Botswana faces questions over licenses for fracking companies – Government accused of ignoring pollution risks to scarce water supplies in Central Kalahari Game Reserve

By Jeff Barbee and Mira Dutschke in Nata, Botswana, David Smith in Johannesburg 17 November 2013 (The Guardian) – Botswana has been accused of sacrificing the Kalahari, one of the world’s most precious wildlife reserves, to commercial fracking while ignoring the concerns of environmentalists and communities who could lose access to scarce water. Hydraulic fracturing, […]

How to end the elephant slaughter

By Cristian Samper, Patrick Bergin, Peter Seligmann, Azzedine Downes, and Carter Roberts27 September 2013 (CNN) – Dzanga Bai is a magical place of natural wonder. It is on the Central African Republic’s southwest border with the Republic of Congo and is widely considered the most important gathering place for forest elephants in the entire Congo […]

Poachers kill 81 Zimbabwe elephants by poisoning water holes with cyanide

HARARE, Zimbabwe, 24 September 2013 (AP) – Zimbabwean authorities say at least 81 elephants have been killed for their ivory tusks by poachers using cyanide poison in water holes in a vast western national park. Tourism Minister Walter Mzembi, in Harare Tuesday after touring Hwange National Park, said more elephant carcasses were discovered after a […]

Butchering nature’s titans: Without the elephant ‘we lose an essential pillar in the ability to wonder’

By Jeremy Hance 12 September 2013 (mongabay.com) – Africa’s elephant poaching crisis doesn’t just threaten a species, but imperils one of humanity’s most important links to the natural world and even our collective sanity, according to acclaimed photographers and film-makers, Cyril Christo and Marie Wilkinson. Authors of the book Walking Thunder – In the Footsteps […]

Actor Harrison Ford causes stir while investigating deforestation in Indonesia

By Rhett A. Butler10 September 2013 (mongabay.com) – Harrison Ford sparked a complaint from Indonesia’s top forest official after the actor asked a series of tough questions about ongoing rainforest destruction in the Southeast Asian nation, reports Indonesian state media. Ford is in Indonesia filming a segment for Years of Living Dangerously, a Showtime documentary […]

Video: Namibians face starvation in worst drought in a generation – Elephants and other desperate wildlife gather around remaining puddles and faucets in human camps

By Max Fisher13 August 2013 (Washington Post) – The United Nations Children’s Fund released this short video from Namibia, a country in southwestern Africa that’s twice the size of California, documenting the effects of the country’s most severe drought in decades. It’s a national emergency, and the United Nations is getting involved. Here are a […]

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 […]

President Obama launches initiative to curb wildlife trafficking – ‘Poaching operations have expanded beyond small-scale, opportunistic actions to coordinated slaughter commissioned by armed and organized criminal syndicates’

By Suzanne Goldenberg US environment correspondent 1 July 2013 (The Guardian) – Barack Obama launched a new initiative against wildlife trafficking on Monday, using his executive authority to take action against an illegal trade that is fuelling rebel wars and now threatens the survival of elephants and rhinoceroses. The initiative, announced as the president visited […]

Elephant ‘tramples to death suspected poacher’

By Emily Miller 12 May 2013 (Telegraph) – The bloodied remains of Solomon Manjoro were found by rangers after what was thought to be a botched poaching trip at the protected Charara safari area inside a national park. Zimbabwe’s Sunday Mail reported that the local man was charged by the elephant after he entered the […]

Dozens of elephants slaughtered for ivory in Central African Republic – ‘The elephants here face a sure death as criminals obtain ivory’

10 May 2013 (mongabay.com) – Dozens of elephants have been slaughtered in the Dzanga Bai World Heritage Site in the Central African Republic just days after conservationists warned about an impending threat from the movement of 17 heavily armed poachers. The massacre occurred at a site renowned as “village of elephants”, where tourists and scientists […]

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