Video: Orphaned orangutan asks girl for help in sign language – ‘Your food is destroying my home’

[Can’t verify the truthiness of this video (it looks a bit stagey), but Desdemona completely supports the message.] 9 October 2013 (RAN) – http://InYourPalm.org – TAKE ACTION TODAY TO STAND WITH THE LAST WILD ORANGUTANS. Rainforests are being destroyed for palm oil and pushing the last wild orangutans to the brink of extinction. At Rainforest […]

Nobel laureates press EU leaders to classify tar sands as high carbon – ‘The extraction of unconventional fuels is having a particularly devastating impact on climate change’

3 October 2013 (Reuters) – Twenty-one Nobel laureates including South African anti-apartheid campaigner Desmond Tutu have written to European Union leaders urging them to implement a law that would label oil from tar sands as dirtier than other crudes. The EU tar sands proposal has incensed the government of Canada, whose economy is highly dependent […]

More than 100 scientists warn Ecuador Congress against oil development in Yasuní National Park – ‘They are not nibbling around the edges of the park anymore, but going deep into the core’

By Jeremy Hance 3 October 2013 (mongabay.com) – Over 100 scientists have issued a statement to the Ecuadorian Congress warning that proposed oil development and accompanying roads in Yasuní National Park will degrade its “extraordinary biodiversity.” The statement by a group dubbed the Scientists Concerned for Yasuní outlines in detail how the park is not […]

Forests increasingly limited to steeper slopes as humans clear lowland areas for agriculture and cities

By Sue Palminteri 1 October 2013 (mongabay.com) – Forests are increasingly limited to steep slopes as mankind continues to clear lowland areas suitable for agriculture and urban areas, finds a new study published in Nature Communications. The trend has significant implications for global biodiversity. As human societies have expanded, they have been remarkably efficient at […]

With no sea ice to live on, 10,000 walrus come ashore in northwest Alaska

By DAN JOLING, Associated Press 1 October 2013 ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) – An estimated 10,000 walrus unable to find sea ice over shallow Arctic Ocean water have come ashore on Alaska’s northwest coast. Scientists with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on Friday photographed walrus packed onto a beach on a barrier island near Point […]

Climate change pushing tropical trees upslope ‘exactly as predicted’ – ‘Dieback is happening much faster than expansion’

By Claire Salisbury 27 September 2013 (mongabay.com) – Tropical tree communities are moving up mountainsides to cooler habitats as temperatures rise, a new study in Global Change Biology has found. By examining the tree species present in ten one-hectare plots at various intervals over a decade, researchers found that the proportion of lowland species increased […]

Massive port projects threaten integrity of Great Barrier Reef – ‘The government is putting the interests of foreign mining companies ahead of the protection of our reef’

By Ian Lloyd Neubauer 23 September 2013 (TIME) – A dead cat in the in-tray. That’s what Greenpeace called the newly elected Australian government’s inheritance of a proposal to build the largest coal port in the world at Abbot Point in the northeastern state of Queensland. A decision is required, and the stakes couldn’t be […]

Indigenous Malaysians block road as controversial rainforest dam begins to fill – ‘The plight of the Penan is a fundamental example of corporate greed steamrolling human rights’

25 September 2013 (borneoproject.org) – It has been a tragic week for the people affected by the Murum Dam in Sarawak. Sarawak Energy has begun the impoundment of the Murum dam, starting a process that threatens to drown over 2,750 sq. kilometers of forest and traditionally-owned land. We have also heard from our partners at […]

Video: Canadian expedition spotlights thinning Arctic sea ice – ‘There’s still ice up there, but there’s far less ice than there was before’

NEW YORK, 28 September 2013 (CBS News) – From afar, we watched this summer as four Vancouver-based men launched their custom-made, kevlar-coated, wood and fiberglass row boat, the Arctic Joule, from Canada’s Northwest territory in early July, heading east, toward Greenland. The rowers — Kevin Vallely and Frank Wolf, from Canada, with Denis Barnett and […]

How palm oil from illegal deforestation reaches global brands

3 September 2013 (Greenpeace) – The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) was formed in 2004 to promote the use of sustainable palm oil through credible global standards and engagement of stakeholders. It is a voluntary association, consisting of palm oil producers, processors and traders, consumer goods manufacturers, retailers, banks and investors as well as […]

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