By Monika Freyman, water program manager at Ceres Proposed standards that the U.S. Department of Interior announced last week for hydraulic fracturing (aka fracking) on federal and Indian lands are hugely important, especially in the arid West where water is gold. Unfortunately, water protection gets short shrift in the rules that, once finalized, will apply to…
Three thousand people explored the Louisiana swamps during BioBlitz last weekend, but an exhibit in town reveals the deep roots of the naturalist tradition in New Orleans.
By Brett Garling, Mission Blue In a fantastic event last night at the Seattle Aquarium, National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Sylvia Earle and Greenpeace’s Phil Radford announced the Bering Sea Canyons as the official 19th Hope Spot. The event attracted a large turnout and impassioned speeches in defense of the new Hope Spot. Moreover, a bonafide airship…
Veronica Del Bianco of the Natural Leaders Network reveals the special way BioBlitz strengthens the bond between children and nature.
Melody Kramer of National Geographic magazine will be live blogging today’s National Geographic Bee—the last to be hosted by Alex Trebek, along with staffers Brian Howard and Amy Bucci. Kramer is a Bee veteran—she was once a contestant in the New Jersey county finals. If she could go back in time, she would study Easter…
The Most Incredible Oklahoma Tornado Videos
Posted by Guest Blogger on May 21, 2013 
See some of the most compelling clips of the Oklahoma tornado, as chosen by National Geographic’s video editors.
By Andreas Merkl, President, Ocean Conservancy Smart fisheries management is a great place to start a conversation about putting the ocean at the center of the world’s biggest challenges. This is because the most profitable type of fishing is sustainable fishing – better management helps fishermen and the ocean at the same time. Sustainable fishing…
By Mark J. Spalding, President, The Ocean Foundation One recent Monday, I got to spend the day doing something outside, not in a conference room, not in my office, just out in one of North America’s great natural wonders. My day began at 7, when the executive director of the Mobile Botanical Gardens, Bill…
A rare and captivating glimpse of London’s busy streets, filmed in color during the summer of 1926, has been gathering a lot of attention on the web this week. The footage was shot by a pioneering British cinematographer named Claude Friese-Greene, as the final segment of a 26-part travelogue of the British countryside he had…
In the opening scenes of Star Trek Into Darkness, Spock (Zachary Quinto) is dropped in the middle of an active volcano. His mission? To stop the volcano from exploding before it destroys everything in its path. His equipment? A suitcase-sized “cold fusion” device, designed to destroy the volcano — and nothing else. Is this even…
Ladders for Voles—Plus 5 Man-made Wildlife Crossings
Posted by Guest Blogger on May 16, 2013 
The old joke asks, “Why did the chicken cross the road?” But in the world of wildlife conservation, the big question is, “How did the animal cross the road?” And the answer is often: With the help of a bridge or tunnel so there are no worries about animal-vehicle collisions. One conservation group is testing,…
“The Woman With the iPad” Disrupts Epic Mountain Gorilla Trek
Posted by Guest Blogger on May 16, 2013 
By Doris Schaffer After flying to Uganda, making my way to Rwanda, and actually trekking twice to visit mountain gorillas, I thought I’d be writing a travelogue describing the lush country of a thousand hills and the difficulty of getting to the gorilla habitats. I was certain I’d be explaining that mountain gorillas are endangered…
By Kelli Barrett, Ecosystem Marketplace In East China’s Fujian Province, the booming economy has been good to the cities of Sanming and Nanping, as well as to farmers in the surrounding hills. That, however, has been bad news for the Min River and to the downstream city of Fuzhou, which gets its water from…
Extreme size differences among animal sexes might give a matchmaker pause, but make good evolutionary sense, according to an author of a new book.
By Mark J. Spalding, President, The Ocean Foundation One recent weekend, I drove north from Washington, D.C., with some trepidation. It had been a beautiful October day the last time I headed to Long Beach, New York. Then, I was excited about seeing colleagues in the Surfrider International community who were gathering for their annual…
By Andreas Merkl of Ocean Conservancy I recently joined Ocean Conservancy as its new CEO because I believe in one simple but very ambitious premise: the ocean must be at the very center of the key challenge of our time. That challenge is how to meet the enormous resource demands of a rapidly growing global…
Saving Lives, Livelihoods, and Life
Posted by Guest Blogger on April 22, 2013 
By Harold E. Varmus, Director of the U.S. National Cancer Institute; and Robert D. Hormats, Under Secretary of State for Economic Growth, Energy, and the Environment For many people, the term biodiversity might seem highly technical and irrelevant to their day to day concerns. If you think that, think again. It may just save your life.…
By Alison Barratt of Monterey Bay Aquarium Is it really OK to eat Chilean seabass? For nearly a decade, we’ve been hearing “Take a pass on Chilean Seabass,” that pirates are plundering our oceans to put this fish on our plates. And now the Seafood Watch program at the Monterey Bay Aquarium is saying some of it…
By Mark J. Spalding, President, The Ocean Foundation Last week, Enric Sala of the National Geographic Society spoke about the Society’s Pristine Seas program, which has visited an array of countries to highlight the important marine regions that need protection. In 2012, Sala led an expedition to the Pitcairn Archipelago, which is famous as the…
Best Rare-Bird Pictures of 2012 Named
Posted by Guest Blogger on April 5, 2013 
In an international competition, photographers competed to capture pictures of the world’s rarest birds.
Vietnam PM Grants Bear Sanctuary a Reprieve
Posted by Guest Blogger on April 2, 2013 
By Leanne Younes Moon bears ‘Mara’ and ‘Angus’ – two of the rescued bears at the Animals Asia sanctuary in North Vietnam – are free to enjoy their freedom a while longer, following a last-minute reprieve (see our previous post on this sanctuary). In an 11th hour decision in January, the Prime Minister of Vietnam,…
By Linda Poon April Fools’ Day is when people roll out their best pranks, tricks, and other shenanigans just for the sake of a good laugh. But compared with the tricksters of the animal kingdom, we’re all just amateurs. (Related: “April Fools’ Day Pictures: Seven Animal Hoaxes.”) For nature’s masters of deception, the use of…
By Claire Schoen Media Most of the great cities, the world over, are built along the water. So are many towns, hamlets, and villages. But sea level rise and extreme weather, both fueled by climate change, threaten to reclaim coastal lands and the communities that are built on them. The destruction of New York’s shoreline,…
Eyes widened and jaws fell as contestants on Sunday’s episode of The Amazing Race took on the challenge of digging for scorpions in Botswana’s Kalahari Desert—then watched in bewilderment as their Bushmen escorts put the scorpions in their mouths. The show never made it completely clear why anyone would put a venomous creepy crawler in…
By Claire Schoen Media An estuary is a magical place where ocean water mingles with fresh river flows, creating a wealth of biological diversity. The San Francisco Bay is actually a huge estuary and through the narrow throat of it’s golden gate, one quarter of its water ebbs and flows each day. Kayaker and journalist…
