Cattle, cleared forests, and climate change: Scoring global companies on their deforestation-free beef commitments and practices

13 September 2016 (UCS) – Tropical deforestation is responsible for about 10 percent of global warming emissions—and no product contributes more to tropical deforestation than beef. Each year, millions of hectares of forest are cleared for beef pasture, releasing carbon into the atmosphere and destroying habitat of endangered species. The deforestation impact of beef is […]

Can a new vaccination stem the frog apocalypse? – ‘We’re staring at what could be the extinction of a significant fraction of the world’s amphibians’

By Lauren Sommer6 September 2016 (KQED) – A deadly fungus that’s been devastating frog populations is still spreading across the globe. In California, the chytrid fungus has moved inexorably across the Sierra Nevada from west to east, leaving thousands of frogs dead. But Bay Area scientists are trying to turn the tide against the fungus […]

Study finds ‘catastrophic declines’ of wilderness worldwide – ‘The amount of wilderness loss in just two decades is staggering and very saddening’

9 September 2016 (UQ News) – A University of Queensland-led international study released today reports catastrophic declines in wilderness areas around the world over the past 20 years. UQ School of Geography, Planning and Environmental Management and Wildlife Conservation Society in New York researcher Associate Professor James Watson said findings demonstrated alarming losses comprising a […]

Graph of the Day: Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon, July 2015-June 2016

[Translation by Bing Translator.] 6 September 2016 (Imazon) – Forest mega-degradation by burning detected in June 2016 by SAD was confirmed with more detailed analyses of satellite images. Degraded area is greater than double the average of deforestation detected by satellite from 2010 to 2015: 15,043 km² of accumulated forest degradation area detected by SAD […]

Illegal gold mining threatens tropical forest in Peruvian Amazon

[Translation by Bing Translator.] By Francesca Garcia Delgado3 September 2016 (El Comercio) – Between October 2015 and July 2016, illegal gold mining deforested 238 hectares of forest (equivalent to 326 soccer fields) in the buffer of the Bahuaja Sonene National Park (USD35) zone, located between Madre de Dios and Puno regions. This protected area is […]

Rainforest destruction in the Brazilian Amazon rises to rate not seen since 2009

By Rhett A. Butler3 September 2016 (mongabay.com) – Newly released data suggest that rainforest destruction in the Brazilian Amazon has reached the highest level since 2009. In the past week, Brazil’s National Space Research Institute (INPE) and Imazon, a Brazilian NGO, have independently released data from their near-real-time deforestation monitoring programs. Both show a steep […]

New research uncovers warning signs for Neolithic population collapse

COLLEGE PARK, Maryland, 31 August 2016 (UMD) – Following the arrival of early agricultural crops from southwest Asia, ancient European societies experienced a series of population booms followed by a collapse that historical scientists are still working to explain. New research from the University of Maryland published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of […]

China’s trans-Amazon railway stokes forest fears

By Jan Rocha29 August 2016 SÃO PAULO (Climate News Network) – China’s fast-rising population and its burgeoning economy make steep demands on natural resources, so steep that Beijing is searching constantly for supplies from overseas. And it wants to obtain them, naturally, as cheaply as it can. Now in prospect is China’s trans-Amazon railway – […]

Catastrophic decline of Africa elephant population revealed by most comprehensive survey ever

By David McKenzie and Ingrid Formanek 31 August 2016 Linyanti Swamp, Botswana (CNN) – Scanning Botswana’s remote Linyanti swamp from the low flying chopper, elephant ecologist Mike Chase can’t hide the anxiety and dread as he sees what he has seen too many times before. “I don’t think anybody in the world has seen the number […]

350: Exxon killed the reef

25 August 2016 (350) – The seas of dead coral are a crime scene. This year, the world witnessed the most devastating mass coral bleaching event ever recorded which left behind dead reefs in at least 38 countries. Many of these reefs will never recover. The immediate cause is clear: the ongoing rise in global […]

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