Good Nature Travel Blog

  • Nature & Wildlife

    The Longevity Code: Galapagos Giant Tortoises and Mountain Marmots

    May 17, 2022 · Candice Gaukel Andrews

    While you probably haven’t celebrated it for the past 20 years, World Turtle Day is coming up on May 23. This annual event was created by the American Tortoise Rescue in 2002 to call attention to the dwindling numbers of these animals due to environmental hazards and human interference.

  • Nature & Wildlife

    Finding Your Voice—and Those of Other Animals

    May 10, 2022 · Candice Gaukel Andrews

    “Finding your voice.” We hear that phrase a lot, lately. It means that you know who you are at your core, and you express it. Voices are extremely important for humans.

  • Nature & Wildlife

    Do Snakes or Spiders Give You Shivers? Time in Nature May Help.

    May 3, 2022 · Candice Gaukel Andrews

    Ophidiophobia (fear of snakes) and arachnophobia (fear of arachnids, especially spiders) rank among the most common of human anxieties. In fact, more than a third of adults and children recoil in terror when they see a snake in the garden or a spider on the wall.

  • Nature & Wildlife

    Earth Day 2022: A Golden Bear and Hundreds of Mammals Waiting to Be Discovered

    Apr 19, 2022 · Candice Gaukel Andrews

    Invest in Our Planet. That’s the theme for Earth Day 2022, according to EARTHDAY.ORG. It advocates for “creating a 21st century economy that brings back the healing and health of our planet, protects all of our species—including our own—and provides opportunities for everyone on the planet.”

  • Conservation

    Biodiversity, Cultural Diversity and Conservation Are Connected

    Mar 29, 2022 · Candice Gaukel Andrews

    Preserving the biodiversity we have left is not only of extreme importance for the species we are rapidly losing, but for our own health and well-being. It has long been a goal of nature lovers and conservationists all over the world.

  • Conservation

    A Road Map for Curbing the Illegal Wildlife Trade

    Mar 22, 2022 · Candice Gaukel Andrews

    Just hearing the term “wildlife trade” brings to mind heart-wrenching photos of elephants who have been stripped of their tusks or pictures of rhinos without their horns. Actually, the definition of “wildlife trade” is more benign; it denotes any sale or exchange of wild animal and plant resources by people.

  • Nature & Wildlife

    Sounds of Spring: Not Silent Yet

    Mar 15, 2022 · Candice Gaukel Andrews

    For me, spring and Rachel Carson are inextricably linked. In her visionary, 1962 book, Silent Spring, Carson—a marine biologist and environmental trailblazer—wrote: “Over increasingly large areas of the United States, spring now comes unheralded by the return of birds, and the early mornings are strangely silent where once they were filled with the beauty…

  • Conservation

    30 x 30: Conserving 30 Percent of U.S. Lands by 2030

    Mar 8, 2022 · Candice Gaukel Andrews

    The Half Earth theory—setting aside 50 percent of the world for wildlife—seemed like a far-out pipe dream when it was proposed by evolutionary biologist and author Edward O. Wilson in his 2016 book, Half-Earth: Our Planet’s Fight for Life.

  • News & More

    Our National Parks Have a Popularity Problem

    Mar 1, 2022 · Candice Gaukel Andrews

    Let’s step into the Wayback Machine and go to 2015, just six years after producer Ken Burns’ documentary miniseries The National Parks: America’s Best Idea had aired on PBS in 2009. At that time, I wrote to you about the overcrowding in our national parks—in part due to that widely popular TV program.

  • Nature & Wildlife

    Mountains Are the Center for Earth’s Biodiversity

    Feb 22, 2022 · Candice Gaukel Andrews

    Despite the fact that we are currently experiencing the Earth’s sixth mass extinction crisis, I take great solace in knowing that life here is still amazingly diverse. And, somewhat surprisingly, the hot spots for that extraordinary and baffling biological richness occur in our planet’s mountainous regions—especially those found in the tropics.

  • African Safaris

    Valentine’s Day: Lasting Lemur Love

    Feb 8, 2022 · Candice Gaukel Andrews

    When Valentine’s Day rolls around in mid-February, many of us can’t help thinking about finding—or staying with—that one, special person; or, as often described, the “love of our lives.” And although there’s nothing wrong with buying chocolates and flowers for ourselves, dreaming about that unique, cherished partner is hard to escape on February 14.