By Mike Gaworecki 4 February 2016 (mongabay.com) – Recent research by the U.S. Forest Service finds that the world lost interior forest at three times the rate of forest loss as a whole. They write that this fragmentation could severely jeopardize the ability of remaining forests to provide critical wildlife habitat and other ecological functions. […]
By Claire Salisbury1 February 2016 (mongabay.com) – The Amazon’s freshwater ecosystems are at risk because current policy and existing protected areas fail to protect the connectivity of the water cycle, scientists warn. The new study, published in Global Change Biology, examines the factors degrading the Amazon basin’s hydrological connectivity: the movement of water — and […]
(RAISG) – The Amazonian Network of Georeferenced Socio-Environmental Information (RAISG) reveals in a recent publication that the loss of original forest cover of the Amazon rainforest decelerated between 2000 and 2013 relative to the 1970-2000 period. Despite this deceleration, figures remain high within the entire region for the three periods analyzed (2000-2005, 2005-2010, 2010-2013). The […]
By Cody Sullivan27 January 2016 (Eos) – Ozone, a common air pollutant and greenhouse gas, harms lungs and plants and has contributed almost as much as methane to global warming since the start of the Industrial Revolution. Now researchers are reporting new evidence that local-scale slash and burn farming techniques, cooking fires, and wildfires can […]
By Sam Jones1 December 2015 Tonlé Sap lake (Guardian) – Out past the floating villages, the daytrippers and the mangrove arcades, the brown waters of the Tahas river open into a vast, dull green lake fringed by forest and a seemingly endless horizon. Silhouetted by a sinking afternoon sun, distant figures fish from small boats […]
By Jan Rocha in Sao Paulo14 January 2016 (Climate News Network) – Almost a quarter of a million forest fires were detected in Brazil last year – and the main cause of a huge increase is being attributed to climate change that brought about a year-long drought in much of the country. Satellite data revealed […]
5 January 2016 (NUS) – Rice production in Myanmar and the rise of palm oil plantations in Malaysia and Indonesia could pose future threats to mangrove forests Southeast Asia has the greatest diversity of mangrove species in the world, and mangrove forests provide multiple ecosystem services upon which millions of people depend. Mangroves enhance fisheries […]
By Mike Gaworecki30 December 2015 (mongabay.com) – As 2015 comes to a close, Mongabay is looking back at the year that was. This year saw President Obama reject the Keystone pipeline as historic droughts and a vicious wildfire season wracked the western US and Canada. The world committed to climate action in Paris as Southeast […]
By Ruxandra Guidi30th December 2015 (mongabay.com) – The year is ending on a grim note in Peru: yet another environmental leader that vocally opposed a dam project has been murdered in his home in the town of Yagen, in the country’s Cajamarca region. Hitler Ananías Rojas Gonzales, 34, was shot five times the morning of […]
By Shreya Dasgupta 29 December 2015 (mongabay.com) – By the end of this century, as climate continues to warm, dry seasons could become longer and more intense in the Amazon region. Droughts could become more commonplace. But the fate of the Amazon forest — home to around 300 billion trees, and crucial to the Earth’s […]
