Watamu Beach in Kenya attracts flocks of tourists who spend their days sunbathing, snorkeling and diving along hundreds of miles of coastline on the Indian Ocean. Yet increasing tourism—Reuters reports total visitors to Kenya as a whole rose 15.4 percent to 1.26 million in 2011—and other human-induced factors are putting marine wildlife, particularly sea turtles, […]
Born into the Samburu tribe of northern Kenya, Tom Lalampaa could have ended up following the traditional pastoral lifestyle of his people – had his brother made a different choice. When Tom was a child, his father called his sons to him and said, “I’d like one of you to go to school and the […]
As more and more large animals are driven to the brink of extinction, one of the primary challenges facing conservationists lies in counteracting the belief that such wildlife endangers human settlements and livelihoods. A number of organizations are now aiming their work at alleviating conflict between humans and large animals, with tourism identified as an […]
Between September and March each year, hundreds of dolphins are hunted in the waters off Taiji, Japan, in the largest dolphin slaughter in the world to date. Western criticism of the dolphin hunts reached a fever pitch last year after the release of the US documentary The Cove, whose makers used remote-controlled helicopters and hidden […]
With conflicts over natural resources in Peru escalating, the passage of a new law permitting military intervention to address civil unrest has left Amnesty International concerned about potential human rights violations in the country. On September 11 the military was deployed under the new law in anticipation of protests over a proposed irrigation project in […]
Four of the world’s 10 largest freshwater fish migrate up the Mekong River to spawn, yet the lives of these big fish—which can grow to be the length of a four-door car and weigh over 1,300 pounds—are at risk should a hydropower plant be built on a stretch of the river in northwestern Laos. The […]
An expert on the ethical side of conservation and tourism development has published a controversial new book strongly criticizing current conservation efforts. In Nature Crime: How We’re Getting Conservation Wrong Rosaleen Duffy claims that the dominating Western approach to conservation damages the environment and criminalizes local people. The current approach is based on separating people […]
The government of Tanzania has approved a major commercial highway across Serengeti National Park in the direct path of the park’s world-famous wildlife migration routes. Conservationists and members of the travel industry strongly oppose the construction, arguing that such a highway would be devastating to the Serengeti’s fragile ecosystem and would therefore negatively impact Tanzania’s […]
The isolated and biodiverse archipelago of Galapagos is a double World Heritage site, with both the land and the marine area being protected. While Galapagos is in many ways thriving, the flora and fauna are being threatened by invasive species. More than 600 miles off the Ecuadorian coast, Galapagos has a rich ecology which caught […]
