By Jeremy Hance26 March 2014 (mongabay.com) – Just days before Myanmar, also known as Burma, implements a ban on exporting raw logs, the Environmental Investigative Agency (EIA) has released a new report that captures the sheer scale of the country’s illegal logging crisis. According to the EIA, new data shows that 72 percent of logs […]
Geneva, 24 March 2014 (WMO) – Temperatures in South America were dominated by hot conditions in most parts of the continent, except for some limited areas in southern Brazil and the north-central and western parts of South America, which had near to colder than average temperatures. A warm October–December period – including the hottest December […]
21 March 2014 (mongabay.com) – A group of prominent scientists chose to mark the second International Day of Forests by urging the world to support an initiative that aims keep wild areas free of roads. Roadfree, an initiative led by Member of the European Parliament Kriton Arsenis, has been growing in prominence over the past […]
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 […]
25 February 2014 (mongabay.com) – With more than 140 cities implementing water rationing, analysts warning of collapsing soy and coffee exports, and reservoirs and rivers running precipitously low, talk about the World Cup in some parts of Brazil has been sidelined by concerns about an epic drought affecting the country’s agricultural heartland. With its rise […]
10 January 2014 (Science) – Worldwide population estimates of large-carnivore species. Error bars represent the low and high range of the estimates when available. Population estimates were not available for all species. Species ranges vary widely, and range sizes can have a strong influence on species population levels (table S1). Sources: Gray wolf (90), all […]
By Katie Rucke23 January 2014 (MintPress News) – The nonprofit organization Amazon Watch on Monday released a satirical video to draw attention to the threats Chevron has made to environmentalists, journalists, scientists and locals who have asked for the company to be held accountable for its destructive actions, and the company’s attempts to criminalize environmental […]
By Bethany Horne3 January 2013 (Newsweek) – As two military-style helicopters touch down in a remote village in the jungles of Ecuador, masked men with guns hop out and scurry into a one-room schoolhouse. Inside they capture their target: a 6-year-old girl who doesn’t speak their language and can’t even guess why they are kidnapping […]
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 Rhett A. Butler 8 November 2013 (mongabay.com) – Complete deforestation of the Amazon rainforest could reduce rainfall in the Pacific Northwest by up to 20 percent and snowpack in the Sierra Nevada by up to 50 percent, suggests new research published in the Journal of Climate. The study is based on high resolution computer […]