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Indonesia's Environment Ministry to sue APP, APRIL in $225B illegal logging case
(05/03/2012) Indonesia's Ministry of Environment is planning to sue 14 pulp and paper companies for illegally logging forests in Riau Province on the island of Sumatra, reports Tempo Magazine. 12 of the 14 companies are linked to Asia Pulp & Paper (APP) and Asian Pacific Resources International Holdings Limited (APRIL), pulp and paper giants that have been heavily criticized by environmentalists for destroying rainforests and peatlands that serve as critical habitat for endangered tigers, elephants, and orangutans.
Just how far can a polar bear swim?
(05/03/2012) Polar bears (Ursus maritimus) are capable of swimming incredible distances, according to a new study published in Zoology, which recorded polar bears regularly swimming over 30 miles (48 kilometers) and, in one case, as far as 220 miles (354 kilometers). The researchers believe the ability of polar bears to tackle such long-distance swims may help them survive as seasonal sea ice vanishes due to climate change.
Permaculture: a path toward a more sustainable Amazon?(05/03/2012) Communities living in and around tropical forests remain highly dependent on forest products, including nuts, resins, fruit and vegetables, oils, and medicinal plants. But relatively few of these products have been successfully commercialized in ways that generates sustained local benefits. When commercialization does happen, outsiders or a few well-placed insiders usually see the biggest windfall. Large-scale exploitation can also lead to resource depletion or conversion of forests for monoculture-based production. The ecosystem and local people lose.
115 mining companies operating illegally in forest areas in Indonesia
(05/03/2012) More than 100 mining companies are operating without licenses in forest areas across 471,000 hectares in Indonesia, reports The Jakarta Post.
Exploring Asia's lost world(05/03/2012) Abandoned by NGOs and the World Bank, carved out for rubber plantations and mining by the Cambodian government, spiraling into a chaos of poaching and illegal logging, and full of endangered species and never-explored places, Virachey National Park may be the world's greatest park that has been written off by the international community. But a new book by explorer and PhD student, Greg McCann, hopes to change that. Entitled Called Away by a Mountain Spirit: Journey to the Green Corridor, the book highlights expeditions by McCann into parts of Virachey that have rarely been seen by outsiders and have never been explored scientifically, including rare grasslands that once housed herds of Asian elephants, guar, and Sambar deer, before poachers drove them into hiding, and faraway mountains with rumors of tigers and mainland Javan rhinos.
Thousands worldwide to "connect the dots" between climate change and extreme weather this weekend(05/03/2012) On Saturday, May 5th vulnerable populations from the United States to Bangladesh will "connect the dots" between devastating extreme weather and climate change in a global day of action organized by 350.org. The nearly 1,000 events occurring in over half of the world's nations are meant to highlight to governments, media, and the public that climate change is impacting lives through an increase in number and intensity of devastating weather events, such as droughts, heatwaves, and floods.
Nearly 200,000 homeless after floods in Peru's Amazon region
(05/02/2012) 191,000 people are homeless or have have suffered "significant" damage due to flooding in the Amazon region of eastern Peru, reports the Associated Press.
Assassinated forest activist Chut Wutty: 'I want to see people live with freedom'(05/02/2012) Chut Wutty, a dedicated Cambodian activist, was shot dead at an illegal logging site by military police, last Thursday. At the time Wutty was driving with two journalists, who wrote a shocking eye-witness account of his death, revealing that he was physically and verbally abused, then shot whilst trying to drive away, and left to die. His death reveals the brutal power of logging syndicates and companies, which are looting the country’s natural wealth, and employing the military to silence their opponents.
Gas development pushing pronghorn out of vital wintering grounds
(05/02/2012) Development of natural gas fields in Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem is pushing pronghorn (Antilocapra americana) out of crucial wintering grounds, a situation that could result in a population decline according to a new study in Biological Conservation. By tracking 125 female pronghorn over five years in Wyoming, researchers found that highest quality habitat had fallen by over 80 percent in two vast gas fields on land owned by the government's Bureau of Land Management (BLM).
Bigger is better for gorillas
(05/02/2012) A new study confirms that bigger and stronger silverback gorillas have more success finding mates and raising offspring.
Biodiversity loss cripples plant growth (05/02/2012) For decades scientists have been warning that if global society continues with "business-as-usual" practices the result will be a mass extinction of the world's species, an extinction event some researchers say is already underway. However, the direct impacts of global biodiversity loss has been more difficult to compile. Now a new study in Nature finds that loss of plant biodiversity could cripple overall plant growth.
Animal picture of the day: the prehistoric peccary
(05/02/2012) The Chacoan peccary (Catagonus wagneri) was only known from fossils and thought extinct, perhaps a victim of the megafaunal extinction that ended the Pleistocene, until researchers in the 1970s stumbled on a living population in Argentina. While peccaries look like and are distantly related to the pig species that originated in the Old World, they belong to their own family, the Tayassuidae.
The month in environmental news for April 2012
(05/02/2012) Mongabay.com provides a quick review of forest-related news for April 2012.
New attack on Greenpeace in Indonesia
(05/01/2012) As fallout from its campaign against Asia Pulp & Paper grows, Greenpeace's critics have opened a new front on the environmental group, accusing it of "embezzlement", reports Mongabay-Indonesia.
New video documents nearly all the world's remaining Javan rhinos
(05/01/2012) Nearly all the world's remaining Javan rhino have been documented on video via camera traps in Indonesia's Ujung Kulon National Park, according to a montage put together by park authorities.
Oil company blamed for fire in Belize national park(05/01/2012) At the end of March in southern Belize the sun beats down through blackened trees onto what was the only known low-lying sphagnum moss bog in Central America. Now it is an expanse of ash and pale crusts of burned moss onto which dragonflies settle briefly before passing on. Fire spread through the area at the end of February 2012, and since then reeds have begun to sprout, but otherwise it remains a scene of devastation with no sign that the moss is regenerating.
Featured video: climate, water, and desperation in Texas
(05/01/2012) As a part of PBS' new series Coping with Climate Change reporters visited several towns in Texas, which has suffered unprecedented drought beginning in 2010. The drought, which climatologists say is consistent with climate change predictions, has led to forest fires, vast tree mortalities, agricultural and livestock losses, and water shortages.
Greenpeace activists occupy icebreaker set for Arctic drilling
(05/01/2012) Greenpeace has announced that 20 of its activists, stemming from 13 countries, have locked themselves in an icebreaker ship in Helsinki, Finland. The ship is scheduled to move out to the Alaskan Arctic to aid in exploratory offshore drilling by oil giant Shell. Another icebreaker has already left for the U.S. Arctic; both have been leased to Shell by their owner, the Finnish government.
Over 30 Yangtze porpoises found dead in China as population nears extinction (05/01/2012) Six years after the Yangtze river dolphin (Lipotes vexillifer), or baiji, was declared "functionally extinct" by scientists, another marine mammal appears on the edge of extinction in China's hugely degraded Yangtze River. In less than two months, 32 Yangtze finless porpoises (Neophocaena asiaeorientalis asiaeorientalis), a subspecies of the finless porpoise, have been dead found in Dongting and Poyang Lakes in the Yangtze, reports the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).
Animal picture of the day: Cicada emerging
(04/30/2012) Cicada's are generally large insects with broad heads and transparent wings. The group is known for some species' habitats of staying under ground for up to 17 years before emerging en masse, though many cicada species emerge annually in small groups. Once it emerges, it sheds its exoskeleten and begins to seek out mates. Males produce a loud, distinct sound.
High-tech hell: new documentary brings Africa's e-waste slum to life(04/30/2012) Shirtless boys rapidly pull the computer apart, discarding bits and pieces, until they expose the wires, yank them out, and toss them into a fire. Acrid, toxic smoke blooms as the boys prod the wires and the fire strips the plastic around the wires, leaving the sought-after copper. Welcome, to Agbogbloshie, where your technology goes to die. A new film e-wasteland captures the horrors of the world's largest e-waste slum through surreal and staggering images. Shot over three weeks by one-man guerrilla filmmaker, David Fedele, e-wasteland is an entirely visual experience without dialogue or voiceover.
Skink biodiversity jumps 650 percent in the Caribbean(04/30/2012) In a single paper in Zootaxa scientists have rewritten the current understanding of lizard biodiversity in the Caribbean. By going over museum specimens of skinks, scientists have discovered 24 new species and re-established nine species previously described species, long-thought invalid. The single paper has increased the number of skinks in the Caribbean by 650 percent, from six recognized species to 39. Unfortunately, half of these new species may already be extinct and all of them are likely imperiled.
Does the Tasmanian tiger exist? Is the saola extinct? Ask the leeches(04/30/2012) The use of remote camera traps, which photograph animals as they pass, has revolutionized research on endangered and cryptic species. The tool has even allowed scientists to document animals new to science or feared extinct. But as important as camera traps have become, they are still prohibitively expensive for many conservationists and require many grueling hours in remote forests. A new paper in Current Biology, however, announces an incredibly innovative and cheaper way of recording rare mammals: seek out the leeches that feed on them. The research found that the presence of mammals, at least, can be determined by testing the victim's blood for DNA stored in the leech.
Frog photos for Save the Frogs Day
(04/28/2012) Today is Save the Frogs Day, a global event that aims to raise awareness on the plight of amphibians, which are increasingly endangered by climate change, habitat loss and degradation, pollution, invasive species, overexploitation, and the outbreak of a deadly fungal disease. In recognition of Save the Frogs Day, there are dozens of activities occurring around the world.
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