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With privilege should come responsibility. And in the case of the following show-business celebrities, it has. They are using their visibility, popularity and wealth to promot...
Loss of biological diversity has accelerated to such a degree that most biologists consider this age to be the Holocene Extinction. The International Union for Conservation of...
The Earth is always sending messages. All we have to do is to look and listen to understand what she says. The most important message is that love is the intelligence connecti...
Who owns your favorite hiking trail? Who is responsible for the pristine mountain, valley, lake or stream that you see every day on your way to work, or where you go to get aw...
Here are two more ways to help you drop tourism and really travel:
Tip 4: Seek Out Cultural Arts, Sites and Ritual The community theatre production I attended on Grand Baha...
Teaching kids to appreciate the environment is important to their happiness and to humanity’s survival. And it all starts with parents modeling responsible stewardship of th...
NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council): "The Obama administration has taken a promising step but now must reverse an illegal exemption to the roadless rule...Protect the Ton...
Friends of the Earth: "The project was given the go ahead during the administration of President Oscar Arias despite the threat to the rich biodiversity in the San Juan river ...
"Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in, where nature may heal and give strength to body and soul." - John Muir ≈ ≈ ≈ See more Planet...
NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council): "A proposal to create a U.N. World Heritage site could save the wild heart of Canada’s boreal forest." >>> Take Action!
The bobcat, timber rattlesnake, trumpeter swan, cave salamander and pirate perch. No one would blame you if you assumed these species reside only in zoos. Actually, they are s...
In November 2008 I went to Chile because that’s where one of South America’s most important eco-fights is currently being fought. The battle is over the fate of the Baker ...
Artists have always been inspired by nature, but now they are using it to remind people that nature still exists—in a still beautiful, but increasingly fragile state. The 10...
As I've written previously, technology is bringing the mysteries of the animal kingdom right to our computers. Thanks to broadband Internet connections, you can get up close ...
Worried about prices at the pump and a shrinking oil supply? Most are. This commodity literally fuels our economy and its deficit is enough to spark war. But look behind the o...
There are many great environmental documentaries besides Al Gore’s informative and award-winning film, An Inconvenient Truth. If you are in the mood for some ecologically th...
WWF (World Wildlife Fund): "Forests are amazing storehouses of biological diversity, housing over two-thirds of all known terrestrial species. Yet almost half of our planet's ...
Greenpeace: "In a tremendous victory for ancient forests, including the North American Boreal Forest, Kimberly-Clark has announced a new policy that protects endangered fore...
NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council): "Tar sands mining and drilling in Canada's boreal forest is destroying critical nesting areas for millions of birds. Tell the Canadia...
Tofurkey, Tofu Scrambler and No Chicken Noodle Soup probably weren’t on Mom’s grocery list, but perhaps they should have been. These animal-free products, and many other...
"The children and nature movement is fueled by this fundamental idea: the child in nature is an endangered species, and the health of children and the health of the Earth are ...
Massey Energy’s coal-mine explosion and more recently, BP’s drilling-platform explosion in the Gulf of Mexico—resulting in the biggest oil spill in history—underscore ...
As my six-year-old son careened down the path in skates, he stopped to pick up a piece of trash along the way. He remarked that garbage along pathways could be dangerous for...
Hiking off the trail is the physical equivalent of free association. Think jazz with your daypack on. Jackson Pollack in hiking boots. With each step, you have 360 degrees to ...
In a recent issue of Nature Conservancy Magazine, scientist M.A. Sanjayan describes, in his article “Animal Surveillance,” new technology that allows biologists, and YouTu...
Today is "Save the Frogs" Day! Why do we need such a day? Frogs have been disappearing worldwide at unprecedented rates, and currently one-third of the world's 6,485 amphibian...
When I told a friend that I wanted to write something about electronics waste (e-waste), he called me “Sister Mary Margaret,” grumbling that I remind him of the nuns fro...
Most of the ragged survivors of our crusade to exterminate Mexican wolves—a slaughter that ended less than 40 years ago—have been living in cages all these long years. Gen...
In 19th-century Europe, it was still possible to scare children with stories about forests—dark and treacherous places, filled with spirits, wolves, bears and other man-eati...
Donning snowshoes, I leave the plowed, shoveled and accessible world that we humans carve out of the winter snows. Each snowfall is cleared from what is “in bounds” for hu...
Here's the problem with wildlife—they prefer things wild. Turns out, undomesticated animals don't like roads or condos or, well, visitors. They thrive in what ecologists cal...
In modern history, most countries have lost the vast majority of their forests. Japan is a well-known exception. In the 17th century, the Tokugawa regime outlawed logging on p...
Toss a mega loop of rope over the Four Corners where Utah, Colorado, New Mexico and Arizona meet. Now arrange the perimeter so it divides Utah diagonally northeast-southwest...
Congratulations, Yaguarete Pora S.A., you’ve worked hard to earn this year’s Survival International Greenwashing Award. Bulldozing thousands of hectares of tribal forest...
This is the story of a food coma turned deadly. It begins on a farm, where a pair of deer have spent the night gorging themselves on potatoes. When morning comes, they are too...
It's almost the end of February. Still the dead of winter in Maine. Night time temps regularly dip below 0º. Nothing but snow and ice as far as the eye can see. Skin gets all...
Let me start by saying what sustainability is not. It is not endless consumerism based on the pharmaceutical industry, plastic bags, traffic jams, war, clear cuts, chemicals, ...
If nature came in a bottle, you can bet that every pediatrician would prescribe it. Time spent in nature can improve a child’s attention, boost creativity, reduce stress and...
Prairie dogs are the eyes of the community. - Terry Tempest Williams
Groundhog Day is most famously celebrated in Punxsutawney, Pennsylvania, where almost always, Phil retr...
Lodu leads his visitors to the top of his temple and sacred god—Niam Raja, as he calls this mountain—and hangs his axe head over his sinuous, copper-skinned shoulder. They...
What exactly is the creature that roams the forests and fields of the northeastern US and eastern Canada under the name “coyote?” Can it be the same species as that found ...
Wallace “J.” Nichols has an inordinate fondness for sea turtles. His Ph.D. dissertation was on the “Biology and Conservation of Sea Turtles in Baja California, Mexico....
As part of the Congo Basin rainforest, the world’s 2nd largest, the west central African country of Gabon contains numerous flora and fauna, some extremely rare. This lush h...
Not long ago, I wrote about a terrible coyote attack in Nova Scotia that took the life of 19-year-old Taylor Mitchell. I concluded that although coyotes have the potential to ...
In February 2008, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) launched the Climate Neutral Network. Its objective is to “facilitate information exchange and networking o...
I spend a great deal of my time with people who spend their lives in daily contact with nature and one of the more interesting things I’ve noticed is that these people are d...
Tom Wyant gets some strange calls. Recently, he got one about a public display of affection. It seemed a young couple had parked themselves beneath some poor woman’s window ...
Back in 1966, a CIA interrogation specialist named Cleve Backster performed an interesting experiment.
Because lie detectors measure skin moisture (sweat) through galvanic r...
“Look at that,” I say to seven-year-old Max as we linger in the back yard on an autumn afternoon. “Those two are both maple trees. That one’s already lost almost all o...
My Tibetan friend, Tsultrim Gyatso, recently invited me to the opening of his documentary film, Blood of the Earth—Colorado River. He founded the Tibetan Ecology Foundation,...
Located high above the western tree lines, from British Columbia to New Mexico, live a small species of rabbits called the American Pika. While these diminutive critters, othe...
Bushfires in Victoria, an Australian state located in the southeast of the country, killed 173 people and injured 400 earlier this year. Those 400 fires—the worst on record...
The message the young buck was sending came through loud and clear. He wanted out and if he wasn't given his freedom, he'd find his own way out. Which he did, repeatedly. He n...
I hang up the phone, collect my thoughts for a moment, then pick up the receiver and make another call. I explain to the person on the other end that there is a bald eagle tha...
A reader kindly pointed out to me in response to my blog about hiking alone that I wasn’t hiking alone; I was with my dog! Her comment got me thinking deep thoughts. Yes, I ...
Steve rowed the boat slowly, speaking in measured phrases between his strokes. Occasionally he looked over his shoulder to see if we were still on course for Burying Island. H...
“Since the publication of René Descartes’ Discourse on Method (1637) and Meditations (1641), and Isaac Newton’s Principia Mathematica (1687), the mechanistic model has ...
Last May, as I made my way back to California from New Mexico, I spent a few days at Bryce Canyon National Park and did some hiking there. (Not with my dog. Too hot for him to...
A couple of months back, Malcolm Gladwell wrote an excellent story for the New Yorker about the full-court press, a basketball strategy wherein the defense hassles the offense...
About a week ago, I walked through pea-soup fog on a small beach where I had never been before. My view was limited to no more than 75 meters. Waves gently lapped the gravel b...
For most of my life, with a few brief interludes, I have lived with one person or another who was unpredictable and so made my life hell. Learning to bend and learning to live...
Patricia Wright is currently a professor in the department of Anthropology at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, member of the National Geographic Society’s Co...
“Hey Mistah!"
The voice sailed across the bay and I turned my kayak to see if he was yelling to me. Sure enough, there was a boy, about 11 years old, with the distinctive ...
I won’t deny there have been times when I’ve felt unwelcome or in the wrong place when I’ve been outside. And I’ve felt scared, like perhaps I was in a good place but ...
Imagine living in the Rocky Mountain west and stepping off your porch to take in pastoral fields edged with golden cottonwoods. Your view climbs to a band of aspen hemming the...
I was in downtown Santa Fe eating gelato a few evenings ago when a man—wearing a bike helmet spiked with a Mickey-the-Sorcerer statuette—stopped to chat. He introduced him...
This started out as a top-ten-books-about-environmentalism op-ed—essentially the books that shaped my eco-philosophy. And some of those books still remain, but the more I th...
What a difference a few miles of gravel can make. This area of Maine is not known as an exercise mecca. You won't find spandex-wearing people here squirting energy drinks down...
Soybeans, baseball and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. That’s Ohio to most. And to some degree, it is to me, too. But it’s also the place I was born and raised. A plac...
I have spent most of my life playing gravity games. First it was skiing, then surfing, then rock climbing and back to surfing. Finally, here I am at age 42, learning how to do...
A century ago this month, on July 18, 1909, a fresh-faced young forester, the ink barely dry on his Yale diploma, arrived in Springerville, Arizona. Aldo Leopold, who would be...
Looking back is often a good way to learn how to move forward. Looking back is especially relevant when trying to figure out how to live in the present real world and not caus...
What is the environment? What is the outdoors? I know what my answers to these questions are. Giant vistas of desert and red rock backed by mountains on the horizon. The sky s...
This is a good news/bad news kind of story. First the good news: new research indicates that, should arctic sea ice continue to disappear as a result of climate change, polar ...
A friend, reflecting on the healing power of the outdoors, wrote me and said, “I think there may be something about going to those beautiful natural places that helps set pe...
Out like a lamb, March heralds spring and its dewy, warm air. It’s just begging me to unearth my musty tent from its winter quarters in the basement—along with the relat...
Last week, there was a rousing bit of good news out of the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. According to work done by 240 independent researchers (analyzed b...
We live in an urban environment, for the most part. Lots of gravel, small patches of grass and a sprinkling of trees. We’ve been making trips to rural Pennsylvania lately to...
To escape urban life, my family enjoys car camping in one of many gorgeous state and national parks in the intermountain West. I prefer a tent to a hotel room, where noisy ven...
“I discovered that in Paris, there are a heap of other birds than just pigeons or sparrows. During our outing, we saw more than 60 different kinds of birds; extraordinary!...
Across Indonesia, millions of acres of forest have been clear-cut for high-value timber, then abandoned. These large areas, without enough trees left to quickly reseed the for...
In response to rapid population growth in Asia and increasing demand in the Western world for trans-fat-free oils, the market for palm and palm kernel oil has exploded over th...
We usually think about how we live in the real world and how we take care of it in terms of protection--setting aside special places--and pollution--being more careful with th...
For those of us who live a more natural lifestyle, interacting with our relatives who do not can be challenging. We want to stick with our homemade, natural lives without look...
Roberta Salazar spent almost a decade as a wildlife biologist conducting field surveys and filing reports for federal government agencies. But her efforts were not enhancing b...
It’s the kind of thing that seems exciting. Scientists with the United States Geological Survey (USGS) in Denver, Colorado have just released the news that gas hydrates—a ...
When Paul Stamets gives a presentation, his fervor for fungi is tempered only by his modesty. He brings you along into the hobbit shire (he actually wears a cap made of mushro...
The double messages in our culture exhaust me. The most blatant example of this is a women’s magazine with a chocolate cake on the cover (“Make this luscious chocolate in ...
I walk a lot. I have a dog. He likes to walk a lot, too. Every day, and for hours, if I would agree. I often do. Still, in the winter, going outside at all takes a serious com...
A few thousand years ago, man discovered how to store surplus supplies of food and water and became free to move from farm to city (long story short, of course). Since then, t...
Read this and pause...
“The real world goes like this: The Never Summer Mountains like a jumble of broken glass. Snowfields weep slowly down. Chambers Lake, ringed by tree...
My husband gave me a gift that I first thought very unromantic, even dull: a birdbath warmer. I realize now that this floppy, horseshoe-shaped device has softened my dread of ...
Walden (1854), a classic of American nature writing and American literature in general, describes the 26 months during which Henry David Thoreau lived alone in a shack at Wald...
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