location: Middle East

location: Middle East

Social media activity version | Lean version

Final cheetah conservationists freed in Iran, but the big cat’s outlook remains grim
- In April, the last four cheetah conservationists from the Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation jailed in 2018 for alleged espionage were released from prison in Tehran; four of their colleagues had been released earlier, while one had died in custody.
- The case had a chilling effect on scientific collaboration and efforts to save the critically endangered Asiatic cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus venaticus), which is today found only in Iran, with fewer than 30 believed to remain in the wild.
- The cheetah faces a range of threats, chief among them vehicle collisions: some 52% of cheetah deaths in Iran are due to road accidents.
- Saving the species will require a comprehensive and coordinated effort, and international scientific cooperation is crucial — but conservation work has been hampered by complex geopolitical dynamics, including sanctions.

Lebanese youths take up rods and reels to learn sustainable fishing
- Lebanon’s fisheries face multiple challenges, including the prevalence of illegal and destructive practices, like dynamite fishing.
- New initiatives aim to shift mentalities, particularly among the younger generation.
- One of them, run by the Lebanese NGO Friends of Nature, aims to train 300 youths across the country in sustainable fishing methods.

Oman’s mountain oases offer ancient farming lessons for a warming future
- Traditional oasis agriculture in Oman’s northern mountains is an outstanding example of sustainable land-use in dryland ecosystems.
- But major socioeconomic development throughout Oman over the past 50 years means that traditional agricultural practices, more than a millennium old, are changing too.
- Climate change is also affecting the types of crops that can be grown, particularly at higher altitudes.
- The high value of traditional agricultural products, agritourism, and new cash crops offer ideas on how to sustain the economic viability of these mountain oases.

Palestinian olive farmers hold tight to their roots amid surge in settler attacks
- Palestinian farmers in the occupied West Bank face economic devastation as a surge in violence by illegal Israeli settlers and the Israeli military prevents them from harvesting their olives. Around 100,000 Palestinian families are estimated to rely on these trees as a source of income.
- The start of the war in Gaza coincided with the autumn olive harvest, but the Israeli military has cut off West Bank farmers’ access to their orchards, while reportedly allowing illegal settlers in to steal the olives and destroy the trees.
- Yet despite the settler attacks and restrictions on the olive harvest, Palestinian farmers are determined to remain steadfast and help each other harvest as much as possible before the nearing end of the season. With its long history of rootedness in the land, the olive tree is often seen as one of the most evocative symbols of resilience, and representative of a generational bond with the land.
- According to a spokesperson for the Israeli military, the restrictions faced by farmers are part of “security operations” in the area aimed at capturing militant groups and protecting Israeli settlers who claim the land, in violation of international law.

Muslim community must have a seat for global climate change discourse (commentary)
- Muslims account for nearly a quarter of the world’s total population, much of which is impacted by climate change.
- At the same time, Islamic worldviews can bring solution-based perspectives to events like the upcoming COP28 climate conference later this month.
- “It should be recognized that Islamic frameworks of climate solution thinking are important, and the climate issues facing Muslims need to be at the forefront of climate discourse as well,” a new op-ed argues.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

How the United Nations, kids and corporations saved the Red Sea from an oil disaster
- In August, an international effort led by the U.N. averted a massive oil spill in the Red Sea.
- The FSO Safer, a deteriorating oil tanker anchored in Yemen’s Marib Basin, posed a 1.14-million-barrel environmental and humanitarian threat, with a potential $20 billion cleanup cost.
- Even schoolchildren from Westbrook Elementary School in Maryland recognized the urgency and initiated their own fundraising efforts, but most oil companies with historical involvement in the Marib Basin have failed to contribute so far.
- While some nations and organizations stepped up to help, ongoing challenges in securing funding highlight the need for collective responsibility in preventing environmental disasters.

Falcon trafficking soars in Middle East, fueled by conflict and poverty
- Worth thousands of dollars, migratory falcons are increasingly targeted by trappers in the Middle East, notably in Syria, where their value skyrocketed during the war.
- In Jordan, Iraq and Syria, authorities struggle to contain trafficking, which takes place nearly in the open; in Iraq and Syria, wildlife protection is hardly a priority given prevalent political instability and spiraling poverty.
- Experts say the capture and trade of falcons is driving the decline of wild populations in the Middle East.
- This story was produced with the support of Internews’ Earth Journalism Network.

One seed at a time: Lebanese project promotes agroecology for farmer autonomy
- Lebanese organic seed farm Buzuruna Juzuruna is on a mission, part of a growing network of agroecological efforts in the country, to change conventional farming through seed sharing and communal education.
- Despite its location in the Fertile Crescent, Lebanon today relies heavily on imports to feed its population due to economic collapse, conflicts and political upheaval.
- Buzuruna Juzuruna is using multiple efforts, including free classes, festivals and even circus performances to expose local farmers to older, more ecological methods of farming.
- In its work, Buzuruna Juzuruna emulates the ecosystems it treasures, by being open-source and horizontal in design.

Scientists make ‘rare’ new identification of snake family: Micrelapidae
- A multinational team of researchers has identified a new family of snakes, Micrelapidae, which live in East Africa and the Middle East.
- These small, rear-fanged venomous snakes are thought to have diverged from the rest of the evolutionary tree 50 million years ago and since evolved separately as a distinct family.
- Kenyan researchers hope the news will aid efforts to raise awareness of snakes and their importance to the ecosystem, as it is common for people in Kenya to fear – and kill – snakes.

Lebanese research preserves heat-adapted seeds to feed a warming world
- In Lebanon, the International Center for Agricultural Research in Dry Areas (ICARDA) is preserving crops’ genetic diversity and helping breed climate-resilient varieties of seeds.
- Varieties selected for their adaptation to local conditions, resilience to drought and heat can thrive without the use of expensive hybrid seeds and agrochemicals promoted by agribusinesses — boosting farmers’ finances and food security — and can improve production on sustainable farms based on the principles of agroecology.
- “Big companies like Monsanto are after profit, they are trying to find ways to make the farmers dependent on buying seeds from them. For us it’s not about profit, it’s about improving livelihoods and promoting agricultural practices that don’t harm the environment,” an ICARDA researcher tells Mongabay.

Turkey’s authoritarian development ignores planetary boundaries
- Turkey, an increasingly autocratic country since Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his AKP political party came to power in 2002, was the very last G20 nation to ratify the Paris climate agreement, doing so in October 2021. It has failed so far to take meaningful action against the steady increase of its greenhouse gas emissions.
- Turkey may also be exceeding limits to many of the nine planetary boundaries critical to the survival of civilization. In addition to unregulated carbon emissions, experts are concerned over the nation’s worsening air and plastic pollution, altered land use due to new mega-infrastructure projects, and biodiversity harm.
- For the past two decades, Turkey’s economic growth has been based on carbon-intensive sectors — including fossil fuel energy, transportation, construction, mining and heavy industry — all heavily supported by the state via subsidies, questionable public-private partnerships, and lax environmental laws.
- Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s authoritarianism has undermined checks and balances which might otherwise enhance environmental governance. As activists and academics criticize the lack of transparency regarding environmental data, they face rising governmental pressures and repression.

In Jordan, the Middle East’s first Miyawaki-style ‘baby’ forests take root
- Since 2018, a Jordanian architect and a Japanese environmentalist have planted three tiny forests in Amman, Jordan, the largest with a footprint of just 250 square meters (2,700 square feet).
- These are some of the first forests in the Middle East to be designed according to the Miyawaki method, a technique for growing mature forests in a matter of decades at virtually any scale.
- In a country with just 0.03% tree cover and where tree planting is increasingly popular but knowledge about native vegetation is scattered, the effort involved extensive research and experimentation to identify and propagate native plants.
- With more “baby forests” on the way, the goal is to sketch a path toward the restoration of Jordan’s disappearing forest ecosystems while reconnecting urban communities to nature.

Cradle of transformation: The Mediterranean and climate change
- The Mediterranean region is warming 20% faster than the world as a whole, raising concerns about the impacts that climate change and other environmental upheaval will have on ecosystems, agriculture and the region’s 542 million people.
- Heat waves, drought, extreme weather and sea-level rise are among the impacts that the region can expect to see continue through the end of the century, and failing to stop emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases could make these issues worse.
- Charting a course that both mitigates climate change and bolsters adaption to its effects is further complicated by the Mediterranean’s mix of countries, cultures and socioeconomics, leading to wide gaps in vulnerability in the region.

From land mines to lifelines, Lebanon’s Shouf is a rare restoration success story
- The Shouf Biosphere Reserve is a living laboratory experimenting with degraded ecosystem recovery in ways that also boost the well-being of the human communities living there.
- Previous conservation efforts in the area involved using land mines and armed guards to stem illegal logging and reduce fire risk.
- Today, the reserve builds local skills and creates jobs in a bid to help the local community through Lebanon’s severe economic crisis.
- Managers are also employing adaptive techniques to build resilience in this climate change-hit landscape.

Jordan scrambles to save rare Red Sea corals that can withstand climate change
- In Jordan, researchers, activists and fishers are hopeful that their coral reefs — and the life they support — can survive climate change.
- Corals in this northern part of the Red Sea have been shown to be far more resilient to warming ocean temperatures than corals elsewhere.
- Even though they cover only 0.2% of the ocean floor, coral reefs support about 25% of all marine life.

Wild cat trade: Why the cheetah is not safe just yet (commentary)
- Data collected by researchers show that the cheetah trade has actively continued between East Africa/Horn of Africa and the Arabian Peninsula, although news reports say there’s been a major decline in cub trafficking.
- The high numbers involved in this illegal trade is relevant to actions by the CITES, which determined that cheetah trade was limited and agreed to delete important decisions adopted in previous years pertaining to enforcement and demand reduction.
- As exotic pets are considered a status symbol in the Gulf States, fueled by the popularity of posts on social media, most people fail to understand that these pets were acquired illegally and the trend will not stop
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Climate change agricultural impacts to heighten inequality: Study
- Major changes in crop productivity will be felt globally in the next 10 years according to new computer simulations. Climate impacts on crops could emerge a decade sooner than previously expected in major breadbasket regions in North America, Europe and Asia according to the new forecasts.
- Researchers combined five new climate models with 12 crop models, creating the largest, most accurate set of yield simulations to date. Corn could see yield declines of up to 24% by 2100, while wheat may see a boost to productivity. In some sub-tropical regions, climate impacts on crops are already being felt.
- High- and low-emissions scenarios project similar trends for the next 10 years, suggesting these agricultural impacts are locked-in. But actions taken now to mitigate climate change and alter the long-term climate trajectory could limit corn yield losses to just 6% by 2100.
- Climate adaptation measures such as sowing crops earlier or switching to heat- tolerant cultivars are relatively cheap and simple to implement, while other actions, such as installing new irrigation systems, require financial investment, planning, and time.

Planned copper mine raises fears for biodiversity hotspot in Jordan
- The Jordanian government plans to carve out almost a third of the Dana Biosphere Reserve to allow mining for copper in the biodiverse area.
- With more than 800 different plants and 215 bird species, Dana is home to about a third of Jordan’s flora, almost half of the country’s mammals, and half of all the bird species.
- Local communities and conservationists have expressed alarm over the plan, warning of irreversible environmental destruction, water and air pollution, and loss of habitat for rare wildlife.
- They also say the environmental impact assessment for the project has never been published, and cite the dangers of long-term contamination, pointing to 2,000-year-old copper mines that continue to pose a toxic threat.

Saving sea turtles in the ‘Anthropause’: Successes and challenges on the beach
- The COVID-19 pandemic has posed tough challenges for sea turtle conservation projects across the planet.
- Conservationists describe how economic issues have put turtles and themselves at risk from poachers, while travel restrictions have crippled operations in Costa Rica and Malaysia.
- The lull in human seashore activities also revealed that tourism pressure affects nesting turtle behavior in the Mediterranean, a study shows.
- In Lebanon, raising awareness has been key to turtle conservation successes despite the country’s economic collapse, conservationists said.

Conservation needs more women, says Razan Khalifa Al Mubarak
- Razan Khalifa Al Mubarak is in the running to become the first woman from the Arab world to head the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Ms. Al Mubarak is up against two other candidates in the election, which will take place during IUCN’s World Conservation Congress, which starts this week.
- Having served as the managing director of three prominent institutions — the Environment Agency Abu Dhabi (EAD), a government agency; the Mohamed bin Zayed Species Conservation Fund, the philanthropy funded by the crown prince of Abu Dhabi; and Emirates Nature, an NGO affiliated with the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) — Ms. Al Mubarak would bring distinct experience to the helm 73-year-old conservation organization.
- In these roles Ms. Al Mubarak has been an advocate for improving inclusivity in conservation, providing resources to communities that have often been marginalized in the sector, including Indigenous peoples and women.
- “It is critical that women have an equal voice in decision-making when it comes to the sustainable use of land, water, and other natural resources,” she told Mongabay founder Rhett A. Butler during a recent interview. “Women are not just lacking an equal seat at the table at a grassroots level. Like many fields dominated by men such as science, engineering, and government, women are also underrepresented in the conservation world.”

Israel-U.A.E. pipeline deal ‘invitation to disaster’ for globally important corals
- Israel and the U.A.E are moving to extend oil operations using Israel’s “land bridge,” an alternative to the Suez Canal, following the signing of the Abraham Accords peace treaty.
- Tanker traffic is set to increase in the northern Red Sea, with a tanker terminal close to Eilat’s coral reefs endangering species that are very resilient to high temperatures.
- Scientists, environmentalists and politicians are campaigning for a reversal of the decision, citing the environmental track record of the state-run company in charge of the pipeline’s operations, fears of ecological damages and economic consequences for coral reef tourism.

Talks break down over crumbling Yemeni tanker threatening massive oil spill
- The FSO Safer, an oil supertanker anchored for decades off Yemen, risks a catastrophic humanitarian and environmental disaster in the Red Sea.
- The civil war in Yemen has suspended essential maintenance on the increasingly fragile vessel with more than 1 million barrels of oil in its hold and hindered disaster preparedness.
- On June 1, talks appeared to break down between the U.N. and the Houthi administration, which controls the vessel. The two sides had spent months negotiating access for a U.N. team to investigate and stabilize the vessel.
- A spill would jeopardize corals with the best-known chance of surviving predicted global climate change.

Humanity’s challenge of the century: Conserving Earth’s freshwater systems
- Many dryland cities like Los Angeles, Cairo and Tehran have already outstripped natural water recharge, but are expected to continue growing, resulting in a deepening arid urban water crisis.
- According to NASA’s GRACE mission, 19 key freshwater basins, including several in the U.S., are being unsustainably depleted, with some near collapse; much of the water is used indiscriminately by industrial agribusiness.
- Many desert cities, including Tripoli, Phoenix and Los Angeles, are sustained by water brought from other basins by hydro megaprojects that are aging and susceptible to collapse, while the desalination plants that water Persian Gulf cities come at a high economic cost with serious salt pollution.
- Experts say that thinking about the problem as one of supply disguises the real issue, given that what’s really missing to heading off a global freshwater crisis is the organization, capital, governance and political will to address the problems that come with regulating use of a renewable, but finite, resource.

World Bank’s IFC pumped $1.8b into factory farming operations since 2010
- Over the past 10 years, the World Bank’s private investment arm has sunk more than $1.8 billion into major livestock and factory farming companies across the world.
- Of the total, $686 million went to dairy companies, with $563 million for pork and $353 million for poultry production.
- While the IFC says the investments create jobs and reduce poverty, critics contend they harm the environment and concentrate profits into the hands of a small few.
- The investments come amid calls to reduce meat and dairy consumption to help tackle climate change and deforestation.

Dangerous levels of heat and humidity rising in frequency, study says
- A study published in Science Advances shows that instances of dangerous high heat and humidity doubled in frequency between 1979 and 2017.
- The study used data from nearly 8,000 weather stations across the world.
- “Wet bulb” temperatures that were previously thought to be exceedingly rare were observed nearly 80 times in the data.

UK military beef supplier buys from sanctioned Brazilian farmers, investigation shows
- Beef served to UK military personnel in the Middle East was sourced from a Brazilian company whose suppliers have illegally deforested more than 8,000 hectares of land, an investigation by NGO Earthsight and Reporter Brasil has found.
- The Ministry of Defence’s Bahrain catering subcontractor bought thousands of cattle from farmers who were fined a total of 33.5 million Brazilian real (about $6 million) by various authorities for malpractice, including illegal land clearance, falsifying documents and pollution.
- Some 5,800 square kilometres of forest is lost annually to the beef industry in Brazil, while last year’s rampant forest fires have been credibly linked to large-scale cattle ranching and associated land grabs. Cattle laundering in Brazil has come under increasing scrutiny in recent years and is a substantial problem for Brazil’s meatpacking firms as systems for monitoring supply chains remain weak.

Iran upholds heavy sentences for conservationists convicted of spying
- A court in Tehran this week upheld its guilty verdict for eight Iranian conservationists accused of spying, with sentences ranging from four to 10 years.
- The eight are all affiliated with the Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation, a Tehran-based conservation organization that works to save the critically endangered Asiatic cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus venaticus) and other species.
- The eight conservationists have been imprisoned since their arrests in January 2018. A colleague arrested at the same time died in custody.
- Rights groups and conservation organizations have condemned the verdict, alleging serious flaws in the judicial process including credible reports of torture and forced confessions.

Iran sentences eight conservationists convicted of spying
- A court in Tehran last week delivered a guilty verdict in the case of eight Iranian conservationists accused of spying, with sentences ranging from four to 10 years.
- The eight were all affiliated with the Persian Wildlife Heritage Foundation, a Tehran-based conservation organization that works to save the critically endangered Asiatic cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus venaticus) and other species. The charges appear to be related to allegations that the conservationists used wildlife camera traps for the purpose of espionage.
- The eight conservationists have been imprisoned since their arrests in January 2018. A colleague arrested at the same time died in custody.
- Rights groups and conservation organizations have condemned the verdict, alleging serious flaws in the judicial process.

Leopards get a $20m boost from Panthera pact with Saudi prince
- Big-cat conservation group Panthera has signed an agreement with Saudi prince and culture minister Bader bin Abdullah bin Mohammad bin Farhan Al Saud in which the latter’s royal commission has pledged $20 million to the protection of leopards around the world, including the Arabian leopard, over the next decade.
- The funds will support a survey of the animals in Saudi Arabia and a captive-breeding program.
- The coalition also hopes to reintroduce the Arabian leopard into the governorate of Al-Ula, which Bader heads and which the kingdom’s leaders believe could jump-start the local tourism sector.

Report: Turkish carrier is ‘poacher’s airline of choice’ for parrot trade
- In a recent report, the U.K.-based charity World Animal Protection (WAP) identified Turkish Airlines as one of the main airlines enabling the illegal trade in African grey parrots.
- Calling the carrier the “poacher’s airline of choice,” the report published Feb. 4 noted that smugglers were using Turkish Airlines to illegally move a large number of African grey parrots on flights from the Democratic Republic of Congo to countries in the Middle East and western and southern Asia.
- WAP also started an online campaign, “Wildlife. Not pets.”, demanding that Turkish Airlines stop transporting all birds “until it’s sure African grey parrots and other protected species aren’t being flown on its planes.”
- In response, Turkish Airlines on Feb. 13 issued a global embargo on the transportation of African grey parrots on any of its planes, according to a press release from WAP.

Global biodiversity treaty still searches for its moment in the spotlight
- Government delegates and conservationists from across the globe gathered last month in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt, for the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (COP 14).
- Experts say the biodiversity convention is just as important as that on climate change, whose latest conference is now underway in Poland, but receives a fraction of the attention.
- The Sharm el Sheikh COP largely focused on preparations for 2020, the deadline for achieving current biodiversity targets, and the date of the next biodiversity COP.
- Outcomes of the 2018 COP include progress on a framework for developing a new global biodiversity plan, as well as agreements about the links between health, gender and biodiversity.

Five wildlife conservationists held by Iran could face the death penalty
- Four conservationists arrested for suspected espionage in Iran in January face charges of “sowing corruption on Earth.”
- The charges stem from the team’s use of camera traps to track the Asiatic cheetah, but Iran’s Revolutionary Guard contends that the accused were collecting information on the country’s missile program.
- If convicted, the conservationists could be sentenced to death.

Two iconic birds make a striking comeback, but much work remains
- BirdLife International has revised the information for the conservation status of more than 2,300 bird species this year.
- Overall, 31 species of birds were moved to lower threat categories, while 58 species were uplisted to higher threat categories.
- The pink pigeon, which has been downlisted to vulnerable from endangered, and the northern bald ibis, which has been downlisted to endangered from critically endangered, have shown some of the most dramatic improvements.

Illegal cheetah trade continues through Instagram, 4sale, YouTube
- Between February 2012 and July 2018, a total of 1,367 cheetahs were offered on sale through 906 posts on social media, a new analysis by the Cheetah Conservation Fund has found. Almost all of the investigated cheetah sale offers appear to be illegal.
- Instagram alone accounted for some 77 percent of the posts, followed by 4sale, a Kuwait-based mobile app, and YouTube.
- Nearly all of the posts had some link to the Gulf states, with more than 62 percent linked to users in Saudi Arabia, the analysis found.

Bird watchers of the West Bank navigate a fraught political climate
- In the challenging climate of the West Bank, one regionally prominent conservationist named Anton Khalilieh says there is a general lack of conservation knowledge among residents about birds in the area.
- In an effort to change that, in 2017 Khalilieh founded a non-profit conservation organization called Nature Palestine.
- Khalilieh is also working to build a comprehensive database of the birds who specifically live in the West Bank.

Gaza City residents’ water problems continue to compound
- Locked between increasingly-polluted seascape and the borders of one of the most tightly-controlled enclaves in the world, Gaza City residents say the water has become so polluted they can no longer go swimming.
- Situated at the borders of Egypt, Israel, and the Mediterranean Sea, Gaza’s 2 million residents fear that an ongoing electricity crisis has pushed their maritime ecosystem past the brink.
- 80 percent of Gaza’s Mediterranean Sea coastline is thought to be polluted and families who used to rely on it for livelihoods and leisure now fear its waters.

In post-revolution Egypt, a fierce fight over coal imports
- In the wake of the 2011 revolution, persistent energy shortages prompted Egypt’s government to consider overturning a long-standing ban on coal imports.
- The move was backed by industry groups, particularly the cement industry, but opposed by health and environment activists. This split between interests was echoed at the cabinet level, creating a rare public debate over policy.
- In 2014, Egypt’s cabinet voted to allow coal imports for industrial use. The law was amended again in 2015 to allow coal-fired power plants.
- Now, economic factors are swinging the pendulum away from coal again, and planned projects have been suspended.

Three murders highlight troubles of Iran’s park rangers
- In the final days of June, three Iranian park rangers were shot by poachers, bringing the tally of rangers killed in such instances in the country to 119.
- At least eight rangers have spent years behind bars after being convicted of murder for killing poachers while on the job.
- The Iranian Department of Environment claims the rangers were released during the last year. But the conditions of their release concern environmentalists, who point to flaws in the system meant to protect both rangers and the country’s rich biodiversity.

Fishing nets kill ‘high proportion’ of adult loggerhead turtles in the Mediterranean
- Researchers tracked 27 female loggerhead turtles using satellite devices over a ten-year period from 2001 to 2012.
- The year-long survey revealed, for the first time, that the turtles were using multiple nesting sites hundreds of kilometres apart, researchers say.
- Three of the 27 turtles died within the first year of being followed due to entanglement in fishing nets, suggesting an annual mortality rate of 11 percent, which the team says is “alarmingly high”.

Global carbon dioxide emissions stay flat for second year in a row
- Latest data by IEA shows that in 2015, global carbon dioxide emissions remained flat, for second year in a row.
- This is largely due to an increase in the use of renewable energy, and a decline in emissions by China and the U.S.
- However, emissions by many developing Asian economies, the Middle East, and some countries in Europe have continued to increase, according to the IEA.

Hunt for rare fragrance is pushing one of world’s most expensive trees towards extinction: Al Jazeera documentary
- Fueled by rising demand for oud, agarwood-producing trees are becoming incredibly rare and threatened in the wild.
- High quality agarwood can cost more than $30,000 per kilogram (~2.2 pounds), almost as much as gold.
- “There are even now people getting killed in the hunt for Oud,” journalist Ali Mohamed al Woosain says in the documentary.

Click to like this: Is Instagram a hub for illegal ape deals?
- A search on the photo-sharing site Instagram reveals a booming population of baby chimpanzees and orangutans in wealthy Arab Gulf nations.
- Sellers offer endangered apes for sale on the site, apparently in violation of international law.
- At press time, Instagram and its parent company Facebook had not responded to requests for comment on the discovery of this apparent market for endangered animals. Past crackdowns by online retailers eBay and Amazon appear to have effectively shut down illegal wildlife trade on those sites.

‘Intolerable’ heat waves likely to hit Persian Gulf by 2100
- Researchers modeled future changes in temperature and humidity in the Persian Gulf under two scenarios: one in which greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise unabated, and the other in which emissions are controlled.
- Study found that under the first scenario, heat and humidity in many parts of the Middle East could exceed the “wet-bulb temperature” threshold of 35 degrees Celsius (or about 95 degrees Fahrenheit) once every 10 to 20 years.
- At these severe temperatures, the human body will not able to cool down, resulting in hyperthermia, researchers say.

Earthworm farming in the West Bank (commentary)

Scott Poynton is the head of The Forest Trust, an international non-profit that works on addressing environmental challenges. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. From what I’m told, there can’t be too many worm farms in the West Bank. Local agricultural experts say they’ve never heard of the practice. That doesn’t mean […]
Saudi Prince kills two percent of global population of endangered bird

In a three week hunting safari between January 11th and 31st of this year, Saudi Arabian Prince Fahd bin Sultan bin Abdulaziz Al Saud and his party allegedly shot down 2,100 Asian Houbara bustards (Chlamydotis macqueenii) in Balochistan, Pakistan. Scientists aren’t certain how many Houbara bustards survive today, but their best estimate is around 100,000 […]
The smoothtooth blacktip shark and four other species rediscovered in markets

Scientific American magazine recently ran an article on the rediscovery of the smoothtooth blacktip shark (Carcharhinus leiodon) in a Kuwaiti fish market. Believed extinct for over 100 years, the smoothtooth had not been seen since the naturalist Wilhelm Hein returned from a trip to Yemen in 1902. With its reappearance, scientists scoured Kuwaiti markets and […]
Iraq gets its first national park: just call it Eden

Late last month, the Iraqi Council of Ministers approved the nation’s first national park: the Mesopotamian marshes, which some scholars believe were the site of the historical Garden of Eden. The establishment of the park is a major milestone for a nation still plagued by violence with the park itself linked to the ravages of […]
Syrian bald ibis may be down to a single bird

The eastern population of northern bald ibises (Geronticus eremita) has likely fallen to a single breeding bird, reports conservationists monitoring the dwindling flock. The population had believed to be obliterated starting from 1989 until a small group was discovered in 2002 in Syria. However, it now appears that this last group is vanishing one-by-one despite […]
Poisonous jellyfish on the rise in the Mediterranean

Scientists across the Mediterranean say a surge in the number of jellyfish this year threatens not just the biodiversity of one of the world’s most overfished seas but also the health of tens of thousands of summer tourists. “I flew along a 300km stretch of coastline on 21 April and saw millions of jellyfish,” said […]
Iraqi who is bringing back the Garden of Eden wins top environment award

The vast Mesoptomian marshes in southern Iraq were said to be the site of the original Garden of Eden. On their fringes have risen and fallen 12,000 years of Sumerian, Assyrian, Chaldean, Persian and Arab civilizations. Organized farming is thought to have begun here, as did the first cities and writing. In legend, Gilgamesh fell […]
Asiatic cheetahs: on the road to extinction?

New road projects imperils Critically Endangered cheetah subspecies Cheetahs (Acinonyx jubatus) are unique among large cats. They have a highly specialized body, a mild temperament, and are the fastest living animals on land. Acinonyx jubatus venaticus, the Asiatic subspecies, is unique among cheetahs and the only member of five currently living subspecies to occur outside […]
Scientist: releasing invasive birds in Turkey to eat ticks will backfire

Helmeted guineafowl in native habitat in Pilanesberg Reserve, South Africa. Photo courtesy of Çağan Şekercioğlu. As Turkey raises and releases thousands of non-native helmeted guineafowl (Numida meleagris) to eat ticks that carry the deadly Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever virus, new research suggests guineafowl actually eat few ticks, carry the parasites on their feathers, and further spread […]
Saving the Arabian leopard, the world’s smallest leopard

The 3rd Annual New York Wildlife Conservation Film Festival (WFCC.org) runs from January 30 – February 2, 2013. Ahead of the event, Mongabay.com is running a series of Q&As with filmmakers and presenters. For more interviews, please see our WCFF feed. Sharjah, a captive Arabian leopard at the Sharjah Wildlife Centre in the UAE. Photo […]
Hopes pinned on Obama again as Doha Climate Summit opens

Hurricane Sandy storm surge on the New Jersey shore. The massive tropical storm, the largest hurricane ever recorded in the Atlantic, renewed discussion of climate change in the U.S. media and politics. Photo by: Master Sgt. Mark C. Olsen/U.S. Air Force/New Jersey National Guard. A number of observers have expressed hope that the Obama Administration, […]
As Doha Climate Summit kicks off, more ambitious cuts to greenhouse gas emissions needed

Bangui Windfarm in the Philippines. Photo by: John Ryan Cordova. As the 18th meeting of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) kicks off this morning in oil and gas rich Qatar, the world body warns that much more ambitious greenhouse gas cuts are needed to keep catastrophic climate change at bay. A new […]
Mysteries surrounding the legendary and vanishing oriental bald ibis

The efforts to ensure survival of the rarest bird in the Middle East Lubomir Peske engaged in fitting a satellite tag to a northern bald ibis in Syria in spring 2006. Photo @ G. Serra. In a remote corner of the Ethiopian highlands in January 2011, the bright tropical light combined with the fresh and […]
Food prices rise as food aid needed in Middle East and Africa

A mother with her severely malnourished child in the Sahel region. Photo: UNICEF/Chad/2012/C Tidey. Food prices increased in September on the FAO Food Price Index after two months of stability, while food aid has been urgently called for in Yemen and Syria, and concerns lingered in parts of Africa. Food prices globally rose 3 points […]
Cute animal picture of the day: caracal kitten in Yemen

Close-up of a caracal kitten in Yemen taken by camera trap. Photo by: the Foundation for the Protection of the Arabian Leopard. The first ever research project on the caracal (Caracal caracal) in Yemen has taken an astounding photo of a mother caracal and her kitten in the Hawf Protected Area. Conducted by largely local […]
Cute animal picture of the day: baby Yemen chameleons

Baby Yemen chameleon. Photo courtesy of ZSL Whipsnade Zoo. Ten Yemen chameleons (Chamaeleo calyptratus) were recently born at the Zoological Society of London’s (ZSL) Whipsnade Zoo. A popular pet species, the chameleons, also known as veiled chameleons, still thrive in the mountainous wilds of Yemen and Saudi Arabia. It is listed as Least Concern by […]
Animal picture of the day: rare image of Asiatic cheetah and cubs

A rare image of a mother Iranian cheetah and its three cubs. Photo by: Javad Shokouhi/Yazd DOE-CACP. The Asiatic cheetah (Acinonyx jubatus venaticus), also known as the Iranian cheetah, is one the world’s rarest cat subspecies with somewhere between 70-110 individuals left. No surprisingly it is considered Critically Endangered by the IUCN Red List. “This […]

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