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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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) […]
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. […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]