Latest Stories
Dec 19, 2018
Cleaning up after ISIS: how Iraq’s new chemicals team is trying to undo years of conflict pollution
At the precise moment when ISIS fighters were prepping for their retreat from the Iraqi city of Ramadi in February 2016, Hassan Mohammed lay in bed struggling to breathe.
For nine months, through…
Dec 13, 2018
IRAQ: DEAD LAND: ISLAMIC STATE'S DELIBERATE DESTRUCTION OF IRAQ'S FARMLAND
One year after Iraq declared military victory over the armed group calling itself Islamic State (IS) our report finds that IS’s deliberate destruction of Iraq’s rural environment continues to have…
Nov 21, 2018
Pirates are killing Bengal tigers
In the mangroves of Bangladesh, pirates are usurping tigers in one of their last refuges.
Oct 1, 2018
How a Metastasizing Food Crisis Threatens Sudan’s Stability: A Dispatch from Khartoum
At 10am on a midweek summer morning, the village of Hasa in Sudan’s River Nile state feels all but abandoned. Stray dogs idle in the shade; vultures peck at what remains of a cow carcass. Only in…
Jul 11, 2018
Salvaging Iraq’s remaining wilderness
Almost from the moment he could walk, Muhammad Siddik Barzani has delighted in his native Barzan region’s rich flora and fauna.
From the herds of curly-horned wild goats, some 5,000 of whom…
Jun 14, 2018
Battling pollution in history’s most fabled sea
Were Jason and the Argonauts to set sail now, they would scarcely recognize their original route. The shorelines, once covered in trees, have been largely stripped of greenery, while many of the fine…
May 29, 2018
How Saddam and ISIS Killed Iraqi Science
Within decades the country’s scientific infrastructure went from world-class to shambles. What happened? Read more: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-saddam-and-isis-killed-iraqi-science-180969097/#sBTwkLWJqFjGDmEi.99 Give the gift of Smiths
Mar 19, 2018
The Explosive Battle to Build an Iraqi National Park
Amid land mines, militants, and air strikes, conservationists are trying to carve out a protected area in the war-torn country. Can they succeed?