A new study has found that in Ecuador’s Amazon, Indigenous territories without formal conservation contracts maintained forest conditions just as well as formal protected areas. Ecuador has three different approaches to forest governance: Forests protected by government institutions, forests managed by local communities under formal conservation agreements and Indigenous territories without formal conservation agreements. To […]
What happens in the rainforest when a giant tree comes crashing down? Through the Amazon Research Initiative for Educators (ARIE), K-12 teachers stepped into the role of field scientists at the Amazon Conservatory of Tropical Studies - this is their Field Report!
"From River to Research: Investigating Amazon Fish Biodiversity" is an interactive story map created by 2026 Alumna, Jeanne Salchli who joined the Aquatic Survey Team during the Amazon Research Initiative for Educators. Check it out - it's amazing!
Thousands of scientific papers have used data collected by users of the platform iNaturalist, according to new research. Have you participated? We'd love to know more!
Eighty percent of the world's biodiversity is within Indigenous territories, yet these communities often don't have a say when it comes to protecting the lands they inhabit. Environmental activist Jupta Itoewaki explains why Indigenous peoples are best positioned to lead the world's efforts to preserve nature and maintain a habitable planet -- and reminds us of their outsized importance in charting a sustainable future.
This Natural History Field Note, just published in Biotropica by Dr. Jeannine Richards, includes co-authors who are K-12 science teachers from our 2025 Amazon Research Initiative for Educators (ARIE) program. Classroom teachers, publishing original field research in a peer-reviewed journal — that's a huge deal, and exactly the kind of hands-on science experience ARIE is designed to make possible. Citation: Richards, J. H., Brunner, R. M., Aliaga Pashanaste, K. G., Dumas, T., Ganong, C., Madden, D. E., Mezheritskiy, A., Trautmann, N. M., & Wolf, J. (2026). Bird Use of Arboreal Water Sources in the Peruvian Amazon. Biotropica, 58(4), e70233. https://doi.org/10.1111/btp.70233
By mapping interactions across more than 5,000 Amazonian tree species, researchers reveal that protecting the forest also means protecting its pollinators and seed dispersers.
Many of us care deeply about the future of our planet. But sooner or later, we arrive at the same question: What can I actually do?
Drawing on experiences from work in Panama and Colombia and years of interviewing conservationists, educators, and community leaders, Crystal reflects on how positive storytelling can help people move beyond feeling overwhelmed and begin making meaningful change in their own communities.
At a meeting with conservationists a couple of years back, Juan Lavista Ferres had a eureka moment. As the director of Microsoft’s AI for Good Lab, Lavista Ferres has extensively worked on projects that use artificial intelligence technology to process and analyze biodiversity data. At that particular meeting, however, he realized that a glaring gap […]
One smashed bug. One gasp around the table. What came next became a documentary. By Morpho alumni, Josh Ault, Journalism Teacher, Spring Woods High School, Houston, TX.
Every day, the Amazon releases billions of tons of water into the atmosphere that are carried by winds toward other regions of South America. They deliver the rains that supply forests, cities and crops far beyond the rainforest.
In an unprecedented participatory ethnobotany approach, Hemerson Dantas dos Santos Pataxó HãHãHãi, the world’s first published Indigenous ethnobotanist, documented alongside his people their traditional medicinal practices: cataloging 175 medicinal plants, many of which had their use reaffirmed in scientific literature.
Estimated to be twice the size of India and contain 10 percent of the world’s known species, the Amazon rainforest is a critically important ecosystem — but not just to the plants and animals that call it home. The importance of this threatened ecosystem to the health of our planet is one of the reasons…
We are excited to work with The Climate Initiative and share their wonderful resources and trainings with our network of educators. TCI's ED, Leia Lowery, connected with Morpho's ED via their work on the IUCN Nature-based Education Task Force. Instant collaboration ensued! Learn more about TCI
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