The Reef's Sanctuary Returned
This article traces the recovery of the eastern Australian humpback whale population that migrates through the Great Barrier Reef. Once reduced to perhaps only around 150 individuals by industrial whaling, this population has rebounded to at least 50,000 animals. We examine how the Reef functions as seasonal habitat, how whaling collapsed the stock, which legal and technological interventions enabled its recovery, and what this success reveals about the limits and possibilities of conservation in a heavily used seascape.
When Forests Must Bend
In this episode of the Wild Systems Podcast, we travel into the Leuser Ecosystem of northern Sumatra, one of the last strongholds for critically endangered Sumatran orangutans. We follow a young female orangutan and a smallholder farmer as they navigate a forest squeezed by palm oil, roads, and the slow heat of climate change. Along the way, we explore how conservation teams are trying to keep the canopy connected, what happens when wildness survives in fragments, and what it really means for an ape built for trees to live in a landscape increasingly shaped by human hands.
The Snow Leopard's Lament
In this episode of the Wild Systems Podcast, we dive deep into the conservation efforts aimed at protecting the snow leopard, a majestic apex predator of the Himalayas. We explore the interplay between local communities and wildlife, technological advances in monitoring, and the ongoing challenges that threaten these beautiful creatures. Throughout this journey, we ask: Why do conservation efforts succeed or fail? How is the wilderness there being impacted? And how do snow leopards experience the change in their ecosystem?