The hunting of large whales goes back much further in time than previously thought. New research from the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (ICTA-UAB) and the Department of Prehistory of the UAB reveals that Indigenous communities in southern Brazil were hunting large cetaceans 5,000 years ago, around a thousand years before the earliest documented evidence from Arctic and North Pacific societies.

Hunter-gatherers in southern Africa laced their stone arrow tips with poison roughly 60,000 years ago, a new study finds. The discovery pushes back the timeline for poison weapon use – a cognitively complex hunting strategy – from the mid-Holocene to the Late Pleistocene. Hunting with poison was a gamechanger for hunter-gatherers, making it easier to kill prey animals. The emergence of the practice also represents a defining moment in the human journey; People had to keep a mental encyclopedia of poisonous plants they could use, and they also had to anticipate animals’ behavior as they slowly weakened. Until now, the earliest evidence for poison weapons dated to the mid-Holocene. Here, Sven Isaksson and colleagues have uncovered traces of plant-based poison on 5 of 10 quartz arrow tips in Umhlatuzana Rock Shelter in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. The tips came from a stratigraphic layer dated to 60,000 years ago. Analysis revealed alkaloid residue (buphandrine and epibuphanisine) from indigenous members of the Amaryllidaceae family of flowering plants. Hunter-gatherers most likely made this poison from the milky bulb extract of Boophone disticha (locally called poison bulb), Isaksson et al. suggest, because records from the 1700s refer to the plant’s use in historic arrow poisons. Notably, this poison does not work immediately; Late Pleistocene hunter-gatherers must have understood its delayed effects and used that knowledge to enhance their persistence hunting. “Because poison is not a physical force, but functions chemically, the hunters must also have relied on advanced planning, abstraction and causal reasoning,” the authors write.

New research shows properly funded Indigenous-led conservation in Canada delivers climate and biodiversity outcomes equal to or better than conventional protected areas. Federally supported Indigenous Protected and Conserved Areas and Guardians programs enhance carbon storage and species richness while sustaining cultural stewardship. Government backing strengthens environmental results and Indigenous governance.

A new global study published with the defining authorship of HUN-REN Centre for Ecological Research, Institute of Ecology and Botany in Conservation Biology, the leading journal in the field, highlights that many governments still do not fully recognize the contribution of Indigenous Peoples and local communities, and other traditional knowledge holders to the conservation and sustainable use of biodiversity. The researchers examined the two most recent national reports submitted by the 195 state Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, amounting to more than 400 reports in total—two reports in the case of some countries—and approximately 58,000 pages of material. Europe stood out in a negative sense: while countries frequently referred to traditional land use practices, many states considered the issues related to Indigenous Peoples and local communities and traditional knowledge to be irrelevant, due to terminological confusion. The timeliness of the study is primarily underscored by the next round of national reports due in 2026, as well as by the fact that the Kunming–Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework states that achieving its goals is impossible without the genuine involvement of Indigenous Peoples and local communities.

A new study revealed that giant clam populations in American Sāmoa are far more stable and abundant than previously thought, demonstrating the effectiveness of traditional, community-based resource management. The research found that marine areas managed by local villages consistently support higher clam densities and larger clam sizes compared to federally designated no-take reserves.

The Arctic is warming at nearly four times the rate of the rest of the planet, altering Indigenous ways of life in the far north.