"Monteverde has one of the few cloud forests left in the world, as they are one of the first forests to disappear due to global warming," said Rodrigo Valverde, co-founder of Sky Adventures. "It [contains] 2.5 percent of all the world's biodiversity, which makes it one of the few places in the world where you can see the most exuberant flora and fauna."
The South Florida Reef Tract, once decimated by dredging in the 1950s, has bounced back, a resilient sign of hope in these ecologically depressing times.
Before state Route 62 was built, there was seamless 95-mile-long habitat connectivity between the San Bernardino and Little San Bernardino mountain ranges, extending from the I-10 south of Joshua Tree National Park to the I-15 near the Cajon Pass. Now, plans for two new wildlife crossings across the highway aim to bring back some of that connectivity, while potentially saving a local population on the brink of extinction in the process.
We found our route but advanced only a few hundred yards before encountering an impassable logjam. The dense forests on either side meant that we couldn't go around it, only through.
'Our results show that the next 20 years are critical,' lead author Dr Rob Cooke told the Daily Mail. 'By around 2050, we reach a point where the choices we make on emissions and land use will largely determine whether Britain moves towards a much more degraded or a much more nature‑positive future.'
According to color psychology, this soothing shade helps decrease stress and improve focus-and travelers can reap these much-deserved benefits in lush landscapes around the world. Here are 10 of the greenest places on earth, which combine serenity with unforgettable adventures.
An unnamed tourist saw it and told Aidan Moore, who works for Alcatraz City Cruises. Moore told SFGATE that he was initially skeptical, but the guest's iPhone footage left little room for doubt. The video shows, not a sea lion or an otter, but an actual Canis latrans, doggedly dogpaddling, then clambering out of the water, noticeably shaky and struggling to settle tired paws on the craggy rocks.
The body is a shifting landscape transformed by surfaces and sensations. Each look captures a different tactile world: the heat of blood, the cool weight of metal, the yielding drift of water. The result is a sculptural study of how the elements carve, shield, and release the self. The materials we embody become the emotions we carry, and the body becomes a materialised exhibition of our emotions, from the pulse of Blood to the discipline of Metal to the surrender of Water.
Wildlife populations are in decline. Recreation sites are crowded and often underfunded. Wildfires are larger, more destructive and harder to control. Climate change is reshaping natural systems, from ocean fisheries to mountain snowpacks, faster than institutions can respond. At the same time, communities are being asked to host new energy projects, transmission lines and mineral development - often without clear processes, adequate resources or trust that decisions are being made in the public interest.
The world spends 30 times more money destroying nature than protecting it. That's according to a new report from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) that exposes a massive gulf between so-called "harmful investments" and financing that promotes nature preservation. The global environment agency's latest "State of Finance for Nature" (SNF) report is calling to phase out the US$7.3 trillion (6.2 trillion) in global investments that damage nature including into high-emissions energy infrastructure and manufacturing, for example.
The wolves arrived in May of last year, just days after Paul Roen had driven his cattle back up to their summer pasture in Northern California's Sierra Valley. He started finding the bleeding bodies of calves-some still alive, so badly paralyzed that they'd need to be shot. After weeks of this, Roen finally saw a kill himself. "One wolf grabbed a cow and spun her around, while another grabbed a calf," he told me. "He tore it into three pieces in 30 seconds."
The global attack on nature is threatening the UK's national security, government intelligence chiefs have warned, as the increasingly likely collapse of vitally important natural systems would bring mass migration, food shortages and price rises, and global disorder. Food supplies are particularly at risk, as without significant increases, the UK would be unable to compete with other nations for scarce resources, a report to ministers warns.
