HONOLULU, 30 September 2016 (AP) – Federal authorities added seven yellow-faced bee species, Hawaii’s only native bees, for protection under the Endangered Species Act Friday, a first for any bees in the United States. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service announced the listing after years of study by the conservation group Xerces Society. The group […]
By Diane Toomey22 September 2016 (Yale Environment 360) – The few remaining species of native forest birds left on the Hawaiian island of Kauai have suffered population declines so severe – 98 percent in one case – that some are near extinction. The cause of the collapse, according to a recent study in the journal […]
By Oliver Milman and Alan Yuhas19 September 2016 (Guardian) – JB Friday hacked at a rain-sodden tree with a small axe, splitting open a part of the trunk. The wood was riven with dark stripes, signs of a mysterious disease that has ravaged the US’s only rainforests – and just one of the plagues that […]
By Rachael Bale29 August 2016 PUERTO PRINCESA, Philippines (National Geographic) – Years ago Christopher Tubo caught a 660-pound blue marlin in the South China Sea. The fishing was good there, he says. Tuna fishermen would come home from a trip with dozens of the high-value fish as well as a good haul of other species. […]
16 March 2016 (British Antarctic Survey) – The first population assessment since the end of the whaling era reveals that New Zealand southern right whales have some way to go before numbers return to pre-industrial levels. Reporting this week in Royal Society Open Science, scientists from British Antarctic Survey (BAS), the University of Auckland, Oregon […]
Honolulu, Hawai’i, 4 September 2016 (IUCN) – The Eastern Gorilla – the largest living primate – has been listed as Critically Endangered due to illegal hunting, according to the latest update of The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species™ released today at the IUCN World Conservation Congress taking place in Hawai’i. Four out of six […]
ROME, 2 June 2016 – Drought linked to El Niño and civil conflict have pushed the number of countries currently in need of external food assistance up to 37 from 34 in March, according to a new FAO report. The new edition of the Crop Prospects and Food Situation report, released today, adds Papua New […]
7 May 2016 (AFP) – Five islands have disappeared in the Pacific’s Solomon Islands due to rising sea levels and coastal erosion, according to an Australian study that could provide valuable insights for future research. A further six reef islands have been severely eroded in the remote area of the Solomons, the study said, with […]
By Jason Samenow20 April 2016 (Washington Post) – In the past six months, the Earth has witnessed several of the freakiest, most intense storms in recorded history. Spurred by the highest ocean temperatures observed to date, record-breaking tropical cyclones — the class of storms that includes hurricanes and typhoons — have explosively developed in three […]
11 April 2016 (CU-Boulder) – Island nations could be forgiven for feeling slighted. They already face the brunt of the effects of climate change: Rising sea levels, dwindling resources, threats to infrastructure and economic foundations. But to add insult to injury, thousands of these islands are too small to be accounted for in the global […]
