Obituaries and tributes
In the late 1980s, something began to go wrong in places that were supposed to be safe. Protected cloud forests, buffered from chainsaws and bulldozers, started losing animals that had persisted through far rougher times. Amphibians—often abundant, often overlooked—were vanishing in ways that did not fit familiar explanations.
Obituaries and tributes
For much of the late 20th century, environmental writing oscillated between alarm and reassurance. One strand emphasized catastrophe; another urged optimism. A smaller, more demanding tradition insisted on neither denial nor consolation, but attention. It asked what it meant to remain fully present to ecological loss without turning away or
Obituaries and tributes
For much of the late 20th and early 21st centuries, peatlands sat awkwardly at the edge of public consciousness. Neither conventionally scenic nor easily commodified, they were drained, burned, planted over, or dismissed as wasteland. Only gradually did they come to be understood as systems of consequence: for biodiversity, for
Obituaries and tributes
In much of Africa, conservation is discussed in the language of landscapes and species: elephant corridors, lechwe floodplains, and the slow arithmetic of births and deaths. On the ground, it is also a labor question. The work is done by people who walk long hours, sleep badly, work in dangerous
Obituaries and tributes
In recent years, one of the loudest ideas in environmental policy has been that trees are the planet’s universal remedy. Plant enough of them, in enough places, and carbon will be soaked up, water will return, and biodiversity will rebound. The proposition is tidy, optimistic, and easily communicated. It
Obituaries and tributes
For much of the late 20th century, reptiles occupied an awkward place in the public imagination. They were admired by specialists, feared or misunderstood by many others, and rarely treated with the same aesthetic seriousness afforded to birds or mammals. Field guides existed, but art that lingered on texture, posture,
Obituaries and tributes
For much of the second half of the 20th century, the American outdoors attracted a particular kind of devotee. They moved easily between disciplines, took seasonal work without much concern for titles, and regarded time in wild places as both education and obligation. Their lives did not unfold along a
Obituaries and tributes
The risks of field science are usually described in abstract terms. Weather turns. Equipment fails. The sea does not always behave as expected. These dangers are well understood by those who work in and on the ocean, and they are rarely romanticized by the people who face them. Most accept
Obituaries and tributes
In the rangelands beneath Kilimanjaro, coexistence between people and wildlife has never been a simple matter. Livestock wander into the paths of lions. Farmers lose cattle they can scarcely afford to lose. Retaliation follows, and with it the slow unravelling of ecosystems that depend on predators to stay whole. The
Obituaries and tributes
For nearly six decades, Douglas-Hamilton dedicated his life to the elephants of Africa, forging a bond with the continent’s largest inhabitants that went beyond mere scientific study. It was said that he could recognize an elephant by the pattern of its ears or the wrinkles of its skin,
Obituaries and tributes
The bulls were the first thing visitors noticed. Seven of them, huge and muscled, grazing under acacia trees in the heat of Tamil Nadu’s drylands, when a reporter from The Hindu visited in 2012. They were Kangayam cattle, a native breed once counted in the hundreds of thousands. Now
Obituaries and tributes
The cliffs above Cala de Moraia are steep and inaccessible. To most people, the terrain would signal danger rather than duty. But dangerous places often shelter life that needs defending. Rare plants cling to the cliff face, surviving only because most people cannot reach them. On November 25th, 2025, one