MALIKO’MIJK, Canada — Decades ago, the sea around Maliko’mijk Island was an expansive green carpet of eelgrass, the meadows so thick that members of the Pictou Landing First Nation had…
LABASA, Fiji — Jerry Lotawa knows his forest. He was raised in the tiny settlement of Drawa, a village of 11 brightly painted houses tucked high in the mountains of…
LABASA, Fiji — No one finds their way to the village of Drawa by accident. To get there, you must first board a tiny plane to Labasa, the biggest town…
KURUWITU, Kenya — Six days a week, Katana Ngala reports to his workplace, a rudimentary open-air workshop by the beach. Neat and well-shaded under huge palm trees, his workshop is…
KWALE and KILIFI COUNTIES, Kenya — One June afternoon at the Mwanamia fish landing site on Kenya’s north coast, Garama Karisa was busy mending his gear for an afternoon fishing…
Indigenous peoples and local communities have critical intimate knowledge of climate change impacts and adaptation options in their lands while the majority of those lands are under threat from industrial…
POHUWATO, Indonesia — The world's largest collective of seafaring nomads has sailed the waters off Sulawesi Island and farther afield for centuries, forging a cultural legacy that inspired even James…
Back in the mid-1990s, before the era of internet, mobile phones and satellite televisions, the government-run terrestrial broadcaster Bangladesh Television (BTV) was the only source of visual entertainment for the…
Every Friday at 7:30 a.m., María Isabel Aguilar sells her organic produce in an artisanal market in Totonicapán, a city located in the western highlands of Guatemala. Presented on a…
SAADNAYEL, Lebanon – Located in Lebanon’s Beqaa Valley, a region that has been farmed for millennia, a small experimental farm known as Buzuruna Juzuruna (BuJu) is establishing an agroecological network…
MADURA, Indonesia — For centuries, every architect in Indonesia relied on local materials when constructing homes and public spaces. Today Yu Sing is one of the few holding onto this…
When Mauricio Velasco Castro graduated from culinary school in Bogotá, he didn’t look for a job in one of Colombia’s fine dining restaurants or for an internship abroad. Instead, he…
Harvard-trained ethnobotanist and host of the popular podcast Plants of the Gods, Mark Plotkin is no stranger to psychedelic plants. But many people across the world, particularly in countries where…
SILINGE, Nepal — On a sunny afternoon, 70-year-old Dhanikram Praja squats on top of a hillock overlooking the lush green rows of trees dotting his farm, distinct from his other…
For Indigenous women in the Amazon, the wetland of Lake Tarapoto is a living classroom. The women consider it not just a home for the fish they rely on to…
With two-thirds of the country draped in dense, tropical rainforests, Papua New Guinea is home to diverse wildlife, including several marsupial species, flightless cassowaries, and vibrant birds-of-paradise. Just as diverse…
Salinity intrusion triggered by different factors, including sea-level rise, commercial shrimp cultivation and a decrease in water flow from transboundary rivers upstream, has directly affected agriculture in the southern coastal…
Many of the people archaeologist Dulma Karunarathna interviews in rural Sri Lanka have never been interviewed before. And many of them, representing a variety of religions and languages, tell her…
Over the past 15 years, First Nations in Haida Gwaii and central and northern coastal British Columbia, Canada, have turned the tables around: once subjected to massive economic, social and…
Photographer Kiliii Yuyan joins the podcast to talk about the value of traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) in protecting the world’s biodiversity. Teaming up with previous guest Gleb Raygorodetsky and with…
Michellejean Pinuhan, an Indigenous Higaonon, completed her bachelor’s degree in agriculture entrepreneurship in 2022. Then, instead of working in the city after graduation, she chose to return to her roots…
This story was produced with the funding support of the Pulitzer Center. Janne Hirvasvuopio got his first Valentine’s Day card early this year. But the message that came through his…
Je’chu, a god, first created bees so that their wax would cure the world. So goes the spiritual testament of the Yucuna Indigenous peoples of Colombia. “He is our god…
Tanzania is Africa's second-biggest producer of honey, and to get it to the next level, the country’s government and aid agencies want beekeepers to adopt hanging-frame beehive designs to increase…
HONG KONG — Thousands of grayish, oval-shaped oysters pepper the mudflats of far northern Hong Kong, clustering together on fragments of rock lining the shoreline or clamping onto abandoned concrete…
NGADA, Indonesia — Marselus Selu wanted to be a musician from an early age, but he didn’t have the money back then to buy a flute. Today, he’s a master…
This story was published in partnership with Grist. As nearly 200 countries struggle to negotiate a new plan for nature conservation at the United Nations’ Biodiversity Conference in Montreal, Canada,…
Since time immemorial, the Karuk tribe of northern California have managed their ancestral lands, over 400,000 hectares of open oak woodlands, meadows, and forested mountains along the middle section of…
LOMBOK, Indonesia — In the northern foothills of Mount Rinjani, an active volcano, lies a coffee plantation and processing facility that doubles as a training ground. Here, among the arabica…
KATHMANDU — Sandwiched between China and India, Nepal is known for its geographical as well as botanical diversity. The country is not only home to the tallest mountains in the…
