Comparison of living and dead mangroves at two sites along the Gulf of Carpentaria in 2016. Photo: Norman Duke

Unexpected consequences from catastrophic mangrove dieback – “What was concerning was that the dead mangrove forest emitted about eight times more methane than the living forest”

4 July 2019 (Southern Cross University) – When swathes of mangrove forests died along a 1000 kilometre stretch of coastline in northern Australia’s Gulf of Carpentaria, there was widespread shock. But the impacts of the catastrophic climate-induced mangrove dieback didn’t end there. In a world first, researchers from Southern Cross University have found that the […]

Aerial view of a cattle ranch in Cumaru do Norte, in the interior of the state of Pará. Photo: Eduardo Anizelli / Folhapress

Amazon deforestation in June 2019 is 57 percent higher than in the same month of 2018

3 July 2019 (Folha de São Paulo) – Deforestation in the Amazon in June was about 57% higher than in the same month last year, according to DETER, the deforestation alert system of the National Institute for Space Research (INPE). [Translation by Google.] The data from last month, for the time being, only go until […]

Satellite view of the proliferation of small dams in the Amazon rainforest, visible as “water mirrors”. Photo: Imazon / Sentinel 2

The silent proliferation of small dams in the Amazon rainforest

By Francy Nava 6 July 2019 (Imazon) – Recent land cover mapping in Amazonia has identified a considerable number of water mirrors in rural properties, indicating the presence of small dams supporting agricultural activities. In Sorriso-MT, for example, Arvor, et al., (2018) identified a five-fold increase in the number of dams (86 to 522) in […]

Squirrel monkeys (Saimiri sciureus) play in the trees, along the Yasuni river. Photo: Kimberley Brown / Mongabay

Heart of Ecuador’s Yasuni, home to uncontacted tribes, opens for oil drilling – “Their intentions are deceitful. What’s the real commitment the government is making to conserve this area?”

By Kimberley Brown 5 July 2019 QUITO, Ecuador (Mongabay) – Ecuador’s Yasuni National Park sits in a unique position on the equator, between the Andes mountain range and the Amazon rainforest, which has allowed a rich and distinct biodiversity to flourish. The region is surrounded by towering ceibo and mahogany trees, emblematic of the area, […]

X-ray showing pellets lodged in the body of an orangutan who was shot 74 times with pellets by villagers and blinded. Photo: Bryan Denton / The New York Times

One casualty of the palm oil industry: An orangutan mother, shot 74 times

By Hannah Beech 29 June 2019 BUNGA TANJUNG, Indonesia (The New York Times) – The men came at Hope and her baby with spears and guns. But she would not leave. There was no place for her to go. When the air-gun pellets pierced Hope’s eyes, blinding her, she felt her way up the tree […]

Four major drivers of insect decline for each of the studied taxa according to reports in the literature. Graphic: Sánchez-Bayo and Wyckhuys, 2019 / Biological Conservation

Insect apocalypse: German bug watchers sound alarm – “Unless we change our ways of producing food, insects as a whole will go down the path of extinction in a few decades”

By Daphne Rousseau 1 July 2019 (AFP) – For almost 30 years they passed as quirky eccentrics, diligently setting up their insect traps in the Rhine countryside to collect tens of millions of bugs and creepy crawlers. Now the group of German entomology enthusiasts can boast a world-class scientific treasure: evidence of what is described […]

Deltoid spurge, shown here in 2005, is one of the endangered plants found only on pine rockland. The pine rockland found near Zoo Miami is the largest intact tract outside Everglades National Park. A 2015 study found 55 plant species in the tract, far more than botanists found in rockland in the park. Photo: Donna E. Natale Planas / Miami Herald

Activists lose last legal battle to protect rare Miami forest from Walmart development

By Adriana Brasileiro 19 June 2019 MIAMI (Miami Herald) – Activists fighting to preserve a slice of one of the world’s rarest forests lost what was likely the last legal battle to stop the imperiled ecosystem from turning into a Walmart-anchored development. One of the last remnants in Miami-Dade of pine rockland, a forest that […]

Brazil President Jair Bolsonaro talks to journalists. Photo: Brazil’s Presidency / Flickr Commons

Brazil guts environmental agencies, clears way for unchecked deforestation – “If before, staff were already being attacked by loggers, imagine what it is like with the president’s endorsement of the criminals”

By Sue Branford and Thais Borges 10 June 2019 (Mongabay) – The Brazilian government’s environmental agency, IBAMA, has so far this year imposed the lowest number of fines for illegal deforestation in at least 11 years, while the country’s other leading environmental agency and its federal parks’ protector, ICMBio (the Chico Mendes Institute), did not […]

China’s 60 years of environmental destruction in Tibet – “Now the rivers are polluted with poisonous waste from the mines”

By Zamlha Tempa Gyaltsen 4 April 2019 (Central Tibetan Administration) – China’s latest white paper on Tibet, once again highlights Beijing’s absolute lack of understanding of Tibet’s History and its unwillingness to read beyond government documents. The paper “Democratic Reform in Tibet – Sixty Years On,” was released on 27 March 2019 to mark the […]

Satellite view of forest loss in the Madre de Dios region of southeastern Peru, on 6 September 2018 NASA. Photo: Earth Observatory

Image of the Day: Satellite view of deforestation in Peru’s Madre de Dios region

By by Andrea Nicolau, Andi Thomas, and Leah Kucera 18 April 2019 (NASA) – Considered a hotspot for biodiversity, the Madre de Dios region of southeastern Peru is an exceptionally fertile landscape. Standing at the edge of the Amazon basin, Madre de Dios has a rich concentration of endemic species—plants and animals that are found nowhere […]

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