Source: Marine researchers find trawling noise risk to protected mammals
The latest news related to nature conservation from around the world. If there is
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Deforestation razed eight percent of Amazon in 18 years: Study
Aljazeera
Deforestation in the Amazon destroyed an area bigger than Spain from 2000 to 2018, wiping out eight percent of the world’s largest rainforest, according to a study released on Tuesday. The Amazon plays a vital role in curbing climate change, but destruction of the rainforest has only accelerated in…
Brazil beef giants linked to illegal Amazon deforestation
Mongabay
Brazil’s biggest beef companies have been directly linked to more than 17,000 hectares (42,000 acres) of illegal deforestation in the Amazon state of Pará. Global Witness said the deforestation contravened the beef companies’ zero-deforestation pledges and agreements with federal prosecutors in Brazil…
Only 40% of world’s forests have high ecological integrity, a new index reveals
Mongabay
Of the world’s remaining forests, only 40% are intact, with high ecological integrity, according to data from the newly developed Forest Landscape Integrity Index, the first of its kind to measure the state of forests on a global scale. A recently published study in the journal Nature Communications describes the Forest Landscape Integrity Index…
Costa Rica will Receive $60 million for the Protection of Forests
The Costa Rica News
Costa Rica will receive $60 million from the World Bank over the next five years, in recognition of the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions and for the protection of forests. The World Bank revealed today during an event in Brussels that Costa Rica would be among the countries that will receive the…
Trove of new species discovered in hidden Bolivian valley
Conservation International Blog
Nestled in the Andes, the forests of Bolivia’s Zongo Valley are shrouded in pillowy clouds more than 3,000 meters (10,000 feet) above sea level. In the heart of the cloud forest, they discovered 20 species new to science, and rediscovered several species that had not been seen for decades…
In a nutshell: how the macadamia became a ‘vulnerable’ species
The Guardian
Australia’s nut trees have been added to the IUCN’s red list of threatened species as numbers in the wild dwindle. When Ian McConachie was growing up in postwar Queensland, his aunt had macadamia nut trees in her backyard. She told him that one day the trees would be famous. More than 70 years later she has been proved right – the Australian nut is a delicacy prized in kitchens around the world…
‘Moving a giraffe is a delicate process’: rising waters threaten Kenya’s wildlife
The Guardian
East Africa’s Rift Valley lakes are expanding, endangering the communities that live on their shores and the animals that exist alongside Marooned giraffes, fleeing flamingoes and stranded impalas: in recent years the rising water levels in east Africa’s Rift Valley lakes have become the norm, displacing people, threatening wildlife and submerging schools and hotels…
Marine researchers find trawling noise risk to protected mammals
Phys.org
The noise of bottom trawling in or near underwater canyons can disturb protected mammals such as fin whales and beaked whales in important feeding grounds and along migratory paths, researchers at National University of Ireland Galway report…
‘Happy corals’: climate crisis sanctuary teeming with life found off east Africa
The Guardian
Rare discovery of reef cooled by channels formed during creation of Kilimanjaro is ‘something to hope for’, say scientists. Scientists have discovered a climate crisis refuge for coral reefs off the coast of Kenya and Tanzania, where species are thriving despite warming events that have killed their neighbours…
Scientists cheered by bowhead whale recovery despite Arctic warming
The Guardian
Biologists hail ‘one of the great conservation successes’ but species’ fate uncertain as warming rapidly transforms the Arctic. In some rare good news from the top of the world, bowhead whale populations have rebounded and are nearing pre-commercial whaling numbers in US waters…
Whale of a find: Scientists spot beaked whale believed to be a new species
Mongabay
When a trio of beaked whales surfaced off Mexico’s Pacific coast, researchers thought they’d found the elusive Perrin’s beaked whale (Mesoplodon perrini), an endangered species that’s never been officially sighted alive. But upon closer inspection, the researchers realized they may have stumbled upon something even rarer — a new species of beaked whale altogether…
Human-Made Stuff Will Soon Outweigh All Living Things on Earth
Yale Environment 360
The combined weight of human-made objects will likely exceed that of all living things on Earth by the end of this year, weighing a total 1.1 trillion metric tons, or teratons, according to a new study published in the journal Nature. The study also found that the amount of new objects being manufactured every week weighs as much as all 7.7 billion people on the planet…
The Newest Challenge for Europe’s Parks: A Surge of New Nature Lovers
The New York Times
Lockdown-weary Europeans have sought out nature in record-breaking numbers this year, putting sudden and substantial pressure on national parks and other natural areas across the continent…
Western Australia’s quokkas rebound but face long road to recovery after severe bushfire
The Guardian
2015 blaze near Northcliffe took local quokka population from 600 to 39, and study shows there are now 272A quokka population nearly wiped out by a severe bushfire in Western Australia may take more than a decade to fully recover, research has shown…
Extinction: Conservation success set against 31 lost species
BBC News
Europe’s largest land mammal was almost wiped out by hunting and deforestation a century ago, but numbers have now risen to over 6,000 in wild herds across the continent. The recovery is regarded as a “conservation success” story. But 31 species of plants and animals have gone extinct in the latest tally…
River conservation by an Indigenous community
Nature
Populations of river fish are threatened by pressures on land and water resources. Networks of reserves managed by Indigenous people at community level offer a way to conserve fish diversity and enhance yields of nearby fisheries…
Climate change: Have countries kept their promises?
BBC News
Agreed by 196 parties in the French capital in December 2015, the Paris climate deal aims to keep the rise in global temperatures this century “well below 2C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5C.” We look at five key countries and how well they have kept their promises…
Recent notifications from the Convention on Biological Diversity
Government pandemic spending measures continue to harm biodiversity
A special virtual session of the scientific and implementation bodies of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) convened on 15 and 16 December discussed work by IPBES, OECD, GEF, WHO, CBD and others to show that the underlying causes of pandemics are the same global environmental changes that drive biodiversity loss and climate change…
