Illegal palm oil developments force macaques to down tools – ‘If we develop right next to them, they will stop going to the coast to feed and go to the local rubbish bin and find food there’

By Matt McGrath, Environment correspondent16 August 2013 (BBC News) – Macaque monkeys that have developed the ability to use stone tools to open shellfish are in danger of losing the skill because of human development. Scientists found that illegal palm oil and rubber plantations in Thailand are disrupting the monkeys’ feeding behaviour. Dogs brought in […]

Ecuador abandons plan to stave off drilling in Amazon rainforest – ‘It was not charity that we sought from the international community, but co-responsibility in the face of climate change’

QUITO, 15 August 2013 (Associated Press) – Ecuador’s President Rafael Correa has abandoned a unique and ambitious plan to persuade rich countries to pay his country not to drill for oil in a pristine Amazon rainforest preserve. Environmentalists had hailed the initiative when Correa first proposed it in 2007, saying he was setting a precedent […]

Military crackdown worsens pollution in Nigeria oil region – ‘Security operatives blowing up things is causing more pollution’

By Yinka Ibukun16 August 2013 (Bloomberg) – The Nigerian government’s military crackdown against the theft of crude in the Niger River delta has left more than a 1,000 makeshift refineries in flames, worsening pollution in the area, authorities said. A military taskforce deployed last year to stop theft and protect facilities in Africa’s top oil […]

Endangered chimps and forest elephants found in rainforest to be logged for palm oil – ‘It is both ironic and tragic that Herakles Farms, an American company, is set to bulldoze forest that’s critical to the survival of these chimpanzees’

By Jeremy Hance8 August 2013 (mongabay.com) – A biological survey of forests slated for destruction for a palm oil project in Cameroon has uncovered 23 species of large mammals, including the world’s most endangered chimpanzee subspecies, the Nigeria-Cameroon chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes ellioti). The project in question, operated by U.S.-based company Herakles Farms, has come under […]

Graph of the Day: Deforestation in non-Brazilian Amazon countries, 2004-2012

By Rhett A. Butler 26 June 2013 (Mongabay) – Peru had the largest extent of forest loss in 2012, losing 48,000 hectares, an increase of 15,431 ha or 47 percent over 2011. Venezuela (11,606 ha), Colombia (10,069 ha), Bolivia (6,975 ha), Suriname (6,569 ha), Guyana (3,713 ha), Ecuador (1,663 ha), and French Guyana (1,338 ha) […]

Graph of the Day: Deforestation in the Peruvian Amazon, 2004-2012

By Rhett A. Butler26 June 2013 (mongabay.com) – Peru had the largest extent of forest loss in 2012, losing 48,000 hectares, an increase of 15,431 ha or 47 percent over 2011. Venezuela (11,606 ha), Colombia (10,069 ha), Bolivia (6,975 ha), Suriname (6,569 ha), Guyana (3,713 ha), Ecuador (1,663 ha), and French Guyana (1,338 ha) followed. […]

Global warming more rapid than any time in the last 65 million years, ‘presents terrestrial ecosystems with an environment that is unprecedented in recent evolutionary history’

By Jeremy Hance1 August 2013 (mongabay.com) – According to a new review of 27 climate models, scientists say the global climate is likely to experience a warmth as great as any in the last 65 million years, only much, much faster. According to the study published today in Science, the Earth’s land temperature will rise […]

Palm oil plantation drives Malaysian rainforest tree to extinction – ‘It is indeed a shocking find but this phenomenon did not happen overnight’

30 July 2013 (mongabay.com) – Oil palm plantations have extinguished the last habitat of a rainforest tree in Malaysia, reports the New Straits Times. Last week the Forest Research Institute Malaysia (FRIM), a state agency, announced that the last stands of keruing paya (Dipterocarpus coriaceus) in Peninsular Malaysia were wiped out when Bikam Forest Reserve […]

Deforestation in Australia killing and mutilating koalas – Loggers say finding dead koalas is “like a daily thing, sometimes a couple every hour”

By Oliver Milman 23 July 2013 (The Guardian) – Revelations of koalas suffering graphic injuries and death in Victorian timber plantations are evidence of a long-standing failure to properly protect the iconic Australian marsupials, according to a leading conservation organisation. Footage on Monday night’s 7.30 report showed koalas, including babies, lying dead on the floor […]

Graph of the Day: Total area occupied by Monarch butterfly colonies at overwintering sites in Mexico, 1994-2013

By Chip Taylor 14 March 2013 (Monarch Watch) – The World Wildlife Fund-Mexico / Telcel Alliance, in collaboration with Mexico’s National Commission of Natural Protected Areas (CONANP), held a press conference late on the 13th of March 2013 to announce the results of the status of the monarch populations that overwinter in the oyamel forests […]

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