April 2011: The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has released the April edition of “Focus,” the organization’s newsletter, highlighting stories of conservation’s “unsung heroes.”

The newsletter profiles six conservation advocates: Renata Leite Pitman, working in the Amazon, Brazil, who studies the world’s rarest wild dog species; Tahir Qureshi, who plants and rehabilitates mangrove forests in Pakistan; Prudence Mazambi and Pascal Murhula Balezi, who protect the environment through comics, theatre performances, radio programmes and reforestation initiatives in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC); Nicolas Pilcher, who saves turtles in Malaysia; Naresh Subedi, who protects Nepal’s wildlife; and Phaivanh Phiapalath, who focuses on protected areas in the Lao Peoples’ Democratic Republic. [Publication: IUCN: Monthly Focus Newsletter]