"At Likas the students see more things," she said. "At the lagoon they saw only birds. Here there are mangroves, crabs, mudskippers." Though it covers a mere 24 hectares, and is bordered by homes, apartment buildings and a sports complex, the Likas Sanctuary provides refuge for a rainbow of ...read more

Hashim is a Semelai, one of the original ethnicities of the Malay Peninsula, who now number a mere 12,000. About 2,000 Semelai live around Tasek Bera, and for centuries they have relied on the wetlands and forest for their livelihoods. But in 1994, Tasek Bera was declared a Ramsar site - a ...read more

The surrounding protected area, which extends to Bolivia's border with Brazil, is home to an amazing array of flora and fauna, from endangered jaguars and massive fig trees to millions of colorful butterflies. According to biologist Tim Killeen, who has been doing research there for more than ...read more

Throughout the centuries, it has been an area of transit for traders. There are more than 4000 scattered inscriptions on the rocks, many of them dating from the paleolithic period. Last century, this desert was the stomping ground of the English colonel T.E. Lawrence, most famously known ...read more

But now, it turns out, the cerrado has become the most lucrative part of the Santos farm, ever since the Centro de Agricultura Alternativa (Centre for Alternative Agriculture) began buying the cerrado fruit that Mr. Santos and his family collect. Last year, they sold more than 1,000 kilogrammes ...read more

Over the course of those centuries, the Quechua have discovered that many of the plants endemic to their harsh but beautiful region have curative properties, such as the aromatic rica rica, which settles an upset stomach, or chinchircoma, which can help one ward off a cold. A group of women in ...read more

Tobago's coral reefs have been threatened significantly by numerous factors both anthropogenic and natural. The reefs in Speyside, however, showed little susceptibility to the natural environmental threats that have persisted over the years, namely, bleaching, eutrophication and sedimentation. ...read more