Image of the Day: Satellite view of burn scars around Tanana, Alaska

By Adam Voiland1 August 2015 (NASA) – In mid-July, Alaska seemed to be headed toward its worst wildfire year on record. But then a period of cool, wet weather arrived later in the month and calmed several large fires. Government officials also trimmed tens of thousands of acres from earlier estimates of burned area after […]

California governor declares state of emergency as blazes burn – Firefighter killed, hundreds flee in Northern California – ‘The conditions and fire behavior we’re seeing are typically what we’d see in late August and September’

By Jeff Chiu and Haven Daley1 August 2015 LOWER LAKE, California (Associated Press) – Blazes raging in forests and woodlands across California have taken the life of a firefighter and forced hundreds of people to flee their homes as an army of firefighters continue to battle them from the air and the ground. Twenty-three large […]

A global gold rush is decimating South America’s tropical forests – 1680 square kilometers of tropical forest lost in mining sites between 2001 and 2013

  28 July 2015 (Institute of Physics) – A global “gold rush” has led to a significant increase of deforestation in the tropical forests of South America. This is according to a study published in IOP Publishing’s journal Environmental Research Letters, which has highlighted the growing environmental impact of gold mining in some of the […]

Salt water increasingly attacks Vietnam’s Mekong Delta – ‘We have never seen this situation in the area before’

29 July 2015 (Tuoi Tre News) – The Mekong Delta, Vietnam’s biggest granary, home to a widespread network of rivers and canals, has been threatened by the rising level of salt water flowing into rice fields and farms. There have been warnings about such a situation for years, but authorities in Vietnam have failed to […]

Graph of the Day: Change in length and frequency of fire seasons, 1979-2013

By Adam Voiland28 July 2015 (NASA) – A new analysis of 35 years of meteorological data confirms fire seasons have become longer. Fire season, which varies in timing and duration based on location, is defined as the time of year when wildfires are most likely to ignite, spread, and affect resources. In the map above, […]

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service opens investigation into dentist who killed Cecil the lion – White House says it will review petition to extradite the elusive hunter

30 July 2015 (Daily Mail) – He was already the most hated man in America for killing Cecil the lion and now Dr. Walter Palmer is fast on his way to becoming one of the most wanted. The Minnesota dentist has not been seen since he was identified as the killer of Africa’s most famous […]

Image of the Day: Elephant family slaughtered by poachers in Tsavo National Park, Kenya – ‘Elephants are now faced with the gravest threat to their survival in modern history’

ELEPHANT FAMILY BUTCHERED IN TSAVO – BIG LIFE TEAMS INVOLVED IN HUNT FOR KILLERS – NEWS UPDATES TO BE REPORTED SOON It’s the kind of discovery that stops everything: five elephant carcasses laid out on the dusty earth of Tsavo West National Park, the remains of a family. The gruesome scene, found on Tuesday morning […]

Mighty mammoths fell prey to rapidly warming Earth – ‘It doesn't bode well for the future survival of the world’s megafauna populations’

By Laura Geggel 25 July 2015 (LiveScience) – The mighty megafauna of the last ice age, including the wooly mammoths, short-faced bears and cave lions, largely went extinct because of rapid climate-warming events, a new study finds. During the unstable climate of the Late Pleistocene, about 60,000 to 12,000 years ago, abrupt climate spikes, called […]

More logging won’t stop wildfires – ‘Logging after a fire destroys a forest’s ability to rejuvenate’

By Chad T. Hanson and Dominick A. Dellasala23 July 2015 (The New York Times) – In the fall of 2013, shortly after fire swept across 257,000 acres of forest and shrub lands near Yosemite National Park in California’s Sierra Nevada, Republicans in the House of Representatives approved a bill that would have suspended environmental laws […]

Vital rice crops wither in Southeast Asia – Water rationing enforced in almost a third of Thailand – ‘This year is worse than any other’

BANG PLA MA, Thailand, 9 July 2015 (AFP) – Ms Ranong Rachasing would normally be in her fields at this time of the year, toiling in ankle-deep water to make her rice paddies bloom through knowledge honed by years of cultivating Thailand’s most celebrated export. Now the wizened 57-year-old’s fields lie fallow, baking under a […]

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