Urbanization News

MAKASSAR, Indonesia — Daeng Bau says he has no plans to move from his home on the tiny island of Lae-Lae, a stone’s throw across the seafront here in Makassar,…

In mid-April, the government of Thai Binh province on Vietnam’s north-central coast quietly issued a decision that has since spawned growing controversy. The decision removed protection from almost 90% of…

KATHMANDU — On a hot and humid day in Bardibas, a town in the lowlands of Nepal, the sun beats down on the dusty roads where vans, cars and motorcycles…

NORTH PENAJAM PASER, Indonesia — When an expectant mother is around three days from entering labor, the Suku Balik prepare a container out of coconut palm containing fruit, tobacco and…

Four thousand students planted nearly 10,000 trees on public school grounds in the city of São Paulo, Brazil, in 2022, and another eight mini-forests will be planted in 2023.

Indonesia is readying a fleet of drones to launch over Nusantara, its new capital city, as part of efforts to protect the under-construction site in Borneo from wildfires, officials told…

Urban green spaces — parks, gardens and other green areas where people can go to enjoy some fresh air — are more than just pretty places to relax. New research…

Bangladesh has been swept up in the massive heat wave scorching large parts of Asia, with temperatures among the highest in six decades. The country’s capital, Dhaka, saw the temperature…

KATHMANDU — The B.P. Koirala Memorial Cancer Hospital in Nepal’s central Bharatpur city, Chitwan District, bustles as patients, most of them from the country’s northern hilly areas, line up for…

La Campana National Park, located in Chile’s Valparaíso region, is considered a jewel. It’s a biodiversity oasis in one of the most densely populated areas of the country. Inside the…

PHNOM PENH — On the edges of Boeung Tamok, Phnom Penh’s largest lake, 25-year-old Kong Khun sheltered from the late June heat in a bamboo hut. Despite clear skies, Khun…

Jean Wiener should be elated. The organization he leads, FoProBim, has just won a series of grants to help protect mangroves in Haiti. In the coming months, he and his…

KATHMANDU — As the monsoon draws to a close in Nepal, workers are putting the finishing touches on a dam designed to breathe life back into a sacred river that’s…

Environmental regulation runs up against political roadblocks in many nations, but the trend is especially strong in authoritarian countries like Turkey, where weak laws, lack of transparency, and repression are rife.

It was over twenty years ago when locals in Bolivia’s northern plains told archaeologist Heiko Prümers, with the German Archaeological Institute in Bonn, about mysterious mounds of earth in the…

Pollution is currently responsible for at least 9 million premature deaths a year worldwide, accounting for one in six deaths, according to a new report. Published in Lancet Planetary Health,…

Human transgressions of the biodiversity, land-use, pollution and climate planetary boundaries are altering gut microbiomes across species, impacting human health and ecosystems. But there’s hope.

MANAUS, Brazil — In the historic center of Manaus, the largest city in the Brazilian Amazon, a giant mural depicting the city’s Indigenous history looms above pedestrians jostling for space…

Urban development projects surrounding a protected lake in Paraguay are threatening the recovery of local ecosystems and raising questions about the government’s ability to circumvent conservation mandates. Wetlands around Lake…

KAVREPALANCHOK, Nepal — Ram Shrestha is spraying pesticide on his potato plants next to a paved road. The cracked earth seems lifeless here in this part of Kavrepalanchok district, a…

KATHMANDU — Stuffed garbage bags float gently down the Bisnumati River in the western part of Kathmandu. The river, sacred to Nepal’s Hindu and Buddhist populations, is one of the…

From above, the Lhaviyani atoll in the Maldives forms a rough oval, encircling a turquoise stretch of the Indian Ocean speckled with islands. But on the ground, populations of insects,…

It’s easier to spot the bristly, gray-brown hide of a Bornean bearded pig (Sus barbatus) ambling through orderly rows of oil palm trees, than amid a dense tropical forest. But…

Water-sensitive urban design (WSUD), a holistic sustainable approach to water management, could give the world’s cities a viable means of dealing with the climatic shocks ahead. Cape Town and Singapore point the way.

PALAWAN, Philippines — What do you do if you encounter a saltwater crocodile on your way home? For Roozie Quea Idlana, a resident of the town of Balabac in the Philippines,…

Swamps, sloughs, marshes, bogs, fens; water purification, flood control, wildlife nurseries, nutrient providers, carbon sinks: wetlands have many names and serve many environmental purposes. But for centuries they have been…

Tim Beatley will humbly tell you that he’s not a birder. But in his new book, there are enough appearances by obscure members of the class Aves to suggest that…

SINGAPORE — Languishing in the soft, silty mud, the living fossil looked as if it didn’t have a care in the world as it feasted on the fish left stranded…

MANILA — On July 29, the San Miguel Corporation, the Philippines’ largest company by revenue, started planting 25,000 mangrove trees in a coastal area just north of the capital, Manila.…

HO CHI MINH CITY, Vietnam — Recently disclosed results from an extensive survey have revealed the presence of several highly endangered species in a forest that is not currently under…