A couple of spivs from one of England’s authoritarian nationalist populist outfits, Reform UK Ltd, knocked on our door at the weekend. Unsurprisingly they beat a hasty retreat when confronted on actual policies. Greenwashing will not help the environment. www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

¡Atención, comunidad latinoamericana! El Consejo Norteamericano de Anillamiento (NABC) abre la convocatoria a aplicar a pequeñas becas para apoyar el desarrollo y certificación de anilladores de aves de América Latina y el Caribe. Aplica aqui: www.animalecology.org/grants

🚨Paper alert🚨 Very happy to see our paper published in @science.org #ScienceAdv. Very greatful to have worked with such a great team @duncanobrien.bsky.social #tomJohnson @robinfreeman.bsky.social #ValentinaMarconi #LouiseMcRae @expecocons.bsky.social 👇Check the main findings below!

I've worked and lived in Latin America for most of my life, a region for which many Brits & UK media blithely employ the term 'corruption' while accepting the endemic scourge of cronyism as somehow normal—at best 'the old boys' network', at worst 'sleaze'. Let's call 'The Honours System' what it is.

Essential reading for the Neotropical birder. Neotropical Swifts - Hispanola endemics - Saving Marsh Antwren - Seeing Caura Antbird and more... Want to get your hands on a copy? Join NBC through the website www.neotropicalbidingandconservation.org #birding #neotropics

Paging UK charities that have taken the political decision to defund Venezuela: "It is now the responsibility of the international community to support the Venezuelan people, too often silenced and marginalised during this crisis, in making that hope a reality." www.thelancet.com/journals/lan...

60 years ago Paul Schwartz showed site fidelity in Northern Waterthrush wintering at Rancho Grande in N Venezuela. Motus joins more of the dots. #ornithology www.peptbo.ca/blog/interna...

Help protect the Rio Grande Valley’s iconic birding sites! The proposed FY26 DHS Appropriations Bill removes long-standing protections for famous birding hotspots like Santa Ana National Wildlife Refuge, Bentsen–Rio Grande Valley State Park...

Top tip: If you've been in a country for a week, don't pretend to tell those who have spent decades in Venezuela that their own life experience is misremembered. As a "historian" this counterfactual, riddled with glaring errors, should be acutely embarrassing. www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/202...

A highly problematic precedent for biodiversity data management that an international organisation based in Copenhagen uses a non-standard (not recognised by IHO) partisan populist political neologistic toponym created by executive order for a region known for centuries as Gulf of Mexico.

Find out what we did in 2025. All the projects we supported in one handy download from our website. Apply - Donate - Join to conserve the birds of the Neotropics. #birding #neotropics #conservation #ornithology

Years ago I translated a book by one of El Helicoide's architects, Dirk Bornhorst. It is ironic that an architectural creation of the spiritually-minded author of 'Architecture, Science and Tao' became a jail where hundreds of political prisoners have been tortured. www.reuters.com/world/americ...

Having advocated for decades for more support and recognition of the fundamental role of local and indigenous communities in conservation, this analysis using the Environmental Justice Atlas (EJAtlas) dataset is most welcome. Environmental organisations take note. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

A year on, few people have been so consistently wrong about Trump as the UK's ex Environment Minister.

The Yanomami, an Indigenous group from the Amazon, is confronting surges in #malaria amid increasing illegal gold mining in their territory. Read 'Investigating the Yanomami malaria outbreak: gold mining and malaria': doi.org/10.1098/rsbl... #BiologyLetters

One day this will all seem very silly, if not impossible to comprehend. www.npr.org/2026/01/28/n...

Incredible self own for the US. The damage being done to the US scientific enterprise is generational. We will look back on this as a tipping point where the US chose all on its own to stop leading the world in science. www.science.org/content/arti...

Just a few days to go until our next deadline. Apply at the link below. #ornithology

Another cool avian tool from @cornellbirds.bsky.social!

Shortest resumé of Trump's 90 minute Davos diatribe comes from Chris Patten (Conservative peer, former Party Chairman, ex-Gov Hong Kong): “You’re listening to those rambling mendacities of the demented leader of the free world… sooner or later, he has to be stopped.” www.nytimes.com/2026/01/21/o...

The lack of interest in the environment amongst leaders of the US regime suggests that the dictatorship will not necessarily be concerned about the environmental impacts of new extractivism in its recently acquired protectorate of Venezuela. news.mongabay.com/2026/01/how-...

United States has approved partial reform of the Hydrocarbons Law of its new protectorate Venezuela. bitacoraeconomica.com/eeuu-dio-el-...

Joint operations between criminal organizations and the state in the illicit extraction of natural resources in the Venezuelan Guayana. Illegal mining is likely to receive a significant boost under the new US dictatorship. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Most of the gold and other minerals are mined in regions of high biodiversity and endemism in the Venezuelan Guayana. The regime's rapacious policies promote mining in protected areas and indigenous territories, fuel massive government corruption and fund regime mafias and irregular armed groups.

US regime's Lebensraum clearly includes Venezuela, not just as the current protectorate but as a territory, a megadiversity country and former leader in environmental management under an environmentally illiterate dictatorship.

From Jonathan Jarvis, former Director of the US National Park Service, about the importance of IUCN and why it's a very bad thing that the US is withdrawing after decades of valuable and contructive involvement. @iucnwcpa.bsky.social @adamiucnwcpa.bsky.social 🌎🌐

Leader of Venezuela's puppet regime announces plan to increase mining of gold and rare earths, all of which are found in ecologically fragile regions of high biodiversity and endemism south of the Orinoco. www.instagram.com/reel/DTtdYw-...

Venezuelan researchers need our support, not further financial punishment. #ornithology derechosuniversitarios.org/2026/01/16/s...

"Restoration can more effectively reverse degradation, address its causes and benefit local people if communities can shape and lead initiatives to align with their own needs, knowledge and aspirations." theconversation.com/why-restorin...

Banks and Honduran elites siphoned off $ millions of development funds to murder environmental activist indigenous leader Berta Cáceres in 2016. insightcrime.org/news/report-...

Our application for AOS Latin American/Caribbean Conservation Research Grants is now open. Six grants of up to $5K are available. We'll host an informational workshop at 1pm (ET) on 2/4/26 for applicants. See website for details. Applications due by 2/27/26. americanornithology.org/awards-grant...

The White House says the Smithsonian Institution must submit materials about current and upcoming exhibitions and events for a review that will determine whether they express "improper ideology." n.pr/4583d8f

'Acting President of Venezuela'...

It's not often a political cartoonist has cause to draw a Venezuelan Troupial: Chris Riddell in today's @theobserveruk.bsky.social @neobirdconserve.bsky.social

Climate change has already reshaped the bioclimatic space of extreme events in the Arctic 🌐❄️ Arctic biodiversity has entered a new era of bioclimatic extremes w/ more droughts, greater winter-warming 📈 & more rain-on-snow events 💧❄️ shorturl.at/pQsVP Just published in Science Advances ⬇️

Dunlin now VULNERABLE on Iceland's RED LIST. One of the waders most impacted by new forestry plantations: wadertales.wordpress.com/2022/06/18/i... Over 50% of Europe's Dunlin nest in Iceland so recent declines are of concern to whole East Atlantic Flyway. #ConservationScience🌍

Are there any limits on Trump's global powers? Trump tells New York Times: "Yeah, there is one thing. My own morality. My own mind. It’s the only thing that can stop me... I don’t need international law.”. www.nytimes.com/2026/01/08/u...

US Presidential Memorandum to withdraw from 66 international organisations including key environmental bodies IPCC, IPBES, UNESCO & IUCN covering climate change, biodiversity, world heritage/biosphere reserves threatened/endangered species. #conservation www.whitehouse.gov/presidential...

North American bird populations are shrinking most rapidly in the very areas where they are still most abundant, according to a 2025 study in Science. The findings reveal both urgent threats and potential opportunities for targeted conservation and recovery. https://scim.ag/4qwOLyM #NationalBirdDay

Funding opportunity! The Road to Recovery (R2R) organization is providing funding to support conservation-oriented work on birds on their Tipping Point Species list (i.e., rapidly declining species not yet threatened or endangered). Applications due 1/30! #ornithology

NBC @neobirdconserve.bsky.social Conservation Fund supports projects to conserve threatened Neotropical birds by small grants of USD 1000–3000. Next deadline = 1 Feb. More information & application forms (English/Español/Português): neotropicalbirdingandconservation.org/conservation/ #ornithology

Exidiopsis effusa (Hair Ice Crust) amongst the frost and ice near The Strid at Bolton Abbey today.

UK grant-giving charities are increasingly being bullied into withdrawing finance for research & #conservation projects in Venezuela under spurious legal claims of money laundering or breaching sanctions. Please do not collaborate—Venezuelan conservationists have never needed your support more.

This is precisely why IUCN Red List not ESA designations are the best gauge of conservation status and extinction risk. www.sierraclub.org/sierra/prote...

Unfortunately I'm still waiting for my binoculars to be repaired under warranty at Swarovski Austria, after they got lost for a while in the Brexit Triangle. Might have to buy a British pair next time 🤣.

An important read for anyone who cares about nature in the UK!

Epic recovery report just received! ⚠️ A Turnstone I trapped using a homemade walk-in trap has been recaptured in the 🌍 world’s 🌎 northernmost continuously inhabited settlement. Ringed on 12 February 2024 in Southend-on-Sea, Essex 🇬🇧, it was re-trapped on 08 June 2025 in Alert, Nunavut… 🇨🇦 (🧵 1/2)

We're not running out of new species to describe and have a long way to go to even catalogue Earth's biodiversity. And the rate at which new species are discovered, far from trailing off, is increasing. doi.org/10.1126/scia...

Our NBC Conservation Fund has supported 160 priority bird conservation projects in 14 countries to the tune of $350,000. Encouraged to help? Find out more, donate or join NBC (to receive our journal and magazine) at the new website: neotropicalbirdingandconservation.org/conservation/ #ornithology

New Neotropical Birding and Conservation website is up and running. If you want to help conserve the birds of the American tropics please consider joining, donating—or just spreading the word! @neobirdconserve.bsky.social neotropicalbirdingandconservation.org #ornithology