By Jeremy Hance8 July 2014 (mongabay.com) – In Southern Italy over the weekend, Pope Francis reiterated his view that environmental destruction constituted a sin. Visiting the largely agricultural region of Molise, the pope responded to an address by a local farmer attending university. “I fully agree what has been said about ‘safeguarding’ the earth, to […]
By Ariel Mark 20 June 2014 (mongabay.com) – One of humans’ closest relatives, the charismatic orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus), has been listed as Endangered by the IUCN since 1986 and its status continues to remain critical. The orangutan population decline on the island Borneo can be attributed to extensive habitat loss caused by agricultural development, in […]
4 June 2014 (PhysOrg) – Half of the world’s forest species are at risk from climate change and farming, the United Nations warned on Tuesday, as it called for “urgent action” to manage them better. In its first global study of forest genetic resources, the UN’s Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) said woodland was shrinking […]
By Rhett A. Butler10 April 2014 (mongabay.com) – Forest clearing within areas zoned for timber, logging, oil palm, and mining accounted for nearly 45 percent of deforestation in Indonesia between 2000 and 2010, finds a new study that examined forest loss within industrial concessions. The research, published in the journal Conservation Letters, used a combination […]
By Maureen Nandini Mitra 11 April 2014(Earth Island Journal) – But add in a star cast of Hollywood heroes — Harrison Ford, Jessica Alba, Don Cheadle, and Matt Damon. Mix in some hotshot journalists — The New York Times’ Tom Friedman, CBS’ Lesley Stahl, and MSNBC’s Chris Hayes. Have them travel around the country and […]
By Holli Riebeek28 Feb 2014 (NASA) – Dense smoke cloaks central Sumatra, Indonesia, in these images taken by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra and Aqua satellites. The smoke is coming from fires in Riau province, where palm oil and pulpwood plantations are abundant. Though illegal for all but small landowners, fire […]
By Rhett A. Butler26 December 2013 (mongabay.com) – 2013 was full of developments in efforts to understand and protect the world’s tropical rainforests. The following is a review of some of the major tropical forest-related news stories for the year. As a review, this post will not cover everything that transpired during 2013 in the […]
By Quoctrung Bui15 November 2013 (NPR) – China’s decision to (further) relax its infamous one-child policy is, as much as anything, an economic decision. China put the one-child policy in place decades ago, when the country feared a destabilizing population boom. It benefited in the short run — the country slowed its population growth and […]
By Brad Plumer14 November 2013 (Washington Post) – Want to know where we’re destroying the world’s forests? Here’s the very first high-resolution map showing the change in the world’s tree cover between 2000 and 2012. That comes from a new study published Thursday in the journal Science — the first effort to quantify in detail […]
[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 […]
