Members of the Wampis Nation Peru listen as Indigenous representatives of Latin American countries hold a press conference during the United the Nations Biodiversity Conference (COP15) in Canada in December 2022. Photo: Andrej Ivanov / Getty Images

Business is using COP15 to show it’s serious about saving nature, but environmentalists aren’t so sure – “If you come here and your objectives actually are against the objectives of the convention, then we have a problem”

By Marisa Coulton 17 December 2022 (Financial Post) – The UN biodiversity conference in Montreal might go down in history as the moment that business engaged in the fight to preserve nature, but the presence of a thousand corporate representatives is making some the environmentalists who have been attending these meetings for years uneasy. Some […]

Dugong (Dugong dugon). Photo: Ahmed Shawky

Manatee relative, 700 new species now facing extinction

By Patrick Whittle 10 December 2022 (AP) – Populations of a vulnerable species of marine mammal, numerous species of abalone and a type of Caribbean coral are now threatened with extinction, an international conservation organization said Friday. The International Union for Conservation of Nature announced the update during the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity, or COP15, […]

A person wearing a carved wooden mask takes part with other people in a march during COP15, the two-week U.N. Biodiversity summit in Montreal, Quebec, Canada on 10 December 2022. Photo: Christinne Muschi / REUTERS

Activists dressed as birds and trees rally for nature at COP15 in Montreal – “We see what is happening and it is clearly not sufficient compared to our ambitions and our priorities”

By Gloria Dickie 10 December 2022 MONTREAL (Reuters) – Hundreds of people on Saturday braved sub-zero temperatures to march the streets of Montreal, the host city of this year’s U.N. biodiversity summit, demanding a strong new deal to protect nature worldwide. Wearing costumes to look like birds, trees, and caribou, activists said the COP15 summit could fail […]

Number of Western Monarch butterflies (left) and butterfly surveys (right), 1997-2021. In the western United States, the number of individual butterflies has been steadily decreasing over the past four decades, at a rate of around 1.6% every year, according to a March 2021 study in the journal Science. The iconic Monarch butterfly is one of the species in trouble. Warmer autumn temperatures, an effect of climate change, may be interfering with the butterflies’ hibernation-like period known as diapause. So rather than slowing down ahead of winter, the insects are staying awake longer, expending more energy, and eventually starving to death. In July 2022, the migratory monarch was added to the IUCN’s global endangered species list. Graphic: Catherine Tai / Reuters

The collapse of insects – “They’re the fabric tethering together every freshwater and terrestrial ecosystem across the planet”

By Julia Janicki, Gloria Dickie, Simon Scarr and Jitesh Chowdhury 6 December 2022 (Reuters) – As a boy in the 1960s, David Wagner would run around his family’s Missouri farm with a glass jar clutched in his hand, scooping flickering fireflies out of the sky. “We could fill it up and put it by our […]

Police monitor a protest opposing COP15, the UN Biodiversity Conference, in Montreal, on Wednesday, 7 December 2022. Photo: Graham Hughes / The Canadian Press

Monbiot: The US is a rogue state leading the world toward ecological collapse – “It’s a cliff edge”

By George Monbiot 9 December 2022 (The Guardian) – There are two extraordinary facts about the convention on biological diversity, whose members are meeting in Montreal now to discuss the global ecological crisis. The first is that, of the world’s 198 states, 196 are party to it. The second is the identity of those that aren’t. Take a […]

This undated photo provided by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources shows a northern long-eared bat. On Tuesday, 29 November 2022, the Biden administration declared the northern long-eared bat endangered, a last-ditch effort to save a species driven to the brink of extinction by a deadly fungus. This is the third species of bat recommended for the designation in 2022 due to white-nose syndrome. Photo: Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources / AP

U.S. bat species devastated by fungus now listed as endangered – “This species is in dire straits, but we never want to give up hope”

By John Flesher 29 November 2022 TRAVERSE CITY, Michigan (AP) – The Biden administration declared the northern long-eared bat endangered on Tuesday in a last-ditch effort to save a species driven to the brink of extinction by white-nose syndrome, a fungal disease. “White-nose syndrome is decimating cave-dwelling bat species like the northern long-eared bat at […]

A dead elephant that was killed by Kenya Wildlife Service rangers after it killed a woman as it was looking for water and food amid the drought lies in Loolkuniyani, Samburu County in Kenya on Tuesday, 16 October 2022. Hundreds of animals have died in Kenyan wildlife preserves during East Africa’s worst drought in decades, according to a report released Friday, 4 November 2022. Photo: Brian Inganga / AP Photo

Hundreds of elephants, zebras die as Kenya weathers East Africa’s worst drought in decades

By Evelyne Musambi 4 November 2022 NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) – Hundreds of animals, including elephants and endangered Grevy’s zebras, have died in Kenyan wildlife preserves during East Africa’s worst drought in decades, according to a report released Friday. The Kenya Wildlife Service and other bodies counted the deaths of 205 elephants, 512 wildebeests, 381 common […]

A rare earth mine near the Chinese border owned by a company that has no permits. On paper, Sin Kyaing Company is owned by a local militia leader named Lagwi Bawm Lang. But like other Burmese companies in the rare earth mining industry, it is really a front for illegal investment by Chinese businesspeople. Photo: Global Witness

New evidence shows massive and rapid expansion of illicit rare earths industry in Myanmar – “China has effectively offshored this toxic industry to Myanmar over the past few years, with terrible consequences for local communities and the environment”

9 August 2022 (Global Witness) – Myanmar has seen a rapid expansion of illegal mining of heavy rare earth minerals, used in green energy technologies, smartphones and home electronics, with the industry fuelling human rights abuses, environmental destruction and funding local militias linked to the brutal military regime, our new investigation reveals today. Our report shows that […]

Rescued elephant calves at the Reteti Elephant Sanctuary dust bathe to cool down during the heatwave in May 2022. Photo: Reteti Elephant Sanctuary / The Sunday Times

Elephants are attacking humans as climate change pushes them to the brink – Elephant calves orphaned by drought fill Kenya sanctuaries

By Robyn White 27 May 2022 (Newsweek) – Elephants are known for being gentle giants. But climate change is beginning to take its toll, with attacks on humans increasing as global temperatures rise. In India, 500 people are thought to be killed by elephants every year, mainly in crop-raiding incidents. In 2021, India Today reported that 3,310 […]

A bumblebee in flight approaches a flower. Photo: Michael Durham / Minden Pictures / Getty Images

The American bumblebee has vanished from eight states – Bee population has plummeted by 89 percent over past 20 years – “Endangered species” listing could be imminent

By Elizabeth Gamillo 6 October 2021 (Smithsonian) – The American bumblebee (Bombus pensylvanicus)—once abundant and found lazily floating around in grasslands, open prairies, and some urban areas throughout the United States—now face a rapidly declining population. According to a proposed rule released by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the species’ population has dropped nearly 90 percent […]

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