Tag archives for National Geographic grants
Posted by As of today, the National Geographic Society has issued 10,000 grants funding research and exploration since 1890–including ten National Geographic grant projects that, according to an internal panel, “have made the greatest difference in understanding the Earth.” Barbara Moffet interviews Krithi Karanth, a 32-year-old conservation biologist based in Bangalore, India, the recipient of National Geographic’s 10,000th grant.
Posted by On the occasion of National Geographic making its 10,000th grant for exploration, we interview Peter Raven, chairman of the Committee for Research and Exploration, the Society’s oldest grant-making body. Raven discusses why funding scientific research and exploration has never been more important, especially as the human population has passed the 7,000,000,000 mark, and the planet is pressed hard to meet everyone’s needs.
“There is still so much to explore and discover about our planet,” National Geographic Executive Vice President for Mission Programs, Terry Garcia, said today at the launch of National Geographic’s new Global Exploration Fund. “We are at the beginning of our greatest age of exploration.”
Changing Climate a Hot Topic Among Himalayan Villagers, Study Finds
Posted by Brian Handwerk on September 9, 2011 Warmer temperatures, variable monsoons, and other signs of climate change are a hot topic of conversation among many Himalayan villagers, according to scientific sampling of climate change perception among local peoples.
Kenyan Chainsaw Gang Thwarted
Posted by Amy Bucci of NG Staff on June 4, 2011 National Geographic Big Cats Initiative grantee Anne Kent Taylor continues her updates from the field in Kenya this weekend. Her adventures this week include a giraffe rescue and an encounter with a chainsaw gang. Taylor has been using funding from the Big Cats Initiative to provide wire fencing to Kenya’s Maasai herders, on the basis…
Dr. Stephen B. Malcolm, professor at Western Michigan University, has been studying monarch butterflies in the field for 28 years, recently with support from National Geographic’s Committee for Research and Exploration. He can tell you all about the monarchs passing through your garden this spring — and some of their mysterious cousins in South America.
A few years back, Gianluca Serra found a legendary bird thought extinct in Syria, with funds from National Geographic’s Committee for Research and Exploration. Now Serra is trying to forge a stable population of these ungainly creatures, with a little help from a prince and some first ladies. By Barbara Moffet Q: The northern bald…
By Jesús Gómez-Zurita New Caledonia, an island archipelago east of Australia, has long been recognized as a hotspot for biodiversity, maintaining a rich and mostly endemic flora and fauna, including some emblematic examples of island oddities and living fossils. As is typically the case in the tropics, despite the obvious appeal of New Caledonia for biodiversity studies,…
National Geographic Big Cats Initiative grantee Anne Kent Taylor sent another dispatch from the field in Kenya’s Maasai Mara region. Her account details life among Africa’s wild big cats and the growing conflict between humans and animals competing for the same resources. Anne Kent Taylor’s National Geographic grant supports her work in providing chainlink fencing…
Willeke Wendrich, professor of Egyptian archaeology and digital humanities at the Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at the University of California, Los Angeles, answers questions about the volatile situation in Egypt. She has received three grants from the National Geographic Society’s Committee for Research and Exploration to investigate agricultural sites from the Neolithic period in Egypt’s…
Anne Kent Taylor continues her reports from the field in Kenya, where she and local collaborators have been providing chainlink fencing to farmers to shield their cattle, goats and other animals from big predators. In the face of “horrific” predation of livestock, the fencing program has been achieving very encouraging results. One farmer reported watching…
Anne Kent Taylor reports from rural Kenya that her project to help livestock farmers fence their animals at night has put barriers around 200 bomas–and so far there have been no reports of predation in the protected enclosures. The work is supported by the National Geographic Big Cats Initiative, an initiative by the National geographic…
National Geographic grantee Cagan Sekercioglu has been named Scientist of the Year by a consortium of media in Turkey. The honor caps a year of achievement for the biologist, who is both on the faculty at the University of Utah and a doçent, the equivalent of associate professor, in Turkey. Earlier in 2010, Sekercioglu was…
Nepal’s estimated 120 adult wild tigers do not take into account the young mountain landscape in the Churia region, so the country could be home to more big cats than believed. Using a grant from the National Geographic Society/Waitt Institute Program, biologist Kanchan Thapa is currently in the field, setting camera traps and looking for…
Thailand’s Western Forest Complex (WEFCOM) is a large protected landscape along the Thailand-Myanmar border of the Tenasserim Range that covers more than 18,000 square kilometers (7,000 square miles), and is one of the largest protected area systems in Southeast Asia. Most WEFCOM habitat has the potential to hold approximately 10 tigers per 100 square kilometers (40…
In Tanzania’s Tarangire ecosystem, lions and the Maasai people live alongside one another outside the borders of Tarangire and Lake Manyara National Parks. People and lions come into direct and frequent conflict when the big cats attack and kill the Maasai’s livestock and harm people. Intense retaliatory killing of lions occurs on a regular basis.…
Continuing her blogging from the field, in the Maasai Mara in Kenya, National Geographic Big Cats Initiative grantee Anne Kent Taylor reports that to date some two hundred livestock enclosures have been fenced against predators–and thusfar there has not been a single report of a protected animal taken by a big cat. “This is so…
Update: Dangerous Trek Begins, October 21, 2010 From Alton Byers: We just arrived in Lukla and head out to the the Hongu valley tomorrow, and will be out of touch for three weeks. Once we enter the valley over the 4200 m Mera La pass, we’ll trek up valley, climb to and film the dangerous…
Into Africa, Outside the “Bubble”
Posted by Stuart Pimm on September 14, 2010 Managing Africa’s wildlife means taking care of animals outside national parks and, vitally, taking care of the people there, too. By Stuart Pimm Mara National Park, Kenya–I’m sitting in the bar of a game lodge perched high on a koppie. The view is outstanding, for I can see better than 180 degrees of land stretching…
If cats really do have nine lives, the big wild cats of Africa are probably down to their last one or two. But help may be on the way, in the form of an ambitious new program to explore, test, and develop successful strategies to restore and safeguard the continent’s lions, cheetahs, and leopards. The…
Building better bomas
Posted by Stuart Pimm on August 25, 2010 National Geographic Big Cats Initiative (BCI) scientist Stuart Pimm ventures into East Africa to study bomas, the traditional shelters constructed to corral livestock. He visits two BCI grantees working with local herders to fortify bomas with wire and spiny plants in so-called ”living fences.” The hope is that if farm animals can be protected their owners will have…
The National Geographic Big Cats Initiative funds researchers and conservationists attempting to restore and protect big cats in the wild. In this third post from the field, Big Cats Initiative grantee Anne Kent Taylor wraps up the account of her recent visit to herders in the Masai Mara district of Kenya, where she has been…
In this second post from the field, National Geographic Big Cats Initiative grantee Anne Kent Taylor reports on how her work to provide chainlink fencing to livestock farmers in rural Kenya is successfully keeping lions and other large predators at bay. Taylor is using her Big Cats Initiative grant to mitigate the conflict between predators…
Biscayne National Park, Florida–After 24 straight hours of exploration and documentation, the Biscayne bioblitz provided a snapshot of the many land and water species that live in Biscayne National Park, the National Geographic Society said today. “Led by more than 200 scientists from around the country, thousands of amateur explorers, families and schoolchildren from south…
Among the scientists participating in the 2010 BioBlitz, in Biscayne National Park at the end of April, is Neil Losin, a National Geographic Young Explorer. Losin received a grant from National Geographic in 2009 to study territorial behavior between species, specifically two species of exotic lizards that have taken up residence in Florida. Photo of…
