conservation

RAVEN, a shoebox-sized CubeSat receiver, rode SpaceX's CAS500-2 rideshare to orbit on May 3 as the first dedicated satellite of the Max Planck-led ICARUS 2.0 wildlife-tracking constellation — three years after Germany ended ISS cooperation with Russia.

The IUCN Red List has reclassified the emperor penguin from Near Threatened to Endangered and the Antarctic fur seal from Least Concern to Endangered, citing sea-ice loss and krill decline driven by climate change.

A RUSI Journal paper argues that restoring peatlands, wetlands, and forests along Eastern European frontiers could impede mechanized forces while delivering climate and biodiversity benefits at a fraction of the cost of traditional anti-tank defenses.

An Oxford-led study warns nearly 8,000 vertebrate species face unsuitable conditions by 2100 from combined heat and land-use stress, while a separate Nature Climate Change paper finds that protecting biodiversity hotspots would halve the land available for forestation-based carbon removal.

Three major studies reveal invasive species cut insect numbers by 31 percent globally, climate change alone drove a 72 percent decline in a pristine Colorado meadow, and monitoring frameworks cannot yet track whether rescue plans work.