Flamingos National Reserve, Atacama Desert. Photo: Getty
Locals in another region known for its wild flamingos are complaining that eco-friendly cars are not so friendly to their own ecosystem.
Tesla Motors and General Motors’ Chevrolet are selling mass-market electric cars next year, but their batteries require lithium. Much of that silver-white metal is being mined from brine deposits under the world’s driest desert in northern Chile.
The 3,000-square kilometre Salar de Atacama is home to wild flamingos, who feed and breed in its lagoons, where miners are sucking water out of the earth to get to the lithium.
Satellite images bear this out. Some lagoons and meadows in the salt flat are shrinking, and the Chilean Forestry Commission has recorded a drop in the flamingo population.
A parliamentary commission has been unable to connect the depletion of water resources with the lithium miners, leaving it to the local community to drum up interest in the fate of the flamingos.
The American bison has returned to the landscapes of Coahuila, Mexico, after an absence of approximately 160 years. This historic comeback centers on the “El Santuario” ecological reserve. This nearly 4,000-hectare protected area is in the Sierra de Menchaca, just 10 kilometers from the “Pueblo Mágico” of Cuatro Ciénegas. The effort, spearheaded by the Fundación…
Mexico’s National Commission for Aquaculture and Fisheries established four new fishing refuge zones this fall, two of which are located along Yucatán’s northern coast. The temporary protected areas aim to rebuild populations of commercially valuable species while allowing limited traditional fishing. The refuges in Telchac Puerto and Chuburná will protect octopus, lobster, red grouper, sea…
The birth of Yazu, the baby jaguar born at the Yagul Sanctuary in Oaxaca, will lift the spirits of anyone concerned about the species’ long-term survival in Mexico. According to the latest National Jaguar Conservation Alliance census, 5,300 jaguars were counted in 2025 in the corridor stretching from Sonora and Nuevo León to the Yucatán…
Heavy rains across Yucatán left a wildlife sanctuary underwater, but the birds remained safe due to recently built elevated facilities. Proyecto Santa María, a parrot conservation refuge near Hunucmá, found itself under about 50 centimeters (20 inches) of water after intense storms battered the region. The flooding turned the entire facility into what director Pierre…
Conservation organizations are demanding the immediate halt of a program by Yucatán’s state government that distributes nets to cattle ranchers for the mass capture and killing of bats, calling the initiative both illegal and scientifically unfounded. The Yucatán Rural Development Secretary (Seder) launched what it terms a “bat sweep” as a preventative measure against screwworm,…
Roberto Rojo was 30 meters underground when the drilling started. Stalactites that had formed over millennia began tumbling around him as a massive industrial drill punched through the limestone ceiling above. The biologist ducked for cover, phone in hand, recording what would become some of the most dramatic footage of environmental destruction in Mexico’s recent…
