Important environmental safeguards that puffins depend on for survival, food, and their mighty migration are under siege.

Wildlife trafficking is the fourth-largest illegal trade in the world, worth hundreds of billions of dollars annually. It’s a key component of the unfolding biodiversity crisis causing ecosystem collapse, which is dangerous for humans, too. We can be a part of stopping trafficking in its tracks.

Helping to protect the boreal forest is one great way to get active in the fight against climate change, because the amount of climate-changing carbon that is currently stored in Canada’s boreal forest is massive: Even if we burned all the oil we could possibly extract from all the fossil fuel reserves around the world, it would actually release LESS than the amount of carbon stored in the boreal. So we must keep that carbon in the forest—which means stopping logging companies from destroying the boreal—in order to avoid catastrophic warming.

At their current rate of decline, we will lose these incredible whales in less than 20 years. There are only 450 North Atlantic right whales remaining on earth. Their lifetimes have shrunk, and they’re producing calves far less often than they used to. And their habitat is shifting because of climate change and in a way that is heightening the conflict between these beloved animals and the ways humans use our ocean. We need lasting protections, quickly, from the things causing the most harm as well as a concerted effort to shift towards ‘ropeless’ fishing technology, which will likely reverse their decline.

It’s been a year since the Women’s March showed that women will lead the resistance—just as they did at the turn of the 20th century to win legal rights for women to participate in elections. I didn’t learn much in school about the organizing tactics these women employed, the long-term battle they waged to enter civic life, or their resilience. National monuments, like Washington D.C.’s Belmont-Paul, are not only places of huge cultural and historical importance but also invaluable teaching tools. And a threat by the current administration to rescind any national monument establishes a threat to all national monuments.

Join NRDC senior oceans scientist Lisa Suatoni on an animated submersible tour of the weird, wonderful, and imperiled underwater world of the Northeast Canyons and Seamounts National Monument. The ocean floor off the east coast of the United States is carved with canyons deeper than the Grand Canyon, and, beyond those, extinct volcanoes. President Obama made almost 5,000 miles of this unique area a national monument, but the Trump administration is interested in revoking its monument status to open this pristine area with 4,000-year-old corals to industrial fishing, mining, and drilling. Not many people get to explore these incredible depths—but once you see what’s down there, you’ll never be the same!

When Audrey Peterman, a tireless advocate for America’s national parks and monuments, visited her first national park, Maine’s Acadia, surrounded by incredible beauty, she learned to love herself. By sharing her spiritual experience, Peterman reminds people that seeing our country is the best way to feel our place in this world. She also reminds us that the people who tell our nation’s story—and which stories are included in that—are critical in creating an American legacy that includes all of us.

NRDC’s staff scientists share how their discipline works, what they love about it, and the wonder about our world that it provides.

Women of color are bearing the brunt of unregulated chemicals and climate change as they work to support their families. Groups like Forward Together and the California Healthy Nail Salon Collaborative are working to make education of health issues for nail salon workers California law. They point out that addressing both the health and carbon issues in these industries will lead to solutions that not only help us tackle climate change but also improve women’s reproductive health while we’re at it. Let’s pursue luxury that uplifts everyone involved. Get the nails done, but tip 25 percent at an ecologically mindful nail salon that pays its workers a living wage.

Most of the top carbon emitters in the world have signed on to reduce their climate change contributions. This happened because people around the globe demanded that their leaders take action.

Study after study proves that the deafening blasts caused by underwater oil and gas exploration are harming—and even killing—ocean species all over the world.

Five years into the Deepwater Horizon disaster, leading scientists tell NRDC science scribe Perrin Ireland what happened to BP's oil and what they know about its impact on the Gulf.

George Washington Carver describes his childhood experience-enslaved yet cultivating plants in his secret garden-as a profuse intermingling of sunshine and shadows. Against the odds, he went on to become an environmentalist and professor at Tuskegee University, where he advocated for crop diversification to help southern cotton farmers make more money and eat healthier foods.

Toxic flame retardant chemicals are saturated in the foam inside our furniture. These chemicals are linked to serious health effects and are worthless in preventing furniture fires. We need better regulation of these chemicals to address this problem.