Half of world’s forest species at risk – FAO publishes first global study of forest genetic resources

4 June 2014 (PhysOrg) – Half of the world’s forest species are at risk from climate change and farming, the United Nations warned on Tuesday, as it called for “urgent action” to manage them better. In its first global study of forest genetic resources, the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) said woodland was shrinking […]

Ivory’s curse: The militarization and professionalization of poaching in Africa – 35,000 to 50,000 elephants slaughtered each year

21 April 2014 (Born Free USA) – It has been a quarter century since Parties to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) placed all African elephants on Appendix I, thus eliminating commercial trade in elephant ivory. This uniform global prohibition on ivory commercialization demonstrably reduced elephant poaching, helped elephant populations to stabilize, […]

Rift widening between energy and insurance industries over climate change

By Ken Silverstein18 May 2014 (Forbes) – Being a big business, the insurance industry is a strong backer of free enterprise and its laissez-faire leaders. But a rift could be developing now that some major carriers are staking claims in the climate change cause while many of their congressional backers have remained skeptical of the […]

Mountain Bull, legendary Kenyan elephant, found slaughtered by poachers – ‘He was killed while being tracked night and day with modern technology and within the confines of a fenced national park and World Heritage site’

By M. Sanjayan16 May 2014 (CBS News) – Mountain Bull, the magnificent six-ton elephant, featured prominently in our reporting on the poaching crisis in Africa for CBS Evening News and CBS Sunday morning, has been discovered dead. Perhaps he had been living on borrowed time, but the manner and place of his death is shocking […]

NASA satellites show drought taking toll on Congo rainforest

23 April 2014 (NASA) – A new analysis of NASA satellite data shows Africa’s Congo rainforest, the second-largest tropical rainforest in the world, has undergone a large-scale decline in greenness over the past decade. The study, led by Liming Zhou of University at Albany, State University of New York, shows between 2000 and 2012 the […]

Land grabs threaten last elephant bastions

By Richard Lardner20 April 2014 WASHINGTON (AP) – Political and military elites are seizing protected areas in one of Africa’s last bastions for elephants, putting broad swaths of Zimbabwe at risk of becoming fronts for ivory poaching, according to a non-profit research group’s report that examines government collusion in wildlife trafficking. Zimbabwe has maintained robust […]

Graph of the Day: Annual species offtake rate for one bushmeat market in West Africa

Estimated annual offtake rates for Friday/Sunday bushmeat market days at the Daobly market in the Ivorian town of Taï along the Cavally River. The annual offtake was calculated by doubling the average of the observed Friday offtake, and doubling again to account for the similar volume of primates traded at Sunday markets. This value was […]

More than 900 environmental advocates slain in a decade – Only 10 killers convicted – ‘The convicted tend to have lowest levels of responsibility, such as the getaway car driver. The level of impunity is glaring.’

By DENIS D. GRAY14 April 2014 BANGKOK (AP) – As head of his village, Prajob Naowa-opas battled to save his community in central Thailand from the illegal dumping of toxic waste by filing petitions and leading villagers to block trucks carrying the stuff — until a gunman in broad daylight fired four shots into him. […]

Over 9,000 primates killed each year for single bushmeat market in West Africa

By Ariel Mark 24 March 2014 (mongabay.com) – Over the past 25 years, West Africa’s primates have been put at risk due to an escalating bushmeat trade compounded with forest loss from expanding human populations. In fact, many endemic primates in the Upper Guinea forests of Liberia and Ivory Coast have been pushed to the […]

WMO: Global warming not stopped, will go on for centuries – ‘The laws of physics are non-negotiable’

By Robert Evans; Editing by Robin Pomeroy24 March 2014 GENEVA (Reuters) – There has been no reverse in the trend of global warming and there is still consistent evidence for man-made climate change, the head of the U.N. World Meteorological Organisation (WMO) said on Monday. A slow-down in the average pace of warming at the […]

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