Free · No account required
The Conservation Report
Reporting on conservation, wildlife, policy and history — written to be accurate rather than alarming. Every article carries its sources. Where the evidence is contested or the numbers disagree, we say so instead of picking the version that reads better.
How we date things
Each article shows two dates: when the event happened, and when we published. They are stored separately and we never backdate a publication to make this archive look older than it is. AEDO1 began publishing in July 2026.
- PolicyJuly 14, 2026· 5 min read· 9 sources
The Word That Protected Habitat: Inside the ESA 'Harm' Rescission
For fifty years, destroying a species' habitat counted as harming it. In July 2026 the federal government removed that definition from the books. Here is what changed, what didn't, and what the courts do next.
Read → - OceansJune 2, 2026· 5 min read· 7 sources
The Fourth Global Bleaching Event Is Over. It Touched 84% of the World's Reefs.
NOAA confirmed in June 2026 that the record-breaking coral bleaching event that began in 2023 has ended. 'Ended' is doing something very specific in that sentence, and it does not mean the reefs recovered.
Read → - Ancient SitesMay 20, 2026· 5 min read· 8 sources
The Textiles Were Well Preserved in the 1980s. By the 2010s They Were Almost Gone.
Archaeology's default doctrine is to leave things in the ground, because the ground preserves them. At a 17th-century whalers' graveyard on Svalbard, researchers measured what happens when the ground stops keeping its side of the bargain.
Read → - Indigenous LandsMay 14, 2026· 5 min read· 9 sources
Six Million Square Kilometres of Pacific, Governed by the People Who Live There
The Melanesian Ocean Reserve would be the largest Indigenous-led marine reserve on Earth — an area the size of the Amazon. Its backers insist it is not a proposal. That insistence is the most interesting thing about it.
Read → - SpeciesApril 30, 2026· 3 min read· 6 sources
Twenty-Three Calves: The Best Right Whale Season in Seventeen Years, and Why That Isn't Recovery
The 2026 calving season produced more North Atlantic right whale calves than any year since 2009. With roughly 384 animals left, the arithmetic of what twenty-three births actually buys is worth doing carefully.
Read → - ForestsApril 29, 2026· 4 min read· 7 sources
Tropical Forest Loss Fell 36%. It Is Still 46% Higher Than a Decade Ago.
2025 was a sharp recovery from the worst year ever recorded. Both of those things are true at once, and reading only the first is how a catastrophe gets reported as a success. Bolivia, meanwhile, now out-loses the Congo with 60% less forest.
Read → - ForestsFebruary 17, 2026· 4 min read· 7 sources
Amazon Deforestation Is Falling. The Forest Is Still Burning.
Brazil's clearing rate hit an eleven-year low and may hit an all-time low in 2026. That is real, measured, and worth saying plainly. It is also not the same thing as the forest being safe — because deforestation and forest loss are two different measurements.
Read → - PolicyJanuary 21, 2026· 5 min read· 10 sources
Nobody Has Permission to Mine the Deep Sea. One Company Expects a Permit by Early 2027.
The UN body that governs the international seabed has approved no mining and has no finished rulebook. In January 2026 the United States streamlined its own permits for the same waters. Both sentences are true, and the space between them is the story.
Read → - OceansJanuary 17, 2026· 4 min read· 9 sources
Two-Thirds of the Ocean Had No Landlord. On 17 January 2026, That Changed.
The High Seas Treaty entered into force after twenty years of negotiation. It now covers the largest habitat on Earth — an area belonging to everyone, and therefore, in practice, to no one. Here is what it does and what it still cannot do.
Read → - Climate RecordJanuary 14, 2026· 6 min read· 7 sources
Was 2025 the Second or Third Warmest Year? Eight Datasets, Two Answers, No Argument.
The WMO put 2025 at 1.44 °C above pre-industrial. Two of its eight datasets rank it second warmest; six say third. Nobody is wrong — and most of the uncertainty in that number comes from not knowing the 1800s, not from not knowing today.
Read → - OceansJanuary 9, 2026· 4 min read· 7 sources
9.6% or 3.2%? The Ocean Protection Number Depends Entirely on What You Count
Two respected databases report the world's marine protection at figures three times apart. Neither is wrong. The gap between them is the most important number in ocean conservation, and it is not an accounting quirk.
Read → - Climate RecordJanuary 1, 2026· 4 min read· 9 sources
2025 Was Only the Sixth-Worst Year for Glaciers. Six of the Seven Worst Are the Last Seven Years.
The world's glaciers lost 408 gigatonnes of ice in 2025 — a middling result by recent standards. That sentence is the entire problem. The rate has roughly quadrupled since the 1970s, and 'middling' now describes a number that would once have been unthinkable.
Read → - SpeciesOctober 29, 2025· 5 min read· 9 sources
The Green Sea Turtle Went From Endangered to Least Concern. It Skipped Two Categories On the Way.
After fifty years of protection, the global green turtle population is up 28% and off the threatened list entirely — the first endangered marine turtle ever to make that jump. The label is global. The turtles are not.
Read → - Indigenous LandsOctober 28, 2025· 5 min read· 7 sources
90% of Amazon Deforestation Happened Outside Indigenous Lands. That Number Is Not a Model.
An October 2025 analysis projects the Brazilian Amazon would have lost 35% more forest without Indigenous territories and protected areas. The projection is a model and should be read as one. The observation underneath it is not — and it is the more remarkable figure.
Read → - SpeciesOctober 28, 2025· 5 min read· 7 sources
Between Seven and Ten Vaquitas Were Seen in 2025. That Is Not the Same as How Many Exist.
The world's most endangered marine mammal was observed, with calves, and did not crash. Every one of those statements is carefully bounded — and the difference between 'observed' and 'estimated' is the whole discipline of counting an animal this rare.
Read → - FundingOctober 9, 2025· 5 min read· 10 sources
Forest Carbon Credits Are Sold On a Counterfactual. A Counterfactual Is a Model.
Peer-reviewed evaluations of REDD+ projects keep finding the same thing: real but modest climate gains, credited at many times their true value. The problem isn't fraud. It's that the product being sold is a claim about a world that never happened.
Read → - FundingFebruary 25, 2025· 5 min read· 9 sources
The $20 Billion Nature Deadline Passed in 2025. Nobody Will Know If It Was Met Until 2027.
The world's headline biodiversity finance target came due last year. The data that would settle it arrives two years late. An accountability mechanism that reports after the deadline it is meant to enforce is worth examining on its own terms.
Read → - PolicyOctober 29, 2024· 5 min read· 10 sources
The Land Half of 30x30 Is 12.4 Points Short. Indigenous Territories Cover an Additional 13.6%.
The first global stocktake of the 30% target found protection at 17.6% on land. It also found that Indigenous and traditional territories cover at least 13.6% more — uncounted. The gap and the uncounted land are almost the same size, and that is not a solution.
Read → - Ancient SitesJanuary 11, 2024· 5 min read· 8 sources
The Amazon's 'Lost Cities' Were Never Lost. People Were Living On Them.
Lidar has revealed genuine ancient urbanism beneath the rainforest canopy — 6,000 platforms, 15 centres, 2,500 years old. The discovery is real. The word 'discovery' is doing something else, and archaeologists have started saying so in print.
Read → - SpeciesMarch 14, 2023· 6 min read· 8 sources
Invertebrates Are 75% of Known Species and 18% of Screen Time. We Are Part of the Problem.
A Cambridge study of a century of nature documentaries found vertebrates take 81% of mentions while making up 3.4% of described species. Conservation science shows the same skew. Any platform that pays creators per view will reward exactly this bias — including, one day, ours.
Read →