• Updates on climate change, plastics treaty talks, biodiversity negotiations, deep-sea mining, COP17 of the Convention to Combat Desertification.

• Features about mangrove conservation in India, bomb-fishing in Indonesia, a critically endangered deer in the Philippines, surf breaks as conservation zones in West Africa.

• Journal papers on ‘paper parks’, shorebirds and rising seas, wind turbines and wildlife collisions, climate change and dengue, food systems transformation, snakebite predictability, US wildlife commissions, illegal wildlife trade, endemic species in Mexico.

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

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There will be no newsletter next week as I am heading to the wilds of Wales for a few days with my family.

Taking The Pulse

Climate: The 36th annual State of the Climate report — published on 10 August — shows that greenhouse gas concentrations, global sea level and ocean heat content all reached record high levels in 2025 — see the press release. And on it goes… Last month, the non-polar parts of the ocean had their hottest ever July, according to the Copernicus Climate Change Service. The United Kingdom is on track for its hottest ever summer. Sections of the media — particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States — are engaged in denialism, self-censorship and outright negligence. On 6 August, Media Matters published an analysis of nearly 200 news segments that the US networks ABC, CBS and NBC broadcast about July’s heatwaves — not one mentioned climate change. Meanwhile, 45 countries — including Argentina, Egypt, the Philippines and Viet Nam — have still not submitted their updated climate change plans under the Paris Agreement. The deadline was a year and a half ago.

Deep-sea mining: “Decisions with potentially irreversible consequences for ecosystems we have barely begun to map should not be made under commercial or geopolitical pressure,” writes former President of the Seychelles, James Alix Michel. Summarizing the recent meeting of the International Seabed Authority (ISA), he highlights the ongoing failure of ISA member states to agree a Mining Code to govern deep-sea mining, and rising the support for a precautionary pause until the impacts of deep-sea mining are better understood. As Victoria Schneider reports, Mauritius, Mozambique and the Republic of the Congo are the latest countries to call for such a pause. They join another 43 nations that support a pause or moratorium.

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Biodiversity: Nearly three weeks of negotiations under the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) ended on 12 August with mixed progress on draft decisions to be adopted by parties to the convention when they meet in Armenia in October. As Vibha Varshney reports, many of the texts remain heavily bracketed, meaning that the contentious issues are unresolved. As usual, the main sticking points relate to the money needed to implement the CBD and its strategy for halting and reversing nature loss: the Global Biodiversity Framework — see the CBD secretariat’s press release or the statement by the civil society CBD Alliance. A final chance to unlock progress before the UN biodiversity conference in Armenia will come in China, which will host the Kunming Dialogue on 7-9 September.

Plastics: Julio Cordano, chair of the beleaguered negotiations on a global treaty on plastics pollution, released a document on 8 August setting out elements of a possible treaty. It has received widespread criticism for being weaker than earlier drafts of the treaty and failing to mention limits on plastic production. “This text seems designed with one objective in mind: To stay sufficiently empty to ensure the biggest polluters won’t reject it,” said David Azoulay, Director of Environmental Health at the Center for International Environmental Law, in a strongly worded statement, which is worth reading in full. Twice, a supposed final round of negotiations has failed to agree a treaty. The next attempt is in early 2027. But next month, negotiators will meet for informal talks in Thailand that may result in a more agreeable text.

Desertification: The 17th conference of parties to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) takes place in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia from 17-28 August. Talks will focus on the legal form of a new global initiative to tackle drought, agreement on how to protect rangelands and pastoralists from land degradation, and work to develop the UNCCD’s next long-term strategy for post-2030. See last week’s edition for a preview, listen to the Wildlife Conservation Society’s podcast about the conference, or read Wetlands International’s five goals.

In The Spotlight

• Shalinee Kumari reported on corporate mangrove conservation projects in India that are prioritizing community resilience and biodiversity, while keeping an eye on blue‑carbon markets.

• “The net fell with a dull thud. Abraham thrashed once, twice, then went still” — Pippo Carmona wrote about how genetic data is informing efforts to save a critically endangered species of deer in the Philippines.

• James Dacey wrote about how cheap acoustic monitors expose the widespread blast fishing that is devastating Indonesia’s coral reefs.

• Joshua Rapp Learn wrote about research suggesting that protecting West Africa’s surf breaks could simultaneously safeguard coastal biodiversity.

From The Journals

• Impacts of sea level rise on the world’s shorebirds are mostly negative — read the full paper.

• A global review of tools for mitigating wildlife collisions with wind turbines shows that site-specific solutions are needed — read the press release or the full paper.

• How climate change will shape distributions of dengue-transmitting mosquitoes and disease risk in France — read the full paper.

• Most countries that have committed to transform their food systems for sustainability by 2030 are failing on most indicators on health, environment, livelihoods, governance and resilience — read the press release or the full paper.

• Snake–human conflict and snakebite occur within predictable contexts shaped by interacting environmental, occupational, behavioural and socioeconomic factors — read the press release or the full paper.

• The first national inventory of wildlife commission structures, policy guidance and decision transparency across the United States — read the full paper.

• Illegal wildlife markets have characteristics distinguishing them from other illegal markets so required tailored response strategies — read the full paper.

• The ranges of most of the 1,600-plus species found only in Mexico coincide with moderate to high human pressure, while conservation areas cover only a small fraction of their distributions — read the full paper.

• What distinguishes ‘paper parks’ from ineffective or underperforming protected and conserved areas? — read the full paper.

What Caught My Eye

• “If you can use iNaturalist, you can write a paper”, says biologist Matt Forister, who has launched a new scientific journal on lost species that have not been seen for a decade or more.

• Resti Salmayenti and colleagues wrote about their recent research showing that peatland restoration has reduced fire risk in Indonesia’s tropical forests

• Madagascar and Suriname have become the 40th and 41st members of the Forest & Climate Leaders’ Partnership, a political platform aiming to accelerate action to halt and reverse forest loss by 2030 — see the press releases here and here.

• Jerry Toth suggests five alternative ways to fund the Tropical Forest Forever Facility.

• Naina Rao reports that Uzbekistan’s recent releases of more than 2,000 captive-bred Asian houbara bustards has nothing to do with conservation, according to an expert on the species.

• India’s population of endangered Asiatic lions increased by more than 70 percent in the decade to 2025, and now stands at 891.

• A new report says Africa is losing billions by exporting raw tree commodities instead of capturing processing value, and that closing this value gap could transform trees, forests and agroforestry into engines of green growth — see the press release.

• Martine Maron and colleagues argue that nature-positive policy must consider ecological irreplaceability to prevent irreversible biodiversity loss.

• Five former chairs of the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada say the Canadian government’s proposed changes to the Species at Risk Act could enable ‘wilful extinction’, reports Sarah Cox.

• The fragmented way the United Nations addresses climate change, nature and land with three separate treaties limits participation by Indigenous peoples, according to a new report from Nia Tero — 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

• The Global Investigative Journalism Network (GIJN) shared a collection of its recent masterclass videos on using data in investigations.

• On 8 September, the GIJN has a webinar on how to find funding for investigative journalism — register here.

• RECOFTC’s free Community Forestry 101 e-course is running until 18 December.

• Patricia Miloslavich provides a useful short history of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Panel of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), covering its findings, its recommendations and the challenge of implementing them.

• Laura Chaparro of Spain’s Science Media Centre outlines experts’ expectations for the upcoming desertification, biodiversity and climate COPs.

• Covering Climate Now launched the South Atlantic Climate Journalism Hub for journalists in eight US states.

• The International Union for the Conservation of Nature published a brief on the resolutions that it and its members have adopted on Indigenous Peoples in nature conservation.

• InfluenceMap has developed a tool that tracks corporate messaging on the biodiversity crisis and engagement with policy to limit the key drivers of biodiversity loss.

• Climate Tracker América Latina published a journalist’s guide to covering the energy transition in Latin America.

See past editions for more tips and resources.

Jobs And Opportunities

• Follow the Money is hiring an editor — deadline 28 August.

• Princeton University is hiring a science writer — no deadline listed.

• The Savannah Morning News is hiring a climate change/environment reporter — no deadline listed.

Bonus content: There are 35 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

7-9 September 2026: The Kunming Dialogue on collective progress in the implementation of the Global Biodiversity Framework will convene in Kunming, China.

8-11 September: BirdLife International will host its second Global Flyways Summit in Nairobi, Kenya.

21-25 September: The 13th World Environmental Education Congress takes place in Perth, Australia.

25-28 September: The ScienceWriters2026 conference will take place in Corvallis, Oregon.

27-30 September: The second informal in-person meeting of Heads of Delegation to the negotiations on a global plastics treaty will take place in Bangkok, Thailand.

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 2029.

Whose Eye Was It?

The eye belongs to a crowned sifaka. Photo credit: Diego Delso — 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.

• Updates on COP17 of the Convention to Combat Desertification, the Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the Phoenix Species Project, H5N1 bird flu in Australia, and environment journalism in Africa.

• Features about offshore wind farms helping marine life, pet dogs versus invasive insects, a critique of Kenya’s wildlife conservancies, conflict and community environmental action in Thailand, a migrating tree species that shapes fire risk, the race to host the high seas treaty on marine biodiversity.

• Journal papers on social forestry and biodiversity in Indonesia, honeybees and wild pollinators in Europe, grain yields in China’s protected areas, climate-induced ranges shifts of butterflies, how mining overlaps with threatened species, rising seas and US coastal wetlands, and more.

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

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Taking The Pulse

Saving species: The Bezos Earth Fund and conservation organization Re:wild — respectively set up by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and actor Leonardo DiCaprio — have announced the Phoenix Species Project, a US$200-million project that aims to save 100 critically endangered species worldwide. “More than 100 local and international partners around the world — including Indigenous Peoples, local communities, conservationists, and governments — will lead the work, tailoring recovery efforts to each species and place,” states the press release. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature’s (IUCN) Species Survival Commission is collaborating with the project. For perspective, IUCN’s Red List includes 10,947 species in the ‘critically endangered’ category. Scaling up the Phoenix Species Project’s average investment per species to cover all of them would cost an additional US$21.7 billion — less than ten percent of Jeff Bezos’s net worth of US$279 billion, according to Forbes’s real-time billionaire tracker.

Bird flu: On 1 August, Australia reported its first case of mass mortality in wild birds caused by the H5N1 bird flu virus that was first detected in the country in June. Environment Minister Murray Watt said the government has invested in “building up the resilience of the populations of our native birds and mammals” over the past two to three years. Scientists at the Biodiversity Council say they have seen no evidence of this and have demanded that the minister substantiate his claim. In a statement on 3 August, the council called on the government to “release details of the conservation work undertaken, where it occurred, which species benefited, how the investment went above and beyond ‘business as usual’, and what evidence demonstrates it improved their resilience”. On 4 August, the government of Australia published an assessment concluding that nearly 400 native bird and mammal species are at a high risk from H5N1. See Graham Readfearn’s story.

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Land COP: The 17th conference of parties (COP17) to the UN Convention to Combate Desertification will take place in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, from 17–28 August. As the Earth Negotiations Bulletin (ENB) explains here, the convention has evolved to focus on land degradation and restoration globally, not only in the planet’s drylands — see also ENB’s preview of COP17. The Wildlife Conservation Society published a series of COP17 policy papers and a video explainer. In a press release it said: “During COP17, WCS will emphasize that successful land restoration depends on protecting functioning ecosystems, conserving wildlife and migration corridors, strengthening climate resilience, and ensuring that science and local knowledge guide decision-making.” The International Union for the Conservation of Nature has also published a COP17 position paper and a set of issue briefs.

More COPs: With the conferences of parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change following the UNCCD COP in quick succession, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature has published its common messages for negotiators at all three conferences. The document makes a series of recommendations in each of three areas: recognising nature as the link between the three conventions, strengthening coordination and national integration of the conventions, and boosting implementation with capacity building and inclusive and equitable planning.

Ebola: When I last mentioned the current Ebola outbreak, back on 28 May, there had been 134 confirmed cases including 18 deaths. Those numbers have rapidly grown to 3,895 cases and 1,753 deaths, mostly in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is now the country’s largest ever Ebola outbreak. The World Health Organization said on 1 August that the most recent complete reporting week had the highest numbers of reported cases and deaths to date, “underscoring the exceptional pace of transmission”.

In Focus: Environment Journalism in Africa

On 1 August, Africa 21 published the second edition of its report on the state of environmental journalism in Africa — read it in English or French. The report is based on a survey of 171 journalists in 47 countries. Notable proportions of respondents said they had experienced censorship (37 percent), intimidation (36 percent) and physical threats (38 percent). Such challenges feature in a submission that the International Press Institute (IPI) made on 31 July to the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, which is developing legal guidance on the right to a “satisfactory environment” under the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights. IPI’s submission calls for stronger protections for climate and environmental reporters, improved access to information, and safeguards against SLAPPs — a class of lawsuits increasingly deployed to dissuade journalists from exposing environmental harms.

In The Spotlight

• Pet dogs are sniffing out an invasive insect that causes major economic losses in the United States, reports Riley Farrell.

• Chris Baraniuk wrote about how offshore wind farms inadvertently create thriving artificial reefs that shelter recovering marine life.

• Karen Mockler reported on the surprising high‑elevation spread of a tree species in California, and what it means for fire risk.

• Paritta Wangkiat reported how a decades-long conflict between insurgents and the Thai state suppresses community environmental action and fuels mistrust in the deep-south of the country.

• Regina Lam wrote about how China, Chile and Belgium all want to host the secretariat of the high‑seas treaty on marine biodiversity, and the deep geopolitical tensions at play.

• Kariũki Kĩrigia argues that Kenyan wildlife conservancies often entrench green colonialism and marginalise Indigenous communities.

From The Journals

• With the right policy incentives and connectivity-led management, community forests in Indonesia can contribute to biodiversity conservation — read the full paper.

• Honeybee dominance across Europe affects how wild pollinators forage, highlighting a need to manage hive numbers — read the full paper.

• Staple-grain yield gains are weaker for Chinese villages inside protected areas than for those outside — read the full paper.

• A new way to rank protein-rich foods by combining environmental impact, health, affordability and availability into a single score — read the press release or the full paper.

• A study of 1,758 butterfly species found that 80 percent have experienced range shifts, 79 percent of which were linked to climate change and extreme weather — read the press release or the full paper.

• Multi‑goal protected‑area strategies balance biodiversity, carbon and equity more effectively than single‑target approaches — read the full paper.

• Mining areas overlap the ranges of 28 percent of threatened species, most of which are not currently listed as mining-threatened — read the full paper.

• What the rising sea level means for coastal wetlands in the United States — read the press release or the full paper.

• DNA barcoding on nearly one million arthropod specimens trapped in ten sites reveals ‘unprecedented diversity’ — read the full paper or the Rainforest Trust’s story about one of the sites.

• Regulations to prevent shark finning have little impact on global trade — read the press release or the full paper.

What Caught My Eye

• Twelve years of ecological monitoring of a solar farm in the United Kingdom have recorded a notable increase in biodiversity alongside renewable energy generation.

• Police from five countries have arrested hundreds of people in one of the largest coordinated crackdowns on environmental crime in the Amazon rainforest, reports Steven Grattan.

• Australia launched a public consultation on proposed expansions to two marine parks that would bring the country’s total protected area of ocean to 30 percent ahead of the target’s 2030 deadline.

• Controversial plans for the world’s first octopus farm have been scrapped, reports Charlotte Lytton.

• An important game reserve in South Africa is “dying in plain sight”, writes Simon Pooley.

• Maarten van Zonneveld and colleagues call for action to align efforts to reverse vegetable biodiversity loss with goals on dietary quality and malnutrition.

• The Indian state of Assam has invoked the National Security Act to keep in prison an activist who peacefully protested against a planned luxury hotel near Kaziranga National Park, reports Chris Lang.

• Scientists raise concerns about livestream‑driven cicada harvesting in a Chinese village and suggest farming the insects instead, reports Li Xin.

• Soaring oil prices are forcing some conservationists to cut patrols, travel and fieldwork, writes Ava Eucker.

• Between 2018-2025, global banks provided US$31 billion in sustainability-linked loans to palm oil companies with alleged supply-chain links to deforestation in Indonesia, according to Global Witness.

• Only a third of India’s tiger reserves have both adequate habitat and prey for the big cats, reports Jayanta Basu.

• In Scotland, an annual seabird hunt dating back 400 years has been blocked by authorities for the first time.

• Jonathan Vit reports on a Japanese project planting dense coastal forests to bolster tsunami resilience.

• Pacific Island nations want more support to meet the monitoring and reporting requirements of the Convention on Biological Diversity and its Global Biodiversity Framework, reports Rebekah Rasmussen.

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 13 August, Systems Change Lab is hosting a webinar on the state of the global freshwater system — register here.

• The Intergovernmental Panel on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) published the final laid-out version of its Business and Biodiversity Assessment Report.

• The secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity is accepting media accreditation requests for the 2026 UN Biodiversity Conference — deadline 15 September.

See past editions for more tips and resources.

Jobs And Opportunities

• The Solutions Journalism Network is hiring a part-time Southeast Asia Consultant — deadline 12 August.

• The Bloomberg Green Docs competition has a US$25,000 grand prize for a short climate documentary — deadline 14 August.

• The Earth Journalism Network is offering grants to support in-depth reporting on biodiversity in West Africa — deadline 21 August.

• Want to become a solutions journalism trainer? Apply to join the Solutions Journalism Network’s train-the-trainers program — deadline 23 August.

• Climate Tracker Latin America and partners invite journalists to join a training program on the zero-waste strategy and its relationship to the climate crisis — deadline 30 August.

• The Agroecology Fund is hiring a content writer and editor — deadline 31 August.

• The Earth Journalism Network invites journalists in Ghana, Uganda, Democratic Republic of the Congo and South Africa to apply to join a three-day virtual media workshop in November on mining, the environment and human rights — deadline 6 September.

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.

On The Horizon

17-28 August 2026: The 17th Conference of Parties to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification takes place in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.

8-11 September: BirdLife International will host its second Global Flyways Summit in Nairobi, Kenya.

21-25 September: The 13th World Environmental Education Congress takes place in Perth, Australia.

25-28 September: The ScienceWriters2026 conference will take place in Corvallis, Oregon.

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 2029.

Whose Eye Was It?

The eye belongs to a Southern yellow-billed hornbill. Photo credit: Andy Morffew — 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.

• Updates on pharma and tropical forests, progress on global biodiversity goals, COP17 expectations, tigers wild and farmed, mangrove protection and restoration.

• Features about community-led marine conservation in Hawaii, leopard-human conflict in Nepal, manganese mining in South Africa, the Church of England’s missed opportunity on nature, India’s neglected grasslands, and Africa-wide biodiversity mapping.

• Journal papers on frontier threats in Amazonia, bright spots for peatlands, mountain insects in a warming world, new wild foods in a time of crisis, orangutan population updates, smallholders and the EU Deforestation Regulation, nature and the mind, invasive species and climate change, and more.

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

Subscribe now

Taking The Pulse

Biodiversity: On 26 July, the secretariat of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) published a second draft of its report on progress toward achieving the 23 targets of the Global Biodiversity Framework by 2030. It isn’t pretty reading: the report says parties to the CBD are only making adequate progress on one of the targets. This itself seems bizarre, as that target is on minimizing the impacts of climate change on biodiversity, and that problem is far from fixed. A final draft of the report will inform the global review of progress that parties to the CBD will undertake at the COP17 conference in Armenia in October. For more detail on the draft report and analysis of what it means for COP17, I recommend this by Daisy Dunne, Orla Dwyer and Aruna Chandrasekhar, this by Fermín Koop, or this by Giuliana Viglione and Orla Dwyer, who report that 84 percent of countries failed to meet their pledge to identify nature-harming subsidies by 2025.

COP17: Delegates at the COP17 conference will have their hands full with the global review and many other issues, and non-state actors are beginning to outline their expectations. Nicola Sorsby and Barbara Lassen of the International Institute for Environment and Development say that if the targets of the Global Biodiversity Framework are to be met, COP17 must accelerate inclusive, locally led action. Greenpeace, in a list of ten things it is calling on governments to do at the conference, emphasizes embedding Indigenous‑focused, rights‑based ecosystem protection into laws, plans and financial systems. There is growing momentum for such approaches. Armenia and international partners have announced a two-day high-level symposium immediately before COP17 to develop the Yerevan Call to Action. This will urge parties to the CBD to establish legal and financial frameworks to recognize and support conservation by non-state actors including communities, Indigenous peoples and private landowners.

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Pharma: Halting tropical deforestation by 2030 could preserve an estimated US$79 billion in commercial value from undiscovered pharmaceuticals, and ten times that amount in social value, by 2050, says a new analysis by Zero Carbon Analytics (ZCA) — see the press release. ZCA says the findings show that it is in the economic interest of pharmaceutical, biotechnology and cosmetics companies to fund tropical forest conservation. A mechanism to achieve this exists in the form of the Cali Fund set up by parties to the CBD in February 2025. It is intended to channel a share of commercial benefits from the use of digital data on genetic resources back to biodiversity-rich countries, Indigenous peoples and local communities to fund conservation. But the Cali Fund remains essentially empty. On 29 July, the International Federation of Pharmaceutical Manufacturers & Associations published a report stating that the industry contributes to 18 of the Global Biodiversity Framework’s 23 targets. The report does not mention the Cali Fund, to which not one of the federation’s members has contributed.

Tigers: To mark Global Tiger Day on 29 July, both Nepal and China announced increased tiger populations, according to WWF. Malaysia’s minister for natural resources and environmental sustainability said the country’s tiger population was growing too — and that official numbers would be released “soon”. WWF says that as tiger populations recover, helping people and tigers to coexist is becoming increasingly important. As Nirmal Ghosh reports, India’s surging tiger population now urgently needs protected corridors to allow safe dispersal. Meanwhile, the Wildlife Justice Commission points out that there are nearly 50 percent more tigers living in tiger farms across Asia than are living in the wild. It says poorly regulated farms fuel illegal trafficking and threaten wild tigers.

Mangroves: On 26 July, China inaugurated the International Mangrove Center — an intergovernmental body based in Shenzhen that will promote mangrove conservation and restoration. Notably, the 21 member states listed on its website include landlocked Burkina Faso, Laos, Lesotho and Zimbabwe. Indonesia has a similarly named World Mangrove Center, which it has been promoting this week at a meeting of forestry officials from members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. One of those nations, Myanmar, is now the global hotspot for mangrove deforestation. As Mekong Eye reports, mangroves there are being rapidly degraded by fuelwood demand, illegal logging and infrastructure development. But as IUCN shows, elsewhere in the country, community forestry groups and township-level associations are restoring mangroves and coordinating landscape-scale protection.

In The Spotlight

• Ten years after its creation, Hawaii’s first community-based subsistence fishing area appears to be working, reports Noelle Fujii-Oride.

• Saugat Bolakhe reports rising leopard–human conflict in Nepal and outlines community-driven strategies for coexistence — see also Ramesh Bhusal’s interview with Rodney Jackson, founder of Snow Leopard Conservancy.

• Akin Jimoh wrote about the immense, expert-led assessment that redrew the map of Africa’s biodiversity and what the findings mean for conservation.

• Stephan Hofstatter, Marcello Rossi and Paul Tullis reveal how South Africa’s manganese boom is harming communities and ecosystems.

• Vaishnavi Chandrashekhar reports that India’s long‑neglected grasslands are finally being mapped and restored to protect biodiversity.

• Daniel Martin Eckhart argues that the Church of England’s rejection of a motion to restore 30 percent of its land reflects a money‑driven, accountability‑dodging stance that undermines its own vision.

From The Journals

• Positive examples of peatland conservation, rewetting and restoration, and the nine ‘bright spots’ providing clear guidance — read the full paper.

• How new uses of wild edible plants emerged during food shortages faced by agro-pastoralist communities in Uganda — read the full paper.

• A study of more than 100 beetle species in Costa Rica highlights the vulnerability of tropical mountain species to rising temperatures — read the press release or the full paper.

• New estimates suggest the Sumatran orangutan population fell by one fifth between 2011 and 2023 and that the Tapanuli orangutan, with only 716 individuals, “has no demographic buffer against additional mortality” — read the full paper.

• Invasive species are likely to pose a greater threat to ocean biodiversity than previously thought as climate change enhances their success — read the full paper.

• Healthier diets could free up farmland and cut carbon emissions from land-use change by 85 percent by 2050 — read the press release or the full paper.

• Indigenous lands in the Amazon are increasingly exposed to violence, illegal resource extraction and deforestation — read the full paper.

• Smallholders in regions of Indonesia, Vietnam, Thailand, and Côte d’Ivoire need targeted support to meet the EU Deforestation Regulation’s requirements — read the full paper.

• Time spent in nature not only restores people feeling mentally tired or stressed, but also boosts the mental states of people starting from a neutral baseline — read the press release or the full paper.

• Apparent synergies between EU climate and biodiversity goals mask tensions rooted in divergent prescriptions and political priorities — read the full paper.

In Focus: Prescribed Burns

Three recent papers focus on different aspects of prescribed burns as a tool for wildfire management:

• Researchers in Australia say surveys must be conducted within hours of a prescribed burn to understand the true impact on wildlife. Their research — on lizards — found that scavengers soon removed the corpses of dead animals, suggesting that delayed wildlife surveys would greatly underestimate the true toll of fire — see the press release or the full paper.

• In California, giant sequoia trees treated with prescribed burns were four times more likely to survive wildfires than untreated trees — read the press release or the full paper.

• Prescribed burns may reduce particulate pollution from wildfires but usually not enough to offset the emission from the burns themselves — read the full paper.

What Caught My Eye

• Indonesian authorities are wrongfully prosecuting environmental defenders who protest deforestation and pollution, as well as Indigenous leaders who defend their land rights, says a new report by Human Rights Watch.

• Tom Pickerell argues that 2026 offers five pivotal chances for governments to accelerate ambitious, coordinated ocean action.

• The Democratic Republic of the Congo’s ambitious Green Corridor conservation and sustainable development initiative overlaps entirely with mining concessions and oil blocks, says Greenpeace.

• Two weeks of negotiations at the International Seabed Authority in Kingston, Jamaica, concluded without agreement on rules for deep-sea mining, reports Rachel Ramirez.

• Linus Gitahi argues that tax‑incentivised corporate payments could secure Kenya’s wildlife habitats while supporting Maasai landowners.

• Over the past decade, more than half of the land affected by wildfires in Ireland overlapped sites in the Natura 2000 network of protected areas — whereas in 26 other European countries, the average was just over 30 percent, reports Patricia Devlin.

• The foreign ministers of Spain and the United Kingdom issued a joint statement in which they committed to co-lead the green transition, strengthen cooperation on clean energy and advance international climate action.

• The Climate Psychology Alliance of North America published a report on the mental health of journalists covering the climate crisis.

• UNESCO’s World Heritage Committee has added 25 new sites to UNESCO’s World Heritage List and added six sites to the List of World Heritage in Danger.

• Indigenous leaders have given the UN a 12‑point plan to strengthen global protections for their peoples, reports Dionne Phillips.

• On 24 July, Ecuador announced the creation of a vast conservation corridor covering 173,000 hectares of Amazon rainforest and connecting three protected areas.

• Doug Specht argues that UK media coverage of wildfires fixates on dramatic events while neglecting long-term climate drivers.

• Nongovernmental organizations in Malaysia are calling for transparency about the claimed outcomes of a national campaign to plant 100 million trees, reports Chelsea Lee Jia Shi.

• The government of Bangladesh has set up a wildlife commission to advise on conservation, habitat restoration and human-wildlife conflict.

• Ghana’s High Court sentenced a politician to 20 years in prison for aiding illegal mining, reports Mabel Adorkor Annang.

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 3 August, EurekAlert! is holding a webinar on essential science reporting skills — register here.

• On 4 August, the Solutions Journalism Network has a webinar on the principles and pillars of solutions journalism — register here.

• On 11 August, Mongabay has a webinar for journalists on how to cover gender and the environment — register here.

• Amanda Royal launched Hope Scroll, a website and newsfeed of environmental progress stories — read about it here.

• The Secretariat of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) published two press releases summarizing the outcomes of the recent meetings of the CITES committee for plants and animals.

• Lilit Midoyan, chief coordinator of the ‘Green Zone’ at the COP17 biodiversity conference in Armenia, shared information on logistics and what attendees can expect.

See past editions for more tips and resources.

Jobs And Opportunities

• Dialogue Earth is offering US$1,500 for photo stories and socials-first stories on heat solutions in the Global South — deadline extended to 4 August.

• The Guardian is hiring an editor and a reporter for Animals Farmed, a new series on animal and fish welfare and industrial farming worldwide — deadline 12 August.

• The Perspective Fund supports documentary projects “with the potential to expand public understanding, shape culture or create systems change” — rolling deadline.

• The Hawaii-based National Tropical Botanical Garden is accepting applications for its Environmental Journalism Program offered this year in Miami, Florida on 8–14 November — deadline 18 August.

• In India, the Kerala State Biodiversity Board invites journalists to a residential training workshop on biodiversity conservation and climate adaptation taking place in September — deadline 8 August.

• Follow the Money is looking for “ambitious investigations that reveal wrongdoing, uncover corruption, and hold power to account” — rolling deadline.

• Last chance: Entries for the 2026 AAAS Kavli Science Journalism Awards must be submitted no later than 11:59 pm US Pacific Time on 1 August.

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.

On The Horizon

17-28 August 2026: The 17th Conference of Parties to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification takes place in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.

11 September: BirdLife International will host its second Global Flyways Summit in Nairobi, Kenya.

21-25 September: The 13th World Environmental Education Congress takes place in Perth, Australia.

25-28 September: The ScienceWriters2026 conference will take place in Corvallis, Oregon.

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 2029.

Whose Eye Was It?

The eye belongs to a plain prinia. 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.

• Updates on biodiversity negotiations, Amazon rainforest, plastic treaty talks, global mangrove mapping, climate — and biodiversity — justice.

• Features about the flawed Ocean Cleanup, canopy bridges and roadkill, AI and nature, UK aid for the Congo rainforest, climate journalism in Africa, and more.

• Journal papers on opium versus biodiversity, aquatic deoxygenation, legal protection for Europe’s wildlife, palm oil and deforestation, the US roadless rule and water, nature and mental health, crime scripting and pangolin trafficking, invasive species and their impacts, blue carbon and more.

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

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Taking The Pulse

Amazon: The area of the Brazilian Amazon that burned was smaller last year than it has been since records began in 1985, reports Rachel Flynn. This and the recently reported decline in Amazon deforestation are good news for the world’s biggest rainforest. But there is a challenge on the horizon. After two decades, the soy sector’s voluntary moratorium on sourcing soybeans from land deforested after 2008 is over. This will cause at least 1.4 million hectares of deforestation over the next decade, according to new research. The paper is behind a paywall but is summarised here by WWF, which proposes policy measures to halt the projected surge in deforestation.

Plastics: The stalled negotiations toward a global treaty on plastics had an injection of energy early in July, when informal talks took place in Kenya ahead of the resumption of formal negotiations in March 2027. However, journalists Emma Bryce, Benard Ogembo, Conor McGlone and Louise Krüger report on concerns that the closed-door informal sessions risk weakening transparency and ambition. Giulia Carlini and Cate Bonacini of the Center for International Environmental Law warn that a “no surprises” draft treaty text risks locking in weak, lowest‑denominator measures. They outline eight tests of whether negotiations are moving in the right direction to deliver an effective treaty. Meanwhile, the scale of the plastics crisis is becoming ever more apparent. In the past week, journalists have reported that microplastics are contaminating fish deep in the Amazon and sea salt in Indonesia, and that a billion tiny plastic ‘nurdles’ spilled into a UK river.

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Legal duties: A year ago, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued a landmark opinion on the duty of states to act to address climate change. Reviewing what has happened since, Joie Chowdhury of the Center for International Environmental Law and colleagues write that the ICJ climate opinion is already reshaping global climate law, diplomacy and governance. The UN General Assembly endorsed the opinion in May. But as Aditi Shetye and colleagues at the World’s Youth for Climate Justice note in a new article, the hosts of the next two UN climate change conferences — Türkiye and Ethiopia — both abstained from the vote. Meanwhile, Andreas Buser wants to start the conversation about whether a similar ICJ advisory opinion on biodiversity could clarify that states have legal duties to halt nature loss.

Mangroves: The updated Global Mangrove Watch dataset shows that the extent of these coastal forests has greatly increased in Australia, India, Pakistan, Philippines and Senegal over the past 40 years, but has shrunk significantly in Indonesia, Myanmar, Malaysia, Nigeria and Cuba. The gains are nearly entirely offset by the losses, leaving a net global increase of just 47,000 hectares — a tiny amount, but better than an overall decline. The Global Mangrove Watch update, which launches officially on 26 July, maps its data to 30 metre resolution — see the press release. See also, a selection of the Mangrove Action Project’s annual photography awards winners, published on 24 July.

Biodiversity: National negotiators are in Nairobi, Kenya from 27 July to 12 August for talks in two subsidiary bodies of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). In both meetings, negotiators will discuss a draft report on progress toward the goals and targets of the CBD’s Global Biodiversity Framework, and will develop the text of decisions for parties to adopt at their conference in Armenia in October. As a new report from the Dutch government concludes, collective ambition in national biodiversity targets is insufficient to match the global ambitions agreed under the CBD. The subsidiary bodies will also discuss a range of other issues — see the overview from the Earth Negotiations Bulletin, which will publish daily coverage of each meeting. See also the position papers from the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (here), and the World Wildlife Fund (here and here).

In The Spotlight

• Can reason alone foster a way of living that respects ecological limits? Stéphan Barbe, Ossénatou Mamadou and Philip A. Davies argue that Indigenous philosophy can deepen sustainability science’s engagement with nature.

• David Shiffman says the Ocean Cleanup’s celebrated tech kills marine life, can’t fix plastic pollution and has ignored scientists who warned that its approach is flawed.

• Suzana Camargo reports that canopy bridges in one Brazilian municipality in the Amazon enabled 15,000 safe wildlife crossings and eliminated roadkill.

• Tania Karas warns that AI governance is sidelining biodiversity and Indigenous rights, risking severe ecological harm.

• Josh Gabbatiss reports that UK aid cuts have gutted promised Congo rainforest funding, undermining commitments made at the COP26 climate change conference.

• Bongiwe Tutu writes about African newsrooms struggling to make climate reporting sustained and impactful, and the challenge of shifting from episodic, reactive reporting to deeper, more critical coverage that cuts across journalistic beats.

• Mongabay, Scientific America and Project Multatuli produced a documentary about scientists and Indigenous partners capturing the soundscapes of a Bornean rainforest before it is replaced by Indonesia’s new capital city.

From The Journals

• Opium eradication efforts in Laos are displacing illicit cultivation into protected areas and increasing hunting there — read the full paper.

• The strengths and weaknesses of laws protecting wildlife in Britain and the EU — read the press release or the full paper.

• Barriers and enablers for the inclusion of Indigenous Peoples and local communities in the Global Biodiversity Framework — read the full paper.

• Aquatic deoxygenation is approaching an ‘unsafe space’, with Earth-system impacts that are likely to be irreversible in our lifetimes — read the press release or the full paper.

• Declines in deforestation in the supply chains of Indonesia’s palm oil sector are not currently being driven by corporate commitments to zero-deforestation — read the press release or the full paper.

• The ‘roadless rule’ on forest conservation that the Trump administration aims to repeal helps protect clean drinking water for 25 million people — read the press release or the full paper.

• Both restored forest and birdsong promote psychological well-being — read the press release or the full paper.

• Using community-based ‘crime scripting’ to understand pangolin scale trafficking and gain insights into crime prevention —read the full paper.

• Walrus ivory is being illegally exported from the United States to Indonesia where artisans carve it with Native American or Hawaiian motifs and illegally send it back to be sold — read the full paper.

• Wetlands are highly fragmented across 38 European countries, whose restoration needs vary greatly — read the press release or the full paper.

• The closure of the Strait of Hormuz could cause a surge in biological invasions — read the full paper.

• The environmental impacts of invasive species are more severe in the Global South — read the press release or the full paper.

• More than 90 percent of the US$2.3 trillion a year that marine and coastal ecosystems generate in carbon removal value comes from the open ocean, far exceeding the contributions of mangroves, seagrasses and salt marshes — read the full paper.

• A comprehensive assessment of Australia’s terrestrial invertebrate pet trade found nearly 600 species on sale, including endangered species — read the full paper.

What Caught My Eye

• An outbreak of an insect pest of sal trees in Madhya Pradesh, India has led officials to offer a bounty of two rupees per insect (US$1 per 50) and to seek permission to fell 150,000 trees.

• Some good news for oystercatchers and Hawaiian stilts.

• The UK’s first public-private nature fund has raised US$86m to restore landscapes.

• Biodiversity conservation in the Philippines should no longer be treated as separate from public health, say Krizler C. Tanalgo and colleagues.

• The UN Development Programme launched Forest Guardians Invest — to channel private finance directly to Indigenous-led forest conservation and bioeconomy initiatives.

• Thimedi Hetti wrote about Mrinalini Rai — founder of Women4Biodiversity — and her decades-long fight to centre Indigenous women’s rights in global conservation.

• Canada’s environment minister says cattle ranches in the province of Alberta could count towards the national target of conserving 30 percent of land by 2030.

• Mexico will no longer permit mining in natural protected areas.

• Fermín Koop wrote about governments embracing fossil fuel‑free zones in ecologically or culturally important areas as a concrete tool for phased extraction bans.

• Rivers flowing into Ghana’s newly declared first marine protected area carry toxic pollutants and heavy sediment loads from upstream illegal mining, reports Emmanuel Gamson.

• The Andean Court of Justice has taken up an unprecedented case against Peru over its alleged failures to combat illegal mining in the Amazon basin, reports Steven Grattan.

• Damage to Chilean seamounts from bottom trawling is still visible more than 25 years later, says a new study from Oceana.

• Ashley Yeong reports that Melanesian nations plan a vast ocean‑reserve corridor but key governance details remain unclear.

• The second Global Nature Positive Summit concluded on 15 July, with participating organizations adopting the Kumamoto Declaration.

In Case You Missed It

I interviewed Carly Cook, an expert on the alternatives to protected areas known as OECMs — other effective area-based conservation measures — which are increasingly important but poorly known outside of specialist circles.

Dispatch from Planet Ficus

“Homer was not writing about climate change. But his image of a lone survivor clinging to a tree while the forces of nature rage around him feels strikingly contemporary”. For my other newsletter — Planet Ficus — I explored why Homer chose a wild fig tree to save the hero of The Odyssey and why that choice still has something to teach us today. Read the story here.

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

• The European Journalism Centre published the Climate Frontline Toolkit to help journalists prepare before, report during, and follow communities after climate hazards.

• On 27 July, the Solutions Journalism Network has a webinar on how to create social media content to increase the reach and impact of solutions journalism — register here to attend the webinar and its follow-up session in August.

• On 4 August, Covering Climate Now and the Solutions Journalism Network have a webinar on how to identify, measure and report the impacts of climate change journalism — register here.

• Mun Keat Looi interviewed Siri Carpenter — editor of the new book The Best Science Stories and How They Work — about close reading and the craft of science journalism.

• Fermín Koop suggests five questions that can improve media coverage of the energy transition in Latin America, to better reflect issues such as social justice, biodiversity, local communities and geopolitics.

See past editions for more tips and resources.

Jobs And Opportunities

• Journalists in Bangladesh can apply for The Climate Watch’s urban environment and climate media fellowship — deadline 26 July.

• The Earth Journalism Network is hiring a Vietnam coordinator — no deadline listed.

• The Texas Tribune is hiring an Immigration, Environment and Climate Editor — no deadline listed.

• Climate Tracker Latin America has grants for journalists from Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Mexico, Colombia, Peru, Bolivia and Brazil to report on the role of women in the face of the climate crisis — deadline 2 August.

• The Climate Newsroom is a free, online training program for US journalists with or without experience covering climate change — apply by 7 August.

• The Pulitzer Center invites reporters who cover climate for local news outlets to join a virtual workshop series on developing short-form video content for social media — deadline 14 August.

• Santa Barbara News-Press is hiring a Climate, Environment & Water Reporter — no deadline listed.

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.

On The Horizon

17-28 August 2026: The 17th Conference of Parties to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification takes place in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.

11 September: BirdLife International will host its second Global Flyways Summit 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 2029.

Whose Eye Was It?

The eye belongs to a black-hooded oriole. Photo credit: Tisha Mukherjee — 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.

When the Earth Journalism Network recently asked me to write a guide to OECMs, one of the experts I consulted was Carly Cook, an Associate Professor in the School of Biological Sciences at Monash University, Australia.

She said so many interesting things that I decided to reproduce our Q&A in full, below. Following it are links to some of the research Carly has published on this topic.

The full interview is longer than my usual posts, so if this is not what you expected in your inbox, please forgive the intrusion and wait for the regular newsletter to arrive. If you have never heard of OECMs, please read on. I found what Carly had to say fascinating.

Q&A

I started by asking Carly: what’s so great about OECMs?

“While protected areas have been our primary conservation tool there are still major gaps in protection for biodiversity. Significant biodiversity exists outside protected areas. Many of these areas will never become protected areas and yet have been managed in ways that have enabled biodiversity to persist there.

OECMs are a way for us to recognize and support these areas to ensure biodiversity continues to persist there.

One of the best things about OECMs is that they put the emphasis on effective biodiversity outcomes. This is a key difference from protected areas, which are often in places that are not important for biodiversity (‘residual reserves’) and have no requirement to achieve positive outcomes for biodiversity (‘paper parks’).”

Can you give me some examples of the types of sites that could be OECMs? I’m looking for examples that will be widely understood by journalists and their audiences, rather than more obscure types or technical designations.

“An easy one to explain is a reservoir and associated vegetation that is set aside to provide clean drinking water. These areas are generally in very good condition and restrict human activities that could impact on the condition of the vegetation or water quality. There are lots of examples where these areas contain important biodiversity, have clear management objectives to protect that biodiversity and have a longevity of protection because they are needed into the future.

Another example that might interest your readers is that of offshore wind farms. Once the infrastructure is in place, the base of the turbines provides a form of artificial reef and there are large exclusion zones around these areas which act as strictly protected marine areas. The offshore wind in the North Sea is being credited with supporting the recovery of cod fisheries because cod are laying their eggs on the footings at the base of the turbines and adults are protected from fishing by the exclusion zone.”

Could a golf course become an OECM, or a farm or a city park?

“Core to the definition of an OECM is that they must contain important biodiversity, and they must be governed and managed in ways that support positive outcomes for that biodiversity. So, in theory, sections of all three examples you give here could be OECMs, if they met those requirements.

In practice, I think it would be hard for a golf course, because these areas are so manicured. But if sections of mature trees along the edges of the course provided important habitat for arboreal species, then those sections could in theory be OECMs, if the owners of the golf course committed to managing these areas to support those species.

The situation is similar for a farm. In Australia, there are many properties that are working farms but have patches of important biodiversity. In some cases, landholders commit to setting those areas aside for conservation and manage them accordingly. If they place a binding covenant on the land, it would become a protected area — which would preclude it from being an OECM. But the landholders could instead opt to have that area recognized as an OECM and make a commitment to manage and monitor the area to demonstrate it achieves positive outcomes.

Bushland reserves managed by local councils could likewise be OECMs if they have important biodiversity. But a traditional city park, with manicured lawns and sports field would be unlikely to qualify.”

How do we know that OECMs really benefit biodiversity? I’m thinking here about your paper that showed that only 5% of OECMs registered in the World Database of OECMs provide supporting information and that 2.2% of these sites do not even meet the definition of an OECM.

“This is the difference between theory and practice. In theory, OECMs must meet the criteria set out by the Convention on Biological Diversity, and areas would not qualify as OECMs if they did not benefit biodiversity. And site managers need to continue to demonstrate those outcomes over time, which would require monitoring. In practice, there is no check on whether sites have been screened against the OECM criteria nor is there a requirement to demonstrate they are conserving important biodiversity.

The World Database is forced to accept any sites reported by countries on face value. After my study was published, they have introduced additional fields that ask countries to report the criteria against which sites were judged. But these fields are optional. I am leading an effort to get Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity to agree to a verification system for OECMs.

The verification process would first ensure all countries are applying an equivalent standard, and then involve a transparent and independent process to verify that sites meet the criteria. I think this is the only way to ensure OECMs are credible and should be counted towards global targets. At the moment the concept of OECMs is not being applied as we would hope.”

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I’ve seen some OECMs in the World Database list that are identified as “nature reserve” or “conservation concession” — this suggests that their primary purpose is conservation. Are these the kind of sites that you think do not qualify?

“This is a common misconception about OECMs. There is no reason why OECMs cannot have biodiversity as the primary management objective. In reality, there may be no difference between an OECM and a protected area other than that a landholder does not consent to it being a protected area but does consent to it being recognized as an OECM. This is the case in large parts of the world where the concept of protected areas still suffers from their legacy of dispossessing local people.

In the World Database, the vast majority of OECMs list biodiversity as their primary objective. This means that, at present, we have not managed to achieve the promise of OECMs to bring in areas that have important biodiversity but where biodiversity is not the primary management objective. I believe this is the result of a lack of financial support for OECMs.

It is very easy to show you meet the criteria if you are already managing for, and possibly also monitoring, biodiversity. Where biodiversity is a secondary management objective, landholders may need to conduct surveys of the site to document the important biodiversity values and their condition. Then they will need to conduct regular monitoring to demonstrate that those outcomes are sustained. Who is going to pay for this?

If the cost is put on the landholder with no clear incentive, then being an OECM is an unattractive proposition. Until governments that want to count these areas agree to support them, I feel we are not going to make great progress, nor will we realise the potential of OECMs.”

Assuming that every OECM is indeed good for biodiversity, what is the conservation benefit of recognizing them if they are doing it anyway? Other than contributing to the 30x30 target, recognition would not ‘add’ more conservation, as it already exists, right?

“This is an ongoing debate in the conservation community. There could well be benefits to biodiversity in recognizing these areas by securing the longevity of protection for these areas, particularly where there are resources to support their ongoing management.

We have already seen local communities use the OECM status of an area to garner public support when the Canadian Government opened up an OECM to oil and gas exploration. So OECM recognition could help prevent outside interests from steamrolling areas that would otherwise have no capacity to push back.

What I am advocating for is that the process of screening potential OECMs be used to identify sites that are doing well but not yet achieving the required standard to be an OECM. This would then provide them with an understanding of how their management needs to be improved, and could enable them to attract grants or other resources to help them improve the site.

Some of the work we are doing documenting case studies of OECM recognition have shown that the screening process has led the site to improve some aspects of their management planning and the processes they have in place to monitor and address threats to the site. So that is a gain for biodiversity that would otherwise not have been made.

If we shift our thinking from recognizing OECMs to supporting sites to reach the required standard of positive and sustained outcomes for biodiversity, then there are true conservation gains to be made. And if we support excellent sites to maintain conservation outcomes then these too are genuine gains.”

What other benefits are there to recognizing and registering OECMs, and who would benefit from this?

“At the moment, OECM recognition is largely a downside for sites that do not already have the necessary data to demonstrate their value to biodiversity and would not already be doing the necessary monitoring.

But some countries are taking an industry-based approach to OECMs. The Maldives is working with tourist resorts that would benefit from global recognition of their conservation practices. Japan has been working with companies, who can use their ‘Certified’ status in their corporate reporting.

There are also efforts to link OECM status to schemes like offsets and carbon credits. But likewise, I don’t have any examples of this being a successful strategy for sites. Some sites have managed to garner philanthropic funding to support them. But generally, I would say we have not worked out the value proposition for sites to become OECMs. The benefits accrue to the countries, who can report these areas against their global commitments, but the costs are imposed on the sites.”

To what extent does cost limit OECM recognition? I imagine that many of the hundreds of community forests across a country like Indonesia could qualify but would not have the financial resources needed to go through the process.

“I think my responses above point to this a big limitation at the moment. I would like to see the conversation within countries turn to what it would cost them to purchase 30 percent of their lands and compensate industry to protect 30 percent of their waters. If seen through this lens, covering the costs for sites to go through the recognition process, and supporting on-going monitoring and review, would be a fraction of this cost. At the moment I think countries see OECMs as getting something for nothing.”

Do you have a view on what proportion of the 30x30 target OECMs could (or should) make up?

“We have some good global analyses of where the protected area network falls short — for example, threatened species with no protection or with very little of their habitat in protected areas. And we also have a sense of where important biodiversity exists outside of protected areas. So there is not going to be a single proportion. But what I would say is that you could achieve 30 percent protection and fail to protect important biodiversity. So we should be thinking strategically about where OECMs can complement and support existing protected areas.”

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How awful is OECM as a jargon term? Is there a less wordy alternative?

“I couldn’t agree more that OECM is a terrible term. I think this may be the only thing the conservation community agrees on about OECMs. Australia has adopted the term ‘conserved area’, which is sort of intuitive because it aligns with protected area. But it is also used in a wide range of other ways and so creates confusion with other forms of area-based conservation. Korea uses the term ‘nature co-existence areas’, which I like because it captures that biodiversity can exist in places we might not think about as conservation areas.”

What are some important things for journalists to consider when reporting on OECMs?

“There are a lot of misconceptions about OECMs, many of which I see perpetuated in the peer-reviewed literature. For example, the ideas that OECMs cannot have biodiversity as their primary objective. Another example of a misconception is that OECMs are a weaker mechanism than a protected area. They may not require legal protection but in theory they set a higher bar than protected areas, which have many well-established problems.

I think another thing to be aware of is that the concept of OECMs, and the guidance around them, raise more questions than they answer. As such, it is not surprising that countries (and the conservation community more generally) are struggling with implementation.

There are also some pretty substantial rifts in the conservation community around OECMs, and as a result the debate can be quite polarized. So don’t be surprised if you hear quite different things depending on who you talk to.”

Is there anything important that you think I have missed?

“People who were present when the term OECM was first included in the Aichi Targets [a set of targets agreed in 2010 by Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity] noted that initially there was huge concern within the International Union for the Conservation of Nature that this term created a huge loophole that would be detrimental to biodiversity conservation.

The assumption was that countries would declare huge areas as OECMs just to meet the target. This means that a lot of the subsequent guidance set an incredibly high bar for OECM recognition in order to prevent the concept being misused. But in my view setting the bar so high has been counterproductive.

Many great areas that we should want to be OECMs cannot meet such a high standard. And a high bar creates the temptation to duck under the bar and recognize areas that don’t align with the spirit of OECMs. Rather than a model of distrust, scepticism and gate keeping — that has been unsuccessful so far — I would rather see an approach based around ‘trust but verify’. I think that a well-structured verification system would be a much more productive approach to making conservation gains through OECMs.”

Read more

Read the guide I wrote for the Earth Journalism Network:

• Conservation Beyond Protected Areas: A Journalist’s Guide to OECMs

Read Carly Cook’s research on OECMs:

• Cook, C.N. 2024. Diverse approaches to protecting biodiversity: the different conservation measures discussed as possible other effective area‐based conservation measures. Conservation Letters 17: e13027. https://doi.org/10.1111/conl.13027

• Cook, C.N. 2024. Progress developing the concept of other effective area-based conservation measures. Conservation Biology 38: e14106. https://doi.org/10.1111/cobi.14106

• Cook, C.N. et al. 2025. What will count? — Evidence for the global recognition of Other Effective area–based Conservation Measures. Conservation Letters 18: e13150. https://doi.org/10.1111/conl.13150

• Cook, C.N. et al. 2026. Lessons learned from screening potential other effective area-based conservation measures. Conservation Biology 40: e70148. https://doi.org/10.1111/cobi.70148

• Updates on killer heat and the media, keystone corporations, harm to the US Endangered Species Act, 30x30 in the UK, the EU Deforestation Regulation, trade in endangered species, national environmental performance rankings.

• Features about songbird trade in Indonesia, ecological grief, health benefits of nature, illegal wildlife trade in Canada, nature-positive conservation and China’s battle against desertification.

• Journal papers on biodiversity monitoring in small island states, forest fragments in Mexico’s cattle pastures, extinction-risk footprints of financial institutions, invasive mantises, tree diversity and forest climate resilience, coexistence with tigers, Red List assessments and climate risk, and more.

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

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Taking The Pulse

Keystone corporations: In a new study, researchers identified 180 ‘keystone corporations’ that have the greatest influence over the state of the biosphere. While 79 percent of these companies have made some kind of pledge related to biodiversity, only 13 percent have reported on their commitments with sufficient detail and transparency to enable others to assess their claims. The authors suggest ways to improve corporate accountability through better biodiversity target setting and reporting.

Heat: The recent heatwaves in Europe killed more than 10,000 people and were made more likely by global heating caused by greenhouse gas emissions, but too many journalists have failed to make this link clear. As Fiona Harvey reports, an analysis of 2,700 articles by nine national media outlets in the United Kingdom showed that 72 percent of them did not mention global heating or climate change.

Environmental rankings: Yale University’s biennial Environmental Performance Index was published on 8 July. The index ranks 177 countries on 47 indicators across 12 issue categories spanning environmental health, ecosystem vitality and climate change. As Oliver Milman reports, despite widespread progress on pollution, action on climate change is lagging. The top three ranked countries, in order, are Estonia, Luxembourg and the United Kingdom. The bottom three: Bangladesh, India and Laos. European countries occupy all but two of the top 25 places — and are joined there by Japan and Australia. See also Aathira Perinchery’s reporting on India’s performance.

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Harm: On 10 July, the Trump administration rescinded the definition of “harm” under the Endangered Species Act to exclude habitat destruction. As ecologist Mariah Meek and law professor Karrigan Börk explain, this effectively guts the Endangered Species Act’s core protections. In a press release, the Center for Biological Diversity called the rescission of the harm definition “a cynical attempt to open species’ habitats to logging, mining, oil and gas drilling and other destruction.” On 14 July, it joined other environmental organizations in suing the Trump administration in an attempt to block the move, which it says is illegal.

Deforestation: The European Commission published its final changes to the list of products to be covered by the EU Deforestation Regulation when it enters into application on 31 December. Importers of such products must show that they were not produced on recently deforested land. Leather is no longer included in the final list, despite being linked to around 39,000 hectares of deforestation every year, according to the Commission’s own ‘staff working document’. “Leather’s exclusion will keep European consumers complicit in environmental and human rights abuses,” said non-profit organization Earthsight in a press release. See also, reactions from Mighty Earth and Rainforest Foundation Norway.

Wildlife trade: The 34th meeting of the Animals Committee of the Convention on Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) is underway in Geneva, Switzerland— see the press release. From 17 July, the Plants Committee will meet, focusing on issues related to the sustainable management and trade of species including rosewood trees, orchids and medicinal plants — see the press release.

30x30: Four years after committing to conserve 30 percent of its land and sea by 2030, the UK government has published its plan for achieving this target — see the press release. As Pippa Neill and Sandra Laville report, environmental organizations are dismayed, particularly by the plan’s reliance on voluntary actions by landowners. Writing on LinkedIn, Richard Benwell, chief executive at Wildlife and Countryside Link said: “If the 30 by 30 plan published today had been published in 2022 on the day of the global biodiversity agreement it would have looked like leadership. Right now, it looks like too little, too late.”

In The Spotlight

• Katarina Zimmer spoke with neuroscientists and environmental psychologists about how nature reduces pain, eases stress, inspires creativity and boosts our immune systems.

• Sandy Ong wrote about high‑stakes bird‑singing contests in Indonesia that are driving rampant trapping and pushing songbirds toward extinction.

• Olivia Zhang reported on China’s decades‑long battle against desertification using vast “straw checkerboard” grids.

• Jenn Thornhill Verma wrote about how Canada’s booming illegal wildlife trade is increasingly entwined with organized criminal networks.

• “Each time I pass the rookery, I feel an ache that does not seem entirely polite to share” — Megan Mayhew Bergman wrote about collective suppression of ecological grief and a need for shared language and rituals. “Let’s call it earth grief,” suggests Stephanie Klotz.

• John Cannon wrote about scientists promoting a nature-positive framework that tracks ecosystem health — rather than just counting species — to halt and reverse biodiversity loss.

From The Journals

• Small island developing states face outsized challenges to monitoring their progress under the Global Biodiversity Framework — read the full paper.

• The ecological and conservation value of forest fragments within cattle ranching landscapes in Mexico — read the full paper.

• Trade-induced extinction-risk footprints of European financial institutions — read the full paper.

• Invasive mantises from Asia are threatening species in Europe — read the press release or the full paper.

• Higher tree diversity consistently improves resistance and recovery of US forests under both individual and compound climate extremes — read the full paper.

• Coexistence with tigers requires social‑science solutions that reduce risk, support livelihoods and strengthen community tolerance — read the full paper.

• Seagrass meadows in East Africa support more nutritious fisheries than nearby coral reefs — read the press release or the full paper.

• Models used for Red List assessments underestimate climate-related extinction risk of range-shifting species — read the press release or the full paper.

What Caught My Eye

• A new ClientEarth report compares how Finland, France and Poland use the law to bring their rivers back to life — as the press release notes, “the results could hardly be more different”.

• Meaghan Cuddy says global ocean commitments show strong ambition but urgently need faster, better‑funded implementation.

• Global warming is increasingly pushing tropical forests beyond heat thresholds that halt photosynthesis and carbon uptake, reports Himanshu Nitnaware.

• Subhra Priyadarshini interviewed science and environment journalists in India about the challenges of countering fast‑spreading misinformation.

• The new update to the All-Ireland Pollinator Plan — launched on 9 July — envisions creating patches of pollinator habitat providing food and shelter every 200 metres by 2030.

• Survival International reports that police in India arrested Indigenous rights activist Pranab Doley and two other men for protesting against conservation-related human rights abuses.

• Cambodia’s tiger‑return plan is pitched as ecological and economic revival but faces concerns over prey, habitat and safety.

• The Society for Conservation Biology’s North American section has updated its definition of conservation to address long‑standing divides over ethics and practice, reports Michelle Nijhuis.

• The Trump administrator has appointed Matthew Wielicki — who has said that people who believe in climate science are “being sold snake oil” — to oversee the federal government’s national report on climate impacts.

• Diane Taylore wrote about UK nature charities and asylum seekers restoring habitats together.

• Private capital labelled ‘nature finance’ mostly funds agriculture and natural‑asset businesses rather than true ecological outcomes, writes Theresa Lieb.

• Strict legal protections are failing to reverse the decline of caviar-producing sturgeons in Bulgaria, Romania and Ukraine, reports Marian Chiriac.

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 Earth Journalism Network asked me to write a tipsheet for journalists about conservation beyond protected areas, in what are known as OECMs (other effective area-based conservation measures) — also available as a PDF.

• RECOFTC’s free Community Forestry 101 e-course is open for enrolment.

• Want to know how environmental journalism works? Join Mongabay’s webinar on 21 July.

• The International Union for the Conservation of Nature published its position paper ahead of next month’s conference of parties to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification.

• Mongabay-India’s senior production editor Aditi Tandon wrote about why precise source attribution strengthens environmental journalism and helps readers assess expertise.

See past editions for more tips and resources.

Jobs And Opportunities

• CalMatters and Grist seek a reporter to cover the impacts of climate change in California’s Central Valley — no deadline listed.

• The Santa Fe New Mexican is hiring an environment reporter — no deadline listed.

• The Telegraph is hiring a science correspondent — no deadline listed.

• The Australian Broadcasting Corporation invites emerging media leaders in Southeast Asia to join the Future Voices program on climate change journalism — deadline 25 July.

• Dialogue Earth is offering US$1,500 for photo stories and socials-first stories on heat solutions in the Global South — deadline 31 July.

• Media for Environment, Science, Health and Agriculture (MESHA) invites newsrooms in Anglophone Africa to apply to join a new initiative aimed at strengthening climate solutions reporting — deadline 31 July.

• The Earth Journalism Network has grants for newsrooms and media organizations in coastal countries, especially Ghana, Mexico and the Philippines, to support projects that boost coverage of the global 30x30 marine conservation target — deadline 10 August.

• The Financial Times is hiring a senior reporter for its Sustainable Views publication— no deadline listed.

• Applications are now open for the next Covering Climate Now Academy, providing live online training for journalists worldwide — deadline 11 August.

• In October, the Earth Journalism Network is holding a two-day virtual media workshop on forest governance, primarily for journalists from Ghana, Liberia and Cameroon, though applicants from forest-risk commodity consumer markets in Europe and Asia are also welcome — deadline 13 August.

Bonus content: There are 40 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

27 July - 1 August: The 28th Meeting of the CBD Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice takes place in Nairobi, Kenya.

4-12 August: The 7th Meeting of the CBD Subsidiary Body on Implementation takes place in Nairobi, Kenya.

17-28 August 2026: The 17th Conference of Parties to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification takes place in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.

11 September: BirdLife International will host its second Global Flyways Summit 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 2029.

Whose Eye Was It?

The eye belongs to a red-crested turaco. Photo credit: Frostdragon — 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.

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. Over the past year, I’ve taken readers to rainforest canopies and city streets, explored ancient scriptures and modern science, and followed threads that connect ecology and culture around the world. If that sounds interesting, you can subscribe here or check out my selection of top stories published so far.

• Updates on the Sustainable Development Goals, trade in endangered species, mixed fortunes of whale species, logging in the Congo basin, nature and security risks.

• Features about invasive fish in Thailand, community-led reef recovery in Mexico, the UK’s lost dawn chorus, anti-poaching tech in Vietnam, unregulated mining in Myanmar, how to save Nigeria’s vanishing vultures.

• Journal papers on nature-positive tourism, urban forests as essential infrastructure, sustainable reptile harvesting for the skin trade, songbirds as pollinators, legal aspects of bison rewilding, Amazonian biocultural heritage, nature-based mental healthcare, and more.

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

Subscribe now

Taking The Pulse

SDGs: On 7 July, the UN released its annual assessment of progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals whose 2030 deadline is looming. The report notes that despite many significant results, progress is uneven and insufficient. It calls for urgent action to scale up efforts to meet the goals — see the press release or the full report. Global Nature Beat readers may be particularly interested in the overviews of progress for Goal 13 on climate action, Goal 14 on life below water and Goal 15 on life on land.

Asia-Pacific: On 3 July, governments across Asia and the Pacific agreed to coordinate action to tackle climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution. The decision came in a ministerial declaration and a programme of action, which were both adopted at a meeting convened by the UN Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP). The plans focus on increasing alignment of policies between sectors. Earlier in the week, ESCAP published a report based on 140 case studies showing how countries can achieve such alignment.

Wildlife trade: On 13-17 July, the 34th meeting of the Animals Committee of the Convention on Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) will take place in Geneva, Switzerland. The committee exists to advance animal-related scientific and technical work that strengthens the implementation of CITES. Delegates will focus on issues related to the sustainable management and trade of species including corals, sharks and rays, eels, big cats, vultures, and amphibians — see the press release.

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Whales: Some good news for whales in two recent stories… David Brown reports increased sightings of blue and fin whales off southern Africa, while Diarlei Rodrigues and Eléonore Hughes report that humpback whale numbers are booming off Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Both stories suggest the whale populations are recovering from the devastation wreaked by whaling. But other species are suffering. Vauhini Vara reports that climate‑driven food shortages are starving gray whales, pushing the population toward potential collapse. Her opening line: “I had been at the San Ignacio Lagoon no longer than fifteen minutes when I learned that another gray whale had washed up dead.”

DRC: A coalition of 70 organisations has issued a joint letter to the Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), urging the government to maintain a 23-year-old moratorium on the allocation of new industrial logging concessions. They say plans to end the moratorium would undermine climate action and forest governance reforms, putting large areas of forest at risk of unsustainable exploitation. Read the press release, the coalition’s letter to the Prime Minister of the DRC and the associated briefing paper. For a counterpoint, see Claudia Geib’s story on research suggesting that expanding logging concessions could help the Congo Basin store more carbon while creating local employment.

Security: The UK government is resisting publishing the full version of a report on national security risks from collapsing ecosystems worldwide — a shorter version was released back in January only after freedom-of-information requests. The UK parliament’s environmental audit committee has now called for the full report to be published, reports Fiona Harvey. Committee member Christopher Hinchliff, a Labour MP, said: “The government can summon billions of pounds for new military hardware when the defence sector calls for it. We need an equally decisive mobilisation of investment to restore the natural world on which we rely for our food, water, and clean air. Without these essentials our country has no future.”

In The Spotlight

• Tom Fawthrop reports that unregulated mining in Myanmar is poisoning tributaries of the Mekong River, threatening ecological and human health and food security across the region.

• Kingsley Charles interviewed ornithologist Michael Manja Williams about his efforts to challenge harmful cultural beliefs threatening Nigeria’s critically endangered vultures.

• Sandra Laville and Madeleine Finlay take us back in time 50 years to hear what the dawn chorus sounded like when Britain had 73 million more birds than it does today.

• Erik Olsen wrote about how community‑led no‑take protection sparked one of the world’s most dramatic reef recoveries, in Cabo Pulmo, Mexico.

• Rebecca Ratcliffe reports that the invasive blackchin tilapia is devastating Thai fisheries and overwhelming native ecosystems.

• Campbell Rusden interviewed members of an antipoaching unit in Vietnam using tech‑driven patrols to cut wildlife crime.

From The Journals

• So-called nature-positive tourism should prioritize biodiversity conservation over other environmental issues — read the full paper.

• Public investment in parks, education and transport is essential to scale-up and harness the benefits of nature‑based mental healthcare — read the press release or the full paper.

• Policy reforms are needed to recognize urban forests as essential infrastructure for climate resilience, biodiversity and public health — read the press release or the full paper.

• Five key frontiers in nature-based insurance — read the full paper.

• Reptile harvesting for the skin trade appears to be biologically sustainable in the vast majority of cases — read the full paper.

• UK songbirds play roles as pollinators especially when insect prey is scarce — read the press release or the full paper.

• The legal dimensions of reintroducing European bison to Sweden —read the full paper.

• Amazonian biocultural heritage is highly vulnerable to climate change and the loss of Indigenous languages — read the press release or the full paper.

• The words and tone US media outlets use when covering species extinction and endangerment — read the full paper.

What Caught My Eye

• Eleven environmental organisations have launched a coalition to hold EU member states legally accountable for allowing destructive fishing inside marine protected areas, reports Rob Hutchins.

• The Global Environment Facility published its twice-yearly scorecard measuring progress towards its targets on biodiversity, carbon emissions, land management and restoration, transboundary water management, chemicals and waste.

• Giving rivers legal rights is not enough to protect them from pollution, says a new report from the Stockholm Environment Institute.

• IUCN published a legal brief on how to give prominence to ecosystems, biodiversity and human health in the Global Plastics Treaty.

• Thirteen UK environmental organisations have set six tests for incoming prime minister.

• Aruna Chandrasekhar and Molly Lempriere examine where the six candidates to replace António Guterres as UN Secretary General stand on climate change.

• IUCN published the latest update to its Red List of endangered species.

• Aathira Perinchery wrote about a new report highlighting India’s booming exotic pet trade, regulatory gaps and rising biosecurity risks.

• Nima Shokri says Iran’s long‑ignored ecological collapse is crippling its economy and demands urgent restoration.

• The UN Environment Programme published an interview with Astrid Shomaker, head of the Convention on Biological Diversity, about how this year’s COP17 biodiversity conference will address issues related to finance.

• IUCN published its position paper ahead of the forthcoming meetings of the CBD’s subsidiary bodies taking place from 27 July to 1 August in Nairobi.

• Global Forest Watch is becoming Global Nature Watch.

• Sara Solomon reports that, after a 15-year delay, Ethiopia will finally release to communities funds generated from companies accessing the country’s genetic resources.

• Indonesia is developing a plan to protect local wisdom in biodiversity conservation, reports Hans Nicholas Jong.

• Jackson Ryan argues that formulaic single‑study reporting and newsroom incentives are eroding meaningful science journalism.

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: App-based Citizen Science

• Eden Flaherty wrote about how citizen science smartphone apps — such as Merlin, eBird and iNaturalist — are transforming biodiversity research by enabling vast, validated global observations.

• For an example, see Bibek Bhandari’s story about how members of Nepal’s growing birdwatching community are using eBird to boost conservation data.

• Sandra Laville reports that Merlin’s birdsong detections will soon feed directly into eBird to strengthen global monitoring.

Tips And Resources

• Climate Tracker Asia and Climate Interactive are inviting journalists, advocates and communicators in South and Southeast Asia to join a free interactive masterclass on using the En-ROADS tool to test climate solutions and tell better climate stories — register here.

• The Earth Journalism Network published a tipsheet on reporting on marine protection in Ghana.

• On 13 July, EurekAlert has a webinar on how journalists can evaluate scientific research — register here.

• The Geneva Environment Network updated its guide to the ‘rights of nature’ legal concept and the UK Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology published a ‘rapid response’ briefing on the same topic.

• Oxpeckers Investigative Environmental Journalism has launched a newsletter — subscribe here.

• West African Journalists for Environment, Science, Health & Agriculture launched its new website.

• On 12 August, Covering Climate Now is running an online training session on the ‘three pillars’ approach to climate change journalism: ‘humanize, localize, solutionize’ — register here.

• Pierre Leibovici — environment editor at Disclose — shared six tips journalists can use to increase the impact of their reporting.

See past editions for more tips and resources.

Jobs And Opportunities

• The Solutions Journalism Network is running a Train-the-Trainers program for journalists in India — deadline 15 July.

• The Earth Journalism Network has story grants for Thai journalists interested in covering the relationship between business and climate change — deadline 19 July.

• Dynah Rochmyaningsih is offering free online training in science journalism to a small number of Indonesian journalists — apply here by 31 July.

• New Scientist is hiring a data journalist — no deadline listed.

• The Thomson Foundation’s Young Journalist Award 2026 is open for entries — deadline 9 August.

Bonus content: There are 35 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

13-31 July: The meeting of the International Seabed Authority assembly and council takes place in Kingston, Jamaica

13-16 July: The 34th meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) Animals Committee takes place.

17 July: A joint session of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) Animals and Plants Committees takes place.

20-23 July: The 28th meeting of Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) Plants Committee takes place.

27 July - 1 August: The 28th Meeting of the CBD Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice takes 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 2029.

Whose Eye Was It?

The eye belongs to a dwarf crocodile. 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.

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. Over the past year, I’ve taken readers to rainforest canopies and city streets, explored ancient scriptures and modern science, and followed threads that connect ecology and culture around the world. If that sounds interesting, you can subscribe here or check out my selection of top stories published so far.

• Updates on the illegal wildlife trade, forest finance, pollinators, critical natural systems, AI and the environment, forest-risk commodities.

• Features about citizen-based reforestation, mining no-go zones, forest carbon projects and ecology, impossible aims of restoration, ghost gear pollution.

• Journal papers on rebounding river life, nutritionally useful trees, Amazon biosphere reserves, millions more insect species, mowing and invertebrates, how invasive species displace people, kelp forest conservation, large herbivores in disturbed forests, watershed tree diversity and ecological functions, and more.

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

Subscribe now

Taking The Pulse

Illegal wildlife trade: On 29 June, a coalition of conservation organizations released a report accusing Meta — the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp — of hosting the world’s “largest single known illegal wildlife trade market”. The report says Meta’s algorithms actively connect and reward traffickers. Its authors want the US Congress to end legal loopholes that allow social media companies to claim immunity from liability for third-party content. The report came six days after global tech giants made new commitments to end the sale of illegal wildlife products on their platforms.

Forest finance: Steven Swinford reports that the United Kingdom was on the brink of investing £400 million in the Tropical Forest Forever Facility (TFFF) — a mechanism Brazil is developing to reward countries that stop deforestation — but pulled back because of concerns about how it would look to the British public. Meanwhile, in a statement issued on 23 June, a group of 12 investors and the Luxembourg Stock Exchange endorsed the TFFF. The Finance for Biodiversity Foundation is encouraging other investors to sign the statement ahead of its formal launch in October. Also backing the TFFF is The Nature Conservancy. On 21 June, it announced US$5 million in financial support.

Pollinators: A new white paper by eight research consortia warns that the resilience of Europe’s “vital societal functions and food security are at stake” unless the European Union halts and reverses wild pollinator declines and does more to support managed pollinators. The report highlights incoherent policies and siloed governance as barriers to pollinator recovery. Presenting 15 recommendations, it calls for cross‑sectoral stewardship tackling all drivers of decline. See the press release or the full paper.

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Critical natural systems: A new report argues that certain ecosystems are so important to national and global prosperity, resilience and security that they should be treated as “too big to fail” and given extra oversight and protection. These critical natural systems include forests, rivers, biodiversity hotspots and productive land. The report was published on 22 June by the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the London School of Economics and Political Science. It states that over US$1 trillion of annual GDP in each of China, Europe and the United States depends on forest-linked rainfall, making forests critical infrastructure. See the press release or the full report.

AI: On 23 June, UN Secretary-General António Guterres announced the AI Environmental Transparency Initiative, calling on AI companies to disclose carbon, water and land impacts of their systems and commit to powering them with renewable energy by 2030.

Deforestation: On 23 June, the UK government announced long-anticipated plans to issue regulations that would end imports commodities produced on illegally deforested land — see the press release or the policy brief. The regulations will cover cattle, cocoa, coffee, palm oil, rubber and soy, as well as certain derivative products such as chocolate. The NGO Forest Coalition welcomed the news but pointed out that nearly five years have passed since the UK adopted the Environment Act 2021, which established the powers to enact the new regulations. In that time, the UK imported commodities linked to more than 54,000 hectares of tropical deforestation, according to Global Witness. Unlike the EU Deforestation Regulation, the new UK rules will cover only illegal deforestation, though the government says its long-term aim is to align with the EU and require products to be produced without any deforestation. Meanwhile, investors with more than €5.5 trillion in assets are calling for timely and consistent implementation of the EU Deforestation Regulation.

In The Spotlight

• Severin Carrell reported on what may be the largest citizen-based reforestation project of its kind, in which volunteers hand‑collected 11 million seeds to revive Scotland’s shrinking Atlantic rainforest.

• Rebecca L. Root wrote about how climate change is increasing human‑snake encounters and worsening global antivenom shortages.

• Perrine Fournier argues that mining no‑go zones are essential to protect ecosystems and Indigenous rights from rising mineral demand.

• Chris Lang reported on new research showing that most forest carbon projects deliver weak or harmful ecological outcomes, exposing major design flaws.

• Jonathan Tonkin argues that ecological restoration must prioritise ecosystem processes over impossible returns to historical baselines.

• Robert Bociaga reports that India’s west‑coast fishers create persistent ‘ghost gear’ pollution due to routine losses and weak disposal and recycling systems.

From The Journals

• Increasing forest disturbance boosts habitat for Europe’s large herbivores — read the full paper.

• The true number of insect species may be 14 to 20 million, more than two to three times higher than current estimates — read the press release or the full paper.

• More tree species means more ecological functions in watersheds worldwide — read the full paper.

• Restoring native tree species can help combat malnutrition in Africa — read the press release or the full paper.

• The Insect Calculator: an evidence-based online tool showing the negative effects of mowing on insects and spiders — read the press release or the full paper.

• Biodiversity recovery is slow after clear-cut harvesting of boreal forests — read the press release or the full paper.

• Analysis of seven biosphere reserves in Western Amazon shows they are effective in reducing deforestation but forest loss is increasing across all sites — read the full paper.

• Four priority actions for the conservation of primary and old-growth forests in Europe — read the full paper.

• A global review of kelp forest conservation, restoration and stewardship — read the press release or the full paper.

• What to do about invasive species that drive human displacement — read the full paper.

• Environmental regulations and best management practices likely explain long-term gains in water quality and increased occurrence of aquatic species across river basins in Ohio — read the press release or the full paper.

• Carbon dioxide removals by tropical moist forests offset most land-use emissions across 18 African countries — read the full paper.

What Caught My Eye

• The International Union for Conservation of Nature’s new assessment of 91 conservation projects in 31 African countries identifies which approaches work best.

• The Philippines needs 15,000 forest rangers but has only 2,200, reports Rhick Lars Albay.

• Carbon markets may have acquired “a symbolic prominence that exceeds their actual and potential future financial contribution” to forest conservation, and this brings risks, says Lian Pin Koh.

• The H5N1 bird flu virus, which has killed millions of birds and mammals worldwide, has been found in Australia for the first time.

• Nature4Climate shared 13 lessons from the Nature Hub at London Climate Action Week 2026.

• Ten years after Wales enacted its Well-Being of Future Generations Act, it remains the only country with such a law, writes Daniel Martin Eckhart.

• Paul Hormick wrote about growing resistance to data centres in the United States.

• Greenpeace plans to dump boulders in UK marine protected areas to deter trawlers, as it says the government is failing to act.

• A new joint report by WWF, GuArdean and TRAFFIC says tiger trafficking persists in Southeast Asia because prosecutions are inconsistent, opaque and rarely punish high‑level offenders.

• Indonesia is considering a bid to host the COP18 UN biodiversity summit in 2028.

• Matteo Civillini reports that diplomats fear plastics‑treaty talks may sideline essential limits on soaring production.

• India’s first 3D-printed artificial reef modules have been installed in coastal waters of Tamil Nadu state in a marine habitat restoration initiative, reports SV Krishna Chaitanya.

• Private sector investment in nature grew five-fold over the past decade and is accelerating, according to a new report by Forest Trends and The Nature Conservancy.

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 team behind the Climate.gov website shut down by the Trump administration has launched Climate.us to ensure that reliable information on climate change remains publicly available.

• Hannah Ritchie created an interactive tool that visualizes flows of forest-risk commodities between producers and consumer countries — read about it here.

• On 27 July, the Convention on Biological Diversity will hold a press conference to open the 2026 sessions of two of its subsidiary bodies in Nairobi — register here to attend online or in person.

• Carbon Brief launched Project Cosmos, the world’s largest database of climate change research — read about it here.

• Joseph A. Davis wrote about databases that can help journalists track AI‑driven data centres and their environmental impacts.

See past editions for more tips and resources.

Jobs And Opportunities

• The Climate Storytellers Lab will train and fund 36 local storytellers to produce impactful climate stories across Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand – deadline 2 July.

• The African Investigative Journalist of the Year Award is open for entries — deadline 10 July.

• Nature is hiring a chief magazine editor — deadline 13 July.

• Journalismfund Europe has grants for cross-border environmental investigations — deadline 6 August.

• The Times-Picayune/The Advocate is seeking a reporter to cover environmental issues affecting the state of Louisiana — no deadline listed.

• The Fund for Investigative Journalism is offering grants for reporters to produce impactful stories — deadline 14 September.

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.

On The Horizon

6-10 July 2026: The European Congress of Conservation Biology will take place in Leiden, the Netherlands.

13-16 July: The 34th meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) Animals Committee takes place.

17 July: A joint session of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) Animals and Plants Committees takes place.

27 July - 1 August: The 28th Meeting of the CBD Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice takes 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 2029.

Whose Eye Was It?

The eye belongs to an orange-winged amazon. Photo credit: Rodrigo José Fernandes — 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. Over the past year, I’ve taken readers to rainforest canopies and city streets, explored ancient scriptures and modern science, and followed threads that connect ecology and culture around the world. If that sounds interesting, you can subscribe here or check out my selection of top stories published so far.

• Updates on the UK government response to calls for a national public briefing on the climate and nature emergency, environmental stakes of Colombia’s Presidential election, outcomes of the Our Ocean conference, the Elders and a UN Planetary Council, and how titans of finance keeps funding deforestation.

• Features about a vast wildlife bridge, lost ecological knowledge, conservation education, overlooked ecosystem emissions, coexistence with baboons, community-led marine protection, and more.

• Journal papers on India’s biodiversity law, trade-offs between vertebrates and crops in Africa, inequitable access to green space in US cities, negative perceptions of owls in Nigeria, a price-tag for environmental impacts of top consumers, biocultural approaches to restoration, Indigenous knowledge for conservation, socially sound nature-based solutions, colonialism and the biodiversity-poverty paradox.

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

Subscribe now

Taking The Pulse

Illegal logging: Civil society organizations from Africa, Asia, Latin America and the UK have written to the European Commission to protest its unilateral cancellation of Voluntary Partnership Agreements (VPAs) on legal timber trade between the European Union and tropical forest countries, reports Ama Kudom-Agyemang. They say the move is “illegitimate” and could lead to an increase in deforestation and an erosion of civic space. The European Parliament voted on 16 June to terminate the VPA with Liberia. Last year, the European Commission cancelled the VPA with Cameroon. Another eight VPAs remain in place. They have had varying degrees of success at combating illegal logging but all have helped improve forest governance — see Fern’s analysis of the VPA with Liberia.

Colombia: In an election that will have consequences beyond national borders, Colombians will vote on 21 June to elect a new President. One candidate — Iván Cepeda — pledges to continue the current policy of phasing out fossil fuels. His opponent Abelardo de la Espriella wants to expand extraction. Beyond energy, the candidates’ opposing visions extend to land reform, Indigenous rights and approaches to armed groups—issues that directly influence deforestation, environmental crime and community security. It will be a pivotal election for the Amazon, climate commitments and the future of Colombia’s environmental leadership. Read more about what’s at stake in articles by Aimee Gabay or Sam Meadows.

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Forest 500: The global finance sector is dragging its feet when it comes to ending investment in deforestation, according to Global Canopy’s latest Forest 500 report. It looked at the 150 financial institutions providing finance to the 500 companies worldwide whose involvement in commodity production and trade has the greatest influence on deforestation. The report shows that 59 percent of these financial institutions — including major asset managers such as BlackRock, State Street and Vanguard — have no deforestation policy. Calling for anti-deforestation policies and more regulation, the report says: “The finance sector’s unwillingness to prioritize the link between deforestation and financial stability hinders action on forest loss and — ironically — increases financial risk.”

Emergency briefing: A petition calling on the UK government to broadcast a national emergency briefing on the climate and nature crisis passed a threshold requiring the government to respond. But that response — issued on 15 June — has not satisfied the campaign. It issued its own statement that said:

The government’s response answers the question: ‘Is the government aware of these risks?’ It does not answer the question: ‘How do we ensure that the public is aware of them?’

If 100,000 people sign the petition, there will be a debate in parliament. Meanwhile, the parliamentary Environmental Audit Committee says the government has refused to provide the unabridged version of its recent report on national security risks related to global biodiversity loss and ecosystem collapse. On 17 June, the committee’s chair wrote to Nature Minister Mary Creagh again requesting the report. On 8 July, the committee will hold an evidence session covering the assessment and other issues.

A Planetary Council: On 19 June, the Elders — a group of global leaders formed by Nelson Mandela — issued a statement calling for the creation of a Planetary Council as a subsidiary body of the United Nations to drive joined-up action on climate change, biodiversity loss, land degradation, pollution and other issues. “The current system is operating in silos. We need more urgent and coordinated action.” The Elders urge all candidates to be the next UN Secretary-General to support their ideas. For more on this topic, see Madelyn MacMurray’s interview of Nathalie Pettorelli, lead researcher of a recent report on the risks of treating nature and climate as separate issues.

Our Ocean Outcomes

At the 11th Our Ocean Conference in Kenya on June 16-18, governments, businesses and nongovernmental organizations announced 320 pledges valued at US$6.4 billion to support ocean conservation, sustainable fisheries, climate resilience and the blue economy — see the Commitment Tracker or the conference outcome report for details.

Susan Lieberman, Vice President of International Policy at the Wildlife Conservation Society said:

“This week exceeded our expectations in terms of advancing strong commitments for actions that have tremendous potential to truly lead to equitable and effective protection and conservation of ocean ecosystems, for the benefit of biodiversity and the local communities around the globe that depend on that biodiversity and healthy marine environments.”

Among the pledges, new initiatives announced and reports released at the conference:

• Kenya announced more than 40 commitments worth an estimated US$1 billion.

• The European Union committed €338.35 million to support ocean conservation, sustainable fisheries and maritime security — see the press release for details of where the money will go.

• The UK announced £13.9 million in new funding for three international programmes addressing ocean protection, coastal resilience and plastic pollution.

• Fifteen countries in Africa, Asia, Latin America and Europe committed to improve transparency and data-sharing to combat illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing.

• WWF published a brief report outlining its ideas for achieving the global target of conserving 30 percent of the ocean by 2030.

• The Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute released a report showing that while countries are increasingly declaring marine protected areas, many lack the people, institutions and funding needed to make them effective — see the story by Rob Hutchins, or this article by the report’s authors.

• Nine African governments announced new marine protections.

• Kenya, Comoros, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, and the United Kingdom became the latest signatories of a commitment to protect and conserve climate-resilient coral reefs.

• Madagascar and Zanzibar announced new national protections for sharks and rays.

• Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Solomon Islands, and Timor-Leste signed the Women Ocean Guardians Voluntary Commitment, joining eight other governments

Canada and Jamaica will host the Our Ocean Conference in 2027 and 2029, respectively.

In The Spotlight

• A letter to David Attenborough: Anish Mokashi says children’s education must cover colonial destruction of wildlife and the conservation wisdom of indigenous communities.

• How to live with baboons in South Africa? One village shows how, reports Barry Christianson.

• James Dinneen reported on overlooked ecosystem emissions that could accelerate global warming beyond what current climate models anticipate.

• Donna Ferguson reported that the Biodiversity Heritage Library’s vast 64 million‑page archive faces closure without urgent new funding.

• David Akana reported on community-based marine conservation groups in Kenya, Tanzania and Namibia whose underfunded work is contributing to global biodiversity goals.

• Karen L. Masters wrote that Indigenous language loss mirrors and accentuates biodiversity decline, by erasing vital ecological knowledge needed for conservation.

• In an extract from his new book Ryan Huling reported on a vast wildlife bridge in California that will reconnect fragmented habitats and could help save inbred mountain lions from extinction.

In Focus: Food Demand and Biodiversity Loss

Over the past week, scientists and journalists around the world have reported various ways that consumer demand for certain types of food is harming biodiversity in specific locations.

• In a new research paper, Mustafa Saifuddin and colleagues showed how factory farming of pigs in three of the United States poses risks to endangered and threatened species there.

• Journalists Isabel Alarcón, Lise Josefsen Hermann and Marcello Rossi reported how global demand for farmed shrimp from Ecuador harms the country’s mangrove forests and coastal livelihoods.

• Suzana Camargo wrote about recent research showing that rising demand for the ‘superfood’ açaí is linked to declining bird diversity in the Amazon.

• Manuela Callari reported on rampant sea urchin poaching for a popular spaghetti dish in Naples, Italy.

• Shuntian Wang and colleagues published a paper linking oil palm, coconut and soybean production with species extinction, particularly in tropical countries that serve demand from China, Europe and the United States — the full paper is paywalled but there is a press release.

From pigs to shrimp, açaí to pasta, these cases reveal how our appetites can have profound and often overlooked consequences for nature.

From The Journals

• Widespread negative perceptions of owls create challenges to conservation in Nigeria — read the full paper.

• How Indigenous knowledge systems shape conservation outcomes — read the press release or the full paper.

• The discriminatory housing policy of redlining and the distribution of green spaces in US cities — read the full paper.

• How trade-off risks between vertebrate biodiversity and crop production vary across Ethiopia, Ghana, and Zambia — read the full paper or a plain language summary.

• A critical review of India’s Biological Diversity Act 2002 and its implementation gaps — read the full paper.

• On the need for biocultural approaches to ecological restoration — read the full paper.

• How to bring social equity into nature-based solutions — read the full paper.

• Colonialism explains a biodiversity-poverty paradox and means conservation needs a rethink — read the full paper or the plain language summary.

• The top ten percent of global consumers cause trillions of dollars of environmental damage, highlighting the potential of taxes based on the ‘polluter pays’ principle — read the press release or the full paper.

What Caught My Eye

• India has launched the world’s first certification scheme rewarding businesses for sharing benefits derived from their use of biodiversity.

• A survey of 120 journalists across Nigeria, Kenya, Uganda and Zambia found that forestry, biodiversity and the broader environment receive only marginal media coverage…

• … and, in a survey of 80 journalists in the United Kingdom, only 18 percent said their organization’s climate change reporting is fully serving audience needs, while 89 percent said new approaches are needed.

• Natalie Jane Cibel reported on Mexico–US turtle trafficking driven by organized crime and aided by weak border enforcement.

• Bård Harstad argues that the Tropical Forest Forever Facility will likely fail, urging greater use of sustainability‑linked bonds instead.

• More than 12,500 plant and fungal species were named as new to science in 2024 and 2025 according to this year’s State of the World’s Plants and Fungi report.

• Fionagh Thomson wrote about the challenge journalists face covering a major ocean threat because it is invisible.

• The Bezos Earth Fund committed US$26 million to support the world’s first satellite constellation dedicated to detecting wildfires.

• Youth-led biodiversity conservation and restoration initiatives worldwide face significant funding challenges, says a new report.

• Fishing vessels are likely catching tens of thousands of sea turtles each year in the Indian Ocean and Southeast Asia, according to a new report.

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

• Joseph A. Davis wrote a backgrounder on the projected ‘super’ El Niño and what it means for the climate and food security.

• The Global Biodiversity Information Facility has a new website.

• Carbon Pulse launched its Biodiversity Portal to track submissions of National Biodiversity Strategy and Action Plans and mentions of biodiversity credits — see the press release for details.

• On 22 June, Chatham House has a hybrid event at which three leaders of climate change COPs past and future will discuss the state of environmental diplomacy — register here.

• On 24 June, the Pulitzer Center has a webinar on conflict between community forests and mining in the Democratic Republic of the Congo — register here.

• A new guide for aspiring science journalists in North Macedonia.

• On 24 June, the Pulitzer Center has a webinar on how to use the Earth Index Deep Search tool to find features such as mines, roads and plantations across the planet in minutes — register here.

• On 25 June, Luís Fernando Guedes Pinto, executive director of Fundação SOS Mata Atlântica will give a talk about how Brazil’s Atlantic Forest stands at a crossroads: continued deforestation or a future shaped by regeneration — register to attend online to attend online or in person in Oxford.

See past editions for more tips and resources.

Jobs And Opportunities

• The Association of Young Environmental Journalists has story grants for student journalists in the Philippines — deadline 22 June.

• The Earth Journalism Network is offering fellowships for journalists to cover the UN Biodiversity Conference (COP17) in Yerevan, Armenia — deadline 29 June.

• The Pulitzer Center invites content creators in Latin America to apply to its Waki initiative for support to develop digital narratives inspired by investigative journalism on forests, climate and other environmental issues — deadline 5 July.

• Journalists from South and Southeast Asia can apply to join a 3-day residential training workshop on reporting on environmental crises that will take place in August in Sri Lanka — deadline 5 July.

• Mongabay and Ladera Sur are offering grants for short videos in Spanish on environmental topics in Latin America — deadline 8 July.

• Contexte is hiring a Brussels-based environment reporter — no deadline listed.

• The Earth Journalism Network invites Kenya-based journalists to join a three-day workshop on biodiversity reporting — deadline 11 July.

• KERA and Grist are seeking a climate, energy and environment reporter to cover North and West Texas — no deadline listed.

• Mongabay is hiring an associate editor to work with its StoryTransformer tool — no deadline listed.

• The Earth Journalism Network has story grants for journalists reporting on apes in Asia — deadline 18 July.

• Mongabay is hiring a senior video story editor to boost its visual journalism on conservation and environmental science — no deadline listed.

• Oceanographic and Kanaloa seek a data journalist focused on ocean health — no deadline listed.

• The team behind the 2027 World Conference of Science Journalists in London invites proposals for workshops, panels and other sessions — deadline 30 November.

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.

On The Horizon

29 June – 1 July: The Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, in London, UK, will host the State of the World’s Plants and Fungi Symposium.

6-10 July 2026: The European Congress of Conservation Biology will take place in Leiden, the Netherlands.

13-16 July: The 34th meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) Animals Committee takes place.

17 July: A joint session of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) Animals and Plants Committees takes place.

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 2029.

Whose Eye Was It?

The eye belongs to an Eurasian eagle-owl. Photo credit: Rhododendrites — 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. Over the past year, I’ve taken readers to rainforest canopies and city streets, explored ancient scriptures and modern science, and followed threads that connect ecology and culture around the world. If that sounds interesting, you can subscribe here or check out my selection of top stories published so far.

• Updates on ocean challenges and protections, the roles of wildlife in climate change, Indonesia’s mega-deforestation project, the spread of screwworm.

• Features about how mining may drive Ebola outbreaks, a long-lost butterfly, nature’s scent signals, bees and human health, kelp forest restoration, archaeological sites with rich biodiversity, and more.

• Journal papers on oil palm as a conservation opportunity, Brazil’s overlooked wetland carbon store, overlapping human and conservation needs in Vietnam, COVID and insect biodiversity, climate change and medicinal plants in China, Amazon fragmentation, invasive river species, economic risks of biodiversity loss, and more.

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

Subscribe now

Taking The Pulse

Screwworm: A parasitic screwworm — really a fly larva — is spreading among cattle and other animals in the United States, years after having been eradicated there and in all countries as far south as Panama. The flesh-eating insect can be deadly to cows, wildlife, pets and people. A paper published in the journal Conservation Biology on 10 June reported that the explosive re-emergence of the New World screwworm across Mesoamerica has been driven largely by illegal cattle movement. The authors say the parasite poses rising and under‑monitored threats to wildlife, protected areas and regional conservation efforts — see also the related press release from the Wildlife Conservation Society. US-funded efforts to prevent screwworm from entering the United States were cut last year by the Department of Government Efficiency led by Elon Musk.

Wildlife and climate: On 11 June, scientists launched a consensus statement synthesizing evidence of the roles wild animals play in climate change mitigation and adaptation. The Scientific Consensus on Wildlife and Climate highlights how animals shape the global carbon cycle and patterns of ecosystem regeneration, for example as seed dispersers of trees. More than 280 scientists have backed the statement, which was developed through a process facilitated by the World Federation for Animals and the International Fund for Animal Welfare. It urges governments to account for ecological processes in climate policies — watch the press conference or read the press release.

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Ocean: On 8 June, the UN released the third World Ocean Assessment, a report drawing on the work of 600 experts in 86 countries. As might be expected, it highlights a litany of challenges linked to pollution, overfishing and climate change, and calls for global cooperation to conserve marine ecosystems. On 9 June, French Polynesia announced it would give the highest level of protection to a France-sized area of ocean. No mining, trawling or industrialized fishing will be permitted in the zone, which forms the single largest contribution to the global goal of conserving 30 percent of land and sea by 2030. Two days later, US President Donald Trump removed restrictions on commercial fishing in parts of three Marine National Monuments in the Pacific Ocean.

Indonesia: Indonesian media recently reported that former President Megawati Soekarnoputri said she cried while watching Pesta Babi (Pig Feast), a new documentary about a vast deforestation project underway in the country’s Papua region. The film highlights the destruction of rainforest and its impacts on local communities, featuring testimony from a woman named Mama Yasinta Moiwend. On 8 June, BBC News Indonesia reported that Mama Yasinta had been flown to Jakarta without her family’s knowledge. She was seen there with security personnel and lawyers linked to the governing political party, and later issued a statement saying she had not wanted to appear in the film and no longer opposed the project. The episode has fuelled speculation that she may have been pressured to reverse her stance — see Glenn Hurowitz’s summary, the Pesta Babi trailer or the full documentary.

In The Spotlight

• Aynsley O’Neil interviewed biologist Panayiotis Pafilis about his research showing that 20 archaeological sites shelter 11 percent of Greece’s native species despite covering just 0.018 percent of its area.

• Meng Kroypunlok reported on how part of a protected Cambodian forest became a special economic zone that enabled scam operations, human rights abuses and impacts on biodiversity.

• Kathleen Dean Moore wrote about the return of a long-lost butterfly and how collective habitat restoration can spark hope in a time of ecological loss.

• Hannah Thomasy reported that pollution and climate change are degrading nature’s scent signals, disrupting vital insect communication and threatening pollination and biodiversity.

• Gloria Dickie reported that collapsing wild bee populations are undermining nutrition, incomes and public health from Nepal to Europe.

• Richard Schiffman reported that scientists and Indigenous groups are trying to save vanishing kelp forests by culling urchins, breeding heat‑tolerant strains and scaling up restoration.

• Sonia Shah explored potential links between mining and Ebola outbreaks in the Congo Basin.

From The Journals

• Nearly all of Vietnam’s priority areas for conservation both remain unprotected and are areas of high human development needs — read the full paper.

• Wetlands in the Brazilian savanna store six times more carbon per hectare than Amazonian forests – read the press release or the full paper.

• Extreme rain and landslides in Indonesia last year may have wiped out about one in ten members of the world’s rarest great ape species, whose total population is less than 800 — read the full paper.

• Conservation status and climate vulnerability of nearly 6,000 medicinal plant species in China — read the full paper.

• Biodiversity loss could trigger sovereign debt crises — read the press release or the full paper.

• Oil palm landscapes are both a major driver of biodiversity loss and an untapped conservation opportunity — read the full paper.

• Reduced human activity during the COVID-19 pandemic supported measurable but transient improvements in insect pollinator biodiversity in China — read the full paper.

• Forest fragmentation in the Amazon’s arc of deforestation — read the full paper.

• River barrier removals aid invasive species too — read the full paper or a commentary by three of the authors.

What Caught My Eye

• “Its findings are a call for urgent, whole-of-government and whole-of-society acceleration and a compass where to focus” — Astrid Shomaker, the head of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity reflects on the draft report showing inadequate progress towards the global biodiversity goals.

• Fredrick Mugira writes that African environmental journalism routinely sidelines the lived expertise of frontline communities in favour of elite voices, creating gaps that weaken public understanding and accountability.

• In a new report on ecosystem integrity, Greenpeace says the defining question for forest governance is now not whether forests remain standing, but whether they remain functioning.

• A new analysis exposes the scale of marine bycatch killed by UK fishing vessels, reports Karen McVeigh.

• Corey Bradshaw says confirmation of the world’s largest island eradication of invasive pigs is a monumental outcome for biodiversity conservation, not just for Australia but globally.

• The World Economic Forum published a global report on plastic pollution and biodiversity.

• Luxembourg pledged 50 million euros to the Tropical Forests Forever Facility’s investment fund, which it will host.

• Everland launched a new financing initiative designed to provide community-led forest conservation projects with capital.

• Umar Manzoor Shah wrote about a recent report showing that Brazil and Cameroon lose billions of dollars each year because of illegal logging and illicit financial flows.

• A report from the Toda Peace Institute warns that a ‘narco-mineral complex’ is emerging in parts of the Amazon Basin, driven in part by growing demand for raw materials needed for the green energy transition.

• In a new paper, the International Alliance against Health Risks in Wildlife Trade is calling for stronger controls on trade in live wild animals to reduce the risk of diseases spreading to people and potentially causing future pandemics.

• Colombia has become the first tropical forest country to enact a law requiring its cattle industry to prove that beef supply chains are free from deforestation, reports Steven Grattan.

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 17 June, the Society of Environmental Journalists has a webinar on energy reporting for environmental journalists — register here.

• The Secretariat of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) is holding a series of webinars to provide updates on progress and information on agenda items at the forthcoming meetings of the CBD’s subsidiary bodies.

• The International Federation of Journalists launched a free online course on reporting on climate change.

• UNESCO published Reporting the Environment, a manual for journalists.

• In a webinar on 19 June, the Environmental Reporting Collective will discuss online suppression of its investigation into a Google data centre in India — register here.

• Climate Tracker International is expanding its environmental press network in Latin America and Caribbean — find out more and register interest in joining here.

• On 25 June, Australia’s Nature Media Centre is holding a webinar on environmental podcasting — register here.

• IUCN published an ’issues brief’ on biofuels and biodiversity.

• Carbon Brief launched Cited, a newsletter covering the latest climate science.

• The World Health Organization is providing an online masterclass series on natural environments and health.

See past editions for more tips and resources.

Jobs And Opportunities

• Mongabay is hiring a managing editor for Africa — no deadline listed.

• The Earth Journalism Network is offering fellowships to the COP31 climate change conference in Antalya for journalists and for content creators — deadline 17 June.

• ENDS Report is hiring a news editor — deadline 21 June.

• The 2026 European Science Journalist of the Year Award is open for entries — deadline 30 June.

• The Earth Journalism Network invites journalists in the Western Balkans to apply to attend a four-day workshop in Montenegro on biodiversity and environmental reporting — deadline 1 July.

• The Fetisov Journalism Awards are open for entries, with one category for Excellence in Environmental Journalism — deadline 15 September.

Bonus content: There are 31 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

8-18 June: The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change’s intersessional conference is underway in Bonn, Germany.

14-16 June: The G7 Summit takes place in Évian, France.

14-19 June: The World Biodiversity Forum will take place in Davos, Switzerland.

16-18 June: The Our Ocean Conference takes place in Mombasa, Kenya.

20-28 June: London Climate Action Week.

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 2029.

Whose Eye Was It?

The eye belongs to an Indian elephant. Photo credit: Alexander Klink — 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. Over the past year, I’ve taken readers to rainforest canopies and city streets, explored ancient scriptures and modern science, and followed threads that connect ecology and culture around the world. If that sounds interesting, you can subscribe here or check out my selection of top stories published so far.

• Updates on the progress toward global biodiversity targets, climate and nature policy silos, the state of India’s environment, controversy in Albania, Global Environment Facility millions, and more.

• Features about rewilding in Europe, reintroducing tigers to Cambodia, Ebola-deforestation links, krill supertrawlers versus whales, the biodiversity financing gap, and more.

• Journal papers on payments for conservation performance, environmental crime, minerals and nature loss, forest restoration in China, umbrella species in India, mining’s deforestation footprint in Africa, and more.

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

Subscribe now

Taking The Pulse

Biodiversity: Too little, and not fast enough: that sums up the extent of progress toward the global goals of halting and reversing the loss of nature by 2030, according to a draft report that the Secretariat of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) released on 2 June. The report says:

“Addressing the gaps in and barriers to collective progress will require addressing their underlying reasons, including those related to limited ambition, implementation, means of implementation, environmental governance and policy coherence, whole-of-society engagement, and data and knowledge.”

The draft report is a beast — more than 340 pages long. It is open for review and comments until 29 June. A new draft will be available by 18 July and the final version will be published in time for the 17th Conference of Parties to the CBD, in Armenia in October.

Climate v. Nature: Treating climate change, biodiversity loss and land degradation as separate issues is doomed to fail, says an international group of scientists and policy experts in a report published on 2 June. It warns that policies on climate change and nature are badly misaligned, leading to costly failures, missed opportunities and unintended harm. The authors outline how to break down the silos at national and international levels, including through greater alignment of the three UN conventions on climate, biodiversity and desertification — read the press release or the full report.

Europe: A new survey of around 26,500 citizens of EU countries shows near universal public support for protecting biodiversity. The Eurobarometer survey results, published on 3 June, showed that 93-96 percent of respondents agreed that halting the loss of biodiversity is important morally, for health and wellbeing, for economic development, to tackle climate change, and for producing goods. Only 42 percent had heard of the EU’s Natura 2000 network of protected areas, but this was an increase of twelve percentage points since last year’s survey. See the press release or the full results.

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India: On 4 June, the Centre for Science and Environment and Down To Earth magazine published their annual State of India’s Environment report. It paints a picture of rising challenges linked to deforestation, waste management, tiger and elephant attacks, water stress and climate change. One statistic that leapt out at me: India experienced extreme weather on 99 per cent of all days in 2025. These events claimed 4,421 lives and damaged 17.4 million hectares of crops.

Albania: Thousands of people took to the streets in Albania this week to oppose plans — by companies linked to Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner — to develop a luxury resort in an ecologically important coastal area. Judd Legum reports that the area was previously part of a national park, until the government changed its status to allow the project to go ahead. Albania’s national anti-corruption agency is now investigating this change and the transfer of rights to the project developers. An investigative report by Vladimir Karaj sheds light on some of the unusual processes and shady characters associated with the project. Meanwhile, BirdLife reports that heavy machinery has already been active at the site, without permits or an environmental impact assessment. It calls on the Albanian government to halt all works, restore the damage and launch a legal investigation into what has happened.

GEF: The Global Environment Facility approved more than US$230 million in funding for projects in 22 countries at its Council meeting in Uzbekistan this week. The money will flow from various GEF-managed funds to support biodiversity conservation, adaptation to climate change, and so on. The GEF Council also endorsed the programming directions and policy recommendations for 2026-2030, during which the GEF will aim to spend US$3.9 billion pledged by donor countries. See the press release.

In The Spotlight

• Alice Sun reported on scientists extracting the DNA of birds and mammals from blood-sucking and scavenging invertebrates to reveal hidden biodiversity and track pathogens.

• Christina Egerstrom writes that Europe’s rewilding revival shows ecosystems can rapidly rebound when keystone species return.

• Luc van Vliet argues that the ‘financing gap’ narrative masks the inherent contradiction between a global extractivist economy that destroys nature and global commitments to protect biodiversity.

• Andy Ball and Arathi Menon report that plans to release Bengal tigers in Cambodia face ecological, governance, and community‑safety concerns.

• Ashoka Mukpo spoke to Carson Telford about his research on the link between Ebola and deforestation, and how understanding it could help stop outbreaks early on.

• Jim Robbins reports that growing fleets of krill supertrawlers threaten whales already stressed by rapid Antarctic climate change.

From The Journals

• The world’s oldest scheme providing payments for conservation performance is losing legitimacy — read the press release or the full paper.

• Protecting the habitat of any one of nine key ‘umbrella’ species could safeguard over a third of India’s above-ground carbon and vertebrate diversity — read the full paper.

• Conservation policy and practice should approach criminal justice with caution — read the full paper.

• Commodity-specific maps of mining-induced nature loss across 70,000 sites and 20 mined commodities can inform targeted mitigation strategies — read the full paper.

• Ecosystem services, synergies and trade-offs of forest restoration in China — read the full paper.

• Lose elephants, lose dung beetles and the important ecological roles they play in African savannas — read the press release, the full paper or the associated commentary paper.

• Across sub-Saharan Africa, every hectare of forest lost to mining triggers another 34 hectares of off-site deforestation — read the press release or the full paper.

• Most of Africa’s biodiversity is outside formal protected areas, so new models of outcome-based governance are needed in working landscapes — read the press release or the full paper.

What Caught My Eye

• Conservationists are dismayed that at least 89 countries will no longer be eligible for funding from the UK government’s Darwin Initiative, reported Fiona Harvey.

• On 1 June, Greenpeace International released a report calling for a human rights-based approach to marine conservation and efforts to protect at least 30 percent of the ocean — see the press release or the full report.

• In Australia, the Biodiversity Council published a report assessing the impacts on nature caused by the country’s 200 largest publicly listed companies.

• Michel Valette and Gail Sucharitakul argue that the right of Indigenous Peoples to give their free, prior and informed consent to activities that could affect them should be extended to non-Indigenous communities.

• Aisiri Amin reports that India’s flagship tree‑planting schemes miss targets when they lack community‑led, livelihood‑focused design.

• Yvonne Buckley writes that Ireland’s new nature restoration targets are creating a fast‑growing, long‑term career ecosystem spanning science, technology, community work and industry.

• Alongside water and energy concerns, AI expansion is a biodiversity issue, says Theresa Lieb.

• Earth League International released an investigation showing links between Cambodia’s wildlife trafficking networks and organized crime.

• Carol Yuen and Catherine Higham write that China’s new Environmental and Ecological Code lacks targets, coordination and oversight, limiting its effectiveness.

• Over the decade to 2024, more than 450 protected birds of prey were illegally killed in the UK on or near land managed for game shooting, reports Justin Rowlatt.

• Ryan Lobo says India’s wildlife laws need to be reformed to allow faster action against dangerous animals, community benefit-sharing and regulated, science-based sustainable use of wildlife.

• On 1 June, Norway announced it will provide NOK 1.5 billion (US$ 165 million) to partnerships with civil society organizations worldwide to protect tropical forests.

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 11 June, the International River Foundation, Wetlands International and Shoal are hosting a webinar on how to halt and reverse the loss of freshwater biodiversity — register here.

• RECOFTC published factsheets on eight diverse Model Forest landscapes managed for sustainability in six Asian countries.

• What’s the difference between restoration and rewilding? Sandra Cordon explains.

• On 26 June, the Science Journalists Association India has a webinar on data tools for climate journalists — register here.

See past editions for more tips and resources.

Jobs And Opportunities

• Mongabay invites applications for its Southeast Asia Ocean Reporting Fellowship — rolling deadline.

• Journalists outside of the United States can apply for the Ocean Nexus International Fellowship — deadline 14 June.

• The Earth Journalism Network has story grants for journalists in Ethiopia, Indonesia, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan and Madagascar reporting on biodiversity and nature-based solutions — deadline 30 June.

• The New York Times is hiring a climate policy correspondent — no deadline listed.

• The Boston Globe is hiring a climate science and environment reporter — no deadline listed.

Bonus content: There are 26 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

5 June: World Environment Day

8-18 June: The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change’s intersessional conference takes place in Bonn, Germany.

14-16 June: The G7 Summit takes place in Évian, France.

14-19 June: The World Biodiversity Forum will take place in Davos, Switzerland.

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 2029.

Whose Eye Was It?

The eye belongs to a blue insularis pit viper. Photo credit: RidhaAnshari85 — 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. Over the past year, I’ve taken readers to rainforest canopies and city streets, explored ancient scriptures and modern science, and followed threads that connect ecology and culture around the world. If that sounds interesting, you can subscribe here or check out my selection of top stories published so far.

• Updates on the current Ebola outbreak, rising snakebite risk, how to achieve the Global Biodiversity Framework’s goals and targets.

• Features about paradoxical billionaires, India’s green credits scheme, community forests in the DRC, ecological restoration as a climate solution, hope for a critically endangered antelope, and more.

• Journal papers on climate-smart rewilding, deforestation links to respiratory illness, digital tech for human-wildlife coexistence, harmful scuba diving, less costly forest protection, trees for better cattle farming, and more.

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

Before I begin this week’s newsletter, I want to share a message I received this week from one of Global Nature Beat’s readers, who has given me permission to share it here:

“I am a retired environmental scientist. I stay active in my community and get a lot of newsletters to stay informed. Your newsletter provides me with such valuable information. Because of your newsletter, I have great journal articles of interest to read, I signed up for Mongabay’s How Journalism Works webinar, and am including pictures and information on declining pollinators in my presentation to elementary students in June on benefits to the environment on gardening with native plants. I have also shared your newsletter with others. Sorry, I am on social security and do not have funds to contribute but I fully support your work and find it so useful. Keep up the good work!”

Messages like this mean a great deal to me because they capture exactly what I hope Global Nature Beat can do: help people stay informed, spark curiosity, support education and connect readers with the wider world of environmental journalism and science.

From the beginning, my philosophy has been that those who can afford to support this newsletter help keep it available for those who cannot. Not everyone has the means to pay for subscriptions, but they are often among the people making the most use of the newsletter.

If you already support Global Nature Beat with a paid subscription, thank you. You are helping make this possible.

And if you have been considering upgrading, now would be a hugely valuable time to do so. Paid subscriptions are what allow me to keep producing the newsletter each week — and to keep it accessible to readers around the world regardless of their income.

You can upgrade to a paid subscription below if you’d like to support the future of Global Nature Beat.

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Taking The Pulse

Ebola: The outbreak of Ebola underway in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Uganda is especially concerning because it is caused by the Bundibugyo virus, for which there is no vaccine or treatment. The virus is named for a region of Uganda where it was first detected. As Musinguzi Blanshe reported this week, it is a region where many people eat bats — some species of which are suspected to host the virus. The reason for the current outbreak is as-yet unknown. Yesterday, I spoke with Neil Vora, the executive director of Preventing Pandemics at the Source, about the situation. He said:

I am so worried about this current outbreak. It’s already the third largest Ebola outbreak ever reported. This is very early in the stage of this outbreak, so it’s really concerning how quickly cases are rising. I have been in the Congo to fight Ebola in the past. I am well aware of the challenges that come with trying to contain an Ebola outbreak in an area that’s suffering from violence and that’s exactly what this area is. It is really hard to get public health workers into the area to build clinical treatment units. There’s a lot of distrust from communities for understandable reasons towards outsiders and towards the medical establishment. And so, this is going to be an exceedingly complex outbreak to control. I’m very worried that the case counts are going to continue to rise, we are already behind in containing this outbreak, and it’s going to have massive consequences for human lives and for people’s livelihoods in the area.

Snakebites: The most detailed study of its kind has shown that the risk of snakebites is growing worldwide, as venomous snakes increasingly come into contact with people as the climate and habitats change. The researchers assessed habitat suitability for all 508 of the most medically important snake species globally, quantified overlaps between human and snake populations, and assessed how climate change would affect snake distributions. They write: “Our predictions can be used to decide where to stockpile which antivenom, how to ensure adequate capacity of individual health facilities, how to improve health care accessibility of remote at-risk communities, and where to focus conservation efforts for threatened snake species.” Read the full paper.

Biodiversity: Parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity will this year take stock of progress under the Global Biodiversity Framework, with just four years remaining to achieve its goal of halting and reversing nature loss. All the signs are that they are off track for most of the framework’s 23 targets. In a new paper, a team of academics and biodiversity experts in nongovernmental organizations outline four ways to remedy this. They call for an independent mechanism to track efforts and outcomes, a way of prioritizing the most impactful actions, a whole-of-society dialogue on what to do, and a means of supporting action with scientific insights.

In The Spotlight

• Benji Jones and Sara Herschander wrote about how billionaire environmental donors often refuse to confront how the industries that made them rich continue to drive the ecological crises their philanthropy claims to address.

• Vaishnavi Rathore reported that India’s green credits scheme is fencing off “degraded” forests and farmland, and preventing villagers from reaching grazing areas, forest products and even their own fields.

• Jonas Kiriko reported that many community forests in the Democratic Republic of the Congo are suffering from donor withdrawal, governance failures and rising deforestation but others are providing sources of income and resilience.

• Thomas Crowther argues that restoring biodiverse ecosystems, which create self‑reinforcing social and ecological benefits, is a far more scalable and sustainable climate solution than costly technological fixes.

• Victoria Wanjohi reported on the reintroduction of four critically endangered mountain bongos that were flown from European zoos to Kenya to diversify the fragile gene pool of the rare antelopes.

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From The Journals

• Where to do climate-smart rewilding in Europe — read the press release or the full paper.

• Agri-environmental policies have reduced cropland degradation globally — read the full paper.

• Deforestation and other changes in land-use in Southeast Asia are worsening air quality and contributing to thousands of excess deaths and billions of dollars of economic losses each year — read the press release or the full paper.

• Digital technologies have as-yet untapped potential to promote coexistence between people and wildlife — read the full paper.

• Tourist scuba-divers often damage coral reefs and wildlife encounters make this more likely — read the press release or the full paper.

• The economic costs of global forest protection may be overstated — read the full paper.

• Global analysis finds that reintroducing trees into pastureland can ease the tension between cattle ranching and biodiversity loss — read the press release or the full paper.

• Human presence and landscape modification have complex combined effects on wildlife across the United States — read the press release, the full paper or the related commentary article.

• Earth cannot sustain current or future human populations without major changes to how we use land, water, energy, biodiversity and other resources — read the press release or the full paper.

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What Caught My Eye

• The Global Initiative Against Transnational Organized Crime published a report exposing politically connected companies illegally logging Cameroon’s forests.

• The Tropical Forests Forever Facility faces big challenges, reports Chris Lang.

• In a new report, the Stockholm Environment Institute raises doubts over the climate credentials of insect farming in industrialised countries.

• Spain has 75 critically endangered species according to its first National Red List, reports Ana Tuñas Matilla.

• Canadians strongly support nature conservation and overwhelmingly see the trade-off between nature and the economy as a false dichotomy, according to research by Ekos Politics.

• Deepak Adhikari reports that Nepal’s infrastructure boom overlaps 515 key wildlife habitats that lie outside protected areas.

• The OECD reports that the US$100 billion climate finance goal has been exceeded for three years in a row, but most money is going to middle-income countries rather than the ones that need it most.

• On 22 May, the International Advisory Panel on Biodiversity Credits and the Biodiversity Credit Alliance, BCA published their common vision for high-integrity biodiversity credit markets.

• Around Cameroon’s Lobéké National Park, TRAFFIC reports an emerging shift from trafficking live African grey parrots to trade in harder to detect products such as skulls, feathers and blood for belief-based, ritual or medicinal purposes.

• More than 600 citizens and civil society groups wrote to the Chief Justice of India to protest his recent criticism of environmentalists for filing petitions in courts and for suggesting that they are stalling development.

• Vietnamese conservation groups are urging the government to halt plans to merge protected areas, saying this could weaken protection for biodiversity.

• Rebecca Heisman reported on research showing the importance of urban areas to migrating birds in North America.

• Vibha Varshney reported on India’s progress with sharing the benefits of commercial access to biodiversity, as well as gaps in data systems, valuation methods and state‑level.

• In the United States, the Center for Biological Diversity filed a lawsuit to halt seafood imports from countries including Argentina, India and the United Kingdom, whose fisheries are killing marine mammals.

Tips And Resources

• Emma Rossi wrote an explainer about payments for ecosystem services.

• UNEP-WCMC published an explainer on the alternatives to protected areas called other effective area-based conservation measures, or OECMs.

See past editions for more tips and resources.

Jobs And Opportunities

• Reporters Without Borders is calling for proposals for projects focused on environmental journalism, protection of journalists and access to environmental information — deadline 30 May.

• U.S. Right to Know is seeking a science reporter for an investigative project on pesticides and their impacts on the environment and human health — no deadline listed.

• The Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development invites journalists in West Africa to apply for a six-month fellowship to investigate violence against environmental reporters — deadline 8 June.

• The Earth Journalism Network is offering fellowships to the COP31 climate change conference in Antalya — deadline 17 June.

• The Earth Journalism Network invites Brazilian journalists to apply for in-person training on reporting on deep-sea science and marine biodiversity — deadline 18 June.

• The nine-month Sir Harry Evans Global Fellowship provides an opportunity for an early career journalist to undertake an investigative project — deadline 10 July.

Bonus content: There are 29 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

30 May - 6 June: The Global Environment Facility’s Eighth Assembly and Associated Meetings take place in Samarkand, Uzbekistan

1-6 June: Rio Nature & Climate Week takes place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

8-18 June: The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change’s intersessional conference takes place in Bonn, Germany.

14-16 June: The G7 Summit takes place in Évian, France.

14-19 June: The World Biodiversity Forum will take place in Davos, Switzerland.

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 female 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.

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. Over the past year, I’ve taken readers to rainforest canopies and city streets, explored ancient scriptures and modern science, and followed threads that connect ecology and culture around the world. If that sounds interesting, you can subscribe here or check out my selection of top stories published so far.

• Updates on the future of forests, river barrier removals, climate and the law, pesticides and biodiversity, and calls for an emergency broadcast.

• Features about human–orangutan conflict in Indonesia, protecting flooded forests in Cambodia, controversy over frogs in Ecuador, how the environmental movement lost its influence, conservation of migratory species, and more.

• Journal papers on biodiversity finance explained, how wildfire affects primates, changing human-wildlife relationships deoxygenating rivers, nickel mining and threatened species, poverty-biodiversity links in community forests, Brazil’s underfunded protected areas and understudied endangered plants, 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

Forests: Rainforest Foundation Norway released a report on 20 May showing how growing demand for food, minerals and energy is piling pressure on tropical forests and driving them towards collapse. The report outlines alternative scenarios in which reduced consumption and stronger forest governance avert an ecological crisis. “Unless governments change the rules, new pressures will layer on top of old ones. It will be more than tropical forests can take,” said Toerris Jaeger, Director of Rainforest Foundation Norway in a press release. See also the pathways to avoid profit-driven deforestation linked to food production, energy and gold and low-quality timber products.

TREE Act: On 13 May, members of the US House of Representatives introduced a bill for a new law that would mirror the EU Deforestation Regulation, by prohibiting imports of commodities and products derived from lands affected by deforestation or forest degradation. The ‘Trade Responsibly for Environmental Emissions Act’, or ‘TREE Act’, was introduced by Representative Lloyd Doggett, who said in a press release:

“The TREE Act will not only protect our forests from those who seek to profit from their destruction, it will also help American businesses by assuring that they are responsible for compliance with a single, uniform set of sustainability trade rules.”

Climate: What connects Belarus, Iran, Israel, Liberia, Russia, Saudi Arabia, the United States and Yemen? They are the only members of the United Nations that voted, on 20 May, against a landmark resolution recognizing that states have a legal duty to act on climate change. The resolution passed with overwhelming support — 141 member states voted in favour, while 28 abstained. The resolution builds on the International Court of Justice’s recent advisory opinion that states are legally obliged to act to prevent dangerous climate change, transforming the court’s guidance into a global political mandate. The Center for International Environmental Law has published reactions to the vote from civil society groups.

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Pesticides: In the United States, the Trump administration’s Fish and Wildlife Service has determined that the weedkiller atrazine poses no extinction risk to threatened species — directly contradicting a 2021 finding by the US Environmental Protection Agency that the herbicide was likely to harm more than 1,000 protected species. Atrazine is banned in more than 60 countries over the threats it poses to the environment and human health — including links to birth defects and cancers. But it is widely used in US agriculture — farmers apply nearly 32,000 metric tons of the chemical to their fields every year, according to the Center for Biological Diversity. On 13 May, a federal court ruled that the Fish and Wildlife Service had failed to protect more than 1,500 species from another pesticide — the insecticide malathion — that it had determined posed no threat to protected species.

Dams: Across Europe, a record-breaking 603 dams and other river barriers were removed in 2025, reconnecting more than 3,700 kilometres of rivers. The statistics come in a report published on 21 May by Dam Removal Europe, a coalition of six organizations. It is the fifth year in a row that a new record has been set. But there is a long way to go — across Europe more than 150,000 obsolete culverts, weirs and other barriers fragment the continent’s waterways.

“By removing more barriers, we are able to show how biodiversity bounces back and how we can strengthen resilience against climate change,” said Merijn Hougee of WWF Netherlands in a press release.

Emergency briefing: In the United Kingdom, a cross-party group of members of parliament has lodged a motion urging the government to level with the British public about threats posed by climate change and nature loss. The motion calls on the government “to screen a prime-time televised emergency briefing across all the main channels, delivered by independent experts and supported by the UK’s Chief Scientific Adviser, setting out the nature and scale of the climate and nature threats facing the UK, why these threats matter to people’s lives and livelihoods, and to introduce emergency legislation, investment and public engagement commensurate with the scale and urgency of the crisis”. At the time of writing, 61 members of parliament have supported the motion.

“The public deserves to understand what is at stake for climate and nature and people’s lives and livelihoods,” said one of the motion’s co-sponsors, Pippa Heylings.

In The Spotlight

• John Reid argues that the environmental movement lost influence by letting climate policy eclipse nature protection and must reconnect the two to regain power.

• Claudia De Luca reports how climate change is driving unpredictable shifts in the ranges and migrations of wildlife, raising the importance of flexible, corridor‑based conservation.

• In a tale of frogs and reptiles in Ecuador, Humberto Basilio reported on what happens when the urgent desire to identify and protect wild species clashes with the ethical, legal and scientific standards governing research.

• Sally Williams wrote about growing human–orangutan conflict in Indonesian Borneo, and a fierce debate over whether rescuing and relocating the apes saves them or harms them further.

• Claire Turrell reported on Cambodian communities using satellite fire alerts and replanting native trees to protect the biodiverse seasonally flooded forests surrounding Asia’s biggest lake.

• Valeria Román interviewed biologist Sandra Díaz, co-chair of the 2019 global assessment by the Intergovernmental Panel on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, touching on topics including functional biodiversity and reciprocity among living things.

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From The Journals

• Ecological integrity underpins our hierarchy of needs — read the full paper.

• Brazil’s protected areas are chronically underfunded — read the press release or the full paper.

• Biodiversity finance demystified — read the full paper.

• Impacts of fire and haze on non-human primates — read the full paper.

• Data on 322 tropical community forests suggest that reducing poverty may increase tree diversity and the services the forests provide — the full paper is paywalled but a policy brief is available.

• Widespread encroachment of nickel mining on habitats of threatened species — read the full paper.

• Brazil’s most threatened plants receive the least scientific attention — read the full paper.

• Four factors driving change in human–wildlife relationships in Southern Africa — read the full paper.

• Analysis of more than 21,000 rivers found that most have been steadily losing dissolved oxygen, threatening biodiversity and ecosystem health — read the press release or 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

• Marc Manyifika and colleagues wrote about African cities that are using wetlands, trees and other nature‑based solutions to curb flooding, reduce urban heat and boost biodiversity.

• Brazil’s Atlantic Forest experienced its lowest level of deforestation since records began and could reach zero deforestation within the next three years, reports Tiago Rogero.

• Lobsang Dunpearl argues that Tibet’s escalating human–bear conflict stems not from “problem bears” but from the collapse of a long‑standing, self‑regulating pastoral order and the failure of modern governance to replace it with an equally functional system (thanks to Yann Bigant for sharing this article with me).

• The Earth Negotiations Bulletin published a detailed summary of the 21st session of the UN Forum on Forests, which took place last week.

• Scientists have found 1,121 previously unknown marine species in the past year — see the press release and images from the Ocean Census.

• WWF and partners found more than 1,600 primates advertised on social media for sale in the United States in just six weeks — see the press release or the full report.

• France’s biggest companies are doing little to manage their impacts and dependencies on nature, according to a new WWF report.

• This year’s El Niño could be among the strongest ever recorded, raising risks of heat, drought, wildfires, coral bleaching and pressure on agriculture, food security and public health, report Akshit Sangomla and Pulaha Roy.

• The fossil fuel industry has built and is paying a global ecosystem of online content creators whose messaging helps delay action on climate change, reports Isa Lim.

• A new report by TRAFFIC shows how wildlife traffickers increasingly target giant tortoises and land iguanas from the Galápagos Islands.

• “There’s like eight Mount Everest’s worth of sediments being turned over every minute of every day on the global continental shelf by these small animals,” marine ecologist Ben Harris told Shanna Hanbury.

Tips And Resources

• On 1 June, Mongabay is holding a webinar on how environmental journalism works — register here.

• On 22 May, the Asian College of Journalism has a webinar on ‘Covering Climate Change: Optimism and Solutions’ — register here.

• The Science Media Centre – Spain published an explainer about why populations of pollinators are declining worldwide and what this means for ecosystems and food production.

• The World Resources Institute updated its explainer on the EU Deforestation Regulation.

• Ten popular myths about climate adaptation journalists should know, according to the Instituto Talanoa.

• The Global Investigative Journalism Network published a step-by-step guide to using the free QGIS software to create and analyze maps.

See past editions for more tips and resources.

Jobs And Opportunities

• Covering Climate Now is offering free online workshops for climate journalists who want to improve their social media content and grow their online audience — deadline 2 June.

• Climate Central is hiring a writer and associate editor — deadline 8 June.

• The Earth Journalism Network is offering reporting fellowships to journalists in Bangladesh covering climate change and the private sector — deadline 14 June.

• The Africa Environmental Film Festival seeks entries from around the world — rolling deadlines until 1 February 2027.

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

22 May: International Day for Biodiversity.

30 May - 6 June: The Global Environment Facility’s Eighth Assembly and Associated Meetings take place in Samarkand, Uzbekistan

1-6 June: Rio Nature & Climate Week takes place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

8-18 June: The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change’s intersessional conference takes place in Bonn, Germany.

14-16 June: The G7 Summit takes place in Évian, France.

14-19 June: The World Biodiversity Forum will take place in Davos, Switzerland.

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 an Eastern cottontail. Photo credit: Rhododentrites — 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. Over the past year, I’ve taken readers to rainforest canopies and city streets, explored ancient scriptures and modern science, and followed threads that connect ecology and culture around the world. If that sounds interesting, you can subscribe here or check out my selection of top stories published so far.

• Updates on the Global Forest Goals, a UN warning on sand, plants in peril, alternatives to GDP.

• Features about gibbon trafficking, drivers of honeybee die-offs, decoys aiding vulnerable seabirds, new tools for exposing illegal mining, the booming butterfly-house industry, the biosecurity angle to ant-smuggling, and more.

• Journal papers on the social side of the 30x30 target, hotspots of pangolin trafficking, biocultural conservation, pollinators boosting incomes and nutrition, conservation in forest concessions, illegal hornbill trade, rock outcrop ecosystems, Amazon drying, good science storytelling, 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

Beyond GDP: GDP is a lousy indicator of progress. By only measuring what societies spend and invest, it fails to distinguish harmful economic activities from beneficial ones. Yet GDP growth is often the top priority of governments. Recognizing this perverse situation, in 2024, UN Member States mandated the production of an expert analysis of what could complement or go beyond GDP. On 7 May, the UN High-Level Expert Group on Beyond GDP released its final report. It suggests 31 alternative indicators for tracking progress in areas such as health, education, income, equity and security. The environmental indicators include measures of carbon emissions, biodiversity intactness, water quality, air pollution and natural capital. Together, the indicators shift the focus from measuring only what societies produce towards measuring human wellbeing and sustainability. Guyana and Spain will now co-facilitate an intergovernmental process that will focus on how to implement the report’s recommendations. The UN will also support countries to test using the new indicators.

Sand: Surging global demand for sand is threatening ecosystems and livelihoods around the world, warns a new report from the UN Environment Programme (UNEP). Infrastructure development currently uses 50 billion tonnes of sand per year, it says, adding that the use of sand for buildings alone is projected to rise by up to 45 per cent by 2060. UNEP frames the challenge in terms of competing demands for ‘dead’ sand for construction, and demands for the services that the ‘alive’ sand in ecosystems provides. See the press release for more details.

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Forests: Considering their importance, the Global Forest Goals have a strangely low profile. They were laid out a decade ago in the United Nations Strategic Plan for Forests 2017–2030 and their deadline is fast approaching. On 11 May, the Secretariat of the UN Forum on Forests released a progress report. In a nutshell, the six goals are: to reverse global forest loss; to increase the benefits arising from forests; to protect and sustainably manage more forest; to raise more finance for forests; to improve forest governance; and to factor forests into wider policymaking. The report finds that 2 of the 26 associated targets are off track, while 7 have been largely met and 17 have been partially achieved. Overall, the picture is one of progress, but not enough to achieve the goals by 2030.

Plants: Two studies published last week in Science highlight threats facing plants. The first found that 7–16 percent of the world’s plant species are expected to lose more than 90 percent of their range by 2100 under current climate change projections. Even if these plants can disperse into new areas as the climate changes, those areas are unlikely to provide the habitat they need, raising the risk of extinction for 35,000 to 50,000 plant species — see the press release or the full paper. The second study focused on species with no or few relatives on their branch of the tree of life. It concluded that a fifth of the genetic and evolutionary history existing in the world’s flowering plants is under threat of extinction. The authors identified nearly 10,000 plant species for conservation to prioritize as they are both endangered and particularly evolutionarily distinct – read the press release or the full paper. See also a commentary in Science covering both new studies.

In The Spotlight

• Ruth Thornton wrote about how the booming butterfly‑house industry offers some habitat and livelihood benefits but poses poorly understood risks to wild butterflies.

• Leila Goldstein and Eung Sea wrote about a forest carbon project in Cambodia that is proceeding despite objections from many local people, who say they were excluded from consultations and did not consent to activities affecting their land.

• Natasha Gilbert reported on the factors driving the recent record die-off of US honeybee colonies, including mite‑spread viruses, chronic pesticide exposure, poor nutrition and mounting environmental stressors.

• Anne Pinto‑Rodrigues reported that gibbon trafficking has surged to record levels, with organized networks smuggling orphaned infants from Southeast Asia to India.

• Carlos Mureithi wrote about the ecological and biosecurity risks linked to the booming illegal trade in giant African harvester ants.

• Kingsley E. Hope reports that Ghana’s push for the 30×30 ocean target is unfairly burdening small‑scale fishing communities while industrial fleets continue operating with weak enforcement.

• Heather Hansman wrote about how artist Sue Schubel’s exquisitely crafted decoys help restore vulnerable seabird colonies worldwide by luring birds to safe nesting sites.

• Andrew Deck wrote about how geospatial artificial intelligence is enabling journalists to uncover Amazon‑wide illegal mining operations at a scale impossible through on-the-ground reporting.

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From The Journals

• Empirical analysis of factors that constitute “good” storytelling in science communication — read the full paper.

• Rock outcrop ecosystems are ecologically and evolutionarily significant but are threatened and overlooked in policy and monitoring — read the full paper.

• Genetic analysis reveals hotspots of pangolin trafficking and trade — read the press release or the full paper.

• Biocultural conservation as an alternative model for conservation — read the full paper.

• Social implications of the 30×30 global conservation target vary across three scenarios — read the press release, the full paper or a commentary by two of the authors.

• How a shift in political context in Slovakia spells bad news for brown bears — read the full paper.

• Large areas of natural forest within forestry and agricultural concessions in Southeast Asia could be conserved under higher carbon prices alongside other measures — read the full paper.

• Deforestation-induced drying makes the Amazon more susceptible to switching to savannah, and sooner than previously thought — read the press release or the full paper.

• Indonesia’s illegal hornbill trade includes species from Africa and the Philippines — read the press release or the full paper.

• Research in Nepal quantifies how pollinating insects contribute to not only crop production but also income and nutrition — read the press release, the full paper or a commentary by two of the authors.

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

• “Conservation isn’t failing — it’s just inconsistent, uneven and often badly measured,” say Stuart Pimm and John Gittleman in a new article about their team’s recent assessment of successes and failures.

• In the United Kingdom, the Royal Astronomical Society is calling for artificial light at night to be legally recognized as a pollutant, citing its impacts on the natural environment and human health.

• On 11 May, Indigenous organizations from across Latin America issued a joint communication to United Nations bodies warning that organized crime is increasingly harming human rights, security and the environment in their territories — see the press release from Amazon Watch.

• Canada’s government has no plans to enshrine its nature targets into law, reports David Thurton.

• BirdLife International says bulldozers are illegally destroying one of Albania’s most important wild places.

• Ella McSweeney wrote that Ireland’s government is starving nature restoration of funding despite clear evidence that investing in ecosystems delivers enormous economic and environmental returns.

• On 12 May, the European Commission launched a public consultation on the European Union’s Birds Directive and Habitats Directives, as part of its wider initiative to simplify regulation.

• Conservation Allies reported that its partner, the Ukraine Nature Conservation Group won 43 legal victories and expanded protections for nature in 2025, despite the challenges of the ongoing war.

• The iconic Camargue wetland of southern France is under threat, writes Jean Jalbert.

• Environmental and climate journalists in Africa face a serious yet underreported risk from vexatious lawsuits known as SLAPPs, according to a new report from the International Press Institute.

• On 7 May, Brazil, China and the European Union launched a coalition to improve the integrity and effectiveness of carbon markets — Germany and New Zealand are the first countries to join.

• New Zealand’s government announced plans to boost voluntary nature and carbon markets with a new assurance scheme intended to give buyers and landowners confidence in what they are investing in — see expert reactions published by the Science Media Centre.

Tips And Resources

• On 15 May, the Asian College of Journalism is hosting a webinar led by Joydeep Gupta and Athar Parvaiz, on reporting on climate change amid elections, economic crisis and geopolitics — register here.

• The Pulitzer Center launched a four-part online training series called Investigating the Ocean that will start on 19 May — read more and register here.

• The Association of Health Care Journalists published a tipsheet on hantavirus.

• On 21 May, the Metcalf Institute and the Solutions Journalism Network have a webinar for climate, science and environmental journalists on using and reporting on artificial intelligence — register here.

• The Knight Center for Journalism in the Americas and the Global Investigative Journalism Network are running an online course on investigative climate journalism from 1-28 June — read more here and register here for English or here for Spanish.

• On 4 June, Covering Climate Now has a webinar on investigating and reporting climate solutions climate stories — register here.

See past editions for more tips and resources.

Jobs And Opportunities

• The National Association of Science Writers is accepting applications for its Idea Grants — deadline 15 May.

• UNESCO invites media organizations in Nepal to participate in training on climate action and disaster risk reduction — deadline 22 May.

• Carbon Brief is offering a paid, three-week journalism internship — deadline 1 June.

• The 2026 AAAS Kavli Science Journalism Awards are open for entries — deadline 1 August.

Bonus content: There are 32 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

11-15 May: The UN Forum on Forests takes place in New York City, United States.

30 May - 6 June: The Global Environment Facility’s Eighth Assembly and Associated Meetings take place in Samarkand, Uzbekistan

1-6 June: Rio Nature & Climate Week takes place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.

8-18 June: The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change’s intersessional conference takes place in Bonn, Germany.

14-16 June: The G7 Summit takes place in Évian, France.

14-19 June: The World Biodiversity Forum will take place in Davos, Switzerland.

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 gobio. Photo credit: Diego Delso — 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. Over the past year, I’ve taken readers to rainforest canopies and city streets, explored ancient scriptures and modern science, and followed threads that connect ecology and culture around the world. If that sounds interesting, you can subscribe here or check out my selection of top stories published so far.

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 business and security risks linked to nature loss, the EU Deforestation Regulation, another mangrove superpower, tropical forest loss.

• Features about the EU Habitats Directive, trophy hunting in Africa, tortoise guardians in India, rays of hope for troubled migratory fish, community coexistence with lions in Zimbabwe, and one of the largest wildlife‑crime raids in US history.

• Journal papers on downsides of ecotourism, conservation in India, wind farms and birds, REDD+ successes, wild meat consumption in Central Africa, impacts of deep-sea mining, poaching in Romania, 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

Risk: Nature loss is increasingly breaking out of the ecology bubble, as understanding of the risks it poses to businesses, investors and national security grows. On 30 April, the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries and Anglia Ruskin University warned in a report that biodiversity loss, climate shocks and geopolitical conflict are disrupting food systems, risking “catastrophic impacts for the financial system and for society as a whole” — see the press release. The report urges actuaries and the financial sector to recognize that food system fragility is a systemic financial risk, whose impacts far exceed the contribution of agriculture to GDP. It calls for urgent investment to support sustainable land use, protect pollinators and strengthen supply-chain resilience. In related news this week:

• Kristen French interviewed two authors of a recent study that assessed 27 cases where disrupted ecosystems intensified societal unrest and political instability, threatening national security.

• Gabriella Sotelo wrote about the links between deforestation, biodiversity loss and diseases that are deadly to people

• Sarah DeWeerdt reported on “defensive rewilding”, a new proposal by researchers who argue that restoring wetlands, forests and other ecosystems can simultaneously strengthen national security and deliver major climate and biodiversity benefits.

Forest loss: The planet lost a Denmark-sized area of tropical forest — some 4.3 million hectares — in 2025, according to the latest annual Global Forest Watch review based on satellite data. Many media reports focused on the fact that the area lost was 36 percent less than in 2024. On the face of it, this looks like good news. But that steep decline is because 2024 was a particularly bad year for wildfires, which greatly increased forest loss. Global Forest Watch’s long-term data shows that tropical deforestation driven by factors other than wildfire has been fairly consistent since 2002.

In the past decade, wildfires have added to this baseline, creating an overall upward trend. The deforestation rate last year was 70 percent greater than the level needed to achieve the internationally agreed goal of halting and reversing forest loss by 2030. The global data also masks big differences between countries. Deforestation in Brazil fell by 42 percent since 2024, but it rose by 14 percent in Indonesia. See the press release, Hans Nicholas Jong’s reporting on the data or Benji Jones’s article on Bolivia, where soaring deforestation is being driven by expanding Mennonite soy farms.

EUDR: On 4 May, the European Commission released the report of its ‘simplification review’ of the EU Deforestation Regulation, whose entry into application has been delayed for two years. The report confirms that the EUDR will face no further delays. The Commission says that new measures to simplify the law’s implementation, combined with previous measures, will reduce compliance costs for companies by about 75 percent, compared to costs under the original design of the EUDR — see the press release. The Commission also published a draft legal amendment to the scope of products covered by the EUDR — adding products such as soluble coffee and removing others including, most contentiously, leather. Rainforest Foundation Norway said in a press release that this would reward companies sourcing leather from areas deforested to raise cattle. The Commission is seeking public feedback on its proposed changes until 1 June.

Mangroves: Mangrove forests are widely recognized as major carbon sinks, protectors of coastlines and breeding grounds for fish and other marine life. New research shows that they also provide another valuable service: cleaning up nitrogen pollution from human activities, which can cause harmful algal blooms and deplete oxygen levels, threatening ecosystem health. The new research estimates that, globally, mangroves remove 870,000 metric tons of nitrogen from coastal ecosystems each year — a service worth about US$8.7 billion annually. This is twelve times more than the value of carbon sequestration by mangrove forests. The authors call for the creation of a market for ‘blue nitrogen credits’ to recognize this benefit of mangroves and incentivize their conservation.

In The Spotlight

• Nick Davidson wrote about an undercover agent who infiltrated and exposed a violent poaching network, leading to one of the largest wildlife‑crime raids in US history.

• Moushumi Basu reported on the successful rewilding of critically endangered Asian giant tortoises that is transforming former hunting villages in Nagaland, India into dedicated guardians of the species.

• Christina Egerstrom wrote about why there are such big gaps between what the European Union’s Habitats Directive requires and what member states are delivering.

• Stefan Lovgren reported on the rapid declines in migratory freshwater fish in rivers from the Amazon to the Mekong, and early signs of progress through new international action plans and rising political attention.

• Matthew Pearce wrote about the work of Moreangels Mbizah, who is transforming lion conservation in Zimbabwe through community‑led strategies that dramatically cut conflict and protect both people and wildlife.

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Planet Ficus at One

One year ago, I launched my second newsletter Planet Ficus. It is all about how one extraordinary group of plants — the strangler figs and their kin — can help us understand the living world and our place in it.

Currently, only ten percent of my Global Nature Beat subscribers are also receiving Planet Ficus. I would love to improve that ratio. Over the past year, I’ve taken readers to rainforest canopies and city streets, explored ancient scriptures and modern science, and followed threads that connect ecology and culture around the world. If that sounds interesting, you can subscribe here or check out my selection of top stories published so far.

From The Journals

• The hidden environmental costs of ecotourism extend far beyond carbon footprints of travel — read the full paper.

• Shifting biodiversity conservation in India from expanding protected area coverage towards climate-adaptive and landscape-scale strategies — read the full paper.

• Many REDD+ projects have succeeded in reducing deforestation but issued too many carbon credits — read the press release or the full paper.

• Assessment of wind-farm collision risks for 108 European bird species and mapping of risk hotspot areas — read the full paper.

• Rising urban demand has driven an increase in wild animal consumption across Central Africa — read the press release or the full paper.

• The Timor green pigeon of eastern Indonesia and Timor-Leste may be on the verge of extinction — read the press release or the full paper.

• The environmental impacts of deep-sea mining — read the full paper.

• Romanian media reports reveal the extent and nature of poaching in the absence of official data — read the press release or the full paper.

• Patterns of growth and loss of tropical dry woodlands across India — read the full paper.

• Future nickel mining sites in the tropics threaten high-priority areas for conserving terrestrial and marine biodiversity — read the press release or 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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In Focus: Trophy Hunting

Three pieces published in recent days highlight the complexity of debates about trophy hunting:

A case study published by the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) showed that hunters imported more than 300 elephant trophies into the United States in 2025 — mostly from Botswana, which allows 400 of its 140,000 elephants to be shot each year. In a press release, the CBD stated: “Since trophy hunters generally remove large mature males who are also threatened by poaching and drought, these elephants could soon be depleted from the population, harming breeding, genetics and elephant social functioning.”

In a letter to The Guardian newspaper, researchers Amy Dickman and colleagues argued that calls to ban imports of hunting trophies are misguided, noting that trophy hunting benefits lions and many other species by conserving more land in Africa than national parks do. “Biodiversity is far more threatened by habitat loss, which bans are likely to amplify by reducing income for protected areas,” they wrote.

Conservation psychology researcher Stephanie Klarmann wrote that South Africa’s trophy‑hunting model concentrates power and profit among wealthy foreign hunters while undermining ecological integrity, community rights and non‑lethal conservation alternatives. “Wildlife is protected not because it is ecologically vital, culturally significant, or ethically deserving of life, but purely because it can be killed for a hefty price,” she wrote. “Creating a dependency on such a narrow revenue stream and outsourcing our wildlife conservation to markets not fully in South Africa’s control is precarious and economically fragile.”

What Caught My Eye

• Countries are failing to uphold the UN declaration on Indigenous rights adopted in 2007, reports Dionne Phillips.

• In the UK, analysis by DeSmog shows that 67 percent of the funding received by Nigel Farage’s Reform party — which is leading the polls and opposes climate action — has come from donors with financial interests in fossil fuels.

• Chris Rapley wrote that humanity must abandon comforting myths and adopt a shared “spaceship Earth” narrative.

• Alison Kentish reported that the Global Environment Facility’s new US$3.9 billion funding cycle aims to shift from isolated projects to supporting system‑wide transformations.

• A new report by the Environment Investigation Agency shows how rhino breeders in South Africa are trying to get around the ban on international trade in rhino horns.

• Andrew McKechnie and Susan Cunningham wrote about new research showing how rising heat and humidity are accelerating population declines of tropical birds.

• Emelia Arthur — Ghana’s minister for fisheries and aquaculture — wrote about the country’s newly created and first marine protected area.

• James Painter wrote about his research into how British newspapers report on net-zero policy — with marked differences between right-wing and left-leaning papers.

• Benji Jones reported that US wildlife agencies depend on a 1930s gun tax for nearly a fifth of their budgets, creating a morally fraught incentive to promote firearms so they can fund conservation.

• Robert Nasi and Paolo Omar Cerutti wrote about why the Congo Basin remains critically underfunded despite absorbing far more carbon than other tropical forests.

Tips And Resources

• On 11 May, EurekAlert! has a webinar on essential skills for science journalists — register here.

• On 12 May, a GroundWork webinar will discuss the status of the roadmaps on transitioning away from fossil fuels and halting deforestation that are being developed ahead of the COP31 climate change conference — register here.

• On 13 May, CIFOR-ICRAF is hosting a webinar on wild meat consumption in Southeast Asia — register here.

• On 21 May, 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.

• On 27 May, Future Earth will co-host a webinar exploring how climate tipping points are communicated — register here.

See past editions for more tips and resources.

Jobs And Opportunities

• JournalismFund.eu is offering grants for cross-border investigations in Europe — deadline 21 May.

• Lighthouse Reports is hiring a climate and environment editor — deadline 29 May.

• POLITICO is hiring a journalist to help edit and lead its daily coverage of energy and environmental policy on Capitol Hill — no deadline listed.

• Nature Kenya is recruiting 20 experienced journalists to be ‘environmental media champions’ —deadline 30 May.

• The Knight-Risser Prize for Western Environmental Journalism is open for entries —deadline 2 June.

• JournalismFund.eu’s Environmental Investigative Journalism Programme will fund cross-border teams of journalists to investigate environmental issues linked to European interests — deadline 6 August.

Bonus content: There are 32 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

6-7 May: The Global Landscapes Forum Africa 2026 conference takes place in Nairobi, Kenya and online.

11-14 May: The 20th International Conference on Community-Based Adaptation (CBA20) will be held in Manila, Philippines.

11-15 May: The UN Forum on Forests takes place in New York City, United States.

30 May - 6 June: The Global Environment Facility’s Eighth Assembly and Associated Meetings take place in Samarkand, Uzbekistan

1-6 June: Rio Nature & Climate Week takes place in Rio de Janeiro, 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 goliath heron. 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 the G7 environment ministers, UK and EU deforestation regulation, forest and land defenders, and more.

• Features about Chernobyl ecology, illegal logging in Mexico, high-tech coral restoration, artificial intelligence and Indigenous land protection, human-wildlife conflict in Nepal, and more.

• Journal papers on net zero versus nature positive, positive tipping points for nature recovery, trade regimes and biopiracy, tourism’s tactics for expanding into protected areas, greenwashing by the meat and dairy industry, the societal costs of bottom trawling, 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

G7: Environment ministers from the G7 group of nations met in Paris last week and adopted seven declarations on issues including ocean protection, biodiversity funding and pollution. As the current holder of the G7 Presidency, France had taken climate change off the agenda to avoid triggering the Trump administration into walking out and collapsing the talks. One of the new declarations launched a new initiative — the Nature and People Finance Alliance — that the French Presidency has developed to scale up public and private finance for biodiversity conservation. Two ocean-focused declarations concerned effective management of marine protected areas and action against illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing. On the sidelines of the G7 meeting, Canada and Japan committed to collaborating on nature financing and strengthening the implementation of the Global Biodiversity Framework — adopted by parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity in 2022.

Deforestation: A cross-party group of Members of Parliament is urging the UK government to adopt and implement a regulation to end imports of commodities produced on deforested land. The Environment Act of 2021 was meant to end such imports, but the secondary legislation needed is still missing. The co-chairs of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Global Deforestation outlined their case in an open letter to the relevant government ministers. They highlight strong support for regulation from businesses making and selling chocolate, and call for close alignment with the EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR).

EUDR: The European Commission is this week due to release its review of the EU Deforestation Regulation, whose entry into force has already been delayed twice — see Wildground’s take on what to expect. On 24 April, a group of 32 members of the US House of Representatives wrote to EU President Ursula von der Leyen to oppose further delay and weakening of the EUDR — see the letter and reactions from Mighty Earth. Meanwhile, the European Forest Institute published a two-page summary of action underway in eight countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America to align with the EUDR. It notes considerable progress as well as ongoing challenges, particularly in ensuring that smallholders are not excluded from the EU market.

Leather: There is speculation that the Commission will remove leather from the scope of products covered by the EUDR. This would create a loophole allowing leather from cattle in deforestation‑linked beef production to enter the EU market through the “back door”, says Global Witness. On 27 April, it published an investigation showing that the head of a tannery group owned by luxury brand Louis Vuitton has been leading lobbying to weaken the EUDR, while owning a tannery in Paraguay linked to high risk of illegal deforestation on Indigenous lands. On 24 April, Indigenous Ayoreo leaders were in Milan urging Italy’s leather industry to stop sourcing hides linked to illegal deforestation that threatens their uncontacted relatives’ survival.

Defenders: In a new study, the World Resources Institute (WRI) analysed 170 climate policy studies published over the last decade and found that only five percent mentioned the frontline environmental defenders who are putting their lives on the line to protect the ecosystems on which climate goals depend. Given that more than 2,200 forest and land defenders have been murdered since 2012, this is a glaring gap. On 30 April, WRI will hold a webinar to discuss the findings with an expert panel including environmental defenders. See also WRI’s feature story on this work.

Central Asia: The heads of state of five Central Asia countries — Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan — adopted a declaration on regional cooperation in ecology and sustainable development. In it, they commit to developing joint positions in international environmental negotiations on climate, biodiversity and desertification. They also signed a regional declaration on cooperation in biodiversity conservation, committing to improve data sharing, joint monitoring and cross-border initiatives. The developments came in Astana, Kazakhstan during the Regional Environmental Summit that ended on 24 April. See also the UN Environment Programme’s summary.

In The Spotlight

• Some 40 years after the Chernobyl disaster, ecological change in the exclusion zone has been driven as much by the absence of humans as by radiation, reports Chris Baraniuk.

• Ryan Hesketh reported on scientists racing to industrialize coral restoration with robotics and heat‑toughened corals.

• Euan Wallace reported on cartel‑driven illegal logging in Mexico’s Sierra Tarahumara that is devastating forests, displacing Indigenous communities and spreading violence.

• Sarah Collard reported on Indigenous rangers in Australia and Alaska teaming up to track short‑tailed shearwaters to understand climate‑driven threats along their 15,000‑km migration.

• Stefan Lovgren reported on new research showing that older animals are vital knowledge‑keepers whose loss undermines wildlife survival and should reshape conservation policy.

• James Whitlow Delano reported on rising human–wildlife conflict in Nepal linked to rebounding rhino and tiger populations.

• UN experts warn that artificial intelligence can aid Indigenous land protection but also drive new environmental harms and rights violations without strong safeguards, reports Aimee Gabay.

• Benji Jones reported on a venture capitalism fund betting that biodiversity‑focused startups can deliver big ecological gains alongside strong financial returns.

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From The Journals

• Five principles for ensuring that Net Zero does not compromise Nature Positive — read the full paper.

• Assessing the robustness of the action agendas of the UN conventions on biodiversity, climate change and desertification — read the full paper.

• Arctic fossil fuel development has significant overlaps with Indigenous communities and ecologically sensitive areas — read the full paper.

• How to enable positive tipping points for large-scale recovery of nature —read the full paper.

• How global trade regimes undermine biodiversity access and benefit-sharing and perpetuate biopiracy — read the full paper.

• Land vertebrates will be increasingly exposed to multiple extreme events by 2085 — read the full paper.

• The political playbook the tourism industry uses to promote expansion into public protected areas — read the full paper.

• Climate finance reduces resource-related conflict risks — read the press release or the full paper.

• Some 98 percent of environmental claims by the world’s top meat and dairy companies can be classed as greenwashing — read the press release or the full paper.

• Brazil’s policies have reduced deforestation in the Amazon but have failed to address another major threat: forest degradation — read the press release or the full paper.

• Bottom trawling in European waters costs society 2–16 billion euros annually — mostly due to carbon emissions from disturbed sediments causing climate impacts — read the press release or 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

In Focus: Pangolin Trafficking

Pangolins — whose scales are valued in traditional medicines in Asia — are the most heavily trafficked animals on Earth. If they could read the news, they might be pleased this week to learn of law enforcement operations and legal proceedings in three jurisdictions:

• On 22 April, a Vietnamese court sentenced two wildlife traffickers to eight years in prison and large fines after they were caught with nearly one ton of African pangolin scales.

• On 23 April, the Wildlife Justice Commission reported that Nigerian authorities had captured a suspected trafficking kingpin who had been on the run for five years following the seizure of a ton of pangolin scales.

• On 24 April, Anggita Raissa reported on Indonesian investigators probing shell companies and possible organized crime links after seizing more than 3 tons of pangolin scales hidden in a Jakarta-bound container.

Together, the scales seized in these cases alone represent nearly 30,000 poached pangolins.

What Caught My Eye

• Health experts are urging the UN to focus on preventing future pandemics by doing more to address the risk of spillover events in which diseases jump from wildlife to human hosts.

• Aimable Twahirwa reported on tech‑enabled ranger patrols helping mountain gorillas rebound despite conflict.

• Booming global demand for the edible tubers of Mediterranean orchids is driving overharvesting, write Susanne Masters and Margret Veltman.

• Media brands including Spotify and Acast in the Media in Service of Nature movement aim to raise more than £200m for UK nature restoration by 2030, by diverting 0.1 percent of their advertising spend.

• Scientist Bradley Cardinale discussed nature’s role in national security, and what governments can do to protect against ecological disruptions.

• Global wildlife populations have declined considerably since 1970, but those within UNESCO-designated sites have remained comparatively stable.

• Lin Zi interviewed three experts about China’s new Ecological and Environmental Code and the signals it sends.

• The first comprehensive assessment of India’s bats in 20 years has found that habitat loss is causing rapid population declines.

• 18 wolves were found dead in an Italian national park within one week and authorities suspect they were poisoned, reports Angela Giuffrida.

• Colombia has joined the 100% Alliance, committing to sustainably manage all of its national waters by 2030.

• Large companies in South Africa are making slow progress in reporting their impacts and dependencies on nature, reports Boitumelo Kgobotlo.

• India launched a US$4.9 million project to strengthen village-level biodiversity governance in the states of Tamil Nadu and Meghalaya.

Tips And Resources

• Climate Action Against Disinformation and Covering Climate Now are updating their journalist field guide to covering climate disinformation and are seeking input to shape their revisions.

• Dataphyte Foundation published a detailed biodiversity reporting toolkit for Nigerian journalists and newsrooms.

• Wild Commons — a YouTube channel curating high quality films about nature — seeks subscribers and submissions, and offers filmmakers a 75 percent share of ad revenue.

• The Earth Journalism Network published a journalist’s guide to reporting on marine plastic pollution in the Mediterranean.

• On 29 April, Covering Climate Now and Climate Visuals are holding a webinar about how to visualize climate change with videos and stills — register here.

• On 7 May, Journalismfund Europe has a webinar in which editors from Die Zeit, Mongabay and El Mundo will discuss how journalists can best pitch environmental investigations — register here.

See past editions for more tips and resources.

Jobs And Opportunities

• Amazon Frontlines is hiring a consultant creative writer — no deadline listed.

• The Earth Journalism Network is hiring an editorial assistant — no deadline listed.

• Climate Tracker Asia invites young journalists and storytellers in the Philippines to apply to join the NextGen Climate Bootcamp 2026 — deadline 22 May.

• The 13th annual Yale Environment 360 Film Contest is accepting entries — deadline 24 May.

• EcoBusiness invites applicants to join Season 4 of its Sustainability Media Academy — no deadline listed.

• US journalists can apply to join the Pulitzer Center’s Climate Digital Storytelling Accelerator — deadline 12 May.

• Our World in Data is hiring a writer — rolling deadline.

Bonus content: There are 32 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

6-7 May: The Global Landscapes Forum Africa 2026 conference takes place in Nairobi, Kenya and online.

11-14 May: The 20th International Conference on Community-Based Adaptation (CBA20) will be held in Manila, Philippines.

11-15 May: The UN Forum on Forests takes place in New York City, United States.

1-6 June: Rio Nature & Climate Week takes place in Rio de Janeiro, 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.

In Case You Missed It

Whose Eye Was It?

The eye belongs to a red ruffed lemur. 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.

In November 1989, Chinese farmer Hou Tiguo was hunting birds with a slingshot near his home in Baihualing, a remote village in subtropical Yunnan province, when a chance encounter changed his life.

He met two tourists from Taiwan who offered to pay him to show them wild birds. Hou accepted, and by the end of the day they had seen 160 bird species.

The tourists told Hou that if the villagers stopped hunting birds, many more people would come to see them. Birdwatching was almost unknown in China at that time. But word of Baihualing’s rich birdlife spread, visitors did begin to arrive, and Hou became one of the country’s first bird guides. For two decades, he supplemented his farming income by guiding, until he had an idea that would bring birdwatchers — and money — pouring into his community.

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Hou had noticed birds visiting a puddle created by a leaky pipe. Using corn stalks, he built a crude shelter, barely big enough for two people, and began charging birdwatchers CNY 20 (USD 2.80) each to use it. ‘Hide-in-bird-pond’ tourism was born. Before long, Hou had created several artificial ponds, with more sophisticated and spacious hides. Other villagers followed his lead, transforming Baihualing’s economy.

Today, more than 250 hide-in-bird-ponds operate across China, with scope for many more — according to a new nationwide assessment. Its authors say they offer significant potential to boost rural incomes and protect biodiversity, but warn that unregulated growth could bring ecological and socioeconomic risks.

A new model of birdwatching

The set-up is simple. Operators provide shallow pools of water and food such as fruit or insect larvae. Birds arrive to feed, drink and bathe. Nearby, birdwatchers and photographers wait in camouflaged hides, often just metres away, for close-up views of the birds. At some sites, meals are delivered, so clients don’t need to leave.

“Whenever possible, we take our guests to bird hides,” says Summer Wong, who runs Summer Wong China Bird Tours which is based in Sichuan. “[Hides] allow them to observe certain target species that are otherwise very difficult to see in the wild, quickly and efficiently. Such wildlife-focused tourism provides a valuable source of income for local communities, encouraging them to protect the birds rather than hunt them.”

Baihualing was an ideal place for the model to take off. The village sits at 1,400 metres on the eastern slope of Gaoligong Mountain, part of a mountain range that has one of the world’s greatest concentrations of bird species. The village is a gateway to the forested slopes of the Gaoligongshan National Nature Reserve, an important area for biodiversity. Around Baihualing itself, 474 bird species have been documented.

Birdfinders, a UK-based tour company, says on its website that Baihualing’s ponds attract a “dazzling array” of birds, including laughing thrushes, scimitar babblers, sibias and minivets. “The views here are far superior to anything we could hope for along the trails,” it notes.

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Baihualing’s boom

Before bird ponds, Baihualing was impoverished, with per-capita incomes of about CNY 3,000 (USD 430) in 2008. By the early 2020s, incomes had more than quadrupled. But as birdwatching took off, the number of ponds grew rapidly, reaching more than 70. A case study published in 2024 by Yunnan’s Department of Natural Resources describes how local authorities intervened to standardize operations and reduce pond numbers, leaving around two dozen higher-quality sites.

Today, thousands of birdwatchers visit Baihualing each year, stimulating a wider seasonal economy of guesthouses, restaurants, transport services and cultural activities. The case study estimated that tourism engaged a third of the village’s population and generated more than CNY 8 million (USD 1.1 million) in annual revenue, while also contributing to a reduction in poaching and indiscriminate logging.

A key innovation has been a village-level benefit-sharing system. Previously, tensions arose between farmers who wanted to clear forest for crops and bird pond operators who wanted trees left standing. Now, revenue from bird pond tickets — currently CNY 70 each (USD 9.8) — is distributed among bird pond owners and other groups of villagers, under an agreed formula.

“It unites all villagers to take collective actions to protect birds,” says Xinran Wang of the Shenzhen College of International Education, whose research on the Baihualing birdwatching industry was published in October 2025.

“Everyone has the incentive to remain in the organization: bird pond owners can sustain their profits without obstacles from farmers; other villagers can receive extra dividends,” she told Dialogue Earth. “This formed a cycle to continuously bring positive effects.”

Baihualing’s trajectory underscores both the promise of bird-pond tourism – and the risks that emerge when expansion outpaces regulation.

A national phenomenon

Hide-in-bird-pond tourism has spread rapidly across China, often built around “star” bird species. In Yunnan, Shiti village entices visitors with three species of hornbills. In Qinling, Shaanxi province, birdwatchers flock to see the endangered crested ibis. In Mangba village, Yunnan, a population of 300 Derbyan parakeets attracts many tourists. In December 2025, China Daily cited reporting by China Green Times that bird tourism there generates over CNY 4 million (USD 560,000) a year in the village of just 250 residents.

But the industry has grown organically, without national guidelines, formal oversight or science-based standards. Concerns include the possible ecological impacts of supplemental feeding and the risk of disease transmission, both among birds and between birds and people. A lack of comprehensive monitoring means it is impossible to tell if, overall, the bird ponds are positive or negative for biodiversity.

These gaps prompted Fei Wu of the Kunming Institute of Zoology and colleagues to undertake the first nationwide assessment of hide-in-bird-ponds, published in the March 2026 edition of Avian Research. By analyzing online birdwatching forums, they identified 251 hide-in-bird-ponds across 24 provinces, and interviewed all 98 people operating them.

The assessment found that a total of 524 bird species – about one-third of China’s avifauna — have been recorded at these sites, including 152 species classified as threatened or protected. Most ponds (87%) are in economically deprived areas, and nearly three-quarters are within five kilometres of a national park or other protected area.

Wu and colleagues say this highlights the potential of bird-pond tourism to both address poverty and conserve biodiversity, particularly in regions “where ecological priorities and socioeconomic needs intersect.” With 40% of China’s hide-in-bird-ponds located in Yunnan, Wu’s team says there is considerable scope for expansion, especially in other areas with high bird diversity such as Guangxi, Guizhou, Inner Mongolia and Xizang.

Demand is also rising. The number of birdwatchers in China has grown from an estimated 600 in 2000 to 340,000 in 2023. As Wu and colleagues note, this is still less than 0.03% of China’s population.

Risks and regulation

“It is exciting to see this expansion in community-based avitourism in China facilitating connection with nature along with all its wellbeing benefits, and hopefully driving more pro-environmental behaviours among participants,” says Alexander Lees, Reader in Biodiversity at Manchester Metropolitan University. “The benefits for the birds themselves are less clear.”

Lees warns that a proliferation of feeding stations could increase disease transmission or raise predation risk. “It is unclear if these ventures lead to more substantial additional habitat protection,” he adds.

Xinran Wang’s research in Baihualing revealed that some bird pond owners lack knowledge of birds or attempt to discourage common species in favour of more profitable “star birds”. She also documented anecdotal accounts of some birds changing their behaviour or becoming desensitized to people.

“The most urgent step is formal legislation to ensure birds are safe while still leaving villagers some freedom to make profits,” says Wang. Training, she adds, could prevent unintentional harm caused by a lack of awareness.

Bird pond management relies largely on operator experience, says Wu. His team is now developing local standards for constructing and operating ponds and hides. They are also researching the ecological impacts of operations.

The researchers call for national standards and ethical guidelines, formal regulatory oversight with a registry of ponds, systematic monitoring and policy incentives to balance regional development. Without such measures, they warn, rapid and unstructured growth could undermine the principles of ecotourism and threaten the model’s sustainability.

The future of China’s bird-pond tourism, the scientists say, depends on turning grassroots innovations into a system with clear standards and safeguards. But Wu remains optimistic.

“I personally hold great confidence in the potential of hide-in-bird-pond to advance biodiversity conservation and poverty alleviation efforts in China,” he told Dialogue Earth.

“The number of birdwatchers in China will continue to grow, the birdwatching market will expand, and the income of hide-in-bird-pond operators will gradually increase. This will incentivize operators to proactively protect birds and their habitats.”

• Updates on corporate anti-deforestation commitments, the state of climate journalism, deforestation and food security, Indigenous issues, and more.

• Features about privately protected areas, construction’s return to timber, a controversial mega-project in India, cacti in court, eco-anxiety, and more.

• Journal papers on nature connectedness, permanence of biodiversity and carbon offsets, national biodiversity strategies, downsides of river-linking, Indigenous Peoples and conservation, 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

Forest 500: Global Canopy’s annual Forest 500 report assesses how well 500 major companies and financial institutions are implementing commitments to eliminate deforestation from their supply chains. The latest edition — published on 14 April — shows that two-thirds of the assessed entities now have anti-deforestation commitments relating to one or more commodities, and 29 percent have such commitments for all commodities they trade. Global Canopy notes that 14 percent of the assessed entities mentioned the EU Deforestation Regulation by name in their action plans, even though the law’s entry into application has been delayed. The report’s authors say this shows the power of regulation to drive positive action against deforestation — see the press release.

Journalism: Climate Change Now published a report on the state of climate journalism around the world. It shows widespread declines in climate change coverage, particularly in the United States — in part because of newsroom staff cuts linked to shrinking audiences paying for journalism. The report notes that public interest in climate change remains high, and concludes that journalists must find innovative ways to tell climate stories. See the full report or Covering Climate Now’s overview.

Deforestation: Tackling tropical deforestation is a strategic priority for Europe, argues The Nature Conservancy in a new policy brief. It outlines how deforestation can reduce local agricultural yields and productivity, with knock-on effects for supply chains feeding consumers in Europe. Read the full policy brief, executive summary or accompanying blog post.

Inquiry: The UK parliament’s Environmental Audit Committee has launched an inquiry into how decisions made in the Treasury — the UK government’s finance ministry — shape the UK’s approach to climate change, nature loss and environmental sustainability. The inquiry will consider whether the Treasury’s actions reflect the UK’s stated policy goals and its international legal obligations on the environment. The committee is accepting submissions of evidence to support the inquiry until 21 May.

Indigenous issues: The 25th Session of the United Nations Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues is underway in New York City, until 1 May. The forum’s focus this year is on health but, as Anita Hofschneider reports, there are plenty of overlaps with nature — including the impacts of climate change, ecological degradation and conservation models that displace Indigenous people from their land. A case in point is the ongoing eviction of Maasai people for conservation in Tanzania — see Survival International’s press release from 21 April.

In The Spotlight

• Jillian Sprenger wrote about how consciously noticing small, everyday moments of nature can ease eco‑anxiety and rekindle hope and connection in the face of the climate crisis.

• James Norman wrote about how the rapid growth of privately protected areas in Australia is transforming conservation there.

• Matt Simon reported on how architects and engineers are turning to ‘mass timber’ to build ever‑taller, low‑carbon skyscrapers, offering a more sustainable alternative to steel and concrete.

• Purti Jain wrote about how India’s US$10 billion Great Nicobar mega‑project promises geopolitical and economic gains but threatens rainforests, endangered species and Indigenous communities.

• Calvin Quek reviewed how Alex Wang’s new book probes China’s rising, contested model of global environmentalism.

• Roman Goergen wrote about how the mass theft of endangered cacti from Chile led to a landmark Italian court case and a precedent‑setting ruling that recognizes ecological harm as a civil injury.

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From The Journals

• Nature connectedness and place attachment can prevent and reduce loneliness — read the press release or the full paper.

• Weak governance and limited data transparency are the most frequently reported risks to the permanence of biodiversity offsets and nature-based carbon offsets — read the full paper.

• The strengths and weaknesses of national biodiversity strategies of the 30 most biodiverse parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity — read the full paper.

• A systematic literature review of the relationship between Indigenous Peoples’ lands and conservation — see the full paper.

• Other than colonialism, the factors behind declines in biological and cultural diversity differ — read the full paper.

• Cocaine pollution alters how salmon behave in the wild— read the press release or the full paper.

• India’s National River Linking Project could accelerate biological invasions, disrupt migratory routes and undermine ecosystem resilience — 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

• Julian Reingold reported on local opposition to a proposed water park in Mexico that residents, scientists and NGOs say threatens mangroves, reefs and community life.

• Liz Kimbrough covered the news of the 2026 Goldman Environmental Prize Winners.

• The journal Nature Reviews Biodiversity launched a new ‘Roadmaps’ format, for papers that provide specific guidance on the steps required to meet challenges within a field or project.

• Forests employ about 42 million people worldwide — 1.2 percent of all employment — with women accounting for one quarter of the workforce, according to new research.

• The Global Initiative against Transnational Organized Crime published a new report on the scale and nature of online wildlife trafficking, showing that Facebook is now “the dominant public-facing infrastructure through which that trade is concentrated, encountered, transacted and monetized’.

• Three experts shared their views on how sunlight reflection methods — or solar geoengineering — might interact with the natural world.

• A court in Kenya has sentenced a Chinese man to a year in prison and fined him several thousand dollars for attempting to smuggle ants out of the country.

• Colombia plans to cull 80 free-living hippos descended from four brought to the country by cocaine trafficker Pablo Escobar, reports Naina Rao.

• A project sequencing the DNA of 30,000 species living in Britain and Ireland could generate £3 billion in economic benefits over 30 years, according to a new report — read the press release or the full report.

• The World Wildlife Fund published a report exploring the potential to make commercial use of invasive species in situations where it is not possible to eradicate them.

• To mark the US Arbor Day on 24 April, the Arbor Day Foundation is launching the Million Trees Project, assembling the world’s largest collection of personal tree stories and planting a million new trees.

Tips And Resources

• On 23 April, the World Resources Institute and the University of Maryland’s GLAD Lab are holding an embargoed press call previewing how much global tree cover was lost in 2025, and their analysis of the state of the world’s forests — register here.

• Umar Manzoor Shah wrote an explainer about the Global Environment Facility and its family of funds that support big projects around the world on biodiversity, climate change and other issues.

• On 5 May, Mongabay will hold a webinar on how to cover nature crime — register here.

• The Nature Crime Alliance has added a new feature — Nature Crime Reports — to help amplify public research on environmental crime.

• The Global Investigative Journalism Network launched its Academy to gather masterclasses, reporting guides and news of training other opportunities — see the news story for more.

• UNEP published an explainer about how commercial use of genetic data called digital sequence information can benefit biodiversity-rich countries and Indigenous communities through the new Cali Fund.

• Australia’s Nature Media Centre invites nature communicators to join its new network.

• WWF launched the OECM Platform for ‘everything you need to know’ about the alternatives to protected areas called other effective area-based conservation measures.

See past editions for more tips and resources.

Jobs And Opportunities

• The Earth Journalism Network is hiring a media manager — no deadline listed.

• Covering Climate Now is hiring a communications manager — deadline 1 May.

• The Pulitzer Center is offering a year-long fellowship and salary to journalists investigating deforestation — deadline 22 May.

• The National Geographic Society’s Storytelling Grant for the Mekong River Basin offers up to US$20,000 for projects exploring ecological, cultural and scientific narratives — deadline 31 May.

• The Raleigh News & Observer is hiring an environmental reporter — no deadline listed.

Bonus content: There are 32 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

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

24-29 April: The 1st International Conference on the Just Transition Away from Fossil Fuels will be held in Santa Marta, Colombia.

6-7 May: The Global Landscapes Forum Africa 2026 conference takes place in Nairobi, Kenya and online.

11-15 May: The UN Forum on Forests takes place in New York City, United States.

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 Central American eyelash pit viper. Photo credit: Geoff Gallice — 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 the roadmap for ending deforestation, a framework for nature positive development, support for the EU deforestation regulation, pandemic risks from wildlife trade, updates to the Red List, and biodiversity loss and national security.

• Features about sacred groves, refaunation in Rio, invisible conservation, hope in America, and more.

• Journal papers on beneficial bats in Cambodia, tackling songbird trade in Indonesia, natural forest recovery, human-wildlife conflict in Uganda, 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

Nature positive: Scientists have outlined how a ‘nature positive’ approach can halt and reverse the global decline in biodiversity and help prevent the destabilization of systems that support human well-being. In a new paper, they say it is essential to replace current sustainability frameworks with a nature positive paradigm that brings together finance, governance, rights and more. The paper’s novelty lies in treating Nature Positive not as a slogan but as an Earth‑system stabilization framework. It identifies key gaps in global targets—and by proposing ways of addressing them. See the press release, the full paper and four associated commentary papers — or join the authors and an expert panel to discuss the paper in an online event on 28 May.

Ending deforestation: Five months ago, the Brazilian Presidency of the COP30 climate change conference committed to developing a roadmap for ending deforestation by 2030, to present at this year’s COP31 conference. In February, it called for submissions, and received more than 100 responses from governments, civil society organizations, businesses and other stakeholders by the end of its consultation period on 10 April. Some groups have been sharing their submissions.

• The Forest Declaration Assessment Partners said the roadmap should focus on a small set of high‑impact, immediately actionable levers. It highlights four clusters of priority actions — raising national ambition, strengthening rights and governance, reshaping trade and economic incentives, and aligning finance and financial systems with deforestation‑free goals.

• The Nature4Climate Coalition’s submission outlines five priorities—broad consultation, scientific rigour, alignment with existing frameworks, a coordinated global movement, and long‑term follow‑up.

Writing for Climate Home News, Marcelo Behar — the COP30 Special Envoy for Bioeconomy and co-founder of Ambition Loop Brazil — says the roadmap’s success depends on defining and coordinating concrete action, ensuring accountability, addressing incentives for deforestation, being transparent, and having early milestones for progress and active political engagement.

EUDR: One route to tackling deforestation is regulation, but the flagship effort to do so has not yet set sail. The EU Deforestation Regulation (EUDR) has twice been postponed and weakened. Although it is now set to enter into application at the end of 2026, it is currently being reviewed by the European Commission, raising fears of further dilution. Major brands including Aldi South Group, Nestlé, Danone, Ferrero and Tony’s Chocolonely have urged the Commission to stop revising the law. Meanwhile, forest governance experts at the World Resources Institute have warned against adding a “no risk” category to the EUDR’s country benchmarking system. On 9 April, Forest Trends released research showing the EUDR is already driving forest governance reforms in tropical countries. On 15 April, Fern will host a webinar exploring shifts the EUDR has already triggered, including improved transparency and traceability in forest-risk commodity supply chains — register here.

Red List: The International Union for the Conservation of Nature has moved emperor penguins and Antarctic fur seals into the ‘endangered’ category of its Red List of the threatened species — see the press release. Both species are suffering the impacts of global warming and climate change. The southern elephant seal has moved from the ‘least concern’ category to ‘vulnerable’, because of population declines caused by highly pathogenic avian influenza.

Pandemic risk: Wildlife trade is increasing the risk of diseases spreading between animals and humans, according to the most detailed study of this subject to date. The researchers found that 41 percent of the 2,079 mammal species involved in global trade share at least one pathogen with humans, compared with only 6.4 percent of nontraded species. Using 40 years of data, they showed that wild species accumulate more shared pathogens the longer they continue to be traded. Species sold in live-animal markets and, to a lesser extent, those traded illegally, host more pathogens than those traded solely as products or legally — read the press release or the full paper.

In Focus: Biodiversity Loss and National Security

A UK government report showing how global biodiversity loss presents threats to national security hit the headlines recently. Now, researchers in the United States have drawn similar conclusions. In a new paper, they link ecological disruptions with five aspects of national security, and call for more attention to the role of nature in security planning.

Writing in response to the UK report, Ben Caldecott makes the case for states to take action against those who harm the environment, along a continuum from sanctions and intelligence operations to a “a willingness, at least in principle, to use force against those whose actions threaten the stability of Earth systems on which billions of people depend.”

“If the destruction of globally systemically important ecosystems constitutes a threat to national security,” he writes, “then the actors destroying those ecosystems are threats to national security. Not metaphorically. Literally.”

But framing nature loss as a security issue creates its own risks and could lead to poorly designed actions and policies., say the authors of a new paper in the journal PLOS Climate. They dispute some of the findings in the UK government’s report, particularly around national security risks linked to international migration caused by environmental degradation. The paper says most mobility associated with environmental stressors is local or regional, frequently occurring within national borders or neighbouring countries.

“Securitising biodiversity loss creates a policy environment where certain voices within government, such as defence and border agencies, can disproportionately shape government responses,” said lead author Mark Tebboth in a press release. “This sidelines institutions better suited to address ecological decline, food system fragility, and community resilience.”

In The Spotlight

• Shalinee Kumari wrote about the people fighting to protect India’s Aravalli mountain range from mining – a threat that has grown with the government’s controversial new definition of what land is included in the range.

• Rick MacPherson wrote about how conservation “wins” are actually the product of long, often invisible collective work that is rarely recognized.

• Luke Taylor wrote about how a project is bringing blue‑and‑yellow macaws and other long‑lost species back to Rio de Janeiro’s Tijuca national park after two centuries of local extinction.

• Carl Safina wrote about witnessing decades of US environmental progress being rapidly dismantled, yet still finding reasons to hold on to hope.

• Geetanjali Krishna wrote about how sacred groves are being revived to restore water, biodiversity and climate resilience in Rajasthan, India, even as modern pressures threaten their survival.

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From The Journals

• Cave-roosting bats in Cambodia consume dozens of insect species that damage crops or spread human diseases — read the full paper.

• Trader outreach and consistent law enforcement can sharply suppress open trade in protected songbirds in Indonesia — read the full paper.

• Protecting naturally recovering secondary forests has enormous potential to stop and reverse biodiversity losses — read the full paper.

• A study of more than 1,700 mammal species links subsistence harvesting for food or pets with declining populations — read the full paper.

• Eight ways to address the common failure of efforts to lessen human–wildlife conflict in Uganda — 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

• Alejandro Prescott-Cornejo interviewed environment journalist Gerald Flynn, who was banned from Cambodia after exposing illegal logging there.

• Patricia Miloslavich says humanity already has the scientific tools, data systems, and governance frameworks to confront the ocean biodiversity crisis, but is not using them effectively at the scale required.

• Donor countries pledged an initial US$3.9 billion to the Global Environment Facility, the world’s largest multilateral fund for the environment.

• For nearly 40 years, a gorilla has lived in a glass enclosure on the seventh floor of a department store in Bangkok, Thailand, reports Jack Board, whose new podcast Behind the Glass tells her story.

• Jaguars are running out of prey in Brazil’s Atlantic Forest, reports Sean Mowbray.

• The Trump Administration is dismantling the US Forest Service.

• Monica Piccinini says powerful players are reshaping the Amazon’s bioeconomy, raising questions about who controls the money, sets the rules and decides the rainforest’s future.

• In India, a civil society network is urging the government to set up a central database to track cases of human-wildlife conflict as they occur, reports Shagun.

• Mongabay launched a news desk focused on reporting solutions to environmental challenges.

Tips And Resources

• On 16 April, Covering Climate Now will hold a webinar to launch a new report on the state of climate journalism worldwide — register here.

• El Colectivo 506 published a toolkit for reporting on nature-based solutions to biodiversity loss in Latin America — available in Spanish and English.

• On 21 April, the Nature Crime Alliance and Global Forest Watch are hosting a webinar on geospatial monitoring, forest crime, law enforcement and community experiences — register here.

• The World Resources Institute published the proceedings from workshops in the Congo Basin that built a shared vision for collaboration between civil society forest monitors and journalists investigating illegal logging.

• The Indian government’s Press Information Bureau published an explainer on the country’s policies for biodiversity conservation, clean‑energy growth and climate action.

• Wetlands International launched the Wetland Atlas to accelerate investment in protecting and restoring wetlands — see the press release.

• On 27 April, the Stimson Center has a webinar on how upstream dams are reshaping Cambodia’s flooded forest — register here.

See past editions for more tips and resources.

Jobs And Opportunities

• The Solutions Journalism Network invites US-based newsrooms to apply to receive US$10,000 and 12 months of training and mentorship in covering climate solutions using visual mediums — deadline 24 April.

• The Earth Journalism Network is offering reporting grants to journalists to produce in-depth stories on biodiversity — deadline 1 May.

• Early-career and student science journalists from the Balkans and Eastern Europe can apply for a travel award to attend the 2027 meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science — deadline 8 May.

• Brazil launched a journalism contest in memory of journalist Dom Phillips and Indigenous expert Bruno Pereira, who were murdered in the Amazon in 2022 — apply by 21 May.

• The National Geographic Society is offering grants of US$20,000–100,000 for storytelling projects focused on climate resilience and solutions — deadline 25 May.

Bonus content: There are 32 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

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.

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

28-29 April: The 1st International Conference on the Just Transition Away From Fossil Fuels will be held in Santa Marta, Colombia.

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 black oystercatcher. Photo credit: TRinaud — 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 COP15 of the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species.

• Features about invasive mushrooms, militarized conservation, rights-of-nature, bycatch reduction, trees as kin, fetish vultures, and more.

• Journal papers on Australian protected area expansion, a new global biodiversity hotspot in China, perfume and plant conservation, a victory against poaching, beavers bringing biodiversity, invasive plants, forest restoration, 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

Migratory species: More than 130 governments have agreed a series of measures aimed at protecting migratory species and their habitats. The decisions came at the 15th Conference of Parties to the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species (CMS), which ended on 29 March.

• Parties increased protection for 40 species, subspecies or populations, including various species of sharks, wading birds, petrels, the striped hyena, giant otter and Zimbabwe’s cheetah population — see the press release.

• The CMS Secretariat launched a global initiative to address unsustainable and illegal capture of migratory species — see the press release.

• A new global assessment launched at the conference identified 325 species of migratory freshwater fish species in need of urgent protection — see the press release.

• The CMS Secretariat also launched an online tool mapping the full annual journeys of 89 at-risk migratory bird species across the Americas — see the press release.

For more on the conference, see reactions from WWF, BirdLife International and the Wildlife Conservation Society or read the Earth Negotiations Bulletin’s detailed summary of the meeting.

In The Spotlight

• Spoorthy Raman reported on how a booming belief‑based market for vulture parts in Benin is driving the critically endangered hooded vulture toward local extinction.

• Mohamed Madi wrote about an invasive mushroom is rapidly spreading in North American forests and how scientists and citizen mycologists are scrambling to protect native fungi from its ecological impacts.

• Simon Wokorach reported on the militarised anti‑poaching operations around Uganda’s Murchison Falls National Park that have left a trail of extrajudicial killings, disappearances and grieving families.

• Katie Surma wrote about how a Shuar community in Ecuador is using paraecology and rights‑of‑nature science to defend their Amazonian territory from a Canadian mining project.

• Gennaro Tomma reported on emerging fishing technologies that are helping reduce the bycatch of turtles, dolphins and other marine wildlife.

• Moushumi Basu wrote about how families in the Thar Desert of Rajasthan, India are transforming the landscape through a cultural movement that treats trees as kin.

• Kang‑Chun Cheng reported on scientists in Mozambique who are uncovering the ecological and economic importance of cave-dwelling bats in Gorongosa National Park.

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From The Journals

• Australia’s expansion of protected areas has not been in the places needed to protect threatened species — read the press release or the full paper.

• Central China proposed as the newest global biodiversity hotspot — read the press release or the full paper.

• Why the fragrance industry should champion and finance plant conservation — read the full paper.

• The first empirical evidence showing that a synthetic wildlife product substitute introduced to reduce poaching has led to a measurable population recovery of a species — read the full paper.

• Hotspots of plant invasions are projected to expand more in temperate than tropical regions — read the press release or the full paper.

• Improving landscapes around forest remnants can dramatically increase bird diversity in them — read the press release or the full paper.

• Are there enough native tree seed sources to meet forest restoration targets? — read the full paper.

• Beaver-created wetlands in Finland had on average 19 percent more species than other types of wetland — read the press release or the full paper.

What Caught My Eye

• More than 1.3 million tonnes of fish were caught inside the UK’s marine protected areas between 2020 and 2024, according to Greenpeace’s analysis of official data

• The Nature Conservancy is developing financing deals worth a combined US$500 million to protect key ecosystems in three African countries, reports Duncan Miriri.

• Conservationist Anne Poelina explains why she gave first authorship on research papers about the Martuwarra watershed to the river itself.

• Indonesian forest loss rose by 66 percent in 2025, reaching the highest level in eight years, report Ananda Teresia and Bernadette Christina.

• Taejun Kang reported on a new study showing that shortcomings in carbon markets limit their value as a tool for conserving biodiversity.

• Prime Minister Mark Carney launched Canada’s new, 3.8-billion-dollar nature strategy.

• The Global Biodiversity Framework Fund approved US$73 million in funding for 20 projects across 25 countries.

• Milestone: Ten percent of the ocean is now officially protected — the target of 30 percent by 2030 looks remote.

• The Society of Environmental Journalists announced its 2026 awards — check out the winners and their stories.

• Writing about extinction is an act of hope, says John Platt.

• Kristen French interviewed James McCommons, author of The Feather Wars, about the changing roles of hunters in bird conservation.

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 Climate Narrative Hub launched the Human–Wildlife Interactions Reporting Manual — with Hindi and Marathi versions coming soon.

• Joseph A. Davis wrote a backgrounder on the ecological consequences of insect declines.

• On 9 April, the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication has a webinar for journalists on how to engage audiences with climate solutions stories — register here.

• On 14 April, CIFOR-ICRAF and partners are holding a webinar to launch the Sustainable Use of Wild Species Transformative Partnership Platform — register here.

• See past editions for more tips and resources.

Jobs And Opportunities

• The Committee to Protect Journalists is hiring a Climate Change and Press Freedom Fellow — deadline 12 April.

• The Earth Journalism Network has grants for journalists to report on the 30x30 marine protection target — deadline 21 April.

• The Earth Journalism Network invites journalists in Asia to apply to join a three-day online workshop about reporting on the regions gibbons and orangutans — deadline 24 April.

• The Earth Journalism Network is offering reporting grants to journalists to support the production of in-depth stories on biodiversity — deadline 1 May.

• Grist is hiring a reporter to focus on climate change — no deadline listed.

Bonus content: There are 32 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

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.

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

25-30 April: The 15th UN Crime Congress will be held in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates.

28-29 April: The 1st International Conference on the Just Transition Away From Fossil Fuels will be held in Santa Marta, Colombia.

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 snow leopard. Photo credit: Tambako the Jaguar — 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