Ahead of this year's Thanksgiving holiday, today's episode revisits a conversation we originally recorded in 2022 about avoiding food waste when you get together to cook those turkeys and side dishes. This topic matters because some 316 million pounds of food is expected to go to waste this Thanksgiving alone. And when we waste food, we also waste all the water, land, and energy that went into producing it. Alex Nichols-Vinueza, WWF's director of food loss & waste, joins this episode to...

This week marks the start of the annual UN climate conference, known as COP29, in Baku, Azerbaijan. COP29 is being dubbed the “finance COP” because one of the main focuses of this year’s conference will be to set a new goal for global climate finance and to lay out a plan for achieving it. The last time countries set a climate finance goal was 2009, at COP15 in Copenhagen, where wealthy nations committed to provide $100 billion annually to help developing nations deal with climate change. 15...

Today, rather than interviewing a WWF expert in-dept on a specific topic, we’re trying something new. Seth will be joined by Hayley Lawton from WWF’s social media team for something we’re calling: Headlines & Trendlines. You’ll hear Seth and Hayley briefly summarize some recent news articles and talk about what they mean for climate and nature. This week they discuss two big issues that are driving headlines: this year’s devastating hurricane season, and the ongoing UN biodiversity...

Next week global leaders will convene in Cali, Colombia for an important meeting: the 16th meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the UN’s Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP16). You’re probably more familiar with the climate COP that happens every year, but the biodiversity COP is a critical forum for addressing the loss of nature. Two years ago, at COP15 in Montreal, the nations of the world agreed to a new Global Biodiversity Framework, which set a goal to halt and reverse...

In today’s special bonus episode of Nature Breaking you’ll hear all about WWF’s 2024 Living Planet Report. This bi-annual report functions as a check-up on the health of the Earth. Underpinning the report is the Living Planet Index, which monitors populations of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish around the world. This year the report found that monitored wildlife populations declined by an average of 73% since 1970. Importantly, this year’s report also reveals that the Earth...

Global food production is a key driver behind both climate change and the loss of species and ecosystems. In fact, it’s responsible for roughly one-third of global greenhouse gas emissions and over two-thirds of global habitat and biodiversity losses. That’s because unsustainable food production too often leads to the destruction of forests, grasslands, and other ecosystems in order to produce more food. So how do we create a more sustainable food system? Joining the show today is Dr. Jason...

Note: This interview was originally published on September 5, 2023. It's being re-released with a new intro for Amazon Day 2024. To our new subscribers: thanks and welcome! September 5 is World Amazon Day, and we’re celebrating with an episode about the many things that make the Amazon rain forest so special. For example, did you know that the Amazon is the largest rain forest in the world? It covers an area nearly the size of the entire continental United States, and it’s home to about one...

Today’s episode revisits the climate catastrophe that hit Pakistan two years ago this month in the form of historic floods. In July and August of 2022, Pakistan received nearly double its typical rainfall nationwide, with some localized areas receiving over four times the usual amount. Simply put, the water had nowhere to go. A third of the country was submerged underwater. Two million homes were destroyed and four million acres of agricultural land were ruined. Millions were left without...

In this episode of WWF's Breaking Waves podcast, Johan speaks with US Representative Jimmy Panetta of California's 19th Congressional district. The Congressman discusses the beauty and bounty of his district, emphasizing the balance needed between economic growth and environmental preservation. The conversation covers stressors such as fishing regulations, renewable energy projects like offshore wind, and bipartisan efforts as key to advancing pragmatic environmental policies amidst political...

Ahead of World Elephant Day on August 12, today’s episode is all about Asian elephants. Did you know that there are actually three different kinds of elephants? Our planet is home to Asian elephants, African savanna elephants, and African forest elephants. You’ll learn more about the difference between these species today, but for starters, Asian elephants and African forest elephants are slightly smaller than their savanna brethren. And Asian elephants are the most endangered of the three...

Diplomacy and business have a big impact on our environment, particularly our oceans. On this episode of Breaking Waves, Johan speaks with Sanda Ojiambo, the CEO of the United Nations Global Compact, on the challenges and opportunities of sustainable ocean business practices. They touch on how the UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) influence the ocean industry (1:23), how marine renewable energy sources like offshore wind can scale with an eye toward environmental justice (7:30), and...

This has been a year of record temperatures across the globe. According to the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), June 2024 was the warmest June on record and the 13th consecutive month of record-high temperatures. This follows news from the Copernicus Climate Change Service that we recently experienced a 12-month period in which every month was at least 1.5 degrees Celsius higher than pre-industrial temperatures. That’s significant not just because it felt a little...

What responsibility do global businesses have in conserving our oceans? In this episode, Johan is joined by Marika McCauley-Sine, Chief Sustainability Officer for Mars Petcare, WWF partner and the first global pet food company to publicly commit to sustainable seafood sourcing over 15 years ago. They discuss the challenges of responsible fish sourcing (3:22), Mars's endeavors in coral reef restoration (6:51), and the importance of leadership in cross-sector collaboration to engage consumers...

Today’s episode features two people who recently teamed up to tell an important story. The topic? Seaweed farming. Seaweed has all sorts of amazing applications, from feeding people to livestock, and even as a replacement for some plastic packaging. Expanding its market share in those areas could reduce the world’s reliance on land- and energy-intensive agricultural practices because seaweed farming requires no land, freshwater, fertilizer, or pesticides. And seaweed is also good for sea...

In this episode of Breaking Waves, Johan interviews Admiral Tim Gallaudet to discuss the complex intersections of ocean health, maritime competition, and national security within the context of geopolitics. Key topics include his three-dimensional approach to ocean geopolitics—economic (blue economy), national security, and environmental conservation (1:58), how the US is countering the challenges of IUU (illegal, unreported, and unregulated) fishing (14:23), and the importance of...

Black-footed ferrets are among the most endangered mammals in North America. These animals live in the prairies of the Great Plains, and only about 390 of them remain in the wild today. That’s actually up significantly from decades past, when they were once believed to be extinct. But big threats remain in the form of habitat loss and a non-native disease called sylvatic plague, which affects the ferrets as well as the prairie dogs that they rely on for food and prairie dog burrows for...

Welcome to Breaking Waves, a 6-episode limited series from WWF's Nature Breaking podcast. In this episode Johan Bergenas talks with Dr. Enric Sala, Explorer-in-Residence at National Geographic, and Dr. Gabby Ahmadia, WWF's VP of Area-Based Ocean Conservation on the ecological and economic benefits of well-managed Marine Protected Areas (MPAs). Both have extensive experience implementing and studying MPAs, including "no-take" areas (which prohibit all fishing and other extractive activity) and...

As we approach the upcoming Juneteenth holiday, today’s episode is about environmental justice. You’ve probably heard that term before, but in short, it refers to the notion that underserved and historically underrepresented communities with higher populations of black, indigenous, and other peoples of color, have born a disproportionate share of the impacts from climate change and environmental degradation. And over the last few decades there’s been a growing movement to address that...

Welcome to Breaking Waves, a 6-episode limited series from WWF's Nature Breaking podcast. In this episode of Breaking Waves, WWF's Senior Vice President of Ocean Conservation, Johan Bergenas, talks with Bill Hilf, Chairman of the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence, about the progression and potential of AI for ocean conservation. Johan and Bill dive into AI's role in enhancing ocean health by leveraging big data and predictive models (16:27), the challenges of sustainable funding...

Today’s episode focuses on the latest efforts to conserve wild tigers. After a century of decline, tiger populations began to rebound in the last decade, growing from just 3,200 in 2010 to over 5,500 today. But tigers are still an endangered species. So what are the most important steps we can take to keep tiger populations trending upward? That was the topic of the recent Sustainable Financing for Tiger Landscapes Conference in Bhutan. As the title suggests, one of the biggest hurdles facing...

Breaking Waves is a new 6-episode limited series that will run on the Nature Breaking feed throughout the summer of 2024. Join host Johan Bergenas, WWF's senior vice president for oceans, as he interviews outside experts on a range of ocean-related topics. You'll hear episodes about how we effectively manage marine protected areas, how new kinds of partnerships are advancing ocean conservation, what the AI revolution means for the open seas, and more. Episodes will run every other week...

Today’s episode celebrates an important milestone: the 10th anniversary of the largest tropical forest conservation program on Earth. It’s called the Amazon Region Protected Areas Program for Life, or ARPA for Life, for short. And since 2014 it has helped provide the resources required to protect 150 million acres of the Brazilian Amazon, an area larger than the state of California. The Amazon rainforest is one of the most biodiverse places on Earth, containing about 1 in 10 of all known...

Today’s episode is about a piece of legislation currently pending in the US Congress that could make a big difference for global forest conservation: the FOREST Act. This bill would create new requirements and incentives for companies to ensure that the products they import into the US are not associated with illegal deforestation. This matters now more than ever because forests are a critical ally in our global fight against climate change and biodiversity loss, and because we’re still...

Ahead of Earth Day, today’s episode revisits a topic that we first covered in 2022 on this podcast: plastic pollution. Everyone knows that this issue has become a true crisis around the world. Our current system for recycling and reusing plastic products is broken, and far too much of the plastic we use in our lives ends up in our communities or in our oceans. But there is hope for a brighter future. In March of 2022, the UN Environment Assembly agreed to kick off a process to draft a Global...