WASHINGTON, DC, April 29, 2010 (ENS) – World leaders have failed to fulfill their commitments to reduce the global rate of biodiversity loss by 2010, and have instead overseen “alarming” biodiversity declines, finds the first assessment of how the targets expressed in the 2002 Convention on Biological Diversity have not been met. Since 1970, human […]
By The Associated PressMay 02, 2010, 3:55PM PASS CHRISTIAN, Miss. — Gus Holliman has spent the last two days riding the beaches in this coastal Mississippi town, hoping not to find dead animals. On Saturday the sea turtles started washing up on shore. On Sunday, the turtles were joined by dead catfish, horseshoe crabs, and […]
By Jeremy Hance, www.mongabay.comApril 05, 2010 The radiated tortoise, once common throughout Madagascar, faces extinction within the next 20 years due to poaching for its meat and the illegal pet trade, according to biologists with the Turtle Survival Alliance (TSA) and the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). Returning from field surveys in southern Madagascar’s spiny forest, […]
By Richard BlackEnvironment correspondent, BBC News Millions of marine turtles have been killed over the past two decades through entrapment in fishing gear, according to a global survey. Described as the first global synthesis of existing data, the study found especially high rates of “bycatch” in the Mediterranean and eastern Pacific. Six of the seven […]
By Rhett A. Butler, mongabay.comMarch 31, 2010 Urbanization may be having unexpected impacts in the Amazon rainforest by leaving forest areas vulnerable to exploitation by outsiders, report researchers writing in Conservation Letters. Conducting field surveys during the course of 10,000-kilometers of travel along remote Amazon rivers, Luke Parry of Lancaster University found that a sharp […]
Brazilian fisherman Elson de Oliveira, hauls a dead alligator into his boat at Reis Lake, in Manaus, Amazonas state, on Dec. 3, 2009. Plummeting water oxygen levels due to a severe drought have led to thousands of fish dying along the Manaquiri River. MARCIO SILVA / AFP / Getty Images The Big Thirsty: From contamination […]
By Nick Wadhams in Nairobi, for National Geographic News, September 21, 2009 This story is part of a special series that explores the global water crisis. For more clean water news, photos, and information, visit National Geographic’s Freshwater Web site. More than sixty African elephants and hundreds of other animals have died so far in […]
Polar bears, long recognized as the poster child for climate change, are not the only species feeling the impacts of climate change. The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) has released a list of animals facing a host of related threats, in some strange and unexpected ways. In a new report titled “Species Feeling the Heat: Connecting […]
By MARIAN WILKINSON ENVIRONMENT EDITORNovember 23, 2009 THE collapse of the Coorong wetlands at the mouth of the Murray River is shaping up to be one of the Australia’s worst environmental disasters, an author of a report on the region said yesterday. Bird numbers in the region have fallen dramatically and freshwater turtles continue to […]
By Jeremy Hance Oil is leaking from an offshore drilling rig in the Timor Sea near Australia’s Northwest coast. Authorities say it will be weeks before the leak is plugged: they are awaiting the arrival of a drilling rig from Singapore to plug the leak. “This is a potential disaster for turtles, whales, dolphins, sea […]
