For the first time in four centuries, it’s good to be a beaver. Long persecuted for their pelts and reviled as pests, the dam-building rodents are today hailed by scientists as ecological saviors. Their ponds and wetlands store water in the face of drought, filter out pollutants, furnish habitat for …

This story originally appeared on Yale Environment 360 and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration. Makueni County, a corner of southern Kenya that’s home to nearly a million people, is a land of extremes. Nine months a year, Makueni is a hardened, sun-scorched place where crops struggle and plumes …

This story originally appeared in High Country News and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration. On July 1, 2022, a National Park Service biologist named Jeff Arnold was hauling nets through a slough off the Colorado River, several miles downstream from Glen Canyon Dam, when he captured three greenish …