Plateau Creek near De Beque, Colorado, where land has been leased for oil and gas production.Helen H. Richardson / The Denver Post / Getty Images
By Randi Spivak
Slashing two national monuments in Utah may have received the most attention, but Trump's Interior Department and U.S. Forest Service have been quietly, systematically ceding control of America's public lands to fossil fuel, mining, timber and livestock interests since the day he took office.
Kokia drynarioides, commonly known as Hawaiian tree cotton, is a critically endangered species of flowering plant that is endemic to the Big Island of Hawaii. David Eickhoff / Wikipedia
By Lorraine Chow
Kokia drynarioides is a small but significant flowering tree endemic to Hawaii's dry forests. Native Hawaiians used its large, scarlet flowers to make lei. Its sap was used as dye for ropes and nets. Its bark was used medicinally to treat thrush.
A jungle path through the El Yunque national forest in Puerto Rico. Data from the WWF report includes various examples of pressures driving forest population declines, one being disease affecting amphibians in Puerto Rico. dennisvdw / Getty Images Plus
By Wesley Rahn
The global population of forest-dwelling vertebrates has plummeted in the period between 1970 and 2014, according to a study published Tuesday by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) in Berlin.
The Roloway monkey has been pushed closer to extinction. Sonja Wolters / WAPCA / IUCN
The statistics around threatened species are looking grim. A new report by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has added more than 9,000 new additions to its Red List of threatened species, pushing the total number of species on the list to more than 105,000 for the first time, according to the Guardian.
For years now conservationists have warned that many of Madagascar's iconic lemur species face the risk of extinction due to rampant deforestation, the illegal pet trade and the emerging market for the primates' meat.
Yes, people eat lemurs, and the reasons they do aren't exactly what we might expect.
Elephants in Botswana seen from the air. guenterguni / Getty Images
Less than two months after Botswana lifted its ban on elephant hunting, a new study has confirmed that poaching is on the rise in the country that around one-third of Africa's savanna elephants call home.
The World Health Organization (WHO) approved the inclusion of traditional Chinese medicine in the revision of its influential International Classification of Diseases for the first time on May 25, touching off worries that the move could drive up demand for body parts of wild animals.
A Tufted Puffin in the Zapadni Cliffs, St. Paul Island, Alaska. Alan D. Wilson / Wikimedia / CC BY-SA 3.0
Between October 2016 and January 2017, more than 350 Tufted puffin and Crested auklet carcasses washed up on Alaska's St. Paul island in the Bering Sea.
