Species protection, ecosystem change, and habitat loss.
About 400 million Atlantic salmon are held in farming net pens along Norway’s coast, outnumbering the world’s wild population. Migration success has fallen from half to 3 per cent, and sea lice and escaped fish are making wild populations more vulnerable.
Liu Yurong, a farmer from Wangjinzhuang, She County, Hebei, saves, trials and revives dozens of old bean varieties on the dryland terraces in the Taihang Mountains, keeping local varieties alive in food and local customs.
Zhang Zhiwei works on the mixed agroforestry farm of Louis, a farm owner in the state of Paraná, where bananas, cocoa, turmeric and taro form a farmable forest.
From Yunnan’s Red Junglefowl, Guizhou’s high-legged chicken and Little Liangshan Yi chickens, Zou Lei, a PhD student at Minzu University of China, sees that local chicken breeds are fading as industrialised farming, urbanisation and foreign varieties arrive, and food, language and ritual change accordingly.
Veteran BBC journalist Dan Saladino has visited more than 30 countries, using endangered foods such as Sichuan Red-mouth glutinous rice, Britain’s Perry pear and Coffea stenophylla to show how food diversity is linked to everyday food, farmers and ecosystems.
From the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau to the Amazon, imported Brazilian beef links herders’ livelihoods, price choices and rainforest deforestation. Chinese consumers argue over low prices and the environmental cost.
Supply chain data show four Hong Kong companies bought tripe and omasum from slaughterhouse “163 Beef”, which made repeated purchases from the family farms of Brazilian rancher Heller, who is accused of illegal deforestation in the Amazon. Supermarkets including Wellcome still sell Brazilian beef.
For World Book Day, Foodthink’s editors, authors and peers recommend books that connect food, land and the natural environment, including Bruno Latour’s ecological politics, French rural transformation, China’s environmental movement, vanishing foods and industrial additives.
From deforested ranches in the Amazon to European supermarket shelves, Marcel Gomes of Brazil’s investigative organisation Repórter Brasil pieces together the route by which JBS and other Brazilian meat firms put illegally deforested beef into global markets.
In the 2025 Lunar New Year film *Nezha: The Demon Boy’s Havoc*, the leopard spirit Shen Xiaobao won the hearts of many with his witty and adorable personality. However, his severe injuries and uncertain fate in the film bring to mind the real-world plight of the endangered North China Leopard…
