Tending the Garden of Eden in the Twenty-First Century
Among the many themes that can be discussed in the biblical story of Adam and Eve is the divorce between humans and nature: After being immersed in nature, humans were banished from the garden and began to experience nature as strange and foreign. Seen from this angle, the big question conservationists must ask is: how […]
Scientific discoveries and darkspots
Dragons, sea serpents and blank spaces are hallmarks of medieval-European maps, representing geographic spaces that early cartographers knew were not yet known. In our modern age, it is commonly thought that there is no terra incognita left anymore on Earth — the world has been “discovered” and scientifically mapped. Yet there are vast parts of the natural world that remain unknown to us, leading me to wonder where the dragons and sea serpents — metaphorical or literal — will be found….
Can our media shape our future?
The things we engage with in our media and the things we enjoy do shape our belief in what is possible in the future. Terra Nil is a nature-restoration video game. Upon starting it, the player is greeted by a vast toxic wasteland where a guidebook with instructions on restoration is found. The player’s task […]
Concluding 2024
People of the living mountains
“The forest is life,” Datu Lanelio T. Sangcoan told me over and over throughout our conversation. Datu represents the Higa-onon people, an Indigenous people in the Philippines whose sacred forest is among the threatened habitats you can protect in TiME’s 2025 campaign. When I tried asking him why is the forest life, he seemed […]
The Tip of the Iceberg
There is more than meets the eye, looks can be deceiving, and ninety percent of the iceberg is underwater. This lesson was famously learned the hard way by RMS Titanic, which relied on the human eye to detect any obstacles in its way. On a moonless night, two lookouts were simply not enough to alert […]
Scavenging a better future
Recycling, reusing, and the harms caused by littering were the first environmental issues I learned about in elementary school. We went on several field trips to recycling centers and participated in art workshops where we painted and glued together empty containers. Back then, the words “climate change” and “global warming” were foreign to me — […]
Saving that Which Scares Us
Arachnophobia, or the acute fear of spiders, is very common—but its causes are not very clear.
“In the lands you have helped protect, we are discovering much more diversity and life than we thought”
We had the privilege to interview Martin Schaefer, CEO of the Fundación de Conservación Jocotoco, one of our sister organizations in Ecuador. With him, we discuss nature conservation issues, politics, and ecotourism.
Conservation conversations in the Galápagos
“In the highlands of the island of Santa Cruz (the Galápagos), it’s surprisingly easy to spot the giant tortoises”