At a UN wildlife conference in Brazil, governments agreed to extend protections to 40 additional migratory species, including populations of cheetahs, snowy owls, and several shark species, bringing total coverage under the Convention on Migratory Species to 1,200+ species. The meeting highlighted accelerating declines driven by habitat loss, climate change, overexploitation, and pollution, prompting new action plans, regional initiatives, and calls for stronger international cooperation and integration of Indigenous knowledge. Leaders stressed that real conservation outcomes will depend on turning agreements into on-the-ground action before the next summit in Bonn in 2029.

Two researchers at the University of Zurich have discovered and described a new, previously unknown palm species found in the virgin forests of Colombia. In close cooperation with an indigenous community there, they mapped the geographical distribution of the palm species and subjected their study to a local peer review process.

A new interdisciplinary study published in Nature reconstructs over 2,000 years of population history in Argentina’s Uspallata Valley (UV), a southern frontier of Andean farming spread in ancient times, with broader lessons on how agriculture shaped societies and how communities endured crises. By combining ancient human and pathogen genomics with isotopic analyses, archaeology and paleoclimate records–and working in close collaboration with Huarpe Indigenous communities–, the research reveals how local hunter-gatherers adopted agriculture, how more recent intensive maize farmers experienced prolonged stress, and how kinship-based mobility may have helped communities persist through instability. 

Botanists from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) named the new species, Clusia nanophylla, because of the tiny size of the leaves, the smallest within the genus. This species has only been found in Panama.

Australia: Dementia, global trends, community attitudes, conscientious objections by doctors and health facilities, Indigenous perspectives, and organ donation are among agenda topics for the International Conference on Assisted Dying and Other End of Life Care (ICEL5) at QUT next month.