Inventor Boyan Slat is on a mission to rid oceans of plastic. His team at The Ocean Cleanup designs and deploys systems that pull trash from the open ocean — now, he’s stopping the pollution at its source: rivers where plastic is easier to catch, like those in Jamaica’s Kingston Harbor.

Fernanda Abra leads a crucial conservation initiative along the roadways of Brazil, where vehicles annually kill about 475 million vertebrates - more than double the country’s human population. She spearheads over 300 projects targeting roads with high wildlife casualties.

In Brazil’s Atlantic Forest, Mauricio Ruiz has turned his love for nature into action by working with the community to reforest a critical stretch of the nation’s most endangered forest, and by using drones to help him reach his goal of planting 15 million trees.

In the middle of Rio de Janeiro sits the world’s largest urban rainforest: Tijuca National park. To combat a century of deforestation and hunting, a team of researchers are repairing the forest’s forgotten web of life, one species at a time.

Dogs are often thought of as humans’ best friends. But in Australia, they’re also allies of other species. Canine conservationists - and their sensitive noses - are sniffing out dwindling populations of koalas as the iconic marsupial’s habitat is fragmented by urbanization and wildfires. Dogs are...

Decades of war and unsustainable agriculture have ravaged the rainforest atop Mozambique’s Mount Gorongosa. The devastation threatens the watershed that sustains life in nearby communities and in Gorongosa National Park. Now, park experts and local farmers are uniting to plant shade-loving coffee...

A decade after the largest dam removal in history - on Washington State’s Elwha River- scientists are chronicling a story of ecological rebirth. Recovering salmon populations are transferring critical nutrients from the ocean into the forests, enriching the entire ecosystem. The Elwha’s revival i...

On Panama’s remote Pearl Islands, marine biologist Callie Veelenturf is using her research on endangered sea turtles to help the country enshrine the rights of nature into law—and help the communities living there protect their own environment and livelihood.
Saboga Island in particular is an “an...

All around the world, seabirds provide a critical link between land and sea. On Hawai’i, ecologists are working to protect two vital shearwater species that helped life first take hold across these islands. 
While seabirds predominantly reside at sea, they return to land to breed and raise their ...

Coral reefs around the world are threatened by rising ocean temperatures, but hope is growing off the coast of Hawaii. There, researchers at the Coral Resilience Lab selectively breed corals to withstand ever-increasing amounts of heat stress.
Corals are tiny animals that have a mutually benefici...

Crystal River has long been a safe haven for the Florida manatee, but when an invasive algae wiped out the eelgrass that manatees need for food, the community rallied to restore the river and save the animals that call it home.
After an unexpected storm forever changed Crystal River more than thr...

Three species of sea turtles nesting in southeast Florida face a range of manmade threats. Thanks to conservation measures, loggerhead and green sea turtles are recovering, but leatherbacks remain at risk. Researchers know little about this amazing species — and in the battle to save leatherbacks...

New York City is famous for its towering skyscrapers and vibrant streets teeming with traffic, commerce, and cuisine. Turn back the clock a few centuries, and “the city that never sleeps” was known more for its marine biodiversity: a bustling island in a harbor teeming with life, including some o...