Greece plans to create two large marine parks and end bottom trawling, it announced at an international conference on the protecting the world’s oceans. It also aims to cut the volume of plastic waste flowing into Greek waters in half. “The ocean has paid a heavy price for its service to humankind. It has been a vital source of life […]

More than 80 years after the iconic Xerces Blue butterfly vanished from San Francisco, researchers have analyzed century-old specimens of the butterfly to track down its closest living relative, the Silvery Blue. Last week, they released a handful of Silvery Blues on the western edge of the city, where Xerces Blues once thrived. In 1943, the Xerces Blue became the […]

An extensive analysis of satellite imagery has uncovered thousands of miles of unmapped roads slicing through Asia’s tropical rainforests. So-called “ghost roads” may be laid down by miners, loggers, poachers, drug traffickers, and land grabbers, often illegally. In Southeast Asia, the reach of such roads is “severely underestimated, with many roads being out of government control,” said Bill Laurance, of […]