Cool Green Science

Welcome to Cool Green Science, the conservation-focused blog brought to you by The Nature Conservancy.

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Earth Day Book Review 2025

1 week ago | blog.nature.org | Justine E Hausheer

Conservation is in no small part about shaping what we want the world to be. Books have long helped shape that vision. They have played an instrumental role in launching the modern U.S. environmental movement, in particular Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring and Aldo Leopold’s A Sand County Almanac. Notably, both Carson and Leopold were dedicated field scientists. Their big ideas originated from their experiences and observations.
Meet Four Amazing Endemic Parrots from New Zealand

2 weeks ago | blog.nature.org | Justine E Hausheer

Asking a birder to name their favorite species is like asking a parent to pick their favorite child. For most of us, it’s an impossible task. But if you ask me to name my favorite type of bird? Well then, things get a bit easier. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m absolutely besotted with parrots. They’re colorful and charismatic, but also strange, secretive, and highly adaptable.
50 Fish, 50 States: Rhode Island’s Wild Brook Trout

2 weeks ago | blog.nature.org | Justine E Hausheer

I’m on a quest to catch a fish in each of the 50 U.S. states – and to use each adventure as a means to explore conservation, the latest fisheries research and our complicated connections to the natural world. It was a pleasant June morning, a bit of humidity in the air, as we headed down a little path through eastern hardwood forest. I carried a light fiberglass fly rod. The sound of a mountain stream tempted me, but I followed my new friend, who was taking me to his secret pond.
These Carnivorous Snails Slurp Earthworms Like Spaghetti

3 weeks ago | blog.nature.org | Justine E Hausheer |Matthew Miller |Natalie van Hoose

It’s a dark, rainy night in the beech forests of New Zealand. As the rain patters on the leaf litter, a slow-motion chase plays out on the forest floor. A predatory snail is on the hunt. The size of a lemon, it slides along the forest floor, leaving a glistening slime trail in its wake. It’s prey: an unsuspecting earthworm, wriggling along the snail’s path. A pause, and the snail lunches forward, grasping the worm in its mouth and slurping it down like a long, saucy strand of spaghetti.
One Size Does Not Fit All for Sustainable Livestock Production

1 month ago | blog.nature.org | Cara Byington |Matthew Miller |Justine E Hausheer

New research published in Global Food Security shows that the paths to sustainable livestock production in systems around the world require a better understanding of environmental, economic, and social and cultural factors at scales small enough to be locally relevant, but broad enough to inform effective policy and funding interventions.
Elk in the East: A View to a Dramatic Conservation Success

1 month ago | blog.nature.org | Matthew Miller |Cara Byington |Mary Terra-Berns

We hike up the wooded trail on a warm August day, as cardinals, blue jays and other songbirds dart back and forth into the brush. Within a few minutes, we see much larger wildlife. The forest opens, revealing a large meadow–once the site of a coal minefield–and our group looks out upon it. I’m here with colleagues from The Nature Conservancy as well as biologists from the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency (TWRA). Earlier in the day, they had noted we’d have a high likelihood of success.
Humboldt Penguins on the Edge

1 month ago | blog.nature.org | Cara Byington |Mary Terra-Berns |Natalie van Hoose |Matthew Miller

Next time you’re in need of an odd animal fact to fill a conversational lull, consider the nesting preferences of the Humboldt penguin. To protect their eggs and hatchlings from sun, heat and other elements, they dig nests and burrows out of the accumulated guano (poop) of generations of Humboldt penguins and other sea birds. Native to western South America, Humboldt penguins take their name from the Humboldt current that flows a few miles offshore.
After the Disaster: An Asheville Resident on Cleaning Up After the Storm

1 month ago | blog.nature.org | Eric Seeger |Justine E Hausheer |Dustin Solberg |Natalie van Hoose

Eric Seeger is the deputy editor at Nature Conservancy magazine. He grew up surfing hurricane swells in Florida during the 1990s and 2000s, and has lived the last 18 years near Asheville, North Carolina. He wrote about his experience in the wake of the historic floods and landslides that hit North Carolina and Tennessee in 2024. “As this article was going to press, images of the devasting wildfires in Southern California were hitting the news,” he says.
Inside the Clear Waters of England’s Ancient Chalk Streams

1 month ago | blog.nature.org | Jenny Rogers |Emli Bendixen |Justine E Hausheer |Matthew Miller

When Rob Cunningham was growing up in Norfolk, England, he would sometimes go fishing with a friend on the banks of a river where the water was crystal clear. “I was a rubbish fisherman,” he says. “I never really caught any, but I’d see loads of trout.” The spot on the River Wensum was idyllic, he says, with strands of water-crowfoot—a kind of ranunculus—blooming on the water’s surface.
Camera Trap Chronicles: Orangutans of Indonesian Borneo

1 month ago | blog.nature.org | Matthew Miller |Justine E Hausheer |Lauren Pharr |Natalie van Hoose

Even where they’re numerous, seeing a wild orangutan takes a bit of luck. The rainforest is dense and the orangutans keep mainly to the trees. Sure, there are forest fragments and national parks where orangutans are more reliably viewed, but in much of their habitat they’re a rare sighting. Last year, I visited East Kalimantan in Borneo as a trip to see conservation that benefits orangutans and other species.