Rainforest Newsfeed

Price of gorilla permit increases to $750/day
Mongabay: Rwanda has raised the price of a permit to see mountain gorillas to $750 per day starting June 1, 2012, up from $500. While the price is steep, the program each year raises millions of dollars in revenue for gorilla conservation, including $8 million in Rwanada alone in 2008, according to a 2011 study published in PLoS ONE. The number of permits available each day is limited to reduce the impact of gorilla tourism on the endangered apes. Around 20,000 visited Rwanda's gorillas in 2008. The...

Colombia's Nukak Maku tribe faces extinction
Guardian: Only a decade ago, the Nukak Maku, a Colombian indigenous community, lived a peaceful life disconnected from the modern world. Nomadic hunter-gatherers, they roamed a chunk of the Amazon three times the size of London, spending days trekking to one corner just to fish, then weeks to another to hunt. Now driven out of their territory by the Farc left-wing guerillas, the tribe occupies a shabby glade half the size of a football field on the outskirts of a frontier town, San José del Guaviare....

Tanzania: Land-cover changes do not impact glacier loss
EurekAlert: The composition of land surface – such as vegetation type and land use – regulates the interaction of radiation, sensible heat and humidity between the land surface and the atmosphere and, thus, influences ground level climate directly. For the first time, the Innsbruck climate scientists quantitatively examined whether land-cover changes (LCC) may potentially affect glacier loss. "We used Kilimanjaro in East Africa as a test case, where a significant decrease of forests at elevations between 1,800...

Expert speaks out on impact of logging in PNG
Radio Australia: One of the world's leading tropical biologists says clear felling of forests on Papua New Guinea's controversial Special Agricultural and Business leases is likely to have profound impact on PNG's environment. As you heard earlier in the program, logging on SABLs has pushed PNG's log exports into record territory. In 2011, 650,000 cubic metres of logs were exported from SABLs. A prominent scientist in tropical biology says the environmental impact of this sort of logging is very significant....

Congo invites Indian companies to invest in timber
Economic Times: Home to one of Africa's largest forest expanses, the Republic of Congo wants Indian companies to invest in the timber industry, the second biggest money-spinner after oil in the central African country, says its Forestry and Environment Minister Henri Djombo. "We have a big timber industry and would want Indian private companies to come and invest in the our timber companies," Djombo said in an interview here. The country, also informally known as Congo-Brazzaville to differentiate it from...

Forestry Director Seeks to Gazette Kigoma's Masito-Ugalla Forest
allAfrica: ONE of the country's largest natural forest reserve, Masito-Ugalla in Kigoma rural district which is threatened by charcoal and timber traders exporting to neighbouring countries, is not legally protected and now Ministry of Natural Resources and Tourism is seeking to gazette it. The 70,000 hectares natural reserve which spans across Kigoma and Rukwa regions is one of the several others which are not protected by law hence allowing loggers and corrupt forestry officials to cut down natural trees,...

Chinese Feed Illegal Ivory Trade
Inter Press Service: The illegal trade in ivory continues in Egypt, with ivory products sold openly in local tourist markets by traders who operate with impunity, a new study by the conservation group Traffic has found. The report, published in the group’s journal, suggests that while the volume of elephant ivory seen in Egyptian tourist markets has declined over the past decade, the country remains a major hub in the global ivory trade. Investigators who surveyed two of the country’s main tourist centres found ivory...

Guyana: Amaila Falls road controversy… Luncheon insists Govt. owns seized equipment
Kaieteur News: Head of the Presidential Secretariat Dr Roger Luncheon yesterday told media operatives that he is aware of reports involving police altercations with controversial contractor Makeswhar ‘Fip’ Motilall but insists that the Government owns the seized equipment. Dr Luncheon, addressing reporters at his weekly media conference, said that Government forked out a significant sum of cash for the purchase of the equipment and in light of the developments involving the project, the Government contends that...

Indonesia to create the world's largest palm oil and rubber company
Mongabay: The Indonesian government plans to create a massive plantation firm next month when it will combine the assets of state-owned rubber and palm oil companies, reports Reuters. The new corporation, which will be consolidated under the parent company PT Perkebunan Nusantara III, will have assets worth $5.6 billion, according to State Enterprises Minister Dahlan Iskan. It will own about million hectares of oil palm and rubber plantations, rivaling Malaysia’s Sime Darby and Singapore’s Wilmar among...

Caution urged in sale of Madagascar's illegal timber stockpiles
Mongabay: Confiscated timber stocks in Madagascar must be managed in a "transparent manner" to deter future illegal logging and boosting demand for endangered rainforest timber, says a letter published by a coalition of NGOs. The letter, released today, is addressed to authorities in Madagascar as well as the World Bank, which is providing funds for environmental law enforcement, including a ban on ebony, rosewood, and palissander exports. Traders are currently sitting on large stockpiles of contraband...

Indonesia: 5 shot in conflict over oil palm plantation in Sumatra
Mongabay: Five villagers were shot in Indonesia's Riau Province on the island of Sumatra during a clash in a land dispute over an oil palm plantation, reports The Jakarta Post and Republika. The violence occurred when heavy machinery owned by PT Mazuma Agro Indonesia (MAI), a palm oil developer, moved into an area of land local residents claims as their own. As many as 200 villagers attempted to block MAI workers, who were accompanied by private security personnel and the Police Mobile Brigade (Brimob),...

Elephants Took 24 Million Generations to Evolve From Mouse-Size
National Geographic: Some mammals need roughly 24 million generations to go from mouse-size to elephant-size, a new study says. Using both fossil and living specimens, scientists calculated growth rates for 28 different mammalian groups during the past 65 million years-and found that, for mammals, getting big takes longer than shrinking. It takes a minimum of 1.6 million generations for mammals to achieve a hundredfold increase in body size, about 5 million generations for a thousandfold increase, and about 10...

Zoos tighten security as threat of animal poaching grows
Guardian: Opening the door to the animal house, passing a rhino on the way and patting the giraffe inside, Sarah Forsyth points out small white boxes that dot the walls. "Everywhere you look there's a detector or a motion sensor," she says, chuckling in front of one that presented the security firm with a peculiarly zoo-specific problem. "These are the ones the giraffe were licking." She can laugh about it now, but two months ago, when Colchester zoo decided to put in place the £300,000 alarm system, Forsyth's...

Nature's Surprise: 365 New Species Spotted in Peru
LiveScience.com: Hundreds of species never before seen in a Peruvian national park have been found during an inventory of the Amazonian forests there, according to a conservation group. The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) announced today the discovery of 365 species previously undocumented in Bahuaja Sonene National Park in southeastern Peru. More than a dozen researchers inventoried the park's plant life, insects, birds, mammals and reptiles. The species found are known to exist elsewhere, but have never...

Malaria toll 'is twice as high'
BBC: Worldwide malaria deaths may be almost twice as high as previously estimated, a study reports. The research, published in the British medical journal the Lancet, suggests 1.24 million people died from the mosquito-borne disease in 2010. This compares to a World Health Organisation (WHO) estimate for 2010 of 655,000 deaths. But both the new study and the WHO indicate global death rates are now falling. Continue reading the main story "Start Quote What we now know is that we're actually...

Cambodia police arrest women protesting against forced evictions
Guardian: Cambodian authorities have arrested at least six protesters in an on-going dispute over forced evictions in Phnom Penh, that saw two of the female demonstrators tear off their shirts in a rare act of defiance in this modest society. The protesters were calling for promised housing and compensation, as well as the release of eight detainees who were arrested after a violent forced eviction on 3 January, when some 300 families were forced from their settlement at Borei Keila neighbourhood. The...

Supernatural beliefs keep hunting sustainable on Indonesian island
Mongabay: How do indigenous communities hunt without pushing target species to local extinction? In other words, how have communities retained sustainable practices over countless generations? One answer is given in a new study by the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) and the Center for International Research in Agronomy and Development (CIRAD): supernatural beliefs. Looking at a community of indigenous people on the Indonesian island of Seram, researchers found that supernatural beliefs ensured...

Water Shortage Threatens Wildlife
Inter Press Service: The story of a pair of buffalo aggressively prowling the edges of a village in eastern Burkina Faso is a warning sign of severe water stress in the region which threatens humans and wild animals alike. People in nearly half of Burkina Faso's administrative districts could face food shortages this year, and the the country's environment ministry has also warned of disastrous consequences for wildlife. Water shortages are likely to cause increased conflict between people and animals, as is already...

Australia: North Queensland ethanol plant gets green light
Queensland Business Review: Work could soon begin on a proposed $425 million bio-energy plant at Toobanna, near Ingham, after receiving development approval from the State Government. Minister for Local Government and Planning, Paul Lucas, this week gave the go ahead to North Queensland Bio-Energy (NQBE) for the project application, which remains subject to a revised social impact assessment and road use management plan. According to Lucas, the plant will be the first multi-functional sugar, ethanol and electricity generation...

Indonesia to set up $5.6 billion plantation firm
Reuters: Indonesia's government plans to create one of the world's largest palm oil and rubber firms in March by combining state planters with total assets of $5.6 billion, a government minister told Reuters on Thursday. A planned listing of the firm will tap investor interest in a country with a recently acquired "investment grade" rating and create a rival to top regional planters such as Malaysia's Sime Darby and Singapore's Wilmar. The government will consolidate the assets of 15 state firms, whose...

EU climate chief calls for 'much care' on biofuels
EurActiv: The European Union's climate commissioner, Connie Hedegaard, has warned about expanding the use of biofuels as the EU executive finalises an assessment of the potentially damaging effects they may have over the earth's climate. She spoke to EurActiv as part of a wide-ranging exclusive interview on sustainability issues. A draft Commission impact assessment, obtained by EurActiv last week, indicates that the greenhouse gas emissions from biofuels such as palm oil, soybean and rapeseed may exceed...

Global land grab could trigger conflict, report says
Guardian: The global rush for land in developing countries around the world could trigger a new wave of civil unrest if governments fail to recognise the rights of those using land without formal legal titles, according to new studies. Research published on Wednesday by the Rights and Resources Initiative (RRI) estimates that half a billion people rely on 1.4bn hectares of communally held rural land in sub-Saharan Africa, which has attracted the lion's share of investor interest. But, while local populations...

Cabinet approves finance to continue Amaila Falls access road
Guyana Chronicle: HEAD of the Presidential Secretariat, Dr. Roger Luncheon has announced that Cabinet on Tuesday approved the provision of financial resources to continue work on the Amaila Falls access road. He was at the time speaking at his weekly post-Cabinet press briefing at the Office of the President, where he explained that the resources earmarked for the continuation of the project, were to be used for the recruitment of contractors to complete the road works. The Cabinet Secretary said: “In essence,...

Group releases close-up photos of 'uncontacted' tribe in Peru
Mongabay: New photos provide visual evidence of just how close the long-isolated tribe of Mashco-Piro people in the Amazon rainforest are to being contacted by the outside world-a perilous moment for tribes highly susceptible to disease and likely to defend their people and territory with weapons. According to indigenous rights NGO Survival International, the Maschco-Piro tribe has been seen more frequently outside of their forest home in Manu National Park in recent years. Some experts blame illegal logging...

First land plants plunged Earth into ice age
New Scientist: Never underestimate moss. When the simple plants first arrived on land, almost half a billion years ago, they triggered both an ice age and a mass extinction of ocean life. The first land plants appeared around 470 million years ago, during the Ordovician period, when life was diversifying rapidly. They were non-vascular plants, like mosses and liverworts, that didn't have deep roots. About 35 million years later, ice sheets briefly covered much of the planet and a mass extinction ensued. Carbon...

New meteorological theory argues that the world's forests are rainmakers
Mongabay: New, radical theories in science often take time to be accepted, especially those that directly challenge longstanding ideas, contemporary policy or cultural norms. The fact that the Earth revolves around the sun, and not vice-versa, took centuries to gain widespread scientific and public acceptance. While Darwin's theory of evolution was quickly grasped by biologists, portions of the public today, especially in places like the U.S., still disbelieve. Currently, the near total consensus by climatologists...

Earth’s First Plants May Have Triggered Ice Ages, Study Says
Yale Environment 360: The first plants to colonize the planet about 470 million years ago may have plunged Earth into a series of ice ages, according to a new study. Writing in the journal Nature Geoscience, a team of researchers suggests that the earliest plants -- including the ancestors of today’s mosses -- caused silicate rocks, such as granite, to release calcium and magnesium ions. This process removed carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and formed carbonate rocks in the oceans, a phenomenon that would have caused...

Towards a Better Understanding of Climate Effects on Species
Huffington Post: Most portrayals of the effects of climate change on wildlife and ecosystems assume that species will simply shift towards the poles or upslope to follow their optimal climate conditions as the earth warms. But species are much more complicated than that: no species exists on its own; rather, an unknown number of interactions such as competition for food and habitat and spatial displacement are constantly happening, and in turn affecting the status of said species. Consequently, when one wants to...

REDD: When carbon credits work in the Amazon
GlobalPost: Sitting on the porch of his ramshackle wooden hut, shaded from the Amazonian sun by the thick rainforest canopy, Brazil nut collector Eleuterio Martin admits he has never heard of global warming. Yet Martin, 73, is now set to play his part in a groundbreaking new project that could become one of the most effective ways to curb rising global greenhouse gas emissions. He is one of hundreds of local people here in the Madre de Dios region of Peru, near the Bolivian border, who have teamed up with...

REDD: Saving the Amazon rainforest
GlobalPost: International negotiators are closing in on a new solution for combating climate change -- and saving the world's remaining forests. Some 20 percent of all greenhouse-gas emissions now come from deforestation, especially in the lush, green band of tropical rainforest that circles the earth. That is more than from global transport. So representatives from member states involved in UN climate negotiations are attempting to hammer out a way to make it more profitable to protect forests than...

African land grabs hinder sustainable development
Nature: A scramble to buy African land is threatening the continent’s sustainable development, according to reports launched today at the Royal Society in London. Of the 203 million hectares of land deals reported worldwide between 2000 and 20101, two-thirds were in Africa. The acquisitions are dispossessing millions of Africans of their land, to make way for expansive forestry and mineral projects and plantations, say a series of briefs2 and a report3 published by the Rights and Resources Initiative...

Indonesia: Clear Land Borders, Or No Concessions
Jakarta Globe: Applicants for land concessions in Indonesia will soon be forced to clarify the boundaries of their land and show that there is no overlapping claims, the Forestry Ministry announced on Tuesday amid a recent eruption of violence linked to land disputes. Hadi Daryanto, the secretary general of the Forestry Ministry, said the government would revise a ministerial decree on the process to establish or extend working areas for forestry product concessions. “We will put the requirement for determination...

REDD: The Amazon's carbon cowboys
GlobalPost: This article is the last in a three-part series that explores the issue of deforestation and climate change. In part one, GlobalPost considered how a proposed international carbon-credit market could slash greenhouse-gas emissions and save the world's surviving forests. Part two highlighted how forest people can benefit from carbon credits, while part three looks at "carbon cowboys" accused of abusing the system. For many impoverished rainforest communities in Latin America, Africa and Asia,...

Tropical Forests Store More Carbon Than Previously Believed, Study Says
Yale Environment 360: Woods Hole Research Center Biomass in the Democratic Republic of the Congo data -- including cloud-penetrating LiDAR -- and field observations from forests, woodlands and savannas across Africa, Asia, and South America, researchers say they were able to create the first “wall-to-wall” map depicting carbon density. According to their results, Brazilian rainforests store about 53.2 billion tons of carbon, followed by the Democratic Republic of the Congo (22 billion) and Indonesia (18.6). “For the first...

Isolated Peruvian tribe pictured
BBC: Chance encounters near an isolated Amazon tribe have resulted in the most detailed pictures ever taken of them. Campaign group Survival International has released images of the Mashco-Piro tribe, which lives near the Manu National Park in southeastern Peru. The tribe has had little if any peaceful contact with the outside world, but sightings are on the rise. Survival blames the change on gas and oil projects and illegal logging in the area, pushing the tribe into new lands. The message...

Brazilian mining company connected to Belo Monte dam voted worst corporation
Mongabay: The world's second largest mining company, Vale, has been given the dubious honor of being voted the world's most awful corporation in terms of human rights abuses and environmental destruction by the Public Eye Awards. Vale received over 25,000 votes online, likely prompted in part by its stake in the hugely controversial Brazilian mega-dam, Belo Monte, which is being constructed on the Xingu River. An expert panel gave a second award to British bank Barclay's for speculation on food prices, which...

Salty soils drive Tanzanian farmers into forest reserve
AlertNet: Thousands of farmers in Tanzania's Rufiji Delta have been accused of destroying mangroves as they search for new land to grow their rice crops, which are being damaged by salt-water intrusion. The salt water, pushed inland by surging tides from the Indian Ocean, is damaging fields of rice seedlings. Farmers in several villages in the river basin, which sprawls across the east African nation's southern half, have seen yields fall as a result. With thousands of hectares affected by saline intrusion,...

UN maps 'future worth choosing'
BBC: Growing inequality, environmental decline and "teetering" economies mean the world must change the way it does business, a UN report concludes. Health and education must improve, it says. Subsidies on fossil fuels should end, and governments must look beyond the standard economic indicator of GDP. The High-Level Panel on Global Sustainability was established in 2010 by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. Its report will feed into discussions leading to the Rio+20 summit in June. It is being...

Amazon rainforest mapped in unprecedented detail
Guardian: Five thousand metres above the most biodiverse corner of the Amazon, tropical ecologist Greg Asner and his team see a kaleidoscope of colours among a mass of green. Huddled in a twin-engine Dornier 228 aeroplane called the Carnegie Airborne Observatory, the scientists are capturing multicoloured images of the Peruvian rainforest canopy that verge on the psychedelic. Inside the plane, a machine known as a Lidar (Light Detection and Ranging) bounces a laser beam off the forest canopy 400,000...

Save the Apes and You Save the Forests: Scientists
Jakarta Globe: Developing primate conservation projects, particularly for great apes, can contribute toward the long-term health of forests and to carbon sequestration schemes, scientists contend. Ian Redmond, a tropical field biologist and conservationist, said primates and other fruit-eating animals were crucial to forests because of their role in seed dispersal. “Fruit-eating animals have been long known to play a very important role in the life cycle of tropical forests, with between 75 to 95 percent...

Zimbabwe farmers turn back to tradition as rainfall changes
AlertNet: Whether rotating her crops, sowing seed from previous harvests or gathering rainwater, Susan Gama is pulling out all the stops in an attempt to keep her livelihood going. Subsistence farmers like Gama in this southern African nation are reverting to traditional farming knowledge and local experimentation to cope with the challenges of poor and unpredictable rainfall, which experts believe is linked to climate change. That is producing mixed results -- and considerable frustration for government...

Near-Extinct Monkeys Found in Colombian Park
National Geographic: A new population of one of the world's rarest primates-the brown spider monkey (Ateles hybridus)-has been found in Colombia's Selva de Florencia National Park, conservationists announced this week. During a recent survey, scientists found the brown spider monkey subspecies A. hybridus brunneus living within the park. (Also see "First Pictures: Live Snub-Nosed Monkeys Caught on Camera.") That subspecies and another, A. hybridus hybridus, were previously known to live on either side of the Magdalena...

Palm oil does not meet U.S. renewable fuels standard, rules EPA
Mongabay: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ruled on Friday that palm oil-based biofuels will not meet the renewable fuels standard due to carbon emissions associated with deforestation, reports The Hill. According to a notice published Friday in the Federal Register, palm oil-based biodiesel fails to meet a requirement that renewable fuels offer a 20 percent reduction in emissions relative to conventional gasoline: Biodiesel and renewable diesel produced from palm oil have estimated lifecycle...

Group releases photos of Borneo rainforest to be converted for palm plantations
Mongabay: The Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) has released a set of photos from a visit to a contested area of forest set to be converted for oil palm plantations in Indonesian Borneo. The pictures, taken this month, show an area of forest used by hundreds of villagers from the community of Muara Tae in East Kalimantan. The community, made up of indigenous Dayak Benuaq, is fiercely opposing efforts to seize and log the forest, arguing that oil palm plantations will destroy their livelihoods. "There...

Indonesia: Sinar Mas Group seeks 'backdoor' public listing in Singapore
Mongabay: Sinar Mas Group, an Indonesia-based conglomerate, is working on a deal to list its Indonesian coal assets on the Singapore Exchange by swapping shares with a small forestry firm that is already listed on the stock market, reports Reuters. The reverse takeover would enable Sinar Mas Group to more easily raise capital for expansion. The Singapore-listed company United Fiber System Ltd said on Friday it has signed a $1.2 billion agreement with PT Dian Swastatika Sentosa Tbk, an Indonesian coal mining...

Why Biodiversity Loss Deserves as Much Attention as Climate Change
Triple Pundit: Biodiversity loss is probably a challenge that is often ignored as climate change looms. Currently the world is losing species at a rate that is 100 to 1000 times faster than the natural extinction rate, further, it is currently seeing the sixth mass extinction. The previous mass extinction occured 65 million years ago, and was caused by ecosystem changes, changes in atmospheric chemistry, impacts of asteroids and volcanoes. For the first time in history, the current extinction is called by the...

NASA Releases Stunning “Blue Marble” Image of Earth
Climate Central: NASA released a new, high-resolution "Blue Marble" image of Earth this week, taken from instruments aboard the recently launched Suomi NPP satellite. The image is actually a composite of many pictures from Jan. 4, 2012 that were stitched together, and shows North America in stunning detail. One feature that is notably absent from the picture is snow cover, which is confined to parts of the Rocky Mountains and Sierra Nevada. In many parts of the country, snowfall has been running well below average...

Wide Variety of Threats Wiping Out World’s Big Trees, Expert Says
Yale Environment 360: A litany of environmental threats, from forest fragmentation and logging to climate change and disease, are wiping out the world’s biggest trees, according to a published report. In forest ecosystems worldwide, research shows that giant trees have become particularly vulnerable to a changing environment, ecologist and tropical forest expert William Laurance writes in New Scientist magazine. Increased fragmentation has left big trees exposed to stronger winds, while dry conditions and warming temperatures...

Indonesian protests force government to revoke gold mining permits
Guardian: Indonesia has revoked permits for a joint Indonesian-Australian mining venture on Sumbawa island after a string of violent protests in which two people died and a government office was set alight. The country's leading environmental group, however, said it doubted the government's pledge was an "honest commitment". Thousands of protesters rioted on Thursday in Bima, Sumbawa – 1,330km east of the capital, Jakarta – where they set fire to the district head's office to demand an end to the gold...

United Kingdom: Why David Cameron should attend the Rio+20 Earth summit
Business Green: If you were to ask most people whether they would like an all-expenses-paid trip to Rio de Janeiro, expressly designed to demonstrate that they were a nice guy or gal who cared about the planet, it would probably not take them too long to start packing their sunglasses. Sadly, life is not that simple when you are prime minister. The debate over whether or not David Cameron should attend the Rio Earth +20 Summit continues to rumble on, presenting a potential political land mine for Number 10 that...

Already on the decline, will global warming hasten demise of big trees?
Mongabay: Already on the decline worldwide, big trees face a dire future due to habitat fragmentation, selective harvesting by loggers, exotic invaders, and the effects of climate change, warns an article published this week in New Scientist magazine. Reviewing research from forests around the world, William F. Laurance, an ecologist at James Cook University in Cairns, Australia, provides evidence of decline among the world's "biggest and most magnificent" trees and details the range of threats they face....

Bill Gates Warns Climate Change Threatens Food Security
Climate Progress: Bill Gates is one very confused billionaire philanthropist. He understands global warming is a big problem - indeed, his 2012 Foundation Letter even frets about the grave threat it poses to food security. But he just doesn`t want to do very much now to stop it from happening (see Pro-geoengineering Bill Gates disses efficiency, “cute” solar, deployment -- still doesn’t know how he got rich). He love technofixes like geoengineering and, as we`ll see, genetically modified food. Rather than investing...

Competition is at the root of diversity in rainforests: study
Physorg: Ecologists are still arguing about the nature of the factors that determine the species composition of ecological communities. On the one hand, there are those who view interspecies competition as the key element. A second group of influential ecologists postulates that random fluctuations in population structure and rates of species dispersal play the dominant role, particularly in the biological communities found in species-rich tropical rainforests. LMU biologist Professor Susanne Renner, who...

The world's biggest and most vulnerable trees
Guardian: The biggest trees in the world are dying off rapidly as roads, farms and settlements fragment forests and trees come under prolonged attack from severe droughts and new pests and diseases. Here is a selection of the world's biggest trees under threat

U.S. court rules against Chevron in Ecuador case
Reuters: A federal appeals court threw out an injunction that Chevron Corp won to block enforcement of what it considers a fraudulent, multibillion-dollar judgment in Ecuador for polluting the Amazon jungle. The 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New York on Thursday said a lower court erred in concluding that state law allowed the oil company to challenge a roughly $18 billion judgment before enforcement of that judgment had been sought. Chevron could challenge the judgment's validity "only defensively,...

Poaching for meat poses new extinction risk to Thai elephants
Associated Press: Two wild elephants were found slaughtered last month in a national park in western Thailand, alerting authorities to the new practice of consuming elephant meat. "The poachers took away the elephants' sex organs and trunks … for human consumption," Damrong Phidet, director-general of Thailand's wildlife agency, told the Associated Press. Some meat was to be consumed without cooking, like "elephant sashimi," he said. Consuming elephant meat is not common in Thailand, but some Asian cultures...

Britain ranks top risks posed by climate change
Associated Press: Coastlines, working patterns, and even the country's most famous meal are under threat from climate change, Britain said Thursday in its first-ever national assessment of the likely risks. The 2.8 million pound ($4.4 million) study sets out the most pressing problems expected to affect the United Kingdom as a result of climate change, from rising sea levels to more frequent summer droughts. In a gloomy forecast for Britain's environment department, a panel of independent analysts predicted...

Thailand: Even worse flood crisis this year unless government is decisive
Nation: Water experts yesterday urged the government to be decisive about flood-prevention measures in order to prevent a repeat of last year's severe flooding, as the La Nina phenomenon is expected to bring early rains and more storms this year. They expressed concern that a lack of clear decisions from the government would leave the flood-prevention efforts in disarray. Seree Supharatid, director of Rangsit University's Centre on Climate Change and Disaster, warned that due to the La Nina climatic...

World's giant trees are dying off rapidly, studies show
Guardian: The biggest trees in the world, known as the true ecological kings of the jungle, are dying off rapidly as roads, farms and settlements fragment forests and they come under prolonged attack from severe droughts and new pests and diseases. Long-term studies in Amazonia, Africa and central America show that while these botanical behemoths may have adapted successfully to centuries of storms, pests and short-term climatic extremes, they are counterintuitively more vulnerable than other trees to today's...

New biodiversity map of Andes shows species in dire need of protection
ScienceDaily: The Andes-Amazon basin of Peru and Bolivia is one of the most biologically rich and rapidly changing areas of the world. A new study published in BioMed Central's open access journal BMC Ecology has used information collected over the last 100 years by explorers and from satellite images which reveals detailed patterns of species and ecosystems that occur only in this region. Worryingly, the study also finds that many of these unique species and ecosystems are lacking vital national level protection....

Rainforest logging not ecologically sustainable, argue scientists
Mongabay: Tropical countries may face a risk of 'peak timber' as continued logging of rainforests exceeds the capacity of forests to regenerate timber stocks and substantially increases the risk of outright clearing for agricultural and industrial plantations, argues a trio of scientists writing in the journal Biological Conservation. The implications for climate, biodiversity, and local economies are substantial. Reviewing an extensive body of recent scientific literature, Philip Shearman of the University...

Philippines: Scavenging for Charcoal Fuel in the Rubbish of Manila
National Geographic: Charcoal-making communities represent a small percentage of the urban slum population, Ballesteros said by email. However, she said, air pollution from these activities is a significant problem, and violates the Philippines' Clean Air Act. She said she believes the government should help finance cleaner technologies. Experts say charcoal production can be greenhouse gas-neutral or even positive, if biomass is harvested in a sustainable way and burned using cleaner-energy technologies. But policy...

US: Levi Strauss confirms forest purchasing policy
Just Style: Levi Strauss & Co has confirmed to just-style that it does not source items like paper, product packaging and hang-tags from endangered rainforests. The confirmation comes in response to a campaign by the Rainforest Action Network (RAN), which earlier this month said Levi's revamped forest products purchasing policy showed it would not be doing business with paper and packaging supplier Asia Pulp and Paper (APP). RAN accuses APP of ongoing involvement in rainforest destruction and human...

New species discovered in Suriname
Guardian: An armoured catfish, a cowboy frog, and a 'Crayola' katydid are among the 46 new species discovered during an expedition to remote areas of Suriname, central America

UN conference returns to Rio with new emphasis
Associated Press: Representatives from around the world will be returning to Rio de Janeiro this June -- 20 years after the U.N. Earth Summit -- but this time the focus will be on sustainable development, not climate change, a Brazilian diplomat said Tuesday. Andre Correa do Lago, who heads the Brazilian delegation negotiating a draft of the outcome document for "Rio plus 20," said that climate change was too sensitive an issue for many countries, while sustainable development was something everybody could get...

Suriname team find 46 new species
BBC: An expedition to a tiny South American country has revealed more than 40 species that scientists believe to be new to science. The expedition to the pristine tropical forests of Suriname was led by the charity Conservation International. The collaboration between scientists, indigenous people and students recorded 1,300 species in total. The team is now working to confirm which of these weird and wonderful creatures are newly discovered species. Among those they believe to be new to science...

In Brazil, Fears of a Slide Back for Amazon Protection
New York Times: Brazil has made great strides in recent years in slowing Amazon deforestation and showing the world it was serious about protecting the mammoth rain forest. The rate of deforestation fell by 80 percent over the past six years, as the government carved out about 150 million acres for conservation — an area roughly the size of France — and used police raids and other tactics to crack down on illegal deforesters, according to both environmentalists and the government. Brazil’s former environment minister,...

Photos: 46 new species found in little-explored Amazonian nation
Mongabay: South America's tiniest independent nation still hides a number of big surprises: a three week survey to the sourthern rainforests of Suriname found 46 potentially new species and recorded nearly 1,300 species in all. Undertaken by Conservation International's (CI) Rapid Assessment Program (RAP) the survey found new species of freshwater fish, insects, and a new frog dubbed the "cowboy frog" for the spur on its heel. While Suriname may be small, much of its forest, in the Guyana Shield region of...

Rainforest book honored
Ashland Daily Tidings: A scholastic book edited by forest ecologist Dominick DellaSala of Talent is included in the annual academic excellence list by Choice magazine, one of the nation's premier review journals for scholarly publications. The 336-page book, "Temperate and Boreal Rainforests of the World: Ecology and Conservation," is in the "Outstanding Academic Title" list published in the January issue of Choice. Based in Middletown, Conn., Choice has been a leading review journal for scholarly publications for...

Not All Wetlands Are Created Equal
New York Times: To many, it’s a familiar scenario: a strip mall suddenly pops up in what was once a desolate quagmire or boggy boondock. But people are coming to realize that these seemingly wasted plots where land meets water provide a valuable ecological service. In addition to nurturing biodiversity, wetlands purify water, produce fish, store carbon dioxide that would otherwise contribute to global warming, and protect shorelines from floods, storm surges and erosion. Since the early 20th century, development...

Climate Change and Farming: How Not to Go Hungry in a Warmer World
Time: Climate change might hit us in the most vital place of all -- the dinner plate Why do we care about climate change? Obviously we worry about what warming temperatures might do to the geography of the planet -- particularly melting polar ice and raising global sea levels. We fear the impact that climate change could have on endangered species, as warming temperatures speed the already rapid pace of extinction for wildlife that have been pushed to the edge by habitat loss and hunting. We focus on the...

With a prod from Europe, U.S. moves closer to a commercial jet biofuel facility
ClimateWire: The aviation industry and federal government are closing in on deals to build the United States' first commercial-scale sources of jet biofuel, a move considered critical to cutting the sector's emissions. Over the past three years, several airlines have already flown demonstration flights with biofuel blended into their conventional jet fuel. Engineers and regulators have also studied several biofuels and confirmed they are safe for flying, when blended with regular fuel. The next step: reducing...

Pangolins imperiled by internet trade--are companies responding quickly enough?
Mongabay: You can buy pretty much anything on the internet: from Rugby team garden gnomes to Mickey Mouse lingerie. In some places, consumers have even been able to purchase illegal wildlife parts, such as ivory and rhino horn. In fact, the internet has opened up the black market wildlife trade contributing to the destruction of biodiversity worldwide. Pangolins, shy, scaly, anteater-like animals in appearance, have not been immune: in Asia the small animals are killed en masse to feed rising demand for Chinese...

Landslide in Papua New Guinea: 40 missing
Reuters: A landslide swept through two villages in Papua New Guinea on Tuesday, covering much of the settlements in mud and leaving up to 40 people missing, officials and residents told Australian media. The accident, which occurred in the island state's Southern Highlands on Tuesday morning, prompted U.S. oil giant Exxon Mobil to stop work at its nearby $15.7 billion liquefied natural gas (PNG LNG) project. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation said it was unclear how many people had been affected...

Only Civil Society Can Save Rio+20, Say Activists
Inter Press Service: Large-scale social mobilisation, including street protests and parallel activities, is the only thing can save the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) from ending in nothing but frustration, according to activists and analysts. A repeat of the failure of recent conferences to negotiate an international climate change pact seems inevitable, said Cândido Grzybowski, the director general of the Brazilian Institute of Social and Economic Analysis (IBASE) and one of the founders...

Sumatran elephant upgraded to critically endangered status
Guardian: The Sumatran elephant has been placed on the list of critically endangered species after losing half of its population in a single generation, prompting calls from conservation groups for emergency measures to halt the destruction of its habitat. Deforestation is seen as the primary reason for the collapse in numbers in Indonesia, which until recently was seen alongside India and Sri Lanka as one of the last great refuges for elephants in Asia. The animal is now at risk of becoming extinct within...

Interview: Monitoring Grim Rise In the World’s Illegal Ivory Trade
Yale Environment 360: Last year was the worst year for ivory seizures since an international ivory ban went into effect in 1989. During 2011, authorities seized more than 23 tons of ivory, which represented about 2,500 individual elephants killed. Tom Milliken At the forefront of efforts to track this grim data is Tom Milliken, the elephant expert for TRAFFIC, the group that monitors the international trade in wildlife under CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora)....

Hugh Powell: birds lend invaluable insight about ecosystems
Mongabay: Hugh Powell is science editor at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology as well as a contributor to Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution's Oceanus and other publications. He's traveled extensively while writing, including stints in Antarctica for WHOI's Live from the Poles. Before finding his niche as a science writer, Hugh studied the interconnections between black-backed woodpeckers, insects, and forest fires in Montana. He currently resides in Ithaca, New York. Morgan Erickson-Davis: How did you get...

Geoengineering may improve global food security
Asian News International: Reflecting sunlight away from the Earth to combat global warming will more likely have a positive impact on global food production rather than negative, a new study has revealed. Big volcanoes cool the planet by placing lots of small particles in the stratosphere, but the particles fall out within a year and the planet heats back up. One proposal for cooling the planet is to use high-flying airplanes to constantly replenish a layer of small particles in the stratosphere that would scatter sunlight...

Biodiversity crisis: Habitat loss and climate change causing 6th mass extinction
Bay Area Indymedia: Scientists meeting at the University of Copenhagen have warned that biodiversity is declining rapidly throughout the world, describing the loss of species as the 6th mass extinction event on the earth. The world is losing species at a rate that is 100 to 1000 times faster than the natural extinction rate, with the challenges of conserving the world's species larger than mitigating the negative effects of global climate change. Related: Climate change and habitat loss threaten biodiversity, extinction...

Climate plan aims to help ecosystems adapt to change
New Mexican: The debate over the causes of climate change continues to rage, but federal, state and tribal agencies aren't waiting around for the argument to be settled. They believe climate change is here, and they're working on ways to help wildlife, land and communities adapt. Two federal agencies and a state wildlife department have developed a broad plan for helping ecosystems become more resilient as the climate changes. The National Fish, Wildlife and Plants Climate Adaptation Strategy was released...

Industry scours lesser-known fields in search for next big play
Greenwire: With record-low U.S. natural gas prices worrying oil and gas companies that have invested heavily in breakthrough shale plays, the industry is sending drilling to tight oil prospects and resources rich in natural gas liquids -- better investments as crude prices linger near $100 per barrel. And with competition already fierce in North Dakota's Bakken field and south Texas' Eagle Ford, companies are turning toward lesser-known oil-rich formations in what could be the next chapter in the North American...

Ecuador: Race to save 'lungs of the world'
BBC: The Yasuni National Park, known as "the lungs of the world" and one of the most bio-diverse places on earth, is under threat from oil drilling. The race is on to find the funds required to develop new sustainable energy programmes that would leave the oil - and the forest - untouched. In the early light of dawn, the Napo River, running swiftly from its headwaters in the high Andes, swirled powerfully past the bow of our motorised canoe. Suddenly, a dense cloud of green parrots swooped down...

Feeding The World Gets Short Shrift In Climate Change Debate
National Public Radio: Food is getting elbowed out of the discussion on climate change, which could spell disaster for the 1 billion people who will be added to the world's population in the next 15 years. That's the word today from scientists wondering why food and sustainability get such short shrift when it comes to thinking about how humans will adapt to climate change. In the past year, we've seen drought in Texas, floods in Australia and massive drought and wildfires in Russia, all of which have had a big impact...

Recognizing value of nature could boost income for the world's poor
Mongabay: The rural poor would substantially boost their income if the ecological services of the ecosystems they steward were valued and compensated by the rest of the world, claims a new study published in the journal Bioscience. The study assessed the value of benefits from receive from healthy and functioning ecosystems - including crop pollination, foods and fiber, medicines, clean water, and climate regulation - across 17 of the world's key conservation hotspots. It estimated the value of these services...

While Some Waste, Others Feast
Inter Press Service: Shortly before midnight last Saturday, Alexander, a 24-year-old law student, stepped out of his small apartment in Hamburg and set off for a jaunt around the local supermarkets to pilfer their garbage containers. Alex, who did not want his family name to appear in the newspapers, dines almost exclusively on the food that other Germans – from individual families to grocery stores, restaurants and supermarkets – throw away. "Of course I do this because I (get to) eat for free," Alex told IPS....

'Dracula' monkey comes back from the dead in Borneo
Daily Mail: An 'extinct' monkey has been rediscovered in the rainforest of Borneo by an international team of scientists on a new expedition. One of the rarest and least known primates in the world, Miller's Grizzled Langur, has been found alive - it was thought the species had been wiped out in 2004. The species has a distinctive dark face and white, Dracula-esque 'collar' of fur. Some of the only photos in existence of the rare animal were snapped by camera traps and have provided the first solid evidence...

'Extinct' monkey rediscovered in Indonesia
Guardian: Scientists working in the dense jungles of Indonesia have rediscovered a large grey monkey so rare it was believed by many to be extinct. They were all the more baffled to find the Miller's grizzled langur in an area well outside its previously recorded home range. The team set up camera traps in the Wehea forest on the eastern tip of Borneo island in June, hoping to capture images of clouded leopards, orangutans and other wildlife known to congregate at several mineral salt licks. The pictures...

Conserving biodiversity hotspots 'could bring world's poor $500bn a year'
Guardian: Some of the world's poorest people would be half a trillion dollars a year better off if the services they provide to the rest of the planet indirectly – through conserving natural habitats – was given an economic value, a new study has found. Many of these valuable habitats and species are under threat, but the people who live in these areas lack the means to improve their conservation, according to a new study in the journal BioScience. If poor people were paid for the services they provide...

Feared extinct, obscure monkey rediscovered in Borneo
Mongabay: A significant population of the rarely seen, little-known Miller's grizzled langurs (Presbytis hosei canicrus) has been discovered in Indonesian Borneo according to a new paper published in the American Journal of Primatology. Feared extinct by some and dubbed one of the world's 25 most threatened primates in 2005 by Conservation International (CI), the langur surprised researchers by showing up on camera trap in a region of Borneo it was never supposed to be. The discovery provides new hope for...

Ecologists gain insight into the likely consequences of global warming
ScienceDaily: A new insight into the impact that warmer temperatures could have across the world has been uncovered by scientists at Queen Mary, University of London. The research, published in the journal Global Change Biology on January 20, found that the impact of global warming could be similar across ecosystems, regardless of local environmental conditions and species. The team, based at Queen Mary's School of Biological and Chemical Sciences, went to Iceland to study a set of geothermally-heated streams....

Team finds natural reasons behind nitrogen-rich forests
Agence France-Presse: Many tropical forests are extremely rich in nitrogen even when there are no farms or industries nearby, says Montana State University researcher Jack Brookshire. It's because of biological interactions that occur naturally in the forests, Brookshire and four colleagues said in a paper they published Jan. 15 in the online version of the journal Nature Geoscience. Disputing some long-held beliefs about high nitrogen levels in tropical forests, Brookshire said pollution isn't always the reason...

Amazon 'uncontacted' tribes at risk from new highway plan
Ecologist: Tension is mounting in one of the remotest regions in the Peruvian Amazon over plans to build a highway through the country's biggest national park The Alto Purus park is inhabited by at least two 'uncontacted' tribes, one of which was photographed on a beach in the park five years ago. Carlos Tubino Arias Schreiber, a congressman from the Fuerza 2011 party, has been promoting the need for the highway in Peru's Congress, in what has become an increasingly aggressive publicity campaign. 'In...

The biodiversity crisis: Worse than climate change
Physorg: Biodiversity is declining rapidly throughout the worldSpecies extinction and the degradation of ecosystems are proceeding rapidly and the pace is accelerating. The world is losing species at a rate that is 100 to 1000 times faster than the natural extinction rate. Mass extinctions of species have occurred five times previously in the history of the world – last time was 65 million years ago when the dinosaurs and many other species disappeared. Previous periods of mass extinction and ecosystem...

National Association of Music Merchants does 'disservice' to members by misleading them on illegal logging law, says let
Mongabay: The National Association of Music Merchants is doing a 'disservice' to its members by misrepresenting the provisions and spirit of the Lacey Act, a law that aims to curb illegal logging abroad, states a letter published by a coalition of environmental groups. The letter, issued Thursday, urges the National Association of Music Merchants to reconsider its support for the RELIEF Act (HR 3210), introduced by Representatives Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Mary Bono Mack (R-CA), and Jim Cooper (D-TN) last...

Brazil begins preliminary damming of Xingu River as protests continue
Mongabay: Damming of the Xingu River has begun in Brazil to make way for the eventual construction of the hugely controversial, Belo Monte dam. The Norte Energia (NESA) consortium has begun building coffer dams across the Xingu, which will dry out parts of the river before permanent damming, reports the NGO International Rivers. Indigenous tribes, who have long opposed the dam plans on their ancestral river, conducted a peaceful protest that interrupted construction for a couple hours. "We will continue...

Indonesia to set aside 45% of Kalimantan for conservation
Mongabay: Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono (SBY) on Thursday announced a regulation that would protect 45 percent of Kalimantan, the Indonesian part of Borneo, according to a statement issued by his office. The regulation, which was issued January 5, aims to promote sustainable use of the natural resources of Kalimantan, and while light on details is ambitious in its goals, which include preservation of biodiversity and maintenance of ecosystem services; energy independence, including oil,...

Researchers outline food security-climate change road map in Science
Physorg: "Agriculture worldwide is being impacted by climate change and in less than 15 years global population will rise by one billion people," said Sir John Beddington, lead author of the article 'What Next for Agriculture After Durban?' "Policy makers and scientists need to work together, quickly, to chart a course toward a sustainable global food system." "Many agricultural practices show promise for lowering risks to food production and greenhouse gas emissions while protecting forests and other...

Money Is All That's Green in Biodiesel
Inter Press Service: The only green in biodiesel fuel is the money producers make from it, new research has revealed. Most biodiesel production is making climate change worse not better, studies show. Biodiesel from palm oil plantations may be the world's dirtiest fuel - far worse than burning diesel made from oil when the entire production life cycle is considered. Biodiesel made from the many palm oil plantations on Indonesia's peatlands have a "carbon debt of 200 years", said Louis Verchot, a research scientist...

Agriculture and Climate Change, Revisited
New York Times: Gemma Molero, an agronomist from Spain, working with plots of wheat at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center near Ciudad Obregón, Mexico. She helps cull the best varieties. Agriculture has long been a stepchild in global negotiations over the climate. Hopes had risen that this might change at the latest big global climate session, in Durban, South Africa, in December. It did not. Now, a group of experts led by John Beddington, the chief science adviser of the British government,...