Australia State of the Environment report highlights threat of coal mining, urban growth, invasive species, and global warming

By Henry Belot7 March 2017 (ABC News) – The Government has no comprehensive national plan to protect Australia’s landscape to the year 2050, according to a report, which also warns of the potentially irreversible impact of climate change and the threats of coal mining, invasive species, rubbish, urban growth and habitat destruction. The State of […]

Turtle hatchlings dying in extreme heat at Mon Repos beach in Australia

By Jess Lodge 4 January 2017 (ABC News) – Piles of dead turtle hatchlings are lining Queensland’s famous Mon Repos beach amid a heatwave which has pushed the sand’s temperature to a record 75 degrees Celsius. While the majority of hatchlings break free from their nests at night when the sand is cooler, those escaping […]

Hundreds of species are already going locally extinct because of global warming – “In some ways, this is just the beginning”

By Sean Greene13 December 2016 (The Los Angeles Times) – As the planet warms, species around the world are engaged in a race against time to either adapt or move to cooler habitats. Hundreds of them are already losing, according to a recent study in PLoS Biology. As animals and plants move to higher elevations […]

Global wildlife populations could drop two-thirds by 2020 as human demand continues to exceed Earth’s capacity

OAKLAND, California, 26 October 2016 (Global Footprint Network) – The overexploitation of ecological resources by humanity is directly contributing to the 67 percent plunge in wild vertebrate populations scientists forecast for the 50-year period ending in 2020, according to WWF’s Living Planet Report 2016. The top threats to species identified in the report are directly […]

Global-warming data not enough to predict animal extinction

By Sandra Leander5 September 2016 (ASU) – Current models used to predict the survival of species in a warming world might be off target, according to new research that enlisted the help of dozens of spiny lizards in the New Mexico desert. Nearly 40 percent of the world’s populations of lizards are expected to become […]

Costa Rica halts police cooperation with turtle protection activists, endangers turtle hatcheries – ‘Costa Rica is a country where rescuing turtles can literally get you killed’

16 September 2016 (Sea Shepherd) – The Costa Rican Government is forcing Sea Shepherd to shut down Operation Jairo II, a campaign to protect endangered sea turtles. Any Sea Shepherd volunteer found patrolling beaches or engaging in sea turtle conservation work will be detained and deported. In Costa Rica, the Jaco Police teamed with Sea […]

China has been killing turtles, coral, and giant clams in the South China Sea – ‘There is no hope for many of these reefs to recover in the coming decades or centuries’

By Julie Makinen13 July 2016 (Los Angeles Times) – China struck back loudly and forcefully Wednesday after an international tribunal invalidated many of its claims in the South China Sea. But Beijing has largely been silent about some of the tribunal’s most damning findings: that its activities there have “caused devastating and long-lasting damage to […]

This is the reality of what India forest fires are doing to wildlife

By Susmita Mukherjee7 May 2016 (India Times) – Thank the Gods for the rains; it has helped in putting out one of the worst forest fires we have known in the Himalayas. But do all eyes now turn away from the truth behind such a tragedy? What happens to what remains, charred and vulnerable? Forest […]

Six years later, we’re still learning how badly the BP oil spill damaged the Gulf of Mexico – ‘The significant die-off of whales and dolphins that began in 2010 continues today’

By Brady Dennis 26 April 2016 (Washington Post) – Six years on, scientists are continuing to tally the ecological harms caused by the deadly 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The latest glimpse at the ongoing environmental effects of the disaster came in a new report [pdf] by the conservation and […]

Judge approves $20 billion settlement in BP oil spill

By Tim Stelloh 4 April 2016 (Associated Press) – A federal judge in New Orleans granted final approval Monday to an estimated $20 billion settlement, resolving years of litigation over the 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The settlement, first announced in July, includes $5.5 billion in civil Clean Water Act penalties […]

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