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Eighty-one years since its signing on 26 June 1945 in San Francisco, the United Nations Charter remains the constitutive document of the international order after World War II. Drafted in the age of catastrophe with more than 70 million casualties, the United Nations Charter put forward noble goals: maintaining international peace and security; developing friendly relations among nations; cooperation in solving economic, social, cultural, and humanitarian problems; respect fo

The Global Tipping Points Report 2025 warns that Earth is entering a dangerous new phase of the climate crisis. The report’s central message is clear: climate change is no longer only a gradual process. Some of Earth’s most important natural systems are now approaching, or already crossing, critical thresholds known as tipping points. A tipping point occurs when a system is pushed beyond a critical limit and begins to change rapidly, often in a self-reinforcing and difficult-

The World Cup 2026 is not only a stage of powerful nations; sometimes, it is the language of dignity of the smaller countries. Right now, Cape Verde is crafting such a language, a small African island nation comprising ten islands of the Atlantic Ocean, located about 600 kilometers away from the coast of Senegal, having a population less than half a million and the courage to challenge the giants of world football. Being able to hold the European champion Spain to a goalless

Introduction Central Aceh Regency, located in the Bukit Barisan plateau in Sumatra, Indonesia, and referred to as the Gayo Highland, is a critical upstream ecosystem that regulates the hydrological processes for downstream areas. Highland catchment areas such as Central Aceh play a disproportionate role in controlling runoff, sediment transport, and water availability, making their ecological integrity important for regional resilience (Bruijnzeel, 2004; FAO, 2015). By the

On the night of 13th May in Kandy, I witnessed something far more meaningful than just a cultural show. At Sri Wasala Dance Show, music, rhythm and dance revisited us the aspects of nature, life, spirituality and history. As the hall filled with the sound of traditional drums, dancers entered the stage wearing beautiful Kandyan costumes inspired by the era of ancient Sri Lankan kings. Every performance carried a story from Sri Lanka’s cultural heritage, and each dance reflec

It was a Friday morning, just after sunrise, when the light was still soft and yellow. I woke up, reaching for my daily ritual – a mug of green tea with cinnamon, a king suggestion from a wise friend. As I took slow sips, spiced notes traversing my body by the natural laws of gravity, the greenness of the tea gathered everything green in my peripheral vision, converging as a lens for me to sense something deeper: a whisper of Sufi love for nature, carried through symbols and

Community is commonly defined as a human creation, urban settlements, cultures, and networks that are defined by common purpose and identity. But this definition is narrow. It typically leaves out the fact that community is much older than humanity: community is a principle of life. Nature has been structured in interdependent systems long before humans appeared on Earth. Forests are communities, oceans are communities, grasslands are communities, and even tiny ecosystems are

In the changing landscape global order, we currently stand at a unique paradox. As much as technology has advanced and the world has become more connected, the fundamental factor of existence, energy, is now increasingly more vulnerable. From the madness on the streets of Dhaka to the expansive industries in Europe, there is only one thing we need to understand that energy has evolved from being a factor of human rights to a geopolitical tool. Energy usage from switching ligh

Contemporary wars not only destroy cities and make people homeless; they also change the nature of the environment that supports humanity. In Middle East and Central Asia during the last three decades armed confrontation has again destroyed energy infrastructure, water facilities, forests, and arable land. These are the environmental implications that are not always as visible as bombed structures or moving front lines but might continue long after the ceasefires are announce

- The Quiet Destruction of the Black Sea’s Marine Life by Russia Ukraine War The Black Sea has always been a place of paradox. To the ancient Greeks it was the Pontos Euxeinos which means the “hospitable sea," a legendary highway for the Argonauts chasing the Golden Fleece. Yet beneath its glittering surface lies a prehistoric horror: nearly 90 percent of its volume is anoxic, a vast, oxygen-starved abyss filled with poisonous hydrogen sulphide (H₂S) that has perfectly preser

We live in a world whose underlying assumptions are guided by conflict, leverage, and alliance-making. While the products of liberal and pacifist theories of international relations have done much good in the world, the realist core of how the world works has not been challenged. It really is a dog-eat-dog world, as many might say. The distribution of resources around the world is something that can hardly be described as being equal, and that is simply part of the diversity

History sometimes behaves like a geological force. Wars do not only change borders or governments; they reshape forests, rivers, oceans, and soil. The First World War (1914–1918) and the Second World War (1939–1945) left deep environmental marks across continents. When industrial technology was turned toward war, nature became an unintended battlefield. Landscapes were blasted, forests burned, rivers altered, and ecosystems disrupted in ways that lasted decades. Looking at th

When Refuge Becomes Ecological Pressure

-- A Conversation with Minar Thapa Magar War and disasters leave behind more than broken buildings and displaced populations; they fracture the invisible systems that allow human life to flourish. When a settlement collapses, the delicate relationship between people, infrastructure, and the surrounding environment is severed. Homes turn to debris, roads disappear, and as communities scatter, the environmental consequences ripple through the soil, water, and forests. Understan

— A Conversation with Lieutenant Abu Rushd War is usually discussed through the language of strategy, alliances, and casualties. Maps are drawn with arrows showing advancing forces, and analysts debate political outcomes and military victories. Yet beneath these visible layers of conflict lies a quieter and often ignored battlefield, the environment itself. According to Lieutenant Abu Rushd, war is not merely a struggle between opposing armies or political systems. It is, at

Weather, wildlife, and the mountains of Chitral District Chitral is located in the eastern Hindu Kush, which is highly mountainous. Isolated, has strong climatic gradients, and is highly seasonal. In this case, the weather is not an incidental state of affairs; it is a controlled ecological reality. Unexpected snowfalls, extended winters, unpredictable spring precipitation, and slowly increasing summer temperatures have a direct impact on the life of high-alpine mammals. In t

I used to think weather was something you adjusted plans to. Now it feels like something you adjust your life around. There was a time when the sky followed a loose agreement with us. Summers were hot but familiar. Rain arrived with a warning. Winters had a beginning and an end. In Bangladesh, weather shaped daily life quietly, deciding when fields were planted, when rivers were crossed, and when people rested. That agreement no longer holds. Recently, the sky has become un

At this very moment, when escalating wars and rising tensions—involving the United States, Israel and Iran, as well as Pakistan and Afghanistan—dominate global headlines, our February edition on ‘Conflict and Nature’ could not be more relevant or timely for our readers. As part of the editorial team of Nature Insights , I am truly honored to feature an interview with Sidney Michelini, a researcher at the Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (PRIF) in Germany and a member of

The crisis facing humanity today is often described as an economic or political crisis. Yet a deeper examination reveals that it is fundamentally a crisis of relationships. Humanity has gradually lost its balanced relationship with nature, and the equilibrium in relations between men and women has also been disrupted. Modern development models and power-centered governance have intensified this imbalance. In this context, Natural Rights-Led Governance (NRLG) offers a new phil

This is the story of a soldier who never enlisted, a victim who never spoke, and a witness who cannot forget. It is the story of the Earth itself. In the spring of 1914, the forests of the Ardennes and the rolling fields of Flanders were busy with the business of life. Roots whispered to fungi underground; ancient oaks stood as monuments to centuries of slow time. Nature had its own laws, its own Natural Rights , to sunlight, rain, and the quiet rhythm of decay. Then came th

As the modern theater of global power, the notion of territoriality and conventional weaponry has been eclipsed by the control of intangible particles within the vacuum of outer space. As conventional cryptographic systems face the specter of quantum-computational "shattering," a new model of security has been born from the very essence of light. By exploiting the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle, Space-Based Quantum Key Distribution (QKD) breaks the bounds of conventional ma

When you are gazing up in the night sky, space appears empty. The earth orbit is however becoming congested with what is indeed very unromantic JUNK. Scientists call this junk by the names: space debris, orbital debris, space junk, and occasionally MMOD (Micrometeoroid and Orbital Debris). They all lead to the same conclusion made objects in the orbit that no longer work but move at high speed to cause great damage. And now here is the important point which makes this a pract

They begin as leftovers, which is the universe’s favorite way to build masterpieces. Before Earth had oceans or names or anyone to be terrified of the dark, the solar system was a loud, dusty argument. Roughly 4.6 billion years ago, a disk of gas and grit swirled around a newborn Sun. Most of that material learned to settle down and become planets. Some of it refused. Some of it never got the chance. Those holdouts are comets and asteroids, the unspent change in the pocket of