Living Planet - Reports | Deutsche Welle

The Ebro Delta in Spain is known as a major rice-growing region. But rising sea levels are increasing water salinity, while freshwater that feeds the delta is drying up. Both scenarios pose big problems for the future of rice in the region, with agricultural scientists in a race against time to find adaptive rice varieties.

With only about 50 individuals left, Marsican bears live exclusively in an area of central Italy. As the rare bear ventures ever more often into human settlements, locals and officials are struggling to balance conservation with security of livestock and people.

Australia's dingoes have long been seen as pests. But after centuries of being hunted and poisoned, the wild canine is now struggling to survive. As bushfires devastate wildlife, some say it's time to protect dingoes.

Elephants in Hwange National Parks are increasingly venturing into nearby villages — destroying crops, damaging buildings, and even trampling people to death. Rangers say elephants are overpopulating the park — and that tackling this requires more funding.

A Canadian company has gotten permission to drill for oil and gas in Namibia’s Kavango Basin — an important ecosystem that shelters the country’s largest elephant population and feeds water into the world-famous Okavango Delta in neighboring Botswana. Although Namibia says this drilling is mere exploration, environmentalists fear oil development there will harm local communities and wildlife.

Methane is a very powerful greenhouse gas — yet it doesn’t get much attention in climate discussions. Methane emissions, which come mostly from fossil fuels and agriculture, keep going up. So why is this so hard to get a handle on? Rob Jackson, an Earth sciences professor at Stanford University in California and chair of the Global Carbon Project, explains.

From massive wildfires to melting glaciers and rising seas, the climate crisis is becoming graver. And in reaction, ever more people seem to be taking climate cases to court, with six young people in Portugal recently having filed a new lawsuit. As this and other climate cases wend their way through the courts, DW addresses the question: Is climate litigation a growing trend?

In the valley of Kashmir, nestled in the folds of the Himalayas, decades-long armed conflict has pushed environmental issues into the background. But some locals have gotten tired of standing idly by as climate change increases temperatures and melts glaciers. They’ve started working to protect trees and forests, which play a vital role in managing climate change.

A strange and special animal, many ecologists say the Tasmanian devil is unfairly depicted as a vicious predator. Although the native species has been officially protected for many years, for the last three decades it's battled a unique threat: a type of contagious face cancer. Across the world, scientists and wildlife experts have been searching for a cure to save these animals from extinction.

The panda is one of conservation's great success stories. After years of decline, their numbers are rebounding and as of 2016, they are no longer considered endangered. But a new study out of China has found that other species aren't doing so well in the panda's habitat. Ecologist Jason Gilchrist explains how this revelation can help guide us to restoring biodiversity.

Natural landscapes that have suffered from human intervention often need help coming back to life. That’s what the Dutch have discovered with the Markermeer — an enclosed portion of sea that was once a bay, and then, sealed off by a dam, was left to stagnate for half a century. That is, until they had the idea to build islands in the middle of it, inviting the reeds, birds and fish to return.

Vegetable-based alternatives to meat are gaining ever more popularity. While some researchers are growing meat cells without animals in laboratories, an Israeli startup has succeeded in developing an animal-free "steak" — using a 3D printer. As 3D printing tech becomes cheaper, this could provide a new climate- and environment-friendly alternative to meat.

Nature, it seems, has a remarkable ability to heal itself – but in bouncing back from heavy human intervention, sometimes it needs support. Rewilding landscapes in Europe often involves reintroducing keystone species that humans drove extinct decades or centuries ago. Chiara Reid was in the Netherlands, where two new yet old inhabitants are at work reshaping the landscape.

With its tremendous biodiversity and array of megafauna, Kenya is a tourism hotspot. The East African country funnels much of that tourism money back into the protection of wild animals and their environment. But the coronavirus crisis has devastated the industry. So how is the wildlife faring? Andrew Wasike reports from the Great Rift Valley west of Nairobi.

Mauritians have taken to the streets to protest against the government's handling of an oil spill off the island nation's coast. In July, a Japanese ship hit a reef about a mile offshore, spilling oil into waters that are home to sensitive species and mangroves. As international experts assess the scale of the damage, locals are asking who'll foot the bill for the cleanup.

Welcome to The Climate Wheel! In this first edition, we'll take a look at how neighboring members of the European Union — France and Germany — compare when it comes to their climate goals and policies.

France is more dependent on nuclear power than any other country in the world, but that could change. Earlier this year, the government issued a decree that includes a radical change in direction for French energy policy. As reporter John Laurenson explains, it involves major cuts to nuclear, while expanding wind and solar capacity.

Australians are experiencing climate change up close and personal. They’ve seen years of drought, record heat waves, devastating bushfires, and ocean warming that's killing the Great Barrier Reef. Yet the government there is pushing ahead with new mining projects. That's angering activists in the state of Queensland, where one of the biggest coal mines in the world is under construction.

Africa currently accounts for less than 4% of global CO2 emissions, but standards of living are rising and the continent's population is set to double by 2050. This will mean increased demand for energy. DW spoke with Mohamed Adow, director of Power Shift Africa, about the potential pathways to develop more energy capacity and why he thinks climate reparations are needed.

Climate science about African regions is often done by researchers outside the continent. A research team in Cameroon is changing that though and their work has brought about new findings. At the University of Yaounde I, researcher Wilfried Pokam Mba and his team are undertaking important climate modeling, despite their limited resources.