Granted personhood in 2017 by the New Zealand parliament, the Whanganui is the first river in the world to be recognised as an indivisible and living being. But it still faces challenges from farming, forestry and development – and despite its beauty, the data suggests much needs to be done to nurse it back to full health
Continue reading...Category Archives: Conservation
Brazil’s president claims DiCaprio paid for Amazon fires
Jair Bolsonaro falsely accuses actor of funding deliberate destruction of rainforest
Brazil’s president has falsely accused the actor and environmentalist Leonardo DiCaprio of bankrolling the deliberate incineration of the Amazon rainforest.
Jair Bolsonaro – a populist nationalist who has vowed to drive environmental NGOs from Brazil – made the claim on Friday, reportedly telling supporters: “This Leonardo DiCaprio’s a cool guy, isn’t he? Giving money for the Amazon to be torched.”
Continue reading...Climate emergency: world ‘may have crossed tipping points’
Warning of ‘existential threat to civilisation’ as impacts lead to cascade of unstoppable events
The world may already have crossed a series of climate tipping points, according to a stark warning from scientists. This risk is “an existential threat to civilisation”, they say, meaning “we are in a state of planetary emergency”.
Tipping points are reached when particular impacts of global heating become unstoppable, such as the runaway loss of ice sheets or forests. In the past, extreme heating of 5C was thought necessary to pass tipping points, but the latest evidence suggests this could happen between 1C and 2C.
Continue reading...Fishing nations to lower catch limits for Atlantic bigeye tuna
Plan aims to allow tuna population to recover from overfishing, but conservationists say endangered mako shark has been overlooked
Conservationists welcomed “long overdue” catch limits set this week for bigeye tuna and other Atlantic species, but criticised weak measures to rebuild endangered mako shark populations.
The International Commission for the Conservations of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) – responsible for the management of tuna and tuna-like species and bycatch including sharks and rays – set new catch limits for bigeye tuna at a meeting in Palma, Mallorca, this week. It also agreed to reduce juvenile fish mortality by limiting certain fishing practices.
Continue reading...‘I was peeing and a polar bear popped up!’ Secrets of Seven Worlds, One Planet
Shooting poachers, circling polar bears, flailing four-tonne seals, singing rhinos and the world’s worst sea … the team behind Attenborough’s latest extravaganza relive their thrills and spills
Chadden Hunter, producer, North America and South America
Continue reading...Sumatran rhinoceros now extinct in Malaysia, say zoologists
Last of the species in country, a female rhino named Iman, ‘died sooner than expected’
The Sumatran rhinoceros has become extinct in Malaysia, zoologists have announced.
The last of the species in the country succumbed to cancer in the state of Sabah on the island of Borneo, it was revealed.
Continue reading...Light pollution is key ‘bringer of insect apocalypse’
Exclusive: scientists say bug deaths can be cut by switching off unnecessary lights
Light pollution is a significant but overlooked driver of the rapid decline of insect populations, according to the most comprehensive review of the scientific evidence to date.
Artificial light at night can affect every aspect of insects’ lives, the researchers said, from luring moths to their deaths around bulbs, to spotlighting insect prey for rats and toads, to obscuring the mating signals of fireflies.
Continue reading...One-third of tropical African plant species at risk of extinction – study
Experts say new approach to classify plants’ conservation status suggests 7,000 species at risk
A third of plant species in tropical Africa are threatened with extinction, a new study suggests. Plants are crucial to many ecosystems and life in general, providing food and oxygen, as well as being the source of myriad materials and medicines. However, human activities including logging, mining and agriculture pose a major threat.
While the extinction risk of animals around the world has been well studied, the risk facing many plants remains unclear: 86% of mammal species have been assessed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) for its Red List, compared with only 8% of plant species. Now experts say they have come up with a rapid approach to give a preliminary classification.
Continue reading...Amazon deforestation ‘at highest level in a decade’
Almost 10,000 sq kms lost in year to August, according to Brazilian government data
Deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon has hit the highest annual level in a decade, according to new government data which highlights the impact the president, Jair Bolsonaro, has made on the world’s biggest rainforest.
The new numbers, showing almost 10,000 sq kms were lost in the year to August, were released as emboldened farm owners scuffled with forest defenders in Altamira, the Amazonian city at the heart of the recent devastation.
Continue reading...Mouse deer species not seen for nearly 30 years is found alive in Vietnam
Silver-backed chevrotain caught on camera after it was feared lost to science
A distinctly two-tone mouse deer that was feared lost to science has been captured on film foraging for food by camera traps set up in a Vietnamese forest.
The pictures of the rabbit-sized animal, also known as the silver-backed chevrotain, are the first to be taken in the wild and come nearly 30 years after the last confirmed sighting.
Continue reading...Money and maps: is this how to save the Amazon’s 400bn trees?
Alarmed by the impact of logging, indigenous Peruvians are using satellite mapping to manage their land
The first thing Ramón heard about the deal was the televisions. A number of families from the Asháninka indigenous group had received them from outsiders, in exchange for land. Loggers were interested in the mahogany, oak and tornillo trees that grow to impressive heights in this part of the rainforest around Cutivireni in central Peru.
The loggers had other means of persuasion, besides bribery. They might offer to build a school or a meeting house in exchange for timber. When the work ran over budget, they would demand money – and since the Asháninka had none, they would take more trees to service the debt, according to Adelaida Bustamante, the community treasurer. And if that failed, they used violence. In 2014, four forest defenders from the Asháninka were murdered for their campaign to keep loggers off their land (Ramón asked me not to use his real name).
Continue reading...Forest guardians: the Asháninka of Peru – in pictures
In an area of the Amazon vulnerable to illegal loggers, Cool Earth, a UK-based charity, is working with the Asháninka people to reduce deforestation. Photographer Alicia Canter travelled to Cutivireni in central Peru
Continue reading...Brazilian ‘forest guardian’ killed by illegal loggers in ambush
Paulo Paulino Guajajara was killed by armed loggers in the Araribóia region in Maranhão
A Brazilian indigenous land defender has been killed in an ambush by illegal loggers in an Amazon frontier region.
According to a statement by the Brazilian Indigenous Peoples Association, Paulo Paulino Guajajara was shot and killed inside the Araribóia indigenous territory in Maranhão state. Another tribesman, Laércio Guajajara, was also shot and hospitalised and a logger has been reported missing. No body has yet been recovered.
Continue reading...To the moon and back with the eastern curlew
Ultra-endurance athlete, aerodynamic wonder … and facing extinction. Why the bird who flies 30,000km a year needs Australia’s mudflats
• Vote for your favourite in the 2019 bird of the year poll
The ascent is vertical. Up, up and into the jet stream. If the conditions are not right up there it will come back down and wait. But if there is a good tailwind in the right direction it will begin an epic journey that will take it around the curvature of the Earth; from the Arctic Circle to the southern hemisphere.
Using the sun and stars as a compass, and navigating by the Earth’s magnetic field, recognising landmarks, the far eastern curlew will fly nonstop to the Yellow Sea, where it fuels up on the mudflats of north-east China.
Continue reading...Shock and gnaw: rat-eating macaques ‘stun’ scientists
Animals act as natural pest control in Malaysia’s vast palm oil plantations, reducing crop losses from rodents
Scientists in Malaysia have said they were “stunned” to discover monkeys regularly killing and eating rats on palm oil plantations, providing a natural anti-pest measure in the country, which is responsible for 30% of the world’s palm oil production.
A report released in Current Biology on Monday, showed that southern pig-tailed macaques, generally thought to eat mainly fruit plus occasionally lizards and birds, foraged for rats on plantations. The authors said that the monkeys’ appetite for rodents showed that rather than being pests, as is commonly believed, the primates’ presence reduced crop losses.
Continue reading...Easter egg hunts land National Trust in a row over Cadbury’s link to rainforest loss
Two women take on heritage organisation over its contract with the chocolate maker
In one corner were two women, a teacher and a graphic designer, from Cambridgeshire. In the other was the guardian of the country’s heritage and green spaces. Both were engaged in a high-intensity battle – over chocolate.
The usually staid proceedings of the National Trust annual general meeting in Swindon yesterday erupted into a heated row about the conservation charity’s longstanding deal with one of the largest confectionery giants in the world.
Continue reading...Last wolves in Africa: the fragile wildlife of Ethiopia’s ravaged parks | Tom Gardner
Wildfires and an encroaching population are threatening grasslands that host some of the world’s rarest species
Conservationist Getachew Assefa points across the valley. “It started close to the mist over there, by the most spectacular viewpoint,” he says. “Almost all the grassland was burnt. All of that plateau and the steep cliff over there.”
Six months after wildfires torched this part of Ethiopia’s Simien Mountains, the scars are healing: heather and grass have returned to carpet the hilltop, brightened by the yellow daisies which bloom after the long rains. On the near side of the valley lie barley fields, rippling in the wind.
Continue reading...Prince Harry’s Instagram takeover barks up the right tree
While his captions weren’t up to much, the prince’s takeover of the National Geographic’s Instagram on his tour in Africa had a larger purpose
When celebrities become guest editors of corporate social media accounts, it usually results in dozens of pouting selfies. For this reason, Prince Harry’s takeover of the National Geographic Instagram account to encourage people to “look up” and get lost in the beauty of trees is a weirdly enticing concept.
On Monday, the Duke of Sussex curated a set of images of forest canopies each taken by National Geographic photographers, which went out to the publication’s 123 million followers. The idea was to highlight the importance of conservation while spotlighting the Queen’s Commonwealth Canopy campaign, which will result in two national parks being created in South Africa, where Harry is touring. As part of the campaign, 50 countries have either dedicated indigenous forest for conservation or committed to planting millions of new trees to combat climate change.
Continue reading...California governor vetoes bill aimed at stopping Trump environment rollbacks
- Bill would have helped regulators counter federal directives
- Gavin Newsom vows to continue fight on environmental issues
California governor Gavin Newsom angered some allies on Friday by vetoing a bill aimed at blunting Trump administration rollbacks of clean air and endangered species regulations in the state.
Related: Trump's EPA attacks California with claim that state is lax on water pollution
Continue reading...Greta Thunberg: ‘We are ignoring natural climate solutions’
Film by Swedish activist and Guardian journalist George Monbiot says nature must be used to repair broken climate
The protection and restoration of living ecosystems such as forests, mangroves and seagrass meadows can repair the planet’s broken climate but are being overlooked, Greta Thunberg and George Monbiot have warned in a new short film.
Natural climate solutions could remove huge amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as plants grow. But these methods receive only 2% of the funding spent on cutting emissions, say the climate activists.
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