Source: More than 3 billion people affected by water shortages, data shows
The latest news related to nature conservation from around the world. If there is
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Amazon deforestation tops 11,000 sq km in Brazil, reaching 12-year high
Mongabay
Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon topped 11,000 square kilometers for the first time since 2008 reports the Brazilian government. According to data released today by Brazil’s national space research institute INPE, deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon for the year ending July 31, 2020 amounted to…
Botanical gardens: The need to conserve medicinal plants
The New Times
There is an urgent need to conserve medicinal plants by establishing botanical gardens across the country. This will save some medicinal plant species from extinction and ensure availability of raw materials to produce efficient medicines, researchers say…
Environment to benefit from ‘biggest farming shake-up in 50 years’
The Guardian
Wildlife, nature, and the climate will benefit from the biggest shake-up in farming policy in England for 50 years, according to government plans. The £1.6bn subsidy farmers receive every year for simply owning or renting land will be phased out by 2028, with the funds used instead to pay them to restore wild habitats…
Sea Angels and Sea Butterflies Reveal Climate Change Consequences
Scientific American
The delicate marine animals known as sea angels are facing unprecedented change because of global warming. These winged water-dwellers are sea angels, floating marine slugs that may be the “canary in the coal mine” for severe ocean acidification caused by modern global warming…
Overlooked and unloved: how a global project could unlock the world of parasites
The Guardian
Increasingly, scientists are finding that parasites are puppet masters, shaping ecosystems by changing the behaviour of their host species. Research in California showed parasites were involved in 78% of links in the food chain. Rough estimates suggest there could be 80 million parasites, but only 10% have been identified…
New snail subspecies with ‘upside down shell’ found in last green frontier east of Manila
Mongabay
In 2017, a group of researchers surveying mollusks in a popular ecotourism site east of the Philippine capital stumbled upon a tiny land snail with a unique “upside down shell.” It was a microsnail, its shell just about the size of an ant, and it was found crawling along the jagged limestone…
The New Guinea singing dog, once thought extinct, is alive in the wild
Mongabay
An analysis of the DNA of three wild dogs living above 4,300 meters (14,000 feet) on the island of New Guinea matches that of captive New Guinea singing dogs. These findings show that the New Guinea singing dog is not extinct in the wild, as most zoologists had assumed, researchers reported recently…
A tricky vaccination programme as wildlife experts race to save Siberian tigers
The Sunday Post
New techniques to give Siberian, or Amur, tigers protection against a dangerous disease – including remote control dart guns – are being examined after Scots researchers uncovered vital clues about the threat…
Big mammals are at risk in the world’s poorest countries, even within parks
Mongabay
Poaching is a pervasive global problem, and iconic mammals like elephants and rhinos are hit hard by illegal hunting. Forty years of global conservation research reveals that mammal populations are declining due to hunting in poor countries and within preserved areas, especially in Africa…
Rare whale skeleton discovered
BBC News
An almost perfectly preserved whale skeleton thought to be between 3,000 and 5,000 years old has been discovered in Thailand. Experts hope the find might provide “a window into the past,” especially for research on sea levels and biodiversity…
Why did the woolly rhino go extinct?
Mongabay
In the arctic tundra of northeastern Siberia lies a graveyard of a now-extinct species of megafauna, the woolly rhinoceros, dating back 50,000 years. Now, a new genomic analysis of the remains of 14 of these fantastical furry yellow creatures shows that climate change was the likely culprit for their…
More than 3 billion people affected by water shortages, data shows
The Guardian
UN warns about consequences of not conserving water and tackling climate crisis. Water shortages are now affecting more than 3 billion people around the world, as the amount of fresh water available for each person has plunged by a fifth over two decades, data has shown…
Recognizing Water’s Value Will Help Us Use It Wisely
Tasnim News
The assistant director-general for the Economic and Social Development Department at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) said water has a price, and leveraging that price signal can demonstrably spur farmers to improve their water productivity…
Nemonte Nenquimo: The indigenous leader named ‘environmental hero’
BBC News
An indigenous leader from the Ecuadorean Amazon is one of the winners of the Goldman environmental prize, which recognises grassroots activism. Nemonte Nenquimo was chosen for her success in protecting 500,000 acres of rainforest from oil extraction…
‘Nature is next’: Q&A with Finance for Biodiversity’s Simon Zadek
Mongabay
2020 was supposed to be the year that governments, business leaders and civil society came together to report back on the past decade’s worth of progress on addressing the biodiversity crisis. But the COVID-19 pandemic intervened and most of the big meetings scheduled for 2020 were scaled down or postponed…
Recent notifications from the Convention on Biological Diversity
UN Biodiversity Convention adopts 2021 interim budget
An interim budget for the Convention on Biological Diversity for the year 2021 has been adopted. The extraordinary meetings adopted the interim budget using a silence procedure…
