Canada’s draft Ocean Noise Strategy lacks the urgency, clarity and specificity needed to protect the Arctic’s soundscape, writes WCS Canada's Bill Halliday in a new commentary for the National Observer.

“Our Rights, Our Future, Right Now” is the theme of this year’s International Human Rights Day. "The focus is on the immediacy of human rights in our daily lives and their centrality to our collective future," writes WCS's Sushil Raj in a new essay for PBS Nature. "They are also a central feature of conservation to protect the inherent dignity of Indigenous Peoples and local communities, who frequently play an outsized role in safeguarding our planet’s ecosystems."

"No child is too young to be introduced to STEM topics that encourage their natural curiosity to explore their natural world," writes Queens Zoo educator Frankie Molina in a new essay at PBS Nature celebrating Hispanic Heritage.

WCS's Kevin Brown and Sarah Walker join a broad group of conservation colleagues in a joint commentary for Carbon Pulse arguing that "at this moment, the Voluntary Carbon Market offers the best, most mature suite of tools available for injecting private finance into nature conservation, representing the fruit of decades of painstaking negotiations and research within UNFCCC signatory states."

In addressing Canada's 2030 Nature Strategy, says WCS's Justina Ray, "the stakes are high. Canada’s economic and social well-being, as well as its identity as a nation rich in natural splendour, depends upon the choices we make today."

A wave of change has swept through the world of coral reef science, as scientists develop new ways to collect, collate and analyze data. The reefs are vital to the health of the planet, and humanity: while they cover only 0.2 percent of the seafloor, they support at least 25 percent of marine species. And they play a role in the lives of around 1 billion people around the world. WCS's Emily Darling joins the Planet Beyond podcast to discuss.

The 300,000-hectare Karukinka Natural Park was created in 2004 after land in Chilean Tierra del Fuego was donated to the Wildlife Conservation Society by Goldman Sachs. As the park celebrates its 20th anniversary, we begin a two-part series on how its establishment helped to spur both the development of an ambitious WCS Country Program in Chile and the expansion of the country’s national conservation efforts.

In a new essay for PBS Nature as she prepares to depart WCS for the New York Hall of Science, Laura Monges-Velazquez describes her work as the Youth Engagement Assistant Coordinator for the Education Department at the Wildlife Conservation Society’s Queens Zoo. "As I learned nearly two decades ago, running barefoot through cow patties," she writes, "a connection to nature isn’t something you can simply teach—it has to be felt."

"Wolverines exemplify the rugged and wild character of Alberta," writes WCS Canada's Matt Scrafford in a new essay for the Edmonton Journal. "We should strive towards informed and sustainable management of harvest and habitats," adds Scrafford, "rather than relying on risky and scientifically unsound policies."

"We still have a window of opportunity to decouple economic growth from fossil fuel combustion, but the evidence is clear that our window is closing," writes WCS's Dan Zarin in a new essay for The Hill as we approach UN Climate CoP29. That window, notes Dan, will require "not only decarbonization but unprecedented investment in the protection and strengthening of the Earth’s natural buffers against the impacts of the climate crisis: our forests, peatlands, grasslands and marine ecosystems."

In a new essay for Medium, WCS's Chris Walzer argues that "the health of a living being cannot truly be adequately analyzed and understood without considering the health and wellbeing of other living beings and the systems they share.”

For Bat Week, the Wild Audio podcast talked to WCS's Cori Lausen about white-nose syndrome, a deadly fungus that’s wiping out bats across North America. New research makes the case that it’s having a direct negative impact on human health, too. But WCS Canada has an innovative solution to address the problem.

In our 3rd and final essay for PBS Nature exploring the critical goals and priorities at stake in the 16th Conference of the Parties to Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD CoP16), WCS's Stacy Jupiter and Emily Darling address the challenges of protecting our oceans for the marine biodiversity and people who rely on them.

There have recently been signs that even in the EU and other rich countries are wavering in their political support for meaningful environmental action, notably on biodiversity, writes WCS's Janice Weatherley-Singh in a new op-ed for Euractive. If these countries now waver in protecting their own biodiversity and cut back on their financial commitments to poorer countries, it is unclear how we will protect the last remaining ecosystems that we all depend on."

Although 17% of all forest carbon and 39% of global lands in good ecological condition are managed or governed by Indigenous Peoples, just a tiny fraction of climate and biodiversity financing gets directed to them. Most of the funding seems to evaporate in webs of institutions before reaching communities. "To meet biodiversity and climate goals," writes WCS's Sushil Raj in a new essay for Mongabay with Minnie Degawan and Rony Brodsky, "a deeper transformation in partnerships between multilateral funders and Indigenous Peoples and local communities is urgently needed."

"Peace with nature," writes WCS's Catalina Gutierrez Chacon in an opinion essay for PBS Nature, "advocates for a profound shift in the relationship between human societies and the natural world. This approach promotes sustainable development that respects planetary boundaries and fosters environmental justice."