News and Insights
The blind conservationist fighting to save nature’s soundscapes
CNN
Juan Pablo Culasso is capturing the voices of Cundinamarca’s diverse landscapes and ecosystems in Colombia, preserving them before they fade, and opening new ways for people to connect with nature.
“Soundscapes are used in science to tell you how healthy is an ecosystem. The most amazing indicator for that are birds. If you can record 2 or 3 different species, that’s a healthy ecosystem.”
Animal Cultures, Under Rising Threat, Are Key To Species Survival
Atmos
Though culture was previously thought to be unique to humans, a growing body of research finds evidence in species of all ilk, from elephants to bumblebees.
That day in 1998, in his office at the University of Sydney, Dr. Michael Noad uncovered tangible evidence of a rapid, Beatlesque cultural revolution among whales: A song crossed the ocean, cleared a population boundary, and eclipsed what had come before. These song revolutions, it later turned out, happen every few years. More than a decade after his original discovery, Noad and his collaborators found that the leaps don’t stop there. A year later, a new song would appear in New Caledonia, and a year after that, in French Polynesia, in what scientists have aptly come to call “cultural ripples.”
Events and Community
Courses
Join us this fall for two new courses to explore how rewilding our thinking, about rivers, wildlife, and entire ecosystems, can reshape our climate future.
Is a River Alive? Can rivers, forests, and other ecosystems be recognized as living beings with rights?
Jim Laurie leads a new 10-week journey guided by the questions and travels of author Robert Macfarlane. Each week we’ll connect these stories to larger ecological truths: that rivers, forests, wetlands, and fungi-rich soils function as one interconnected system, critical to rehydrating continents and cooling the climate. examine how biodiversity infiltrates water into soils, how plants cover and protect landscapes, how fungal networks sustain resilience, and how living shorelines can buffer rising seas.
This is a 10-week course that meets every Wednesday, September 24–December 3. Classes are offered 12 – 2 pm ET or 7 – 9 pm ET on Zoom.
A free introductory webinar is available on September 10. Are Causes of Sharp Wildlife Decline Also Driving Climate Instability?
Are Causes of Sharp Wildlife Decline Also Driving Climate Instability?
Wildlife & Climate, taught by Hart Hagan and an exciting roster of guest experts, explores the actual connections between wildlife and climate change and gives us a real and viable framework for living with nature, restoring habitat and addressing climate change.
Guest speaker Joel Berger, PhD, is Barbara Cox Anthony Chair of Wildlife Conservation at Colorado State University and a senior scientist with the Wildlife Conservation Society. Berger will speak on Thursday, October 16 at 12:00 PM.
Formerly the John J. Craighead Chair of Wildlife Conservation at the University of Montana, Joel Berger has spent nearly five decades studying large mammals in some of the world’s most remote regions of Africa, Asia, and North America.
His work from muskoxen in the Arctic to wild yak in the Himalayas demonstrates how protecting wildlife is essential to ecosystem health and climate resilience.
Just looking to dip a toe in? Join us for a free webinar!
How Plants Cool & Regulate Our Climate
With Dr. Poulomi Chakravarty
Wednesday, September 3
7:00 PM ET
Forests Are Not Just Carbon
With Hart Hagan
Friday, September 5
3:00 PM ET (Eastern Time)