February 2026.

Bonus content: There are 38 jobs, grants, fellowships and other opportunities listed here for Global Nature Beat’s paying supporters. Paid subscriptions are less than £1 per week.

Share

On The Horizon

19-23 January: The World Economic Forum’s annual meeting takes place in Davos, Switzerland.

3-8 February 2026: The 12th Plenary of the Intergovernmental Panel on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services takes place in Manchester, United Kingdom.

16-19 February: The UN Convention on Biological Diversity’s Subsidiary Body on Implementation meets in Rome, Italy.

23-29 March 2026: The 15th Conference of Parties to the Convention on Migratory Species takes place in Campo Grande, Brazil.

Bonus content: The full calendar for Global Nature Beat’s supporters includes nature-related intergovernmental negotiations, scientific conferences, report launches, and other events up until 2026.

Whose Eye Was It?

The eye belongs to a superb starling. Photo credit: Tambako the Jaguar — Flickr / Creative Commons.

Thanks for reading. For past editions, see the Archive. If you found it interesting or useful, please share and subscribe. If you want to get in contact, you can reach me at: thenaturebeat@substack.com.

• Updates on the annual Operation Thunder busts of wildlife traffickers, a fractious UN Environment Assembly, a thwarted report on problems and solutions, the 30x30 target of the Global Biodiversity Framework, and what experts think is on the horizon.

• Features on human impacts of vulture declines in India, wildlife crossings in the United States, the difficult return of bald ibises to Europe, and regulated trade in endangered species.

• Journal papers on streetlights versus pollinators, shifts in the global illegal wildlife trade network, improving marine conservation, Facebook spotting invasive species, and a common forest restoration method debunked?

• Plus the usual mix of news from around the world, useful resources, jobs and opportunities for environmental journalists, and more.

Taking The Pulse

Operation Thunder: The annual coordinated operation against wildlife trafficking led by INTERPOL and the World Customs Organization always reveals much about the scale of the illegal wildlife trade and the diversity of species involved. In this year’s Operation Thunder, law enforcement agencies in 134 countries seized nearly 30,000 live animals in a single month. This included more than 200 primates, 6,000 birds and 10 big cats. Also seized were 1,900 pieces of ivory, 7 tons of pangolin scales and meat, 830 bear parts and more than 10,000 spiders and insects — see the press release for details. Operation Thunder took place between 15 September and 15 October, and was made public on 11 December.

UNEA-7: The world’s top environmental decision-making body — the UN Environment Assembly — ended on 12 December, having adopted 11 resolutions to boost global action on coral reefs, waste management, sustainable use of artificial intelligence, wildfires, invasive seaweed and glaciers, among other issues. Four other resolutions — including on deep-sea mining and crimes that affect the environment — were dropped from the agenda as governments could not agree on them. The Assembly also approved a new four-year strategy and two-year programme of work for the UN Environment Programme (UNEP). The European Commission and UNEP say these results show that multilateralism still works. But the meeting was fractious — with the United States withdrawing from the negotiations and disassociating itself from all of the meeting’s outcomes. For more details, see the Earth Negotiations Bulletin’s detailed summary.

GEO-7: UNEP released the 7th edition of its Global Environmental Outlook report, which calls for integrated policies and a rapid transition away from fossil fuels to address the linked challenges of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution. Nearly 300 scientists from 82 countries contributed to the report. They say investing in planetary health now will bring big dividends: ending poverty and hunger for hundreds of millions of people, preventing millions of early deaths and adding trillions of dollars to global GDP — see the press release. Previous editions of the report have been endorsed by all governments at the UN Environment Assembly. But not this time. A small number of countries including the Russia, Saudi Arabia and the United States refused to approve the summary of key findings and recommendations, leaving it unpublished. “A small number of countries basically just hijacked the process, to be quite honest,” the report’s co-chair Sir Robert Watson told BBC News.

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Predictions: It’s crystal ball time. Scientists have published an annual scan of emerging issues that could shape efforts to conserve our planet’s biodiversity — from the impacts of appetite-supressing drugs on land use, to changes in how much light penetrates the ocean, and prospects for low-power, low-cost monitoring tools using artificial intelligence. In the United States, Joseph A Davis took a look at the issues likely to keep environmental journalists there busy next year. And on 15 December, the Global Catastrophic Risks Report 2026 was published. It considers five big risks facing us — climate change, biodiversity collapse, weapons of mass destruction, artificial intelligence in military decision-making and near-Earth asteroids. Heavy stuff, but stuff we must face.

30x30: Most of the world’s countries have committed to protect 30 percent of land and sea areas by 2030 — it is the headline-grabbing target of the Global Biodiversity Framework that parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity agreed in 2022. But according to a new report and interactive dashboard, despite a recent surge in funding, the annual total is about US$4 billion short of what is needed to achieve this 30x30 target — see the press release. As Maina Waruru reports, Africa has received the largest share of finance, getting nearly half of all international funding for protected and conserved areas. Money is not the only limiting factor — deciding where and how to protect is also key. A new report from the World Bank provides country-level pathways for achieving the 30x30 target in ways that prioritize cost-effective species conservation.

In The Spotlight

• Tracy Keeling’s write-up of the recent conference of parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species is the best I have seen.

• Marta Abbà wrote about the return to Europe of the northern bald ibis — 400 years after it went extinct there — and the threats the species faces from poaching in Italy and collisions with power lines.

• Mark Johnson and Saumya Khandelwal reported on the human costs of one of the most rapid declines in wildlife — the 100-fold decline in vulture numbers in India.

• Ben Goldfarb wrote about how wildlife crossings — from bridges for mountain lions to tunnels for tarantulas — are playing critical roles in conserving biodiversity.

• Sumatra’s ‘natural’ disaster wasn’t natural, writes Rhett Ayers Butler.

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From The Journals

• Trade-offs and expected benefits of reducing pesticide use in agriculture worldwide— read the press release or the full paper.

• Streetlights mess with the timing of plant flowering, with possible knock-on effects for pollinators and herbivores — read the full paper.

• Analysis of Facebook posts greatly increases data on invasive species in Bangladesh — read the full paper.

• A review of evidence on the increasingly popular Miyawaki method of forest restoration found no well documented benefits — read the full paper.

• Five opportunities to make area-based marine conservation more effective — read the full paper.

• Seven principles for reforming biodiversity governance to boost conservation, agriculture and food security — read the full paper.

• Two decades of changes in the global network of illegal wildlife trade — read the full paper.

• There are around 2,500 species of edible plants in the Mediterranean region — read the full paper.

Take A Trip to Planet Ficus

My other newsletter Planet Ficus is devoted to stories about the world’s most fascinating plants — the strangler figs and their kin, which have shaped our world and our species in profound ways. Take a trip there for a rich mix of stories about the ecological and cultural importance of these trees.

What Caught My Eye

• The iconic snowy owl is now extinct in Sweden — BirdLife International blames declines in their rodent prey caused, in turn, by the warming climate.

• India’s largest renewable energy company, Adani Green Energy, has pledged to ensure its operations cause no net loss of biodiversity by 2030, and announced plans to plant 28 million trees.

• Brazil launched its new five-year National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plan, which includes goals of conserving 80 percent of the Amazon and restoring 30 percent of degraded areas of all biomes by 2030 — see the official press release and report links in Portuguese or a brief overview in English.

• Environmental news site Mongabay has launched a wildlife desk.

• South Africa launched its fourth National Biodiversity Assessment — see the press release.

• Suzano, the world’s largest producer of pulp and paper, launched its Nature Strategy, which includes action to conserve 24 of the 125 endangered species in territories where it operates.

• The Bezos Earth Fund announced US$24.5 million in grants for marine conservation projects in Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia and Ecuador.

• The Indonesia government has ordered dozens of oil palm and mining companies to pay fines totalling US$2.3 billion for operating illegally in forest areas.

• Rwanda and Uganda are developing policies to recognize community-led initiatives that conserve biodiversity in parallel to traditional protected areas, reports Eric Twahirwa.

• Otters have made a remarkable recovery in the rivers of the United Kingdom, reports Patrick Greenfield.

• What are countries doing for their forest biodiversity? A new study examines how countries are including forests in their national biodiversity strategies and action plans.

• Stop Ecocide International welcomes a new policy on environmental damage issued by the International Criminal Court’s Office of the Prosecutor — saying it signals “a marked shift in how international justice will engage with ecological harm”.

• Environmental journalism is becoming a high-risk field but professional safeguards have not evolved accordingly, writes Marta Castillo Sánchez.

• If the world feels like it is going to hell, read David Akana’s interview of Wanjira Mathai of the World Resources Institute for some upbeat analysis, as well as reflections on the legacy of her mother —the Nobel laureate Wangari Maathai.

• Astrid Peraza and Baruch Aguilar Mena wrote about their hopes for the Escazú Agreement — the newish international treaty that aims to ensure public access to environmental information and participation in environmental decision making across Latin America and the Caribbean.

How to Support Global Nature Beat

I publish this newsletter as a free service to thousands of readers in more than 120 countries. If that is something you can support, please consider becoming a paying subscriber for less than £1 a week. If you can spare that, you will be helping me to keep Global Nature Beat going for those who cannot afford to pay.

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Tips And Resources

• TED’s climate editor Gulnaz Khan shared her tips on making the leap from writing to visual storytelling.

• The Secretariat of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) launched two online courses on how the convention works.

• The Balkan Network of Science Journalists published a new reporting guide for journalists in Bulgaria.

See past editions for more tips and resources.

Jobs And Opportunities

• The Agroecology Fund is hiring a consultant communications specialist — deadline 15 January.

• The Earth Journalism Network has story grants for journalists covering transparency in fisheries management — deadline 15 January.

• Lighthouse Reports is hiring a part-time open-source intelligence fellow — deadline 2 January 2026.

• The Earth Journalism Network is offering reporting fellowships to support journalists in the Philippines to cover climate-related disasters, adaptation measures and government preparedness — deadline 9 January.

• The Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, United States is hiring a science writer / editor — no deadline listed.

• Mongabay is hiring a copy editor — rolling deadline.

• The Canadian Journalism Foundation’s award for climate solutions reporting is open for entries deadline 23 January 2026.

• Journalists in Europe and Africa can apply for six-months of remote training on advanced investigative tools for reporting on environmental issues linked to global supply chains — deadline 20 December.

• Internews’s Earth Journalism Network is hiring a project director and an Africa coordinator for its new Forest Governance Media Initiative.

Bonus content: There are 38 jobs, grants, fellowships and other opportunities listed here for Global Nature Beat’s paying supporters. Paid subscriptions are less than £1 per week.

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On The Horizon

19-23 January: The World Economic Forum’s annual meeting takes place in Davos, Switzerland.

3-8 February 2026: The 12th Plenary of the Intergovernmental Panel on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services takes place in Manchester, United Kingdom.

16-19 February: The UN Convention on Biological Diversity’s Subsidiary Body on Implementation meets in Rome, Italy.

23-29 March 2026: The 15th Conference of Parties to the Convention on Migratory Species takes place in Campo Grande, Brazil.

Bonus content: The full calendar for Global Nature Beat’s supporters includes nature-related intergovernmental negotiations, scientific conferences, report launches, and other events up until 2026.

Whose Eye Was It?

The eye belongs to a tawny frogmouth. Photo credit: Benjamint444 — Wikimedia Commons.

Thanks for reading. For past editions, see the Archive. If you found it interesting or useful, please share and subscribe. If you want to get in contact, you can reach me at: thenaturebeat@substack.com.

• Updates on the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, the UN Environment Assembly, the UK National Emergency Briefing, the Barcelona Convention, and the EU Deforestation Regulation.

• Features on wild pigs in Australia, porcupines in the United States, public-private protected areas in Africa, and Zimbabwe’s ivory stockpile.

• Journal papers on forest protection and bird diversity in China, community-based forest management, deep-sea mining impacts, the UK biodiversity market, and misguided conservation.

• Plus the usual mix of news from around the world, useful resources, jobs and opportunities for environmental journalists, and more.

Taking The Pulse

Wildlife trade: Dozens of endangered species are better protected today than two weeks ago, thanks to decisions made at the 20th Conference of Parties to the Convention on Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), which ended on 5 December. The beneficiaries include more than 70 shark and ray species, African hornbills, okapis, four species of iguanas from the Galápagos Islands, six species of Latin American songbirds and many other species of plants and animals — see the Earth Negotiations Bulletin’s detailed summary.

Parties rejected proposals to increase protection for eels, rattlesnakes and striped hyenas, and reduced trade restrictions for some endangered species whose populations have increased — such as for trade in saiga antelope horns. But they rejected bids to loosen restrictions on trade in peregrine falcons, some populations of giraffes, elephant ivory and rhinoceros horn. And the CITES Secretariat withdrew its recommendation to suspend all trade of endangered species to India, after it failed to get enough support from parties to the convention, reports Simrin Sirur.

Emergency briefing: On 27 November, ten UK experts on the climate and nature crisis briefed 1,250 politicians and leaders from business, culture, faith, sport and the media on the latest implications for health, food, national security and the economy. In the first event of its kind, the speakers argued that the UK needs to take emergency action at a scale like that seen in wartime. They have started a petition urging the UK government and public service broadcasters to televise an emergency briefing for the British public. In the meantime, here is a summary by one of the speakers, Paul Behrens.

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The Med: Parties to the Barcelona Convention — which focuses on the Mediterranean environment — met from 2-5 December in Cairo, Egypt. They agreed a new ten-year strategy, a plan to improve protection of the Mediterranean Sea, and an updated framework for adaptation to climate change. See the European Commission’s news story.

UNEA-7: The world’s top environmental decision-making body is meeting in Nairobi, Kenya, from 8-12 December. The 7th UN Environment Assembly will adopt — or reject — resolutions on a wide range of issues. These include global responses to fire management, Sargassum seaweed blooms, corals threatened by climate change, and crimes that affect the environment. Other resolutions to be negotiated cover protection for deep-sea ecosystems, the sustainability of artificial intelligence systems, and environmentally sound management of minerals and metals. The UN Environment Programme’s next five-year strategy and two-year workplan are also on the agenda: expect tense negotiations — as SV Krishna Chaitanya reports, some countries do not want the strategy to even mention plastics or climate. The Earth Negotiations Bulletin will have daily coverage.

Deforestation: The European Parliament and Council of the European Union have agreed to delay the entry into application of the European Union Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) for another year, and to weaken some of the law’s provisions. The EUDR is intended to end imports into the European Union (EU) of commodities produced on recently deforested land. The agreed changes include reduced obligations for EU companies and the removal of paper products such as books and newspapers from the scope of the EUDR. Campaigning organization Mighty Earth called the decision a “profound failure of leadership”, adding that it opens the door to further weakening of the EUDR in 2026 — see full statement. The European Parliament and the Council must formally approve and adopt the amendments, which they are likely to do in the coming days.

In The Spotlight

• Ashoka Mukpo reported on the rapid spread of conservation organization African Parks, which now manages 24 protected areas across the continent through public-private partnerships.

• Millions of wild pigs are wreaking ecological havoc in Australia, from spreading plant diseases and destroying soils to eating turtle eggs, reports Donna Lu.

• Zimbabwe is struggling to fund conservation while guarding a 120‑ton ivory stockpile worth millions that it cannot legally sell, reports Gamuchirai Masiyiwa.

• Porcupine sightings in the western United States are increasingly rare and scientists are racing to understand the causes and consequences, reports Shi En Kim.

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From The Journals

• Forest protection and restoration have increased the diversity and distribution of bird species in China — read the full paper.

• Populations of plants and animals in sub-Saharan Africa have fallen by a quarter on average since pre-colonial times — read the full paper.

• The UK’s ambitious biodiversity market may not direct investment toward habitats of national importance — read the full paper.

• How England got its mandatory ‘biodiversity net gain’ planning policy — read the full paper.

• The strategy of conserving charismatic species can be counterproductive — read the press release or the full paper.

• A trial of deep-sea mining reduced the density of animals by 37 percent in mining tracks — read the full paper.

• A global review shows that many factors shape participation in community-based forest management — read the full paper.

• A quarter of professional sports teams worldwide have wildlife in their names, logos or nicknames, suggesting large potential to increase support for conservation — read the press release or the full paper, or explore the data on The Wild League Map.

How to Support Global Nature Beat

I publish this newsletter as a free service to thousands of readers in more than 120 countries. If that is something you can support, please consider becoming a paying subscriber for less than £1 a week. If you can spare that, you will be helping me to keep Global Nature Beat going for those who cannot afford to pay.

Subscribe now

In Focus: Cause and Effect in South and Southeast Asia

Monsoon rains and tropical cyclones triggered the severe landslides and floods that have affected millions of people in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Sri Lanka — claiming more than 1,500 lives and leaving hundreds still missing. Fossil fuels and deforestation both contributed to these tragic events, which struck just days after a minority of governments blocked a global deal to develop roadmaps for phasing out these two main causes of climate change.

Scientists will soon assess the extent to which global warming made the disasters more likely. But we know already that warmer air holds more water, making for more severe rainfall. We know too that global warming has increased the intensity of tropical cyclones and typhoons. Our use of dirty energy has played a part in creating misery for millions.

In Sumatra, Indonesia, the rains sent rivers of mud flowing down from upland areas, where deforestation has removed the land’s ability to retain water. Thousands of logs cascaded into lowland areas, destroying buildings and ending lives. The government has accused some companies — as yet unnamed — of contributing to the disaster. They include gold mining companies, pulpwood plantations and palm oil producers whose monocultures have replaced diverse forests.

We should be wary of attempts to pin the disaster on a few companies that may have broken environmental laws. Legal deforestation is also to blame. Hundreds of companies have been given licences to clear forest in Sumatra — the island has lost a Portugal-sized area of forest since 1990. Some of these companies are owned by powerful elites.

The vulnerabilities are locally created. But it is international demand for oil palm, gold and paper that drives forest loss, and it is the burning of fossil fuels that is the main cause of global warming and climate change. In our interconnected world, we all affect what happens in distant places. We can all harm and we can all help.

Recommended coverage: Reporting from Indonesia — by Natasya Salim, Hellena Souisa and Tim Swanston. Reporting from Sri Lanka — by Kamanthi Wickramasinghe. Reporting on scientific perspectives by Aniruddha Ghosal and Anton L. Delgado.

What Caught My Eye

• Michelle Nijhuis says big environmental organizations are running out of ideas and should do more to support local groups and the growing numbers of people who want to act.

• Ruth Thornton wrote about new research examining rising fear of nature — and what this means for conservation and health…

• … Meanwhile, the “‘killer wolf’ trope is undermining rewilding efforts in Europe, writes Cormac Cleary.

• The Science Based Targets Network has named the first 24 companies — including Adidas, H&M and Tata Motors — to join its Step Up for Nature initiative.

• Liz Kimbrough reported on new research showing that solar-powered lights on fishing nets reduce turtle bycatch by 63 percent.

• Uganda has identified state subsidies that harm biodiversity and developed a plan to reform them — see the technical brief or the full report.

• On 3 December, the European Union signed the Council of Europe Convention on the Protection of the Environment through Criminal Law.

• Brazil’s lawmakers have voted to weaken the nation’s environmental licensing system, reports Shanna Hanbury.

• In a policy U-turn reported by Elizabeth Claire Alberts, Norway has reversed plans to allow deep-sea mining to begin in 2026 and will now delay the activity for at least four years.

• Private companies won’t step up to save nature until governments make the right moves, writes Mark Opel.

• Less than 5 percent of India’s ‘open natural ecosystems’ — such as savannas, shrublands and deserts — are in protected areas, and most fall under the government’s wasteland classification, write Sachin Pernacca Sashidhar and Abi T. Vanak.

Tips And Resources

• The Wildlife Justice Commission will premiere its documentary Seizure on YouTube on 9 December — it follows investigators and undercover operatives working to dismantle criminal networks trafficking wildlife.

• Monica Evans wrote an explainer on synthetic biology: what it is, how it could be useful and what the main concerns are.

• Serdar Vardar summarized a session of the recent Global Investigative Journalism Conference focused on best practices for investigating environmental crimes in the ocean.

• On 10 December, the Solutions Journalism Network is hosting a live event on LinkedIn about recent research suggesting that climate solutions journalism has positive impacts on audiences — register here.

• Media accreditation is open for the launch, next February, of the Business & Biodiversity Report by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) — register here by 21 January.

See past editions for more tips and resources.

Jobs And Opportunities

• The Earth Journalism Network is offering grants for journalists to report on forest governance issues locally in Cameroon, Liberia, Ghana, Vietnam and Indonesia, as well as for journalists in the UK, EU member states, China, India and Japan who wish to report on international forest governance processes — deadline 6 January.

• The third Nature Chronicles Prize is open for entries — deadline 31 January 2026.

• The Solutions Journalism Network Awards are open to entries — deadline 27 February 2026.

• McClatchy South Carolina is hiring a coastal climate reporter — no deadline listed.

• Mongabay is hiring an associate fellowship editor — deadline 18 December.

• Illinois Public Media is hiring an agriculture/environmental reporter — no deadline listed.

• Lighthouse Reports is recruiting for a six-month reporting fellowship — deadline 2 January 2026.

• The Victor K. McElheny Award for local and regional science journalism in the United States is open for nominations — deadline 31 January 2026.

• Journalists in Indonesia can apply to join the Earth Journalism Network’s virtual workshop on reporting on business, industry, energy and the environment — deadline 15 December.

Bonus content: There are 30 jobs, grants, fellowships and other opportunities listed here for Global Nature Beat’s paying supporters. Paid subscriptions are less than £1 per week.

On The Horizon

3-8 February 2026: The 12th Plenary of the Intergovernmental Panel on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services takes place in Manchester, United Kingdom.

16-19 February: The UN Convention on Biological Diversity’s Subsidiary Body on Implementation meets in Rome, Italy.

23-29 March 2026: The 15th Conference of Parties to the Convention on Migratory Species takes place in Campo Grande, Brazil.

Bonus content: The full calendar for Global Nature Beat’s supporters includes nature-related intergovernmental negotiations, scientific conferences, report launches, and other events up until 2026.

Take A Trip to Planet Ficus

My other newsletter Planet Ficus is devoted to stories about the world’s most fascinating plants — the strangler figs and their kin, which have shaped our world and our species in profound ways. Take a trip there for a rich mix of stories about the ecological and cultural importance of these trees.

In Case You Missed It

Two things I wrote last week:

Whose Eye Was It?

The eye belongs to a goldeneye. Photo credit: Francis C. Franklin— Wikimedia Commons.

Thanks for reading. For past editions, see the Archive. If you found it interesting or useful, please share and subscribe. If you want to get in contact, you can reach me at: thenaturebeat@substack.com.

There is a monster at the door and I need your help to fight it. It is a universal enemy, a threat that can connect and unite us all. It doesn’t care if you are left-wing or right, urban or rural. It is coming for us all. Defeating it is our only option.

The monster is climate change and it is already claiming lives. The slower we react, the worse it will get. Tackling it will benefit our health, our societies, our economies and our wider environment. But, so far, the response has been pitiful.

If we don’t transform the world in the next few years, we will trigger widespread misery. We have to be clear about this. But we must also be clear that it is not too late to join the fight. And that the more people who do, the faster we will slay the monster. We need a legion of everyday heroes, winning with acts large and small.

I first heard about climate change in the late 1980s, and I’ve spent the last 25 years learning and communicating about it. Part of me used to think it would all be okay, that our leaders would fix it. But they have badly let us down. So now we must step up.

Powerful forces have misled us

As we fight the climate change monster, we must not forget those who summoned it, who feed it and protect it. They are a few dozen companies and their investors, whose profits are built on the loss of our planetary life-support systems. They are a small number of billionaires and bad-faith politicians. They are the media outlets that played down the problem for fear of losing advertising revenue, and failed to report on the true costs to society of high-carbon businesses.

These groups have long known the problem and have actively delayed action. They knowingly misled us. For decades. They told us climate change does not exist or that human activities are not to blame. They have told us that our actions are too little or too late to make a difference. They allowed millions of us to believe we should not act.

Many people still believe that. Many others are aware but are trapped in states of shame or hopelessness and so rarely even bring themselves to think about climate change. There are many ways our minds can work against us. In a powerful article that I urge you to read, Mary Annaïse Heglar says it is time to snap out of our collective denial.

We need both individual and collective action

“In order to face climate change, to truly look it in the eye, we have to grow up,” she says. “We can’t pretend that some unnamed cavalry is coming to save us. We are the adults in this room.” She’s right. No doubt you have heard by now of Greta Thunberg. But if you think this young woman is going to save us, you are wrong. We will find the heroes we need looking back at us from our bathroom mirrors.

Getting involved does not imply becoming a hermit. As Max St John says, “we’re being fed — and feeding each other — a lie” that ‘now’ is as good as it gets, and that a cleaner, greener future must entail hardship. “The lie,” he says, “is that letting go of our current way of living is a bad thing.”

Nor does joining the climate fight require great wealth. The simplest actions involve learning about climate change, talking about it and using our voices and our votes to demand change. We need a mix of personal efforts to reduce our carbon footprints and collective action that forces governments to hold polluting businesses to account.

What we will gain by taking action now

With public pressure and bold leadership, in just a few years we could have limitless supplies of green energy and decent jobs for those who used to work in the fossil fuel sector. We could have growing forests that don’t just lock away carbon but also support secure livelihoods and protect wildlife. We could have cleaner air and fewer deaths from air pollution. We could have peace and equity and prosperity for all, not just those at the top of the tree.

These are things we can and must demand of our leaders. They are dreams we can summon into our waking lives. Climate change may be a monster to slay, but in fighting it now and with vigour, we can gain so much.

This is no pipe dream of utopia. It is our only viable option. Failure to address climate change fairly, productively and fast will diminish the futures of all but the wealthiest minority. They are already pulling up the drawbridge. They would abandon us in an eyeblink.

Fighting climate change is our only option

One of two futures awaits us. In one, people will look back and ask how we allowed ourselves to fail, how we allowed ourselves to destroy our only home. In the other, people will look back and hail the heroes who came together and, through acts large and small, saved humanity and the living world on which we depend.

We are at that crossroads. Whatever life may throw at us, there is one important decision before us all: do we act for the climate and a secure future, or against the climate and a secure future. It’s not really a choice. We need to start organizing for — and celebrating — a new birth, not a death.

It will be hard. There will be tragic losses on the way. But not beating climate change is not an option, and the sooner we all realize that and get to work, the better. Mary Annaïse Heglar in another article I recommend, says: “We need to become many Davids against one big, bad Goliath.”

The good news is that almost anyone can be a climate hero. While some people will lack the means, or have more urgent needs to attend to, most people will not — and can get involved today. Below I have listed 20 things you can do right now to join the fight. We will always need more heroes, so please share this. And let’s all team up and defeat this monster.

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20 things you can do right now to join the climate fight

For so long, all the climate change news was bad. It mostly still is. But at least now there is a drip-drip-drip of good news too. We need every drip we can get.

Here are some things that most people can do, today, to both reduce their personal carbon footprints and join in with collective action that puts pressure on governments and polluting corporations. We have to team up to fight this monster.

1. Get the facts. Learn about climate change. The basic facts are remarkably straightforward. Here’s a handy summary. Or if you prefer video, try this.

2. End climate silence. Talk with friends and family about the climate emergency and especially about how to solve it. Katharine Hayhoe has some great advice here — see her Talking Climate newsletter too.

3. Use your voice. Contact your elected representatives. Demand that they act. Here are some simple asks: Stop subsidies for fossil fuels. Invest in green energy. Increase forest cover. Help people adapt. Now.

4. Use your vote. Support climate-conscious candidates. Hold them to account once they are in power. Check their voting record. This site shows how UK politicians vote and lets their constituents email them directly.

5. Get connected. We cannot fight this monster alone, and isolated we are weak. Join a local group. If there isn’t one, set one up. Join a national group. There are many, from Extinction Rebellion and the Sunrise Movement to 350.org and Greenpeace.

6. Protest. Join a march. Join a strike. Support the schoolchildren who are striking every week for their future.

7. Go local. Get involved in local politics. Go to local council meetings. Run for office. The warming may be global, but its impacts are all local.

8. Use your money. You vote for the kind of world you want with every penny you spend, save or invest. Choose low-carbon products. Choose an ethical bank, like Triodos, or a pension fund that doesn’t invest in fossil fuel companies or deforestation. The Make My Money Matter campaign assessed that making your pension green is 21 times more effective at cutting carbon emissions than going vegetarian, using green energy and stopping flying.

9. Know your carbon footprint. There’s a calculator here.

10. Buy less stuff. Avoid fast fashion. Use second-hand/vintage stores. Use Freecycle or Freegle to get things other people no longer need or pass on your stuff to new owners. As Soona Amhaz said in this Twitter thread: “Not wanting something is as good as having it.”

11. Use less energy. Wash clothes in cold water. Dry clothes outside instead of in a tumble dryer. Turn the thermostat down. Unplug unused electronics to reduce standby power consumption. Choose low energy appliances. Change your lightbulbs — LED bulbs can cut your lighting bill by up to 90%. Take a shorter shower. Insulate your home. All of these things will save you money.

12. Use green energy. Switch away from using fossil fuels in your home. This site shows certified providers of renewable energy in the United States. In the UK, you can choose companies like 100Green and Octopus.

13. Eat less meat. Reducing how much meat you eat — especially beef (see Jonathan Foley’s ‘beef rules‘ and the #NoBeef campaign) — is one of the biggest changes you can make. Your body will thank you.

14. Drive less. Walk, cycle or take trains and buses. Demand better public transport. Choose electric. The air will become sweeter.

15. Grow a forest. Donate to tree planting in the tropics. This stores carbon, protects wildlife and creates jobs for local people. Check out Tree Sisters, for example.

16. Fly less, if at all. This is one of the biggest causes of greenhouse gas emissions. If you must fly, then fly smart and offset your emissions (here is just one of many options) but bear in mind that your plane’s carbon emissions will still enter the atmosphere and stay there for many years.

17. Don’t forget self-care. Look after your mental and physical health. The fight against climate change is a long-term one. It will take a strain on our minds. We need to look after and love ourselves and each other.

18. Take Vitamin N. Spend time in nature, I mean, and ideally with loved ones. Not only is it good for your mind and body, but it reminds us what we are fighting for.

19. Be visible: As Leor Hackel and Gregg Sparkman noted in this Slate article last year. “People don’t spring into action because they see smoke; they spring into action because they see others rushing in with water.”

20. And…? Over to you. Leave a comment to add your suggestions.

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They are all now dead and can never be replaced, but at least they got names: Martha, Benjamin and Inca, Booming Ben and Lonesome George. They were endlings, each one the last known member of its kind. Their names remind us that we have epic tales to tell of the decline and fall of entire species.

Martha and Incas were the first to fly into my life. It was 1997, and I described and drew them both in a leaflet about extinct birds that I produced for a small bird garden in the north of England.

Martha’s story is best known. She was the last Passenger Pigeon, a species we reduced in number from billions to zero in just over a hundred years. She died on 1 September 1914 in Cincinnati Zoo but her body resides in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC.

Journalist Eric Freedman visited her there for his 2011 article Extinction is Forever. He wrote:

“Martha arrived at the Smithsonian encased in a block of ice for scientific study. There she was mounted and placed on a small branch now fastened to a block of Styrofoam. The Smithsonian custodians paired her with a male passenger pigeon that died in 1873 in Minnesota.

They had no connection with each other during life and were mated only for public display, which hadn’t happened for a long time. Nowadays, Martha and her anonymous pseudo-mate spend virtually all their time in a nondescript locker next to one containing birds Theodore Roosevelt had shot, collected, and studied as a boy. Martha’s organs are preserved separately in fluid. I didn’t ask to see them.”

Freedman chose to see Martha’s body rather than visit her death-place in Cincinnati Zoo. But if he had gone there, he could have killed two birds with one stone, so to speak.

That’s because on 21 February 1918 — four years after Martha died and in the very same aviary cage — a bird called Incas expired. He was the last Carolina Parakeet. Another species had gone extinct.

Other endlings include the last known Heath Hen. It acquired the name Booming Ben because it spent years calling out in vain for a partner. More recently, in 2012, we lost Lonesome George, a giant tortoise from Pinta Island in the Galápagos archipelago — and, again, the last of his kind.

Freedman has tracked down other endlings over the years. He saw the stuffed body of what its Uzbek owners claim is the last Caspian Tiger. He visited the zoo in Hobart, Tasmania where Benjamin, the last Thylacine died in 1933. Freedman explains:

“To some people, these journeys of mine could seem macabre, a weird fascination with avoidable-turned-inevitable large-scale deaths. But, like a cemetery visit to read ancient headstones, there are lessons to be found in these markers to the dead. So I undertake my endling pilgrimages hoping the visits will make the reality of extinction tangible.”

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Named endlings are rare. In most of the species that we have extinguished, the last member was gone before we even noticed. Take the dodo — Raphus cucullatus, among the most famous of all the species we have driven extinct. Here’s one I drew in 1997, a little over 300 years after the last one died.

And here’s how David Quammen imagined that last dodo’s last stand, in his brilliant book The Song of the Dodo:

“Raphus cucullatus had become rare unto death. But this one flesh-and-blood individual still lived. Imagine that she was thirty years old, or thirty-five, an ancient age for most sorts of bird but not impossible for a member of such a large-bodied species. She no longer ran, she waddled. Lately she was going blind. Her digestive system was balky.

In the dark of an early morning in 1667, say, during a rainstorm, she took cover beneath a cold stone ledge at the base of one of the Black River cliffs. She drew her head down against her body, fluffed her feathers for warmth, squinted in patient misery. She waited. She didn’t know it, nor did anyone else, but she was the only dodo on Earth. When the storm passed, she never opened her eyes. This is extinction.”

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“Endling,” wrote science writer Lucas Brouwers in 2013 on Twitter. “A fine, sad word.”

He’s right. Sad it may be, but fine it is too. The endlings are creatures upon whose shrugging shoulders we have thrust a kind of nobility. In naming them and in telling their stories, we have made them ambassadors of not only their own species but of all species whose numbers we deplete to the edge of existence and beyond.

Freedman says that when he considers the stories of the endlings, the “abstract becomes personal and allows me to see that these animals’ fates were not inevitable. Their endings had human authorship.”

That’s it. We are writing the stories of so many other species. And while stories with endlings don’t have happy endings, they are important tales to tell. They make real our impacts on nature.

They remind us that nothing is forever, that one day in some far future there will be a human endling too. What we don’t know yet is how the fate of other species will affect the date of our own departure. There’s a story there to tell.

This edition has — Illegal trade in tigers, hornbills and pangolins — Deforestation — COP30 roundups — Indian river dolphins — CITES COP20 — Human-wildlife conflict. Plus the usual mix of news from around the world, new research papers, useful resources, opportunities and much more.

Taking The Pulse

COP30: Another year, another climate COP is over. For overviews, I recommend Fiona Harvey’s story, the Earth Negotiations Bulletin’s conference summary, Carbon Brief’s topic-by-topic in-depth summary or its review of outcomes for nature, forests, land and food. For Mongabay.com, Sonam Lama Hyolmo wrote about what COP30 achieved for Indigenous peoples, while Elizabeth Claire Alberts covered the key ocean-related outcomes. Here at Global Nature Beat, I focused on the push for roadmaps to end deforestation and phase out fossil fuels, and a look at what the new Tropical Forest Forever Facility can and cannot do.

Deforestation: The 27 members of the European Union (EU) were among the countries calling for a roadmap to end deforestation by 2030 at COP30. Days later, the European Parliament voted to delay implementation of the EU Deforestation Regulation by one year just over a month before it was meant to take effect. This would be the second year-long postponement of the law designed to prevent goods linked with deforestation from being sold in the EU. It is a slap in the face for companies and commodity producers that have invested in tracking systems to comply with the law. Meanwhile, a new investigation by Global Witness reveals how Europe’s demand for chocolate is driving deforestation in Liberia, with some of the cocoa produced being falsely certified as ‘sustainable’.

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Wildlife trade: The 20th Conference of Parties to the Convention on Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) is underway in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. Delegates have already agreed to increase protections for 70 species of sharks and rays — including total bans on international trade of oceanic whitetip sharks, whale sharks, manta and devil rays— but have rejected a proposal to protect endangered eels. The conference ends on 5 December, See the Earth Negotiations Bulletin for daily coverage.

Biodiversity: The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) has started its second global assessment of what we know about biodiversity and how it benefits us. The previous assessment concluded that nature loss is accelerating at an unprecedented rate, with grave impacts for human wellbeing. The new assessment will be published in 2028, in time to inform global stock-takes of progress ahead of the 2030 deadlines for the Sustainable Development Goals, the Global Biodiversity Framework and the Paris Agreement on climate change.

Gold: Illegal gold miners have attacked an indigenous community that co-manages a protected area in northeastern Madagascar. “More than 80 homes were destroyed, vital conservation infrastructure was burned, and one community conservationist was kidnapped,” reports the nongovernmental organization Conservation Allies. The attackers also razed ten native tree nurseries and reforestation sites. The attack came after a community patrol reported the miners to police.

In The Spotlight

• “Stand tall if you spot a leopard, roll up and cover your face if it’s a bear, and run in a zigzag if it’s a wild boar” — Rituparna Palit reported on communities trying to coexist with wildlife in India’s Darjeeling Hills.

• African journalists reporting on the environmental impacts of China’s Belt and Road Initiative say they face intimidation and police pressure, reports Katie Surma.

• Andrew Mambondiyani wrote about how climate-driven migration to Zimbabwe’s Eastern Highlands is affecting wildlife and ecosystems.

• A year and a half after opening, India’s national river dolphin research centre still has no staff or equipment, report Sumit Singh and Syed Abubakr.

• The Sri Lankan government is ignoring scientific advice about how to reduce conflict between elephants and people, and its attempt to drive the animals away from human settlements risks creating new problems, reports Malaka Rodrigo.

In Focus: Illegal Wildlife Trade

The following — all from the past eight days — indicate the scale and diversity of illegal wildlife trade.

• Traditional Chinese medicine is still driving pangolin poaching, according to the Environmental Investigation Agency’s analysis of legal documents.

• Tiger trafficking is surging and increasingly involves whole tigers, both dead and alive, according to new research from TRAFFIC — it says officials have seized an average of nine trafficked tigers per month since 2020.

• Adam Welz wrote about the alarming rise in trafficking of African hornbills — important seed-dispersers in forest ecosystems.

• California has become a wildlife smuggling hotspot with the pet trade driving demand, reports Spoorthy Raman.

• Gloria Dickie reported on the links between exotic animal cafes in Asia and the illegal wildlife trade.

• A year-long investigation by seven journalists in South America found that nearly 3 million animals have been taken from the Amazon for the illegal wildlife trade each year since 2010.

• Red Line Collective covered the recent conviction of a pangolin trafficker in Nigeria and shared an older story — featuring a giant pangolin called Ghost — about high-tech methods for fighting the illegal trade.

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Dispatch from Planet Ficus

For my other newsletter, Planet Ficus, I wrote about the recent victory of citizen activists in India who took on the government to show that road widening and century-old trees are not mutually exclusive.

Tips And Resources

• The Nature Conservancy has webinars on what the outcomes of COP30 mean for carbon markets — register here for the webinar on 2 December and here for the one on 3 December.

• On 2 December and 4 December, the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services is holding press briefings about its forthcoming assessment on the impacts and dependencies of business on biodiversity — register here for either briefing.

• On 3 December, Third Act SoCal has a webinar on the future of climate journalism with leading exponents of the craft in the United States.

• Neha Banka covered the tips for investigating illegal mining that journalists from Brazil, Turkey and Zimbabwe shared at the recent Global Investigative Journalism Conference.

See past editions for more tips and resources.

From The Journals

• In a clandestine trade, thousands of threatened lemurs are sold annually for people to eat in Madagascar — read the full paper.

• Environmental decision-makers in the United States lack knowledge of Indigenous peoples — read the full paper.

• De-extinction and the risk of moral hazard — read the full paper.

• African forests have switched from storing to emitting carbon — read the press release or the full paper.

• Pastoralism can mitigate biodiversity loss on rangelands — read the press release or the full paper.

• Healthy forests safeguard traditional wild meat food systems in Amazonia — read the full paper.

How to Support Global Nature Beat

I publish this newsletter as a free service to thousands of readers in more than 120 countries. If that is something you can support, please consider becoming a paying subscriber for less than £1 a week. If you can spare that, you will be helping me to keep Global Nature Beat going for those who cannot afford to pay.

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What Caught My Eye

• Ben Goldsmith argues that Colombia’s cocaine hippos should be left alone to perform the lost roles of extinct ecosystem engineers.

• Cristiane Fontes interviewed two scientists working to understand and prevent Amazon forest fires.

• Launched on 22 November, the Global Conservation Consortium for Food Plants aims to protect edible biodiversity for future generations.

• Varsha Singh reports that ornithologists have issued an ‘extinction alert’ for Finn’s weaver, a fine-looking bird whose numbers are in freefall in the lowlands where Nepal and India meet.

• The European Commission adopted a new bioeconomy strategy and a monitoring scheme to help EU member states reverse the decline of pollinator populations by 2030.

• The International Advisory Panel on Biodiversity Credits launched a policy forum on markets for high integrity nature credits, with France, Indonesia and the United Kingdom as founder members.

• The Global Biodiversity Framework Fund approved US$ 87 million of preparatory funding for projects in 34 countries.

• Plastic nurdles have been found in 84 percent of surveyed UK sites of special scientific interest, reports Helena Horton.

• Only 1.2 percent of climate change journalism mentions the important role of dietary shifts in reducing carbon emissions.

• Scientists say a new luxury safari lodge in Kenya has been built on a major corridor used by migratory wildebeest and other wildlife, reports Tariro Mzezewa.

Jobs And Opportunities

• The Knight Science Journalism Academic-Year Fellowship and the Fellowship for Advancing Science Journalism in Africa and the Middle East are open for applications — deadline 9 January.

• The Provincetown Independent is hiring a science and environment reporter — no deadline listed.

• Journalismfund Europe has grants for cross-border investigative environmental journalism and grants for organizations supporting environmental journalists — deadline 22 January.

• Journalists from Ghana, Mexico and the Philippines can apply to attend the Earth Journalism Network’s virtual workshops on the Global Biodiversity Framework’s 30x30 marine conservation target — deadline 16 December.

• Asian Dispatch invites applications for the second cohort of its membership network for newsrooms in Asia and beyond — deadline 31 January.

Bonus content: There are 20 jobs, grants, fellowships and other opportunities listed here for Global Nature Beat’s paying supporters. Paid subscriptions are less than £1 per week.

On The Horizon

1-5 December 2025: The World Conference of Science Journalists will take place in Pretoria/Tshwane, South Africa.

2-5 December 2025: COP24 of the Barcelona Convention will take place in Egypt.

4 December 2025: The Finance for Biodiversity Summit 2025 takes place in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.

8-12 December 2025: The 7th UN Environment Assembly (UNEA-7) will take place in Nairobi, Kenya..

Bonus content: The full calendar for Global Nature Beat’s supporters includes nature-related intergovernmental negotiations, scientific conferences, report launches, and other events up until 2026.

Whose Eye Was It?

The eye belongs to a European bee-eater. Photo credit: Bouke ten Cate— Wikimedia Commons.

Thanks for reading. For past editions, see the Archive. If you found it interesting or useful, please share and subscribe. If you want to get in contact, you can reach me at: thenaturebeat@substack.com.

It would be easy to dismiss this as yet another failure of governments to rise to the occasion. With consensus-based decision-making, this is often inevitable. Yet COP30 also marked a shift. Fossil fuels may have been absent from the text, but they dominated the conversations. Deforestation and Indigenous peoples were likewise in the spotlight like never before — helped by Brazil’s decision to host the conference in Belém, a city in the Amazon rainforest.

As the dust settles, it is worth focusing on attempts to raise ambition and accelerate action through processes that will run in parallel to the stickier UN negotiations.

Dealing with deforestation

Back in 2021 at COP26, more than 130 countries agreed to halt and reverse deforestation by 2030. They are far off track. Missing are the guidance, strategies, policies and partnerships needed to deliver on the goal.

Recognizing this, President Lula of Brazil wanted COP30 to produce a ‘roadmap’ for ending deforestation. In reality, the aim was more modest: not to produce such a roadmap, but to launch a year-long process to develop one.

More than 90 countries backed this proposal, including the 56-strong Coalition for Rainforest Nations and the European Union’s 27 member states. But by the end of the conference, the roadmap had vanished from the official text. It had been tied to Lula’s separate proposal for a voluntary roadmap on phasing out fossil fuels (see below) — a proposal that petrostates rejected. The deforestation roadmap became collateral damage.

A parallel path

In the closing moments of the conference, COP President André Corrêa do Lago acknowledged the widespread disappointment over the missing roadmaps. To cheers, he announced that he would instead develop both roadmaps over the coming year — through an inclusive, science-led process involving governments, civil society, academics and others — and present them at COP31 in 2026.

With the roadmap process now outside the formal negotiations, the question is whether it can re-enter the COP agenda next year or merely be ‘reported back’ at COP31. A clue lies in the overarching COP30 decision, which launches two new and ill-defined initiatives: a two-year “Global Implementation Accelerator” and a one-year “Belem mission”.

Both are intended to speed up efforts to reduce the amount of carbon in the atmosphere, so create openings for the roadmaps to re-enter the formal negotiations. Whether the roadmaps return to the formal COP agenda will depend heavily on Australia and Turkey, which will share aspects of the COP Presidency from November 2026.

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What even is a roadmap?

The term ‘roadmap’ is open to interpretation. To be effective, it should contain a strategy and a workplan outlining what to do, how to do it, and why this will work.

For the deforestation roadmap, some essentials are clear. Halting and reversing forest loss means addressing its main drivers — legal and illegal expansion of agriculture, logging, mining and, increasingly, wildfire — along with the enabling conditions that encourage deforestation. These include weak governance and law enforcement, perverse incentives that reward forest clearing, and chronic underinvestment in forests.

We broadly know the solutions. The challenge lies in implementation, which is where the roadmap can help. Among other things, it will need to show how to scale-up finance for forests, redirect forest-harmful subsidies into forest-positive ones, align policies across sectors, empower communities to manage local forests sustainably, and improve monitoring and transparent reporting — all while balancing social, economic and environmental imperatives.

Outside of the formal negotiations, COP30 made progress in several of these areas with the launch of the Tropical Forest Forever Facility, pledges of US$2.5 billion to protect Congo basin forests, commitments to secure and strengthen community tenure over 160 million hectares of forest land, and a separate pledge of US$1.8 billion to support secure tenure.

A turning point

Phasing out fossil fuels and ending deforestation may have been dropped from the formal decisions, but both were more central to discussions at COP30 than perhaps at any other UN climate change conference. The COP brought two fundamentals into sharp focus: We cannot stop climate change without ending deforestation and phasing out fossil fuels. It also exposed the parties whose obstructionist stances are narrowing the window for action.

As with every COP, outcomes can be viewed through rose-tinted glasses or bloodshot eyes. Roadmaps on ending deforestation and fossil fuels should have been written long ago, but at least the processes are now underway.

For forests, momentum is visible: in September 2025, a coalition of 34 governments published its own roadmap for generating tens of billions of dollars for forests by 2030. And on fossil fuels, Colombia and the Netherlands announced the first international conference on a just transition away from these fuels will take place in April 2026.

Despite everything, the political energy around ending deforestation and phasing out fossil fuels suggests we may finally be approaching an inflection point.

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This edition includes: CITES COP20 — Snakebites and climate — Endangered Species Act — World’s first Cali Fund deposit — Marine prosperity areas — Parrot trafficking — Asian roadkill — Conflict with bears. Plus the usual mix of news from around the world, useful resources, opportunities and much more.

Taking The Pulse

COP30: The UN climate change conference is still underway in Belem, Brazil. There is plenty to report and much for negotiators still to agree. I will share a summary of the key outcomes for nature once the conference is over.

Wildlife trade: The 20th Conference of Parties to the Convention on Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) begins on 24 November. Delegates will consider changing levels of protection for a wide variety of animal and plant species — see the Earth Negotiations Bulletin’s preview and daily coverage. To get an idea of what nongovernmental organizations hope the conference will achieve, see the positions of Born Free, the Center for Biological Diversity, the Environmental Investigation Agency and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. See also, the Wildlife Conservation Society’s positions on okapis, eels, iguanas and saiga antelopes.

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USA: The Trump administration has proposed big changes to the US Endangered Species Act, through four rule changes that would weaken protections for wildlife while promoting corporate interests in sectors such as oil drilling, logging and mining. “If these Trump proposals had been in place in the 1970s, the only place you’d find a bald eagle today is on the back of a dollar bill,” said Stephanie Kurose of the Center for Biological Diversity in a statement.

Cali Fund: British company TierraViva AI has made the world’s first private-sector contribution to the Cali Fund, set up under the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). The fund was created to share the commercial benefits of using data on genetic resources with the countries and communities from which such resources originate. At only US$ 1000, the payment is largely symbolic. In an open letter to the head of the CBD, the company’s CEO Paul Oldham says:

“We are making this contribution because every company in the world depends on biodiversity — it is the ultimate, overlooked employee… We hope that many more companies will join us in showing leadership by making contributions.”

In The Spotlight

• In a multi-story special feature, Ivan Carrillo and colleagues reported from ten coastal communities in Mexico that are pioneering the concept of ‘marine prosperity areas’, combining ocean conservation with sustainable livelihoods.

• Josephine Moulds and Sonia Rolley reported on violent reprisals against conservationist Kim Rebholz for trying to prevent illegal logging, oil smuggling and land grabs in the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s Mangrove Marine Park.

• Reporting in depth on the illegal trade in African grey parrots, Rene Ebersole followed the supply chain from the Congo’s forests to bird farms in South Africa and on to pet shops in the Middle East.

• Once notorious for destroying wooden ships, shipworms are valued in the Philippines for their ecological role, cultural significance and potential in medicine and food security, reports Crystal Chow.

Dispatch from Planet Ficus

Over at my other newsletter, Planet Ficus, I told the story of Saalumarada Thimmakka, the Indian environmentalist who died aged 114 last week. She planted thousands of trees in her lifetime.

Planet Ficus

India's Mother of Trees Leaves A Living Legacy

After caring for nature for most of her 114 years, Saalumarada Thimmakka — India’s ‘Mother of Trees’ — passed away on 14 November. She leaves behind a living legacy rooted along roadsides…

Read more

4 months ago · 21 likes · 5 comments · Mike Shanahan

Tips And Resources

• The Centre for Science and Environment has a webinar on 21 November about the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture, whose governing body meets next week.

• On 24 November, the Stimson Center has a webinar on unregulated mining in the Mekong region of Southeast Asia — register here.

• On 2 December, Covering Climate Now’s Radar Clima has a webinar in Spanish on how to turn the outcome of COP30 into real stories — register here.

See past editions for more tips and resources.

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From The Journals

• More than a thousand species have been killed on Asian roads, according to the first comprehensive review of road ecology in the region — read the full paper.

• Analysis of the biodiversity discourse in news media in nine European countries in 2010 and 2022 — read the full paper.

• Wild birds, especially migrating ducks and geese, are driving the spread of bird flu in North America — read the press release or the full paper.

• Natural forests in the European Union may be in better condition than flawed assessments suggest — read the full paper.

• Overlap between endangered species and proposed lithium extraction sites in California and Nevada — read the full paper.

• A survey of managers of 116 protected areas in Africa and Europe found that only a third base their decisions on scientific evidence — read the full paper.

• India’s venomous snakes are on the move as the climate changes, creating shifts in snakebite risk — read the full paper.

How to Support Global Nature Beat

I publish this newsletter as a free service to thousands of readers in more than 120 countries. If that is something you can support, please consider becoming a paying subscriber for less than £1 a week. If you can spare that, you will be helping me to keep Global Nature Beat going for those who cannot afford to pay.

Subscribe now

What Caught My Eye

• The Inter-American Development Bank estimates it would cost US$9.6 –11.4 billion to conserve 30 percent of the land and sea of 26 countries in Latin America and Caribbean by 2030.

• President Trump may have killed the US goal of protecting 30 percent of land and sea by 2030, but individual states are pushing ahead, reports Casey L. Biron.

• Populations of insect-eating birds in France appear to be increasing since the ban of neonicotinoid insecticides but full recovery could take decades, reports Phoebe Weston.

• The European Union launched a EUR 2.4 million initiative aimed at restoring degraded forest landscapes and boosting livelihoods in Ghana.

• Indigenous communities in Indonesian Borneo fear they will be displaced as the government plans to create a new national park in their ancestral forest landscape.

• TRAFFIC published a report on abalone poaching and trafficking in South Africa.

• Mongabay.com launched an oceans desk to increase its coverage of marine ecosystems.

• Beaver-engineered wetlands boost biodiversity, from butterflies to bats, reports Warren Cornwall.

• Despite being the second-largest rainforest on Earth, the Congo basin is overlooked when it comes to global climate policy, research and funding — receiving less than half of the international funding that forests in Southeast Asia get and only a third of what the Amazon receives, reports Tam Patachako.

• In India’s Uttarakhand state, black bears have attacked people 71 times in three months and now face being shot — global warming may be a factor, reports Deepak Purohit.

Take A Trip To Planet Ficus

My other newsletter Planet Ficus is devoted to stories about the world’s most fascinating plants — the strangler figs and their kin, which have shaped our world and our species in profound ways. Take a trip there for a rich mix of stories about the ecological and cultural importance of these trees.

Jobs And Opportunities

• Journalists from eight African countries can apply to join a three-day workshop in Nairobi on reporting on the impacts of extreme heat — deadline 1 December.

• The Los Angeles Times is hiring an energy and climate reporter — no deadline listed.

• EcoRI is hiring an environmental reporter in Rhode Island, United States — no deadline listed.

• US-based journalists can apply for a National Science-Health-Environment Reporting Fellowship — deadline 19 December.

• The Sigma Awards for data journalism are open for entries — deadline 11 January 2026.

Bonus content: There are 20 jobs, grants, fellowships and other opportunities listed here for Global Nature Beat’s paying supporters. Paid subscriptions are less than £1 per week.

On The Horizon

24-29 November: The 11th session of the governing body of the International Treaty on Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture takes place in Lima, Peru.

24 November to 5 December 2025: The 20th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) will take place in Samarkand, Uzbekistan.

1-5 December 2025: The World Conference of Science Journalists will take place in Pretoria/Tshwane, South Africa.

2-5 December 2025: COP24 of the Barcelona Convention will take place in Egypt.

Bonus content: The full calendar for Global Nature Beat’s supporters includes nature-related intergovernmental negotiations, scientific conferences, report launches, and other events up until 2026.

Whose Eye Was It?

The eye belongs to an Asian koel. Photo credit: AntanO— Wikimedia Commons.

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Thanks for reading. For past editions, see the Archive. If you found it interesting or useful, please share and subscribe. If you want to get in contact, you can reach me at: thenaturebeat@substack.com.

Taking The Pulse

COP30: The UN climate change conference is underway in Belem, Brazil. For insights into what different countries want from COP30, see Fiona Harvey’s overview or Carbon Brief’s detailed interactive tracker. For daily coverage, see the Earth Negotiations Bulletin. At the pre-COP leaders’ summit, Brazil launched the Tropical Forest Forever Facility, a financial mechanism that could deliver US$4 billion a year to countries that stop deforestation — if enough investors come on board. See last week’s explainer, which answers five questions about the TFFF. I will write more about the nature-related outcomes of COP30 once the dust has settled.

Africa: At the 1st Africa Biodiversity Summit last week, leaders issued a declaration committing to enhancing the governance, conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity. The declaration includes pledges on governance, inclusion, education, benefit sharing alongside expansion of protected areas and increased ecosystem restoration — see the summary. On finance, leaders pledged to establish an African Biodiversity Fund. They also said they would aim to increase spending on biodiversity to one percent of GDP, but set no timescale for this. The event — in Gaborone, Botswana — include the first conference of parties to the revised African Convention on the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources, which was adopted in 2003 but only entered into force in 2016 and has been stagnant since.

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Mercury: Parties to the Minamata Convention — more than 150 countries — have adopted a set of decisions aimed at reducing the environmental and health threats posed by toxic mercury. These included a global phaseout of mercury in dental fillings, action on artisanal and small-scale gold mining, and a roadmap for aligning the actions under the convention with the targets and goals of the Global Biodiversity Framework. See the press release or the Earth Negotiations Bulletin’s detailed summary of the meeting, which took place last week.

Bird flu: The highly pathogenic avian influenza virus is continuing its devastating spread. While much attention focuses on poultry farms, wild species are being hit hard. The virus recently killed up to 10,000 migratory cranes in France and another 2,000 in Germany. In Canada, researchers and government agencies have found the virus in 41 wild bird species. Sharing the findings, team member Damien Joly noted the diversity of these species: “from predators like the peregrine falcon to seabirds like the northern gannet and wetland species like the horned grebe.” Mammals too are susceptible. As Sofia Moutinho reports, the virus has killed tens of thousands of fur seals, sea lions and elephant seals in South America.

Bill(ionaire) Gates: The world’s 4th richest person has been widely and rightly criticised for downplaying the urgency of climate action by presenting a false dichotomy between reducing emissions and improving people’s quality of life. See the responses from Nitish Pahwa, former President of Ireland Mary Robinson and Bill McKibben. It is worth reading all of them. Taken together they provide the scientific, economic, social and moral arguments that Bill Gates really ought to understand by now.

In The Spotlight

• As one of only three carbon-positive countries, Suriname deserves more international attention — Maxwell Gladwin interviewed its President Jennifer Geerlings-Simons about forests, carbon and Indigenous land rights.

• “The forest crisis is not a mystery of biology but a failure of governance and imagination,” writes Rhett Ayers Butler in a valuable overview of what is, at its logical heart, a simple solution to deforestation.

• Nell Lewis, Ed Scott-Clarke and Woojin Lee blended narrative, photography, videos and animations to tell the story of the red fire ants that have spread around the world, disrupting ecosystems, destroying crops, harming wildlife and even killing people.

• Adriana Carranca wrote about a groundbreaking forest journalism co-training program in the Amazon, that is blending traditional ecological knowledge with professional media practices to reshape narratives on climate and conservation.

• Himanshu Nitnaware covered new research showing that conservation projects covering an area the size of Greenland have been abandoned or reversed, undermining global biodiversity goals.

• Benji Jones wrote about communities in Madagascar that are protecting critically endangered lemurs through forest-friendly livelihoods.

Tips And Resources

• On 12 November, the secretariat of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species has a press conference about its forthcoming 20th Conference of Parties — watch here at 10.30 am CET.

• On 16 November, the Earth Negotiations Bulletin team will hold a webinar at the midpoint of COP30 — register here.

• On 18 November, the World Resources Institute has a webinar on urban greening as a nature-based solution, featuring experts from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia and South Africa — register here.

• On 27 November, Mongabay has a webinar on how to cover climate change in South Asia — register here.

See past editions for more tips and resources.

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From The Journals

• Sand mining in the Mekong River is causing lasting harm to Southeast Asia’s biggest lake and the people who depend on its rich biodiversity — read the press release or the full paper.

• The first global inventory confirms that seagrass meadows are significant storers of carbon — read the press release or the full paper.

• Deep-sea mining discharge can disrupt midwater food webs — read the press release or the full paper.

• We have 69 percent more mammal species than we thought we did in 1980 but know little about how 1,500 of them are faring — read the full paper.

• Six ways the costs of human-wildlife conflict are not gender neutral — read the full paper.

• A call to rethink how deserts are defined — read the full paper.

• Artificial intelligence and real-time alerts promote human–elephant coexistence — read the full paper.

• Why it matters that ecologists are spending less time outdoors — read the full paper.

How to Support Global Nature Beat

I publish this newsletter as a free service to thousands of readers in more than 120 countries. If that is something you can support, please consider becoming a paying subscriber for less than £1 a week. If you can spare that, you will be helping me to keep Global Nature Beat going for those who cannot afford to pay.

Subscribe now

What Caught My Eye

• A group of 92 scientists published an open letter urging policymakers to invest in urban forests as essential infrastructure for climate resilience and biodiversity.

• INTERPOL, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and Norway launched a third phase of their program to tackle illegal tropical deforestation.

• The Forests & Finance Coalition says banks have invested US$72 billion in sectors driving tropical deforestation since 2015.

• Bears have killed a record 13 people in Japan this year, report Justin McCurry and Eva Corlett.

• The Earthshot Prize announced this year’s winners.

• Germany’s Federal Agency for Nature Conservation published a report on how consumption of shrimp, soy and palm oil in the European Union drives biodiversity loss — see the press release.

• The UN Development Programme says its biodiversity finance initiative has helped countries to unlock over US$2.7 billion for nature.

• What does ‘transformative change’ for biodiversity really mean? Boipelo Tshwene-Mauchaza shared some insights from a recent conference.

• Patrick Greenfield reported on a surge in deadly human–tiger conflicts in Siberia linked to African swine fever.

• Seizure, a short documentary about undercover investigation of wildlife trafficking, will premiere on 9 December at 19:00 CET on the Wildlife Justice Commission’s YouTube channel — read more and sign up here.

• Jackie Flynn Mogensen interviewed Elizabeth Kolbert, author of The Sixth Extinction and Life on a Little-Known Planet.

• Brazil’s endangered pink river dolphins stood little chance when we heated their waters to 41C, reports Phoebe Weston.

• Rainforest Foundation UK and 21 civil society and Indigenous organisations in the Democratic Republic of the Congo urge policymakers to recognise community forestry as central to climate and biodiversity action.

• David Akana wrote about a new study that shows how deforestation reduces freshwater supplies in West Africa.

• Bobby Bascomb wrote about the newly coined concept of a ‘circular seabird economy’.

• Lisa Cox covered five big concerns about proposed changes to Australia’s environmental law.

Take A Trip To Planet Ficus

My other newsletter Planet Ficus is devoted to stories about the world’s most fascinating plants — the strangler figs and their kin, which have shaped our world and our species in profound ways. Take a trip there for a rich mix of stories about the ecological and cultural importance of these trees.

Jobs And Opportunities

• The Michael Elliott Award for Excellence in African Storytelling is open for applicants — deadline 9 January.

• Journalists can apply for a Nieman Fellowship — deadline 1 December for non-US citizens, or 31 January for US citizens.

• Mongabay is hiring a fellowships editor (Portuguese-language) — rolling deadline.

Bonus content: There are 20 jobs, grants, fellowships and other opportunities listed here for Global Nature Beat’s paying supporters. Paid subscriptions are less than £1 per week.

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On The Horizon

20-24 November 2025: The 2025 Global Investigative Journalism Conference (GIJC25) will be held in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

24 November to 5 December 2025: The 20th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) will take place in Samarkand, Uzbekistan.

1-5 December 2025: The World Conference of Science Journalists will take place in Pretoria/Tshwane, South Africa.

Bonus content: The full calendar for Global Nature Beat’s supporters includes nature-related intergovernmental negotiations, scientific conferences, report launches, and other events up until 2026.

Whose Eye Was It?

The eye belongs to a black-backed jackal. Photo credit: Giles Laurent — Wikimedia Commons.

Thanks for reading. For past editions, see the Archive. If you found it interesting or useful, please share and subscribe. If you want to get in contact, you can reach me at: thenaturebeat@substack.com.

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The Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF) — formally launched on 6 November — aims to shift the balance by providing predictable, long-term payments to tropical countries that protect their forests.

Led by Brazil, and backed by more than 50 other countries, the TFFF is envisioned as a self-sustaining mechanism that is driven not by aid but by returns from capital investments.

Read on to see how the TFFF will work, who supports or opposes it, how much capital it has, when the money will start flowing, and whether it will be enough to halt tropical deforestation.

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How will it work?

The TFFF aims to raise about US$125 billion — US$25 billion from governments and philanthropies and US$100 billion from private investors. It will invest this capital in emerging market and other high-yield sovereign bonds, repaying investors with a fixed rate of return.

From the remaining profits, which are expected to be around US$4 billion each year, it will pay tropical countries roughly US$4 per hectare of preserved forest, with penalties for deforestation or degradation. At least 20 percent of payments must go to Indigenous peoples and local communities. Countries must also have both low (under 0.5 percent) and declining deforestation rates and transparent monitoring systems to qualify.

More than 70 countries, with a combined area of more than one billion hectares of tropical forest, could benefit, if they meet the eligibility criteria. A 12-member steering committee made up of six tropical forest countries and six investor nations will guide the TTFF, with the World Bank serving as interim host and trustee.

Who supports or opposes it?

The TFFF is Brazil’s flagship initiative, co-designed with countries including the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ghana, Malaysia, Indonesia, Colombia, United Kingdom, Germany, Norway, France, United Arab Emirates— as well as Indigenous peoples and local communities represented by the Global Alliance of Territorial Communities.

So far, the TFFF has been endorsed by 53 countries, including 19 potential sovereign investors and 34 tropical countries that together have more than 90 percent of the planet’s tropical forests.

Nongovernmental organizations broadly supporting the TFFF’s goals include Greenpeace, the World Wildlife Fund, the World Resources Institute, the Wildlife Conservation Society, Conservation International and Rainforest Foundation US — though several have raised concerns about its governance safeguards and reliance on financial markets.

Private-sector backers including Bank of America, Barclays and investment manager PIMCO have expressed support in principle, but have made no confirmed financial commitments.

Detractors include the Global Forest Coalition, which calls it a false solution, and the Green Finance Observatory, which says the TFFF shifts financial risks from private investors to governments and their taxpayers.

How much is ‘in the bank’?

As of 20 November, the TFFF had received pledges adding up to US$6.5 billion:

• Brazil: US$ 1 billion

• Indonesia: US$ 1 billion

• Germany: EUR 1 billion (US$ 1.15 billion)

• Norway: US$ 3 billion over ten years (conditional on it not exceeding 20 percent of total investments)

• France: EUR 500 million (US$ 577 million by 2030) with conditions pending clarification

Other commitments include:

• Netherlands: US$ 5 million to fund the TFFF Secretariat

• Portugal: US$ 1 million

And, in the first pledge from the private sector, Australian billionaire Andrew Forrest said he would invest US$ 10 million.

Further pledges are expected during the COP30 climate change in Brazil (10-21 November). TFFF Watch is tracking investments and showing how much tropical forest countries could receive if the TFFF were fully operational.

When will the money flow?

It could take several years for the TFFF to reach full capitalization (raising the US$ 100 billion from private investors after the initial US$ 25 billion from governments and philanthropies). Once a portion of that capital is invested and generating returns, and recipient countries meet the eligibility criteria, the money can begin to flow. Andrew Deutz, WWF’s managing director of global policy and partnerships, told Mongabay.com that: “Some funds could be paid out before 2030.”

If the TFFF works as intended, will it be enough?

Short answer: No.

Even if the TFFF achieves its capitalization goal of US$ 125 billion, it will only disburse US$ 4 billion each year. This would be roughly double current international development finance for tropical forest protection, but still far short of what is needed to halt and reverse tropical deforestation.

The UN Environment Programme estimates that tropical regions need US$ 66.8 billion annually for forest protection, forest restoration and agroforestry. It may seem a lot, but people worldwide spend far more on ice cream each year.

In September 2025, the Forest and Climate Leaders’ Partnership — a coalition of 34 governments — published a roadmap for generating tens of billions of dollars by 2030 through the TFFF and five other mechanisms.

That sounds good but the same governments are also subsidizing companies that destroy tropical forests for agriculture, mining and other activities. As Global Witness points out, the TFFF “will not fix deforestation if governments fail to stop billions still flowing to deforesting businesses”.

In other words: the TFFF is a significant step forward, not a game-changer on its own. Its impact will depend on how well it manages risk, ensures inclusion and channels funds to where they can make the most difference.

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Read more

For more on the TFFF, I recommend:

• Carbon Brief’s explainer

• Fred Pearce’s feature story

• The World Resources Institute’s explainer

• Zero Carbon Analytics’s assessment

• Chris Lang of REDD-Monitor’s reality check

• Shanna Hanbury on how the penalties will work

Taking The Pulse

Mercury: New research shows that shark meat on sale in Europe — often sold under other, misleading names — contains dangerous levels of toxic methylmercury, reports Elizabeth Fitt. The sources of mercury in food chains include small-scale gold mining, industrial processes and dental amalgam. All are on the agenda at the 6th Conference of Parties to the Minamata Convention on mercury, now underway in Geneva Switzerland from 3-7 November. See the Earth Negotiations Bulletin for an overview and daily coverage.

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Climate science: Future Earth and partners released this year’s 10 New Insights in Climate Science report to highlight significant research from the past 18 months. There are strong links with nature in the list: from intensifying marine heatwaves and strains on forests and other carbon sinks, to a vicious cycle of biodiversity loss and climate change, and the spread of dengue-transmitting mosquitoes. Read the press release or the full report.

COP30: The UN climate change conference (COP30) begins next week in Belem, Brazil. For a preview and daily coverage, see the Earth Negotiations Bulletin. The latest report synthesizing national commitments on climate — released on 28 October — shows that only one third of the parties to the Paris Agreement have updated these Nationally Determined Contributions. Collectively, the plans are not enough to limit global warming to 1.5C. Organizations outlining what they want COP30 to achieve for forests and nature include WWF and the Nature4Climate coalition.

In The Spotlight

• The biodiversity crisis is going on inside us too, reports Phoebe Weston, covering research linking people’s access to nature-rich environments to their health and that of the microbe ecosystems in their bodies.

• Khalifa Said Rashid, Davide Lemmi, and Marco Simoncelli reported on the forced displacement of Maasai communities in Tanzania under the guise of conservation.

• As the planet warms, black vultures are moving northwards in the United States and coming into conflict with cattle farmers, write Joshua Bickel and Melina Walling.

• Rachel Nuwer reports on how an elephant translocation project in Malawi harmed nearby communities and sparked a backlash against conservation efforts.

Tips And Resources

• For anyone covering the upcoming Conference of Parties to the Convention on Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), the programme is now online.

• On 4 November, the Pulitzer Center has a webinar on using artificial intelligence for environmental journalism — register here.

• Covering Climate Now shared some tips and resources for journalists covering scientific studies.

• If you’re following the UN climate talks in Brazil from afar, Carbon Brief’s COP30 Insider Pass offers three exclusive webinars, a member-only WhatsApp group and a daily newsletter — all for GBP5 or US$7.

See past editions for more tips and resources.

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From The Journals

• Energy flows in African ecosystems have declined by more than a third following the widespread loss of large mammals — read the press release or the full paper.

• The state of evidence for the effectiveness of nature-based solutions to water challenges in the Mekong region of Southeast Asia — read the full paper.

• A US$14 billion target to protect and restore the world’s kelp forests — read the press release or the full paper.

• First assessment of the threat status of bird species from Vietnam — read the press release or the full paper.

• How Brazil’s new environmental licensing law jeopardizes the country’s ability to meet international climate and biodiversity commitments — read the full paper.

• Changes in land use have deprived Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania of 75 percent of its native plant species — read the press release or the full paper.

• How wildlife trafficking converges with other types of crime in Canada, Hong Kong and South Africa — read the press release or the full paper.

In Focus: Environmental Crime

When an Indian movie star was found to be in possession of illegal ivory, it seems to be an open-and-shut case of environmental crime. But as K.A. Shaji writes, it was anything but. Legal norms collapsed through bureaucratic flexibility.

Environmental crimes are among the world’s most lucrative illegal activities. But as Diogo Veríssimo and Sally Sinclair explain, they are vastly underrepresented in INTERPOL’s red notices, revealing a notable gap in global law enforcement priorities.

Such crimes often go unpunished due to legal and technical barriers, writes Michelle Langrand in a story about how this has prompted experts to develop practical guidelines to help investigators pursue justice.

There is also growing momentum for a new protocol on environmental crimes under the UN Convention on Transnational Organized Crimes. A new article by John Scanlon outlines the possible scope, structures and provisions of such an international law.

How to Support Global Nature Beat

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What Caught My Eye

• The Green Climate Fund (GCF) approved a US$31 million grant rewarding Uganda for reducing deforestation and greenhouse gas emissions -- it is the first such results-based payment from the GCF to any African country.

• The African Agroforestry Union was launched to boost sustainable land management across the continent.

• Researchers assessed nature connectedness in 61 countries, with Nepal coming out on top and Spain in bottom place, reports Patrick Barkham.

• China has ratified the High Sea Treaty on marine biodiversity living beyond national jurisdictions, reports Jiang Mengnan.

• Nigeria’s new wildlife law brings tough penalties for poachers and traffickers, reports Valentine Benjamin.

• Vultures have vanished from 72 per cent of their historical nesting sites across India, reports Himanshu Nitnaware.

• On 28 October, the ten-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations adopted a Declaration on the Right to a Safe, Clean, Healthy and Sustainable Environment.

• The Earth Negotiations Bulletin published its detailed summary of meetings of two subsidiary bodies to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity that took place recently in Panama.

• Mexico published its plan for conserving 30 percent of the country’s land and sea by 2030, reports Eliza Galeana.

• George Holmes wrote about the conservation dilemmas posed by an increasing trend of guerilla rewilding and other unregulated releases of wildlife.

• Gibbon smuggling appears to be increasing, says TRAFFIC.

• Eugene Itua wrote about how Nigeria can achieve economic resilience by integrating biodiversity finance and natural capital accounting at the state level.

Jobs And Opportunities

• Bloomberg is hiring climate reporters in Delhi and Mumbai.

• The Solutions Journalism Network’s Train-the-Trainers program invites applicants — deadline 9 November.

• Climate News Tracker is hiring a journalism insights analyst — deadline 7 November.

Bonus content: There are 21 jobs, grants, fellowships and other opportunities listed here for Global Nature Beat’s paying supporters. Paid subscriptions are less than £1 per week.

On The Horizon

4-6 November 2025: The Second World Summit for Social Development takes place in Qatar.

7-9 November 2025: The ScienceWriters2025 conference will take place in Chicago, United States.

10-21 November 2025: UN Climate Change Conference (COP30) will take place in Belém, Brazil.

Bonus content: The full calendar for Global Nature Beat’s supporters includes nature-related intergovernmental negotiations, scientific conferences, report launches, and other events up until 2026.

Whose Eye Was It?

The eye belongs to an orange-backed troupial. Photo credit: Charles J. Sharp — Wikimedia Commons.

Take A Trip To Planet Ficus

My other newsletter Planet Ficus is devoted to stories about the world’s most fascinating plants — the strangler figs and their kin, which have shaped our world and our species in profound ways. Take a trip there for a rich mix of stories about the ecological and cultural importance of these trees.

Thanks for reading. For past editions, see the Archive. If you found it interesting or useful, please share and subscribe. If you want to get in contact, you can reach me at: thenaturebeat@substack.com.