Tag Archives: Species conservation

The British NHS health plan makes no mention of nature and biodiversity.

By | August 27, 2026
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Group of white swans swimming in dark water around a partially submerged shopping cart.

London – According to an analysis by British researchers, the 171-page ten-year plan of the UK's National Health Service (NHS) for England contains no mention of nature or biodiversity. The interdisciplinary team led by Giulia Vivaldi and Andrea Mechelli from King's College London calls for nature-based approaches to be firmly established in prevention and care. The article was published in PLOS Mental Health (DOI:… Read more »

New approach aims to better consider genetic diversity in species conservation assessments

By | June 24, 2026
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Capra ibex was almost eradicated in the 19th century. Today, over 40.000 animals live in the Alps, but they all descend from fewer than 100 individuals, which severely limits genetic diversity. | Copyright: Senckenberg/Leigh

Frankfurt am Main (LabNews Media LLC) – An international research team has developed a new standardized approach to more reliably identify genetically differentiated groups within a species. The method is intended to improve the assessment of extinction risks and reintroduction potential, and to reduce the loss of genetic diversity. The scientists, led by Prof. Deborah Leigh from the Senckenberg Research Institute and Goethe University… Read more »

Nutrient depletion and warmer seas threaten Hawaii's last false killer whales

By | June 5, 2026
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Two dolphins swim side by side in clear blue ocean water

Hawaii's critically endangered population of false killer whales (Pseudorca crassidens) is suffering from increasing nutrient depletion and the effects of global warming. This is the finding of a seven-year study by the University of Hawaii at Manoa, published in the journal "Endangered Species Research." Using high-resolution drone photogrammetry, researchers from the Pacific Whale Foundation, the Marine Mammal Research Program, and other partners studied the population between 2019 and… Read more »

Blue and fin whales are returning to the southeast Atlantic.

By | May 24
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Dolphin dorsal fin breaking the water surface with a calm blue sea and a distant coastline featuring a lighthouse on the horizon.

Cape Town (LabNews Media LLC) – New long-term data shows a significant increase in sightings of blue and fin whales off the coasts of Namibia and South Africa. After decades of absence due to commercial whaling, the world's two largest whale species are being observed more frequently in their historical range. Scientists from the University of Cape Town and Stellenbosch University have been studying over 60 years… Read more »

Attenborough at 100: The Philosopher of Interdependence in an Age of Denial

By | May 5
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Earth from space, showing Africa and surrounding regions with white cloud cover over the blue oceans.

As Sir David Attenborough reaches his centenary on May 8, the world honors not only a broadcaster of unparalleled reach but a thinker whose philosophy has quietly yet forcefully challenged the dominant ideologies of the past half-century. Where a politics of denial and dominion has framed nature as a resource to be conquered for immediate national or economic… Read more »

Where maintenance costs breeding: Monotonous gardens contribute significantly to species loss + TIPS

By | April 18, 2026
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Credits: Radovan Zierik, pexels

The majority of gardens in towns and the countryside are species-poor and over-maintained: Monotonous lawns with minimal planting or even gravel offer our native songbirds neither enough habitat nor enough food. This becomes particularly evident in spring when robins and other birds are trying to raise their young. Even searching for a suitable nesting site consumes a lot of energy for the birds, and only… Read more »

Timmy dies – and we have already killed him: The agonizing death throes of a humpback whale as a symbol of our total failure towards the species of this earth.

By | April 1, 2026
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Timmy turns towards the open sea. Symbolic image. Credits: Unsplash

Timmy is dying. Slowly. Painfully. With a fishing net in his mouth, making it impossible for him to eat, strangling him, poisoning him. He lies exhausted in the shallow bay, breathing shallowly, barely reacting to boats or rescuers. His skin is swelling because the brackish water of the Baltic Sea is too low in salt for a humpback whale from the Atlantic. He has been… Read more »

Court halts oil production on Mittelplate drilling platform in the Wadden Sea

By | February 26, 2026
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The Schleswig-Holstein Administrative Court has banned oil production on the Mittelplate drilling platform in the UNESCO World Heritage Wadden Sea with immediate effect. The reason is the failure to conduct an environmental impact assessment under the Flora-Fauna-Habitat Directive (FFH assessment), which is mandatory under EU law for the area, protected as an FFH site since 1998. The court granted an urgent application filed by the German Environmental Aid Association (DUH). The judges determined that… Read more »

Prof. Carsten Mann: Biosphere reserves as real-world laboratories for sustainable development

By | February 24, 2026
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Prof. Carsten Mann. Credits: HNE Eberswalde/Ulrich Wessollek

Biosphere reserves are considered particularly suitable areas in sustainability research because they combine two often conflicting goals: the protection of biodiversity and the promotion of regional value creation. This tension between protection and use makes them ideal locations for application-oriented transformation research, which also fulfills the third UNESCO goal: research and education for sustainable development. Prof. Dr. Carsten Mann, Professor of Sustainable… Read more »