The secret talks that threaten two decades of whale conservation

By Michael McCarthy, Environment EditorTuesday, 22 June 2010 The future of the international whaling moratorium, one of the world’s great conservation achievements, is being decided behind closed doors today and tomorrow, after whaling’s governing body went into a secret session to discuss proposals that would end it. The future of the international whaling moratorium, one […]

Rainforest destruction continues in Madagascar despite ‘ban’ on timber exports

www.wildmadagascar.org June 21, 2010 New eyewitness reports indicate continued logging of Madagascar’s Masoala National Park for rosewood despite a government “moratorium” on logging and timber exports. A source near Marofinaritra, a town between Masoala and Antalaha, reports heavy night-time movement of trucks carrying illegally logged timber from the park. The wood is believed to be […]

Officials scramble to save endangered Javan rhinos

  By ALI KOTARUMALOS (AP) JAKARTA, Indonesia — The discovery of three dead Javan rhinos has intensified efforts to save one of the world’s most endangered mammals from extinction, with an electric fence being built Monday around a new sanctuary and breeding ground. With only about 50 of the species left in the wild — […]

Five tons of bushmeat smuggled into Paris each week

By Maria Cheng And Christina Okello, Associated Press WritersThu Jun 17, 7:56 pm ET PARIS – The traders sell an array of bushmeat: monkey carcasses, smoked anteater, even preserved porcupine. But this isn’t a roadside market in Africa — it’s the heart of Paris, where a new study has found more than five tons of […]

EU ends bluefin tuna season early over depleted stocks

The European Commission is closing the bluefin tuna fishing season early because of depleted stocks, imposing a ban that will take effect on Thursday. The ban covers fishing grounds in the Mediterranean and eastern Atlantic. It affects industrial purse seine fishing, which accounts for more than 70% of the annual EU tuna catch, the Commission […]

Climate change made apes vanish in ancient Europe

By Katia Moskvitch Science reporter, BBC News Page last updated at 4:14 GMT, Monday, 7 June 2010 5:14 UK Great apes were wiped out in ancient Europe when their environment changed drastically some nine million years ago, scientists say. A study of fossil teeth from grazing animals sheds light on what Europe was like during […]

French company to break moratorium on shipments of illegally logged rosewood from Madagascar

  SEAL, a French transport company, is scheduled to ship 79 containers of rosewood tomorrow from the port of Toamasina on its vessel Terra Bona, reports Midi Madagascar. The shipment comes less than three months after Madagascar’s ruling authority banned timber exports after international uproar over the organized logging of the country’s national parks in […]

Historic drought spurs life-or-death struggles in Kilimanjaro's shadow

  By MICHAEL BURNHAM AND NATHANIAL GRONEWOLD of GreenwirePublished: May 25, 2010 AMBOSELI NATIONAL PARK, Kenya – … When the rains failed for the second straight year in 2009, plants withered to their roots in this critical dry-season refuge. Marshes and the shallow bed of Lake Amboseli, usually fed by seasonal rains and runoff from […]

Rare black rhinos relocated to Africa's Serengeti

  By Tom Kirkwood; editing by Tim CocksSERENGETI NATIONAL PARK, TanzaniaFri May 21, 2010 4:44pm EDT (Reuters) – Conservationists flew the first five of 32 critically endangered East African black rhinos from South Africa back to their habitat in Tanzania’s Serengeti park Friday. The rhinos had been bred from a group that was rescued from […]

Corruption, mismanagement strangle vital Kenya watershed

By MICHAEL BURNHAM AND NATHANIAL GRONEWOLD of GreenwirePublished: May 17, 2010 NAKURU, Kenya — The wooded ridge rising to the west of this bustling provincial capital is the home of one of Kenya’s greatest natural resources and one of Africa’s biggest environmental crises. The Mau Forest Complex encompasses almost 1 million acres of wilderness, interspersed […]

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