The Ottawa National Forest is one of the Midwest’s great public landscapes: mature hardwoods, wetlands, waterfalls, cold-water streams, wildlife habitats, and outdoor recreation. On any given day, one may find a gray wolf moving through a forest; a family hiking beside a cold-water stream; or a small-business owner supplying anglers, paddlers, and campers in Michigan’s […]
Just before dawn in Yellowstone National Park, something ancient fills the valley. A wolf howl rises — low, long, carrying for miles through the cold air. To most visitors, it is breathtaking. To Taylor Rabe and Amir Dehbi, Conservation Nation fellows working at the frontier of wildlife science, it is data. Wolves are among the most ecologically important, and socially controversial animals in […]
What if listening may be the key to helping solve our biodiversity crisis? Not just hearing — really listening. To the roar of a lion. The haunting song of a humpback whale. To the layered chorus of a forest at dawn, or the unsettling quiet of an ecosystem in collapse. The sounds of our living […]
One of the world’s leading ocean conservationists and award-winning nature photographers, Paul Nicklen has spent more than three decades documenting both the beauty of the natural world and the accelerating impact of climate change. Trained as a marine biologist and shaped by decades of fieldwork, Nicklen — a National Geographic contributor for more than 20 […]
Make It Better — that’s our natural instinct. We fill our lives with people, work, and opportunities that we love, then we want to pay those blessings forward. And hopefully help create a better world for them, and others, too. When we founded Make It Better 20 years ago, honoring our planetary home and protecting […]
The biodiversity crisis is often framed as a science problem, but at its core, it is a human one — and it calls for a human-centered solution. Around the world, species that anchor entire ecosystems are disappearing at an unprecedented rate. The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services estimates that up to one […]
As support for in-depth environmental storytelling declines, the urgency of telling these stories continues to grow. Vital Impacts — a Make It Better Foundation 2026 Philanthropy Award winner — is a women-led nonprofit that harnesses the power of art and storytelling to support community-based conservation efforts. This year, the organization awarded $50,000 in environmental fellowships […]
From Chile’s Atacama Desert to Japan’s floating solar farms and Texas wind corridors, photographer Jamey Stillings uses his Fujifilm GFX100 to capture the sweeping transformation of the world’s energy landscape. Through his multi-decade project, Changing Perspectives: Renewable Energy and the Shifting Human Landscape, Stillings shows how photography can be both a source of information and a […]
In moments of crisis, healing often begins with something simple: a warm meal, a quiet space, the sense that someone sees you. For those navigating homelessness, trauma, or identity-based marginalization, even these basic comforts are often out of reach. But when they are made available — intentionally, consistently, and with care — they can be […]
When I first met Pierre Moise Louis in Jérémie, Haiti, 15 years ago, he had just finished university. Determined to help his family and his country, Louis had one goal: to build a business around breadfruit. He saw this humble, starchy fruit not just as a food staple, but as a solution to hunger, to […]
