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The Slow-Motion Destruction of Tortoises’ Slow-Motion Migration
For many visitors to Ecuador’s Galapagos Islands, their first glimpse of a giant tortoise is from the window of a bus or taxi driving across Santa Cruz Island, from the airport to the town of Puerto...
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Trapped in the Tide of Organized Crime
Marcos Ruiz is lying face down in the mud, legs splayed and one arm sunk up to his shoulder in a narrow hole. When he finally grabs the crab burrowing in the hole, he pushes himself out with his other...
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For the First Time, Part of the Ocean Has Been Granted Legal Personhood
The Brazilian city of Linhares has legally recognized its waves as living beings, marking the first known time part of the ocean has been granted legal personhood. In early August 2024, the coastal...
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Encounters with the Maverick Archaeologist of the Americas
Back when some of the first humans showed up in the Americas, far down in southern Chile near the coast, a small group of 20 or 30 built themselves a camp. It was in a warm and rich rainforest, in a...
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Declarado extinto, el pueblo yagán se levanta en la Tierra del Fuego
Read this article in English Este es el fin de la Tierra: el Fin del mundo, como lo nombran los folletos turísticos; Tierra del Fuego, como se conoce más universalmente; y hogar, como lo han llamado...
View ArticleCITES Warns Ecuador: Crack Down on Illegal Shark Fishing, Now
Ecuador is, once again, in the hot seat. Late in 2023, officials from the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, more commonly known as CITES, gave Ecuador an...
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Centuries-Old Shark Teeth Suggest Brazil’s Ocean Is Less Resilient Today
When a condo development threatened the remains of a 13th-century coastal fishing site on Santa Catarina Island in southern Brazil in 1996, archaeologists rushed to excavate. They rapidly collected...
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Give a Village a Mangrove
This story originally appeared in bioGraphic, an independent magazine about nature and regeneration powered by the California Academy of Sciences. A small wooden boat creaks and sputters smoke as it...
View ArticleIn Brazil, the Seahorse Black Market Is Bustling
From São Paulo to Macaé, Brazil’s southern coast is flush with fishing vessels. As many as 3,700 bottom trawlers ply the region in search of fish and shrimp. All too often, however, hidden away at the...
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The Secrets of the Sea Hidden High in the Andes
Villa de Leyva is a small scenic town in Colombia’s eastern branch of the Andes Mountains. In this town, home to over 24,000 people, most of the houses are painted white, with green wooden frames and...
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Galapagos Giant Tortoises Prove Their Worth as Ecosystem Engineers
In the late 19th century, whalers, settlers, and pirates changed the ecology of the Galapagos Islands by poaching some native species—like Galapagos giant tortoises—and introducing others, like goats...
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This Fluffy Little Anteater May Very Well Be a New Species
Hiking through dense vegetation in Brazil’s Parnaíba Delta, Flávia Miranda stops suddenly and plucks a wheat-colored ball of fur from the tangle of mangrove branches. Startled from its slumber, the...
View ArticleForecasted El Niño Could Cost $3-Trillion in Losses Globally
This story was originally published by Grist and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Forecasters are predicting the formation of an El Niño later this summer, a natural...
View ArticleThe Galapagos Islands Will Be a Cool Refuge in a Warming World
Pushed by climate change, almost every part of the ocean is heating up. But off the west coast of the Galapagos Islands, there is a patch of cold, nutrient-rich water. This prosperous patch feeds...
View ArticleFive Months On, the Oil Spill’s Effects Linger
The port in Ancón, just north of Lima, Peru, should be bustling. It’s a cold and gray Friday morning, around the time when fishers should be returning to port and unloading their catch. But ever since...
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One Great Shot: Head-Bashing Iguanas
On a visit to the islands, I watched these two large males collide, each attempting to force the other’s head down and to push its opponent backward. They were lords of their section of coastline, and...
View ArticleIn Brazil, Politicians Push to Privatize Beaches
Brazilian politicians with connections to the tourism and hospitality industries are pushing forward a bill that would privatize parts of the country’s beaches. Known as bill 4444/2021, the...
View ArticleDeclared Extinct, The Yaghan Rise in the Land of Fire
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View ArticleHow Female Fishers Are Leading Their Communities through the Pandemic
As the COVID-19 pandemic threatened the tiny Ilha de Maré off the coast of Salvador, Brazil, Eliete Paraguassu, a 42-year-old shellfish harvester, mobilized her community. To avoid the spread of the...
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The Hole in Peru’s Nazca Ridge National Reserve
This summer, Peru created the Nazca Ridge National Reserve, a sprawling protected area encompassing roughly eight percent of Peru’s total coastal territory. The 62,000-square-kilometer reserve includes...
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