Significant deforestation in Brazilian Amazon goes undetected – ‘Landowners deforest in ways and places that evade the monitoring and enforcement system’

PROVIDENCE, Rhode Island, 12 October 2016 (Brown University) – Efforts by the Brazilian government over the past 15 years to curb deforestation have been a widely celebrated success, but a new study finds that there’s more deforestation happening in Brazil than official accounts suggest. The study, led by researchers from Brown University, compared data from […]

One billion trees felled in the Brazilian Amazon rainforest now 10 million hectares of abandoned pasture

  [Translation by Google.] By Alexandre Mansur5 October 2016 (Época) – One of the strongest arguments to end deforestation in Brazil is the existence of abundant land already cleared and abandoned. The area already deforested and abandoned in Brazil is equivalent to the states of Parana, Rio Grande do Sul, and Santa Catarina added. That […]

Amazon rainforest degradation increased 272 percent in September 2016 compared with 2015

[Translation by Bing Translator.] By Antônio Fonseca, Marcelo Justino, Carlos Souza Jr., and Adalberto Veríssimo20 October 2016 (Imazon) – In September 2016, Imazon’s Deforestation Alert System (SAD) detected 387 square kilometres of deforestation in the Amazon rainforest. This represented an increase of 69% compared to September 2015, when deforestation totaled 229 square kilometers. In September […]

Grassland tuned to present environmental conditions suffers in a hotter future – Study finds no CO2 fertilization effect

STANFORD, California, 5 September 2016 (Carnegie Science) – One of the world’s longest-running, most comprehensive climate change experiments produced some surprising results. The extensive experiment subjected grassland ecosystems to sixteen possible future climates and measured many aspects of ecosystem performance and sustainability. This study, appearing in the September 5, 2016, Early Online Edition of the […]

Feeding 10 billion people by 2050 will require 4 million hectares of new land each year: UN

18 October 2016 (UN) – The head of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification told delegations gathered in Nairobi, Kenya, to assess the treaty’s implementation, the impacts of land degradation affect the sustainability of the entire world, so a global effort is needed to tackle it, including through the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable […]

In new ozone alert, a warning of harm to plants and to people – ‘We are on track to return to the maximum ethane levels we saw in the 1970s in only about three more years’

By Jim Robbins17 October 2016 (Yale e360) – For the last four years Jack Fishman, a professor of meteorology at St. Louis University, has guided the planting of five gardens in the Midwest, gardens that have a distinct purpose: to show the impacts of an invisible gas that is damaging and contributing to the premature […]

Agriculture must transform to feed a hotter, more crowded planet, UN says on World Food Day

16 October 2016 (UN) – To mark World Food Day 2016, the United Nations is highlighting the close links between climate change, sustainable agriculture, and food and nutrition security, with the message: “The climate is changing. Food and agriculture must, too.” “As the global population expands, we will need to satisfy an increasing demand for […]

Report revels 56 percent of UK species have declined since 1970 and 1,199 species are threatened with extinction

By Dr. Barnaby Smith14 September 2016 (CEH) – The State of Nature 2016 UK report is launched by Sir David Attenborough and UK conservation and research organisations at the Royal Society in London this morning (Wednesday, September 14). Following on from the first State of Nature report published in 2013 the report reveals that over […]

Neonicotinoid insecticides linked to wild bee decline across England – Study finds ‘increased population extinction rates in response to neonicotinoid seed treatment’

16 August 2016 (CEH) – Exposure to neonicotinoid seed treated oilseed rape crops has been linked to long-term population decline of wild bee species across the English countryside, according to research published today in Nature Communications. The research, led by the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology using data provided by Fera Science Ltd and the […]

Rusty patched bumble bee proposed for U.S. endangered species status

By Laura Zuckerman and Steve Gorman; Editing by Toni Reinhold and Sandra Maler22 September 2016 (Reuters) – The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Wednesday proposed listing the rusty patched bumble bee, a prized but vanishing pollinator once widely found in the upper Midwest and Northeastern United States, for federal protection as an endangered species. […]

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