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topic: Biodiversity Crisis
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Undercover in a shark fin trafficking ring: Interview with wildlife crime fighter Andrea Crosta
- Worldwide, many of the key players in wildlife trafficking are also involved in other criminal enterprises, from drug smuggling to human trafficking and money laundering.
- In an interview with Mongabay, Andrea Crosta, founder of Earth League International, talks about the group’s new report on shark fin trafficking from Latin America to East Asia and the concept of “crime convergence.”
- International wildlife trafficking, including the illegal trade in shark fins, is dominated by Chinese nationals, Crosta says.
- Since smuggling routes often overlap and criminal groups frequently work together across borders, Crosta calls for field collaboration among countries and law enforcement agencies to fight wildlife crime, the world’s fourth-largest criminal enterprise.
Will a billionaire bankroll biodiversity? CBD Decision 15/9 as potential ‘goldmine’ (commentary)
- Decision 15/9 established a “multilateral mechanism for benefit-sharing from the use of digital sequence information on genetic resources” during COP15 of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) last year.
- Hundreds of billions of dollars are needed to finance biodiversity conservation, especially in mega-diverse nations, and Decision 15/9 could be a goldmine, but for whom?
- “Decision 15/9 can be either a goldmine for the mega-diverse Parties to the CBD or for select stakeholders, but not for both. Fairness and efficiency require that economic rents be vetted,” a new op-ed argues.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
In Philippines’ restive south, conflict is linked to reduced biodiversity
- Mindanao, the Philippines’ second largest island group, has a troubled history of conflict dating back to the Spanish colonial era in the 16th century.
- A recent study of Mindanao found that higher levels of both state and non-state conflict correlated with reduced biodiversity and forest cover.
- The security problems associated with conflict also mean there are gaps in knowledge about the biodiversity of conflict-affected areas, and difficulties in implementing and monitoring programs to protect natural resources.
Are biodiversity credits just another business-as-usual finance scheme?
- There’s a new emerging innovative finance scheme to support biodiversity conservation: voluntary biodiversity credits. These are meant to be purely voluntary, “positive investment” in nature by the private sector and, in theory, should not be used to offset damage elsewhere.
- But several Indigenous and environmental groups and researchers worry that, like the voluntary carbon credit market, a voluntary biodiversity market could end up being used for offsets, allowing companies and governments to continue business as usual.
- Critics also say there is lack of a clear demand for such credits from the private sector, and a voluntary biodiversity credit market won’t be a sustainable solution at a global scale.
- Indigenous and local communities have the potential to financially benefit from these biodiversity credit projects, which are likely to target their lands. But experts point out the need to first fix several fundamental problems that have already emerged in the carbon credit market, from the lack of land rights among Indigenous communities to unscrupulous middlemen, unjust contracts and dilution of funds.
Planetary boundary pioneer Johan Rockström awarded 2024 Tyler Prize
- The 2024 Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement will go to Johan Rockström who led the team of international researchers who originated the planetary boundary framework in 2009.
- The theory defines a scientifically based “safe operating space for humanity” to safeguard stable Earth conditions established in the Holocene when civilization arose, with the intention of preventing dangerous tipping points in the Anthropocene — a new era in which humanity has the capacity to wreak havoc on Earth systems.
- In a new interview with Mongabay, Rockström discusses how the planetary boundaries framework formulates quantified safe limits to protect nine Earth systems (including climate, biodiversity, freshwater and more), all vital for sustaining life and he shares some updates on this cutting-edge research.
- “Planetary sustainability is a security issue because staying within planetary boundaries gives us stable societies, food security, water security and reduces conflicts,” says Rockström. “Placing planetary boundaries at the UN Security Council positions sustainability, climate, biodiversity, water, where it belongs — in security.”
After 50 years of the U.S. Endangered Species Act, we need new biodiversity protection laws (commentary)
- The U.S. Endangered Species Act marked 50 years at the end of 2023 and has achieved some notable successes in that time, like helping to keep the bald eagle from extinction, but the biodiversity crisis makes it clear that more such legislation is needed.
- “As we welcome 2024 and celebrate the strides made in biodiversity legislation, let’s draw inspiration to forge even more robust laws this new year,” a new op-ed argues.
- “In the face of the urgent biodiversity crisis, our new legislation must match the immediacy of this threat.”
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
New fund supports Indigenous-led land management in biodiverse area of Bolivia
- A new funding mechanism aims to support the territorial land management visions of four Indigenous groups in the region, including the Tacana, Lecos, T’simane Mosetene and San José de Uchupiamonas Indigenous peoples, who also contributed to the creation of this fund, along with the Regional Organization of Indigenous People of La Paz (CPILAP).
- The Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) launched the new funding mechanism, in collaboration with Bolivia’s Foundation for the Development of the National System of Protected Areas (FUNDESNAP); the new mechanism will channel conservation funds to Indigenous organizations in the Madidi Landscape.
- The Madidi Landscape is one of the most biodiverse terrestrial protected areas in the world, where scientists have recorded the most plant, butterfly, bird and mammal species.
- The new fund, announced Oct. 30, has so far attracted $650,000 in initial support from the Bezos Earth Fund.
Agricultural nitrogen pollution is global threat, but circular solutions await
- Nitrogen is an essential element for living organisms, needed to build DNA, proteins and chlorophyll. Although nitrogen makes up nearly 80% of the air we breathe, it’s availability to plants and animals is extremely limited. As a result, nitrogen has been a limiting factor in crop growth since the dawn of agriculture,
- Humanity shattered those limits with the Haber-Bosch process to make ammonia and synthetic fertilizers, driven by fossil fuels, and now used in vast amounts on crops. But that nitrogen influx has disrupted Earth’s natural nitrogen cycle. Today, nitrogen pollution is causing overshoot of several planetary boundaries.
- Nitrates pollute waterways, causing eutrophication. Nitrous oxide is a powerful greenhouse gas and an ozone-depleting substance. Ammonia is a cause of air pollution, with severe health impacts. Nitrogen is also used to produce potentially long-lived synthetic substances that themselves can become pollutants.
- Better agricultural management and technology could cut a third or more of nitrogen pollution. Circular economy solutions include better fertilizer efficiency, enhanced natural nitrogen fixation, and recovery and reuse of wasted nitrogen. Societal changes are also needed, including a shift in human diet away from meat.
Study: Singapore biodiversity loss is bad — but not as bad as previous estimate
- A recent study concludes that Singapore has lost 37% of its species since the construction of the city began in 1819.
- While high, the figure is significantly lower than a 2003 estimate of 73% species loss during the same period, a difference the authors of both the current study and the 2003 estimate attribute to more advanced statistical modeling.
- Although 99% of Singapore’s forests have been wiped out, extinction rates have leveled off and all remaining primary forest is protected, which researchers say presents an opportunity to conserve remaining species and work to reintroduce animals that have gone locally extinct.
Japanese butterfly conservation takes flight when integrated with human communities
- A brilliant blue butterfly species has been declining in Japan as the grassland-mimicking agricultural landscapes its host plant relies on fade, due to urban migration, the ageing of the population, and the nation importing food from abroad.
- The key lies in preserving this traditional landscape called satoyama, a mosaic of various ecosystems like grasslands, woodlands and human uses such as farms and rice fields.
- Researchers with the University of Tokyo have teamed up with the town of Iijima in Nagano prefecture and a local agricultural cooperative to maintain this mixed landscape while reintroducing populations of the butterfly, whose population has grown.
- Though it seems counterintuitive, there are many successful global projects connected via the International Partnership for the Satoyama Initiative, which prevent human-dominated landscapes from reverting naturally to ecosystem types like forests that rare species aren’t adapted to.
Despite progress, small share of climate pledge went to Indigenous groups: report
- A report from funders of a $1.7 billion pledge to support Indigenous peoples and local communities’ land rights made at the 2021 U.N. climate conference found that 48% of the financing was distributed.
- The findings also show that only 2.1% of the funding went directly to Indigenous peoples and local communities, despite petitions to increase direct funding for their role in combating climate change and biodiversity loss.
- This is down from the 2.9% of direct funding that was disbursed in 2021.
- Both donors and representatives of Indigenous and community groups call for more direct funding to these organizations by reducing the obstacles they face, improving their capacity, and respecting traditional knowledge systems.
Beyond Climate: Fossil fuels rapidly eroding Earth’s ‘safe operating space’
- This exclusive three-part Mongabay mini-series explores how the oil, natural gas and coal industry are destabilizing nine vital Earth systems, which create a “safe operating space” for humanity and other life on the planet.
- The first story in the series examined some of the direct detrimental impacts of fossil fuels, petroleum-based agrochemicals and petrochemicals (such as plastics) on climate change, biodiversity loss, nitrogen pollution of the world’s oceans and other forms of pollution.
- This story looks at the direct and indirect impacts that hydrocarbon production is having as it destabilizes Earth’s freshwater systems; influences rapid land use change; pollutes air, land and water; potentially contributes to ozone layer decay; and ultimately impacts life on Earth.
- Scientists say humanity’s actions — inclusive of burning fossil fuels and producing petrochemical and agrochemical products — has already pushed Earth into the danger zone, overshooting six of nine critical planetary boundaries. Unless we pull back from these violated thresholds, life as we know it is at risk.
Beyond climate: Oil, gas and coal are destabilizing all 9 planetary boundaries
- It’s well known that the fossil fuel industry made the industrial age possible and raised much of humanity’s living standard, while also causing the current climate crisis. Less known is how oil, gas and coal are destabilizing other vital Earth operating systems — impacting every biome. This is Part 1 of a three-part exclusive Mongabay miniseries.
- Scientists warned this year that, of the nine identified planetary boundaries, humanity has now overshot safe levels for six — climate change, biosphere integrity, land system change, novel entities (pollution), biogeochemical flows of nitrogen and freshwater change.
- Fossil fuels, petroleum-based agrochemicals and petrochemicals (including plastics) are now significantly contributing to the destabilization of all nine planetary boundaries, based on the review of numerous scientific studies and on the views expressed by dozens of researchers interviewed by Mongabay for this article.
- According to multiple experts, if humanity doesn’t find alternative energy sources and phase out fossil fuels, agrochemicals and petrochemicals, then their production will continue driving the climate crisis; polluting the atmosphere, water and land; creating deoxygenated kill zones in the world’s oceans; and poisoning wildlife and people.
More capacity building funds needed for small nonprofit conservation groups (commentary)
- Research suggests that environmental nonprofits — which include land conservation, land trusts, and wildlife protection organizations — receive just 2% of all the types of charitable donations.
- Though small conservation groups are typically efficient about converting funds into effective, on-the-ground projects, most conservation funding goes to the largest, multi-national organizations.
- “The simplest and most immediate way concerned parties with some resources, whether an individual or institution, can help is to donate more to small wildlife conservation organizations and volunteer when and where it is logistically possible,” a new op-ed argues.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.
Sliver of hope as ‘mountain chicken’ frog shows resistance to deadly disease
- A Caribbean frog species known as the mountain chicken is on the brink of extinction due to the spread of an infectious fungal disease.
- However, a recent survey found that there were still 21 of these supersized frogs on the island of Dominica.
- Some of these frogs were found to have genes resistant to the fungal disease, raising hope for the species’ survival.
South Africa’s penguins heading toward extinction; will no-fishing zones help?
- With just 10,000 breeding pairs left, the endangered African penguin (Spheniscus demersus) could be extinct in the wild by 2035 if the current rate of population decline continues.
- To protect the bird’s food supply and slow its population collapse, South Africa is throwing a protective no-fishing cordon around its main breeding colonies for a period of 10 years.
- But the devil is in the details, and conservationists say the cordons are too small to ensure the penguins get enough fish.
- Negotiations over whether to adjust the cordons are continuing in advance of an early 2024 deadline.
Gone before we know them? Kew’s ‘State of the World’s Plants and Fungi’ report warns of extinctions
- The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew’s “State of the World’s Plants and Fungi” report assesses our current knowledge of plants and fungal diversity, the threats they face and how to protect them.
- The report warns that many plant and fungal species, 45% of documented flowering plants and half of all analyzed fungi risk extinction (though less than 0.4% of identified fungi have been assessed for extinction to date).
- The report identified 32 plant diversity darkspots, places where plants are highly endemic but severely under-documented, including Colombia, New Guinea and China South-Central.
- Report authors argue that priority conservation areas should consider distinctiveness in plants or “phylogenetic diversity” and found that these hotspots of phylogenetic diversity differ from the traditional biodiversity hotspots approach.
Frogs in the pot: Two in five amphibian species at risk amid climate crisis
- The extinction risk for more than 8,000 amphibian species has significantly increased in the past 18 years, primarily due to climate change impacts, with two in five amphibians now threatened, a new study shows.
- Amphibians are particularly vulnerable because of their permeable skin and specific habitat needs; diseases like the chytrid fungus further threaten their survival.
- Salamanders are the most at risk, with a lethal fungus in Europe posing a significant threat, especially to the diverse salamander population in North America.
- The study emphasizes the importance of global conservation efforts, with habitat protection showing positive results for some species, and highlights the broader context of the ongoing global biodiversity crisis.
PFAS ‘forever chemicals’ harming wildlife the world over: Study
- While the health impacts of toxic per- and polyfluoroalkyl chemicals, or PFAS, are well known in humans, a new study reports how they affect a wide range of wildlife species.
- In this survey of published studies, the authors found and mapped wildlife exposures worldwide, including impacts on animal species in remote parts of the planet, including the Arctic.
- Researchers documented serious PFAS-triggered conditions in wildlife, including suppressed immunity, liver damage, developmental and reproductive issues, nervous and endocrine system impacts, gut microbiome/bowel disease and more. PFAS pose yet another threat to already beleaguered global wildlife.
- National governments have done little to restrict use of PFAS or remediate pollution, despite growing evidence of increased harm to both humans and wildlife. The study authors call for immediate action to remediate PFAS-contamination sites and regulate industrial chemicals to help protect threatened and endangered species.
For Vietnam’s rare reptiles, lack of captive populations may spell doom
- As an epicenter of biodiversity, Vietnam hosts a wide array of reptile species. But new research shows that many species that occur nowhere else on the planet are poorly known and lacking protection.
- The researchers also found that many of Vietnam’s rarest species are absent from the world’s zoo collections and conservation breeding programs, risking their disappearance forever should their wild populations collapse.
- They call on conservationists and authorities to focus on conservation measures to protect the country’s most vulnerable reptiles, including establishing assurance populations that could be used in the future to repopulate areas of wild habitat from which they have been lost.
Protected areas a boon for vertebrate diversity in wider landscape, study shows
- A new study reveals that protected areas in Southeast Asia not only boost bird and mammal diversity within their confines, but they also elevate numbers of species in nearby unprotected habitats.
- The researchers say their findings back up the U.N.’s 30×30 target to protect 30% of Earth’s lands and waters by 2030.
- The findings indicate that larger reserves result in more spillover of biodiversity benefits into surrounding landscapes. The authors call on governments to invest in expanding larger reserves over the proliferation of smaller ones.
- Conservationists say that while expanding protected area coverage is part of the solution, serious investment in management and resourcing for existing protected areas is a matter of urgency to ensure they are not simply “paper parks.”
What’s next for the new Global Biodiversity Fund? (commentary)
- The 15th Convention on Biological Diversity meeting (COP15) established a new Global Biodiversity Framework for action through the year 2030.
- The Global Environment Facility then launched the Global Biodiversity Framework Fund to finance the execution of the new agreement.
- “The fund’s success will be measured by its impact on biodiversity conservation, making a strong focus on achieving measurable impacts crucial,” a new op-ed argues.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.
‘Catastrophic breeding failure’ for penguins as Antarctic sea ice vanishes
- Researchers found that a lack of sea ice around Antarctica’s Bellingshausen Sea led to “unprecedented” breeding failure in four of five emperor penguin colonies.
- Sea ice cover in Antarctica has been experiencing record lows, which could spell disaster for the future of this iconic Antarctic species.
- Previous estimates have suggested that if current rates of global warming persist, more than 90% of emperor penguin colonies would be “quasi-extinct by the end of the century.”
Three new studies on Indigenous conservation for International Indigenous Peoples Day
- Indigenous peoples and local communities have nuanced, in-depth knowledge of climate change impacts that needs to be recognized by scientists and policy-makers, according to researchers.
- Industrial development threatens nearly 60% of Indigenous lands worldwide and renewable energy infrastructure expansion could become a dominant driver, according to a new peer-reviewed study.
- Indigenous groups and a growing body of studies emphasize the importance of Indigenous leadership, rights and land tenure for climate change mitigation.
The circular economy: Sustainable solutions to solve planetary overshoot?
- The current linear production and consumption economic model — labeled by critics as “take-make-waste” — is taking a heavy global environmental toll. The intensive use of primary resources and overconsumption are closely linked to climate change, biodiversity loss, large-scale pollution and land-use change.
- Experts and advocates argue that a circular economy model — revolving around reduced material use, reuse and recycling at its simplest — offers a potential route to achieving zero waste, reversing environmental harm and increasing sustainability of products and supply chains.
- In the absence of a firm definition, many interpretations of the circular economy exist. To be sustainable, circular economy solutions should be underpinned by renewable energy sources, reduction of material extraction, reduced consumption, and the regeneration of nature, according to researchers.
- Caution is needed, warn some, as not every circular solution is sustainable. Other experts state that to achieve its goals, the circular economy must include societal level change and go far beyond simply recycling or improving supply chains. How this economic model works will also look differently for nations across the globe.
Critics decry Nepal minister’s ‘terrible idea’ of ‘sport hunting’ tigers
- Nepal’s environment minister has suggested selling licenses to hunt tigers in the country as a means of both controlling the predator’s population and raising money for conservation.
- But conservationists, wildlife experts and local communities have denounced it as a “terrible idea,” saying it would endanger the tigers and their wider ecosystem, as well as violate Indigenous beliefs.
- Researchers warn hunting is ineffective and unnecessary as a means of reducing human-tiger conflict, and that the tiger population may have reached its natural limit in the country anyway.
Brazil claims record shark fin bust: Nearly 29 tons from 10,000 sharks seized
- Brazilian authorities announced the seizure of almost 29 tons of shark fins, exposing the extent of what they described as illegal fishing in the country. The previous record for the largest seizure reportedly took place in Hong Kong in 2020, when authorities confiscated 28 tons of fins.
- The seized fins, reportedly destined for illegal export to Asia, came from an estimated 10,000 blue (Prionace glauca) and anequim or shortfin mako (Isurus oxyrinchus) sharks, according to Brazil’s federal environmental agency IBAMA. Shortfin makos recently joined the country’s list of endangered species.
- IBAMA is filing infraction notices and fines against two companies over the seized fins. Other firms remain under investigation for illegal shark fishing related to the seizure, according to the agency.
- Through detailed analyses of the origins of these fins, an IBAMA statement said the agency identified a wide range of irregularities, including the use of fishing authorizations for other species and the use of fishing gear to target sharks.
What does the decline of natural history museums mean for biodiversity conservation? (commentary)
- Many important natural history museums are struggling to survive due to reduced funding and staffing, and so their collections are increasingly being split up, degraded, or hived off.
- A review of these trends, addressing the problems with such museums and suggesting solutions, was recently published in the journal Megataxa.
- “Institutional declines need not be seen as inevitable, but should at least be acknowledged before things may be improved. We have all-too-silently borne witness to declines or extirpations of natural history museums, not just in London, Paris or in the tropics,” a new op-ed argues.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.
Global study of 71,000 animal species finds 48% are declining
- A new study evaluating the conservation status of 71,000 animal species has shown a huge disparity between “winners” and “losers.” Globally, 48% of species are decreasing, 49% remain stable, and just 3% are rising. Most losses are concentrated in the tropics.
- Extinctions skyrocketed worldwide with the onset of the Industrial Revolution, especially since World War II, when resource extraction and consumption rates soared, and the planet saw exponential growth in human population to 8 billion by 2022.
- Habitat destruction, especially in the tropics, is the major driver. But a confluence of human activities, ranging from climate change, to wildlife trafficking, hunting, invasive species, pollution and other causes, are combining to drive animal declines.
- The research also revealed that one-third of non-endangered species are in decline. These data, say the researchers, could provide an early warning for preemptive conservation action by spotlighting species slipping downhill, but where there’s still time to act — and prevent extinction.
Greater Mekong proves an ark of biodiversity, with 380 new species in a year
- Scientists described 380 new-to-science species from the Greater Mekong region of Southeast Asia between 2021 and 2022.
- Researchers working in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam identified 290 plant, 19 fish, 24 amphibian, 46 reptile and one mammal species, including a thick-thumbed bat, a color-changing lizard, and a Muppet-looking orchid.
- However, many of these species already face the threat of extinction due to human activity, prompting advocates to call for increased protection of their habitats by regional governments.
- The most urgent threats to the region’s wildlife and habitats include the construction of hydropower dams, climate change, illegal wildlife trade, and loss of natural habitats.
PNG youths’ loss of tradition is bad news for hunting — but also for conservation
- For millennia, hunting has been a prestigious and traditional activity in many Papua New Guinean cultures.
- With an increase in Western education and economic opportunities, there’s been a decline in young Papua New Guineans’ skills in hunting and traditional ecological knowledge, a recent study suggests.
- This decline in hunting skills and loss of generational ecological knowledge may impact conservation efforts in the country, with researchers highlighting the need to maintain this knowledge.
Monarch butterflies become a powerful symbol for justice at the U.S./Mexico border (commentary)
- Monarch butterflies have become a strong symbol for advocates of biological diversity and human rights at the U.S./Mexico border.
- Though its population appears to be at the brink of a U.S. endangered species listing, their conservation along the southern border has been controversial since the former presidential administration’s wall building effort bulldozed habitat at the National Butterfly Center without properly notifying the center about the construction.
- Drawing parallels between the plight of the species and that of human migrants trapped at the U.S./Mexico border, immigration rights protests have begun featuring images of monarchs and people making butterfly shapes with their hands.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.
Last chance: Study highlights perilous state of ‘extinct in the wild’ species
- A study published in the journal Science highlights that “extinct in the wild” species, those that cling on in captivity or as part of conservation efforts outside their natural habitat, are at serious risk of disappearing entirely.
- The researchers found that 33 animals and 39 plants have no wild population remaining, and at least 15 of these animals are down to fewer than 500 individuals.
- The researchers found that out of the 95 species classified as extinct in the wild since 1950, 11 have gone extinct since the 1990s. On the flip side, 12 of these species have been successfully reintroduced, brought back from the brink of extinction.
- The study highlights the challenges associated with maintaining genetic diversity in captivity and the need for more support of as well as greater coordination and communication among conservation institutions.
What Indigenous knowledge can teach the world about saving biodiversity
- Nearly 80% of the world’s biodiversity is stewarded by Indigenous peoples and local communities, each practicing their own traditional ecological knowledge, or TEK.
- With the world facing twin biodiversity and climate crises, experts emphasize the need to recognize the land rights and sovereignty of Indigenous people from a human rights perspective to protect the planet’s wildlife and ecosystems.
- On this episode of the podcast, National Geographic photographer Kiliii Yuyan discusses his latest project that shares stories of Indigenous stewardship, “The Guardians of Life: Indigenous Stewards of Living Earth.”
Conservationists should all be feminists (commentary)
- A new plan for global biodiversity conservation was set forth in December, when the Convention on Biological Diversity agreed to the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework.
- Target 2 of the framework has garnered most of the media attention, but given women’s key roles in conservation on a global level, a more radical outcome would likely result from the successful implementation of Target 23 on gender equality.
- In advance of International Women’s Day on March 8th, three authors argue that now is the time to recognize women not only as conservation stakeholders and biodiversity protectors, but as agents of change.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of Mongabay.
Podcast: Goodbye to blue skies? The trouble with engineered solutions
- Humanity has created a lot of ecological problems, and many of the proposed solutions come with giant price tags — or the things lost can even be priceless, like the sight of a blue sky — with no guarantee of solving the situation in the long term.
- Many such solutions — like Australia’s deliberate introduction of the toxic cane toad, which has wreaked havoc on the country’s wildlife — create new problems.
- Solar geoengineering to slow climate change would have the most visible effect to all, likely making the sky appear white: No more blue skies—but how would this affect the global plant community’s ability to photosynthesize, would it harm agriculture?
- Pulitzer Prize-winning author Elizabeth Kolbert joins the Mongabay Newscast to talk about her latest book, “Under a White Sky,” which examines these interventions, the problems they come with and humanity’s seeming inability to stop turning to them.
Russian invasion hinders global biodiversity conservation, study shows
- A new policy paper outlines the impacts of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine on biodiversity and conservation efforts.
- The authors found that the escalation of the war has isolated Russia, a key party to many international conservation agreements and a vital country for protecting biodiversity because of its diverse habitats, as well as the threatened and migratory species it hosts.
- That isolation has impeded international cooperation on species conservation, they write.
- The invasion has also shifted the priorities of many countries faced with the knock-on effects of the war, such as potential food shortages.
Biodiversity conservation needs a more ecological context and transformational concept (commentary)
- Halting biodiversity loss is one of the great challenges of the 21st century, and if we want international conservation policies that work, we need to urgently re-evaluate how we think ecosystems work, argue the authors of this op-ed.
- We can do so by measuring some core processes of the many unique ecosystems, by employing factors like proxy measuments and analyzing the local ecological and environmental processes taking place in an ecosystem.
- Nations must move away from simplistic policy based on a desire for general rules and instead embrace the complexity of their ecosystems, with the help of researchers and scientists. “Only by protecting this complexity can we protect our diversity into a changing future.”
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of Mongabay.
Podcast: Botanists are disappearing at a critical time
- The expansive field of botany could be facing a dearth of skilled experts due to a growing lack of awareness of plants, interest in studying them, and fewer educational opportunities to do so.
- Humans depend upon plants for basic survival needs, such as food, oxygen, and daily household products, but fewer students are receiving enough instruction to enable them to do much beyond basic identification.
- This lack of educational opportunities to study plants – and a general lack of interest in them – is leading to less ‘plant awareness’ and could endanger society’s ability to address existential problems like biodiversity loss and even climate change.
- The University of Leeds’s Sebastian Stroud joins the Mongabay Newscast to talk about his research highlighting this increasing lack of plant literacy, the consequences of it, and what can be done to turn it around.
Biodiversity, human rights safeguards crucial to nature-based solutions: Critics
- Nature-based solutions (NbS), a hotly debated concept, gained significant political traction throughout 2022, even as challenges and concerns over the failure to implement biodiversity and human rights safeguards in current and future NbS projects have increased among Indigenous peoples and NGOs.
- Recent global policy instruments have recognized NbS, including the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework adopted in December 2022, and the U.N. climate summit cover decision agreed to in November. In March 2022, the U.N. Environment Assembly adopted a multilaterally agreed definition of NbS.
- Despite NbS policy advances, skepticism continues to swirl around the potential for misuse and abuse of nature-based solutions as a greenwashing mechanism by businesses to offset their ongoing carbon emissions, but without curbing them, and as a market mechanism to commodify and put a price tag on nature.
- Experts emphasize that there can be no successful nature-based solutions without the preservation of biodiversity and human rights. Therefore, projects that are a detriment to conservation, and involve monocultures, land grabs or human rights abuses, should be disqualified and rejected for not meeting the NbS definition.
Podcast: At COP 15, biodiversity finance, Indigenous rights, and corporate influence
- Mongabay editor Latoya Abulu joins the Mongabay Newscast to discuss her visit to the United Nations conference on biodiversity in Montreal that occurred in December 2022.
- Latoya shares the details on the landmark Kunming-Montreal Biodiversity Framework, which nearly 200 nations agreed to, toward halting and reversing global biodiversity loss by 2030.
- While the historic agreement has been lauded as a victory, particularly for its inclusion of the acknowledgment of Indigenous rights, biodiversity experts, advocates and Indigenous leaders alike have reservations.
- Latoya speaks about all this as well as corporate influence over the final text, such as the inclusion of “biodiversity credits,” which also raise some concerns.
For Philippines’ unprotected hotspots, new conservation window beckons
- Scientists have identified 228 key biodiversity areas in the Philippines, but only 91 are currently part of the country’s network of protected areas.
- Conservationists see an opportunity in the adoption of the new Global Biodiversity Framework, which commits signatories like the Philippines to protecting 30% of terrestrial and marine ecosystems by 2030.
- However, experts caution that protecting biodiversity is not as simple as creating new protected areas on paper, and that care needs to be taken to protect the rights and interests of Indigenous and local communities.
On climate & biodiversity, where are we, post-COP15? (commentary)
- There are many connections between climate change and biodiversity loss, and many of the actions needed to meet the 2030 action targets around biodiversity loss can also work toward climate change targets.
- One of the things that stood out about the COP27 climate treaty decision text, though, was that it did not reference the subsequent conference on biodiversity – COP15 – hence failing to ‘join up’ the conferences in a meaningful way, a new op-ed argues.
- If we hope to both reduce emissions by at least 45% and put biodiversity on a path to recovery, coherent approaches must be applied, writes Fauna & Flora International’s director of Climate & Nature Linkages.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
Nations adopt Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework
- After multiple delays due to COVID-19, nearly 200 countries at the UN Biodiversity Conference (COP15) in Montreal sealed a landmark deal to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030.
- The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), with four goals and 23 action-oriented targets, comes after two weeks of intense negotiations at COP15, in Montreal, Canada. This agreement replaces the Aichi Biodiversity Targets set in 2010.
- Among the 2030 goals, countries pledged to protect at least 30% of terrestrial and marine areas, while also recognizing Indigenous and traditional territories.
- Concerns have been raised about the ambitions of the framework, with many criticizing the agreement for its corporate influence, vague language and watered-down targets, many of which are not quantitative.
Mongabay’s Conservation Potential series investigates: Where do we need to protect biodiversity?
- Leaders and decision-makers are recognizing the urgency of protecting the world’s remaining biodiversity, but investing in conservation requires these actors have access to reliable and actionable information about ongoing conservation projects.
- Mongabay is launching a series of stories called “Conservation Potential,” in which we investigate conservation efforts in high-priority biodiversity areas in tropical forests across the globe.
- To introduce this series, we look at what some experts say about where to prioritize biodiversity conservation, what are some popular approaches to conservation, and what makes conservation projects successful.
- Approaches to conservation vary according to priorities, and there are even debates over what it means to protect biodiversity. This introduction is not meant to be an exhaustive review of the dozens of plans and schemes for preserving biodiversity, but it offers a conceptual starting point for our series.
Will the world join Indigenous peoples in relationship with nature at COP-15? (commentary)
- Indigenous peoples are recognized as the world’s top conservationists and protectors of biodiversity, and have a strong presence at the COP-15 meetings on biodiversity now in progress in Montreal.
- Many of Canada’s First Nations have lived in relationship with caribou for 10,000 years, for instance, but the herds are faltering as delegates debate hundreds of kilometers to the south.
- “Regardless of what is decided in Montreal, Indigenous peoples will continue to nurture and fight for the wellbeing of the flora and fauna on our lands, though we are hopeful that the world will join us,” the Indigenous authors of a new op-ed argue.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.
Human justice element is key to stemming biodiversity loss, study says
- In a new paper, a team of scientists argue that efforts to halt biodiversity loss and aid recovery must strive to put both nature and people on a positive path forward.
- According to the scientists, this can be done by confronting the main drivers of biodiversity loss; addressing inequities between low-income and high-income countries; acknowledging unrealistic goals and timelines for conservation actions; and combining area-based conservation efforts with justice measures.
- The paper’s release precedes the start of the COP15 summit of the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), where government representatives, scientists and activists will discuss the post-2020 global biodiversity framework.
- COP15 is set to begin on Dec. 7 in Montreal, with the aim of getting humans to live in harmony with nature by 2050.
‘It was a shark operation’: Q&A with Indonesian crew abused on Chinese shark-finning boat
- Rusnata was one of more than 150 Indonesian deckhands repatriated from the various vessels operated by China’s Dalian Ocean Fishing in 2020.
- Previous reporting by Mongabay revealed widespread and systematic abuses suffered by workers across the DOF fleet, culminating in the deaths of at least seven Indonesian crew members.
- In a series of interviews with Mongabay, Rusnata described his own ordeal in detail, including confirming reports that DOF tuna-fishing vessels were deliberately going after sharks and finning the animals.
- He also describes a lack of care for the Indonesian workers by virtually everyone who knew of their plight, from the Indonesian agents who recruited them to port officials in China.
Biodiversity credit market must learn from carbon offset mistakes (commentary)
- The nascent biodiversity credit market is beginning to be used to finance measurable and positive outcomes for biodiversity.
- Not to be confused with biodiversity offsets, which compensate for the residual biodiversity impacts of development, credits have been used to conserve habitat for species such as spectacled bears and yellow-eared parrots.
- As the world looks forward to the upcoming biodiversity treaty meeting (COP15) in Montreal, “credits have a chance to learn from the mistakes of their carbon counterparts. It is critical that we get this right from the start,” two credit market CEOs argue in a new op-ed.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.
Bird declines boost case for transformative biodiversity agreement in Montreal
- A recent report from the conservation partnership BirdLife International reveals that populations of 49% of avian species are decreasing. That figure in the group’s last report, in 2018, was 40%.
- Habitat loss, hunting and fisheries bycatch continue to threaten birds, but newer threats, such as avian flu and climate change, are also endangering the survival of bird species.
- Scientists say the United Nations Biodiversity Conference, which begins in Montreal on Dec. 7, is an opportunity for countries to implement conservation measures, such as protecting 30% of the planet by 2030, to halt the global loss of plant and animal species.
New protections for sharks, songbirds, frogs and more at CITES trade summit
- The 19th meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, or CITES, known as CoP19, ended Nov. 25 in Panama, after two weeks of negotiations.
- Member states agreed on new trade regulations for more than 600 animal and plant species, including the protection of sharks, glass frogs, turtles, songbirds and tropical timber species.
- Experts say that while these new regulations are essential, implementing and enforcing the rules will have the most significant conservation impact.
Despite pledges, obstacles stifle community climate and conservation funding
- As science has increasingly shown the importance of conservation led by Indigenous peoples and local communities (IPLCs), donors have begun to steer funding toward supporting the work these groups do.
- In 2021, during last year’s COP26 U.N. climate conference, private and government donors committed $1.7 billion to secure the land rights of Indigenous peoples and local communities.
- But a recent assessment of the first year of the pledge shows that little of the funding goes directly to them, often going first through international NGOs, consultancies, development banks and other intermediaries.
- Most aid intended to support IPLC-led conservation work follows this path. Now, however, donors and IPLC leaders are looking for ways to ease the flow of funding and channel more of it to work that addresses climate change and the global loss of biodiversity.
Will shipping noise nudge Africa’s only penguin toward extinction?
- The African penguin (Spheniscus demersus) is expected to go extinct in the wild in just over a decade, largely due to a lack of sardines, their main food.
- A colony in South Africa’s busy Algoa Bay is suffering a population crash that researchers say coincides with the introduction of ship-to-ship refueling services that have made the bay one of the noisiest in the world.
- They say theirs is the first study showing a correlation between underwater noise pollution and a seabird collapse.
- Current studies are investigating whether the ship noise is interfering with the penguins’ foraging behavior and their ability to find fish.
Whether humans can survive climate change is the wrong question (commentary)
- As delegates debate at the annual UN conference on climate change, we should be looking ahead with more interest to next month’s COP15 of the Convention on Biological Diversity, the treaty aimed at saving the planet’s wild species.
- The debate over whether humans can physically survive climate change is misguided, a new op-ed argues. Rather, the question we should be asking is how to save the endlessly complex and ailing biosphere.
- “The reward will be a future in which people are still living in and on this splendid planet, rather than than asking, with increasing trepidation, whether we will manage to defend ourselves from it.”
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
Podcast: Escape into nature’s soundscapes
- Mongabay’s podcast explores the growing field of bioacoustics often, and an important subset of this discipline is soundscape recording.
- Healthy ecosystems are often noisy places: from reefs to grasslands and forests, these are sonically rich ecosystems, thanks to all the species present.
- Sound recordist George Vlad travels widely and on this special episode he plays soundscape recordings from Brazil’s Javari Valley and a rainforest clearing in the Congo Basin, and describes how they were captured.
- Recording soundscapes of such places is one way to ensure we don’t forget what a full array of birds, bats, bugs, and more sounds like, despite the biodiversity crisis.
Breeding success raises hopes for future of endangered African penguin
- Two African penguin chicks have hatched at a nature reserve in South Africa where conservationists have been working for years to entice the endangered birds to breed.
- The colony was abandoned more than 10 years ago after a caracal killed a number of penguins.
- The recent hatching comes at a time when survival prospects for Africa’s only resident penguin species look grim, due mainly to declining food stocks.
- But encouraging new colonies at sites close to abundant food sources could help to bring the species back from the brink.
How Mitsubishi vacuumed up tuna from a rogue Chinese fishing fleet
- Last week, Mongabay revealed a massive illegal shark finning operation across the fleet of a major Chinese tuna fishing firm.
- The company, Dalian Ocean Fishing, mainly serves the Japanese market. Most of its tuna has gone to Japan’s Mitsubishi Corporation and its seafood trading arm, Toyo Reizo.
- While the general outlines of their partnership are well-documented, tracing specific tuna flows from individual fishing boats to Mitsubishi’s supply chain is impeded by the murky nature of the supply chain.
- Experts say this lack of transparency must be solved in order to prevent illegal fishing and labor abuses at sea.
Small share of land rights pledge went to Indigenous groups: Progress report
- A report from funders of a $1.7 billion pledge to support Indigenous and community forest tenure made at the 2021 U.N. climate conference found that 19% of the financing has been distributed.
- The findings from 2022 also show that only 7% of the funding went directly to Indigenous and community organizations, despite the protection they provide to forests and other ecosystems. (A subsequent analysis in 2023 revised this figure downward to 2.9%.)
- Both donors and representatives of Indigenous and community groups are calling for more direct funding to these organizations by reducing the barriers they face, improving communication and building capacity.
‘There are solutions to these abuses’: Q&A with Steve Trent on how China can rein in illegal fishing
- Earlier this week, Mongabay published an article uncovering a massive illegal shark finning scheme across the fleet of one of China’s largest tuna companies, Dalian Ocean Fishing.
- China has the world’s biggest fishing fleet, but oversight of the sector is lax, with many countries’ boats routinely found to be engaging in illegal and destructive practices, especially in international waters.
- Mongabay spoke with Steve Trent, the head of the Environmental Justice Foundation, which has also investigated the fishing industry, about DOF’s shark finning scheme and how China can better monitor its vessels.
Fish eggs return to Bangladesh’s Halda River following conservation efforts
- The Halda River, considered the world’s only natural gene bank for several pure Indian carp species, as well as home to dozens of endangered Ganges River dolphins, has made a comeback after fish eggs all but disappeared from the river several years ago.
- Historical records say around 4,000 kilograms (8,818 pounds) of fish eggs could be found in the river in 1941, but that number nearly hit zero in 2016 due to overexploitation and industrial pollution.
- Since 2018, the Bangladesh government has made robust conservation efforts, including steps to declare the river an Ecologically Critical Area and fish heritage site.
- In 2020, about 424 kgs (935 lbs) of fish eggs were found in the river; however, yields have since fallen after an unexpected tropical cyclone, Amphan, triggered salinity intrusion and there was low rainfall during the monsoons.
Exclusive: Shark finning rampant across Chinese tuna firm’s fleet
- Dalian Ocean Fishing used banned gear to deliberately catch and illegally cut the fins off of huge numbers of sharks in international waters, Mongabay has found.
- Just five of the company’s longline boats harvested roughly 5.1 metric tons of dried shark fin in the western Pacific Ocean in 2019. That equates to a larger estimated shark catch than what China reported for the nation’s entire longline fleet in the same time and place.
- The findings are based on dozens of interviews with men who worked throughout the company’s fleet of some 35 longline boats. A previous investigation by Mongabay and its partners uncovered widespread abuse of crew across the same firm’s vessels.
- Campaigners said Dalian Ocean Fishing’s newly uncovered practices were a “disaster” for shark conservation efforts.
As banks fund oil pipeline, campaigners question their environmental pledges
- Activists say some banks that have signed up to the Equator Principles are failing to live up to their pledge of properly assessing the environmental and social risks of the projects they finance.
- South Africa’s Standard Bank and Japan’s Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation are facilitating funding for the East African Crude Oil Pipeline project (EACOP).
- When fully operational, crude oil flowing through pipeline will generate 34 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions each year.
- Activists say EACOP, which will run 1,400 kilometers (870 miles) across many ecologically sensitive areas, has also affected 12,000 households who have been inadequately compensated.
Humans are decimating wildlife, report warns ahead of U.N. biodiversity talks
- Wildlife populations tracked by scientists shrank by nearly 70%, on average, between 1970 and 2018, a recent assessment has found.
- The “Living Planet Report 2022” doesn’t monitor species loss but how much the size of 31,000 distinct populations have changed over time.
- The steepest declines occurred in Latin America and the Caribbean, where wildlife abundance declined by 94%, with freshwater fish, reptiles and amphibians being the worst affected.
- High-level talks under the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) will be held in Canada this December, with representatives from 196 members gathering to decide how to halt biodiversity loss by 2030.
Trouble in the tropics: The terrestrial insects of Brazil are in decline
- New research from Brazil shows terrestrial insects there are declining both in abundance and diversity, while aquatic insects are largely staying steady.
- Given a dearth of long-term data on tropical insects, the scientists took creative means to collect data, including contacting 150 experts for their unpublished data.
- Scientists believe the usual global suspects are behind Brazil’s insect decline: habitat destruction, pesticide use, and climate change.
- Experts say tropical countries need more resources, including long-term funding, to discover with greater certainty what’s happening to insects there. Large-scale insect loss threatens many of Earth’s ecological services, including waste recycling, helping to build fertile soils, pollinating plants, and providing prey for numerous other species.
‘Mind-blowing’ marine heat waves put Mediterranean ecosystems at grave risk
- A recent study reveals the widespread effects of climate change-driven marine heat waves on the ecological communities of the Mediterranean Sea.
- Rises in sea surface temperatures as high as 5° Celsius (9° Fahrenheit) above normal have caused die-offs in 50 different taxonomic groups of animals from around the Mediterranean Basin.
- These far-reaching impacts of the warming sea could devastate the fisheries on which many of the Mediterranean region’s 400 million people rely.
- Researchers advocate bolstering and expanding marine protected areas. Although they can’t hold back the warmer waters that have proven deadly to the sea’s rich biodiversity, these sanctuaries can help ensure that these species don’t have to cope simultaneously with other pressures, such as overfishing or pollution.
Stamping out invasive species has successful track record on islands, study finds
- A recent study published in the journal Scientific Reports found that efforts to remove invasive vertebrates from islands were 88% successful between 1872 and 2020.
- Invasive species can be particularly devastating to delicate island ecosystems and the unique native species they harbor.
- The researchers looked at the methods, locations and target species of 1,550 eradication attempts on nearly 1,000 islands around the world.
- The authors say the results of the research provide a guide for conservation groups, scientists and countries to take on eradication projects in an effort to encourage the resurgence of native wildlife and restore ecosystems.
Video: Biodiversity underpins all, as California is finding out the hard way
- A new episode of “Mongabay Explains” delves into the biodiversity crisis in California, which is known to be one of the most biodiverse states in the U.S., hosting about 6,500 animal species, subspecies and plants.
- California has been bearing the brunt of climate change in recent years as wildfires and drought transform the land.
- The film focuses on three species that are being negatively affected by the climate crisis: California tiger salamanders, acorn woodpeckers, and monarch butterflies.
- The filmmaker says California is the “poster child of what’s happening to our ecosystems around the world.”
Study tracks global forest decline and expansion over six decades
- Globally, there was a net loss of 817,000 square kilometers (315,000 square miles) in forest area between 1960 and 2019, according to a new study. That’s nearly 10% more than the size of Borneo, the world’s third-largest island.
- The study showed that most forest loss occurred in “lower-income” countries as their economies grew, which are found primarily in the tropics. Forests in wealthier countries tended to expand.
- The authors say their findings confirm the forest transition theory, which links countries’ economic development to changes in land use.
- International organizations like the U.N. and rich countries should provide support to less-industrialized, forested countries to allow them to find economically beneficial alternatives to deforestation, the study authors say.
Climate change and overfishing threaten once ‘endless’ Antarctic krill
- Antarctic krill are one of the most abundant species in the world in terms of biomass, but scientists and conservationists are concerned about the future of the species due to overfishing, climate change impacts and other human activities.
- Krill fishing has increased year over year as demand rises for the tiny crustaceans, which are used as feed additives for global aquaculture and processed for krill oil.
- Experts have called on the Commission for the Conservation of Antarctic Marine Living Resources (CCAMLR), the group responsible for protecting krill, to update its rules to better protect krill; others are calling for a moratorium on krill fishing.
- Antarctic krill play a critical role in maintaining the health of our planet by storing carbon and providing food for numerous species.
Cambodian government cancels development of Phnom Tamao forest amid outcry
- Cambodia’s prime minister has intervened to stop the destruction of a forest outside the country’s capital, but not before developers managed to clear between 500 and 600 hectares (nearly 1,250-1,500 acres) in a week.
- More than half of the Phnom Tamao forest had been parceled out to politically connected tycoons, prompting widespread condemnation from conservationists, environmental activists, and the general public.
- Environmental activists and local communities have welcomed Prime Minister Hun Sen’s order canceling all the developments in the forest, but say the damage already done is extensive.
- This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network where Gerald Flynn is a fellow.
Billions rely on wild species for food, energy and more: IPBES report
- A recently released summary of an assessment from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) reveals that people rely on 50,000 wild species of plants, animals, algae and fungi.
- But it warns that the global biodiversity crisis threatens the sustenance and services that these species provide.
- According to the assessment, more than 10,000 wild species alone provide humans with food, and 2.4 billion people rely on fuelwood, often from wild-growing trees, to cook.
- Leaders of the assessment say they expect their findings to contribute to biodiversity conservation discussions at the U.N. biodiversity conference in December.
We’ve crossed the land use change planetary boundary, but solutions await
- According to experts, we have passed the planetary boundary for land systems change — the human-caused loss of forest — and risk destabilizing Earth’s operating systems.
- Scientists calculate we must retain 85% of tropical and boreal forests, and 50% of temperate forests, to stay within Earth’s “safe operating” bounds, but the number of trees worldwide has fallen by nearly 50% since the dawn of agriculture.
- From 2001 to 2021, forest area roughly half the size of China was lost or destroyed across the planet; in 2021, tropical forests disappeared at a rate of about 10 football fields per minute.
- Despite these losses, solutions abound: Some of the actions that could bring us back into the safe operating space are securing Indigenous land rights, reforestation and landscape restoration, establishing new protected areas, redesigning food systems, and using finance as a tool
‘It sustains us all’: IPBES report calls for accounting of nature’s diverse values
- A recent assessment from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services calls for the integration of the variety of ways humans value nature.
- Often, many decisions are driven by market-based considerations, which has helped contribute to the global biodiversity crisis, the authors of the assessment say.
- But nature is worth more to humans than just the marketable or tangible.
- By considering these other values, such as cultural identity and spirituality, decision-makers can create policies that are more inclusive and have the potential to stem the worldwide loss of species, the scientists say.
In world convulsed by climate-driven conflict, are peace parks an answer?
- Conflicts over disputed borders, increasingly exacerbated by climate change, are putting some of the world’s key biodiversity hotspots at risk.
- Even in countries that have avoided border wars, a global campaign of fence building — aimed at keeping out human migrants whose numbers are rising in an era of climate change and sociopolitical unrest — is causing widespread damage to vulnerable natural landscapes and migratory animal species.
- In potential conflict zones like the Himalayas, Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, and the South China Sea, this surging human march across national frontiers has already led to violence, and in some cases to open warfare.
- Border-straddling conservation zones known as peace parks offer a more sustainable way of managing border disputes than militarization and fence building. Peace parks on the U.S.-Canada border and in the Himalayas offer successful examples.
Is invasive species management doing more harm than good? (commentary)
- Conservationists may be thwarting their own efforts, as well as causing harm to wildlife, in their battle against invasive species, a new op-ed argues.
- In numerous cases, non-native species have been shown to benefit wildlife, while their management – from toxic chemicals to culling – may be causing more harm than good.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.
Scientists strive to restore world’s embattled kelp forests
- Kelp forests grow along more than one-quarter of the world’s coastlines, and are among the planet’s most biodiverse ecosystems. But these critical habitats are disappearing due to warming oceans and other human impacts.
- Sudden recent wipeouts of vast kelp forests along the coastlines of Tasmania and California highlighted how little was known about protecting or restoring these vital marine ecosystems.
- Scientists are finding new ways to help restore kelp, but promising small-scale successes need to be ramped up significantly to replace massive kelp losses in some regions.
- Global interest in studying seaweed for food, carbon storage and other uses, may help improve wild kelp restoration methods.
Can we save the spiky yellow woodlouse, one of the most endangered isopods? (commentary)
- Saint Helena Island’s spiky yellow woodlouse is a striking, critically endangered isopod that lives on tree ferns and black cabbage trees, high up in the peaks of Saint Helena’s cloud forests.
- The flax industry destroyed and fragmented most of the forests that the woodlouse depends on. Invasive species and climate change continue to affect them.
- The population of spiky yellow woodlouse is estimated to be at 980 individuals, so the Saint Helena National Trust is working to restore the forests on the island by clearing away the flax plants that were left behind and replanting more native flora.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.
Tiger-centric conservation efforts push other predators to the fringes
- Nepal and India have made huge strides in boosting their tiger populations over the past decade, but these conservation actions may have come at the expense of other predators, research shows.
- In Nepal, species such as leopards and sloth bears have been pushed to the fringes of conservation areas that have been optimized for tigers, leading to increased human-wildlife conflict.
- The current approach of burning tall grasses and rooting out tree shoots to give deer and antelope fresh grass, and tigers fresh prey, isn’t even working in the tigers’ favor, one study shows.
- Conservationists say there needs to be a habitat management approach that accommodates a wider range of both prey and predator species.
Podcast: Vandana Shiva on the agroecology solution for the climate, biodiversity crisis and hunger
- On this episode we talk about agroecology, which applies ecological principles to agricultural systems and is considered an important strategy for both mitigating and adapting to global climate change as well as a solution to a number of the other ecological crises we’re facing.
- Dr. Maywa Montenegro, an assistant professor in the department of environmental studies at the University of California, Santa Cruz, joins us to discuss agroecology as a science, a practice, and a movement.
- We also speak with Dr. Vandana Shiva, whose brand new book synthesizes decades of agroecology research and implementation.
- Dr. Shiva shares how agroecology is an effective solution not just to climate change but also to a host of other ecological crises humanity faces, such as water scarcity, land degradation, and biodiversity loss.
Food for all: Q&A with Michel Pimbert of the Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience
- Founded in 2014 at Coventry University, the Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience (CAWR) is teaching the next generation of agroecology researchers and practitioners.
- Agroecology is a biodiversity-positive and climate change-fixing suite of agricultural techniques, which the recent IPCC climate change report mentioned repeated times as being a key solution to the climate crisis.
- In a wide ranging interview with CAWR’s director, author Anna Lappé discusses how this practice can provide food for all while solving other crises the planet faces.
- Pimbert says it’s exciting to see the growing recognition of agroecology and its benefits, but notes that funding for agroecology remains “pitifully small” compared to the billions being poured into industrialized agriculture.
Boom and bust on Lake Victoria: Q&A with author Mark Weston
- In a new book, British author Mark Weston examines an environmental crisis on East Africa’s Lake Victoria that’s been a century in the making and stems from the introduction of the non-native Nile perch to the lake in the 1950s.
- Weston lived on Ukerewe, the lake’s largest island, for two years, and relates the knock-on legacy of the fish’s introduction through the experiences of the people he met there.
- The boom and bust of the fishery brought about a surging population, deforestation, declining land fertility, and increased pollution in the lake.
- With Nile perch catches down precipitously and little else to sustain the economy of Ukerewe, residents struggle through poverty, lack of opportunity and a trickling exodus from the once-prosperous community, in search of a better life for themselves and their families.
Saving the near-extinct estuarine pipefish means protecting estuary health
- The critically endangered estuarine pipefish is known to inhabit only two estuaries on the eastern coast of South Africa.
- Recent studies are uncovering how the health of its estuarine habitat rests on a dynamic balance between freshwater inflows that support the food change, and salinity levels that promote growth of eelgrass habitat for pipefish and other species.
- Genetic analysis of the remaining estuarine pipefish populations has found low genetic diversity, highlighting a further risk to its conservation.
- Conservationists are working toward a plan to protect the species and the wider ecology of the estuaries it inhabits.
As animal seed dispersers go the way of the dodo, forest plants are at risk
- Many plants rely on animals to reproduce, regenerate and spread. But the current sixth mass extinction is wiping out seed-dispersing wildlife that fill this role, altering entire ecosystems.
- Thousands of species help keep flora alive, from birds and bats to elephants, apes and rodents.
- Animals give plants the ability to “move,” with the need for mobility rising alongside warming temperatures and more frequent extreme weather events. Transported elsewhere, plants may be able to “outrun” a warming climate.
- There are growing efforts to restore these critical ecological relationships and processes: protecting and recovering wild lands, identifying and rewilding key animal seed dispersers, reforesting destroyed habitat, and better regulating destructive logging and agricultural practices.
Unseen crisis: Threatened gut microbiome also offers hope for world
- Plants and animals provide a home within themselves to an invisible community of microbes known as the microbiome. But these natural microbial communities are being degraded and altered by human-caused biodiversity loss, pollution, land-use change and climate change.
- On the macro level, habitat loss and diminished environmental microbe diversity, particularly in urban environments, is altering the gut microbiomes of humans and wild animals. Studies have linked microbiome changes to higher risk of chronic and autoimmune diseases.
- Coral bleaching is an extreme example of climate stress-induced microbiome dysfunction: During heat waves, beneficial microbes go rogue and must be expelled, leaving the coral vulnerable to starvation. Microbiome resilience is key to determining corals’ ability to acclimate to changing ocean conditions.
- There are solutions to these problems: Inoculating coral with beneficial microbes can reduce bleaching, while the restoring natural green spaces, especially in socioeconomically deprived urban areas, could encourage “microbiome rewilding” and improve human and natural community health.
Podcast: Convention on Biological Diversity: progress, hope and hard work ahead
- On today’s episode of the Mongabay Newscast, we discuss the upcoming conference of the parties to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity and what it will take to create a robust post-2020 global biodiversity framework.
- We speak with Elizabeth Mrema, an Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations and the Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity. She tells us about the outcomes of the recently held Geneva talks, why the world failed to meet the Aichi Biodiversity Targets, and how COP15 (to be held in Kunming, China later this year) can provide a roadmap to actually halting biodiversity loss and safeguarding nature.
- We also speak with Jennifer Tauli Corpuz, a member of the Indigenous Caucus at the Convention on Biological Diversity talks. She gives us the Indigenous perspective on what’s currently in the draft biodiversity framework, what changes are needed to better support Indigenous land rights, and the overall importance of Indigenous leadership in preserving Earth’s biodiversity.
Amateur naturalists deserve more support and fewer barriers (commentary)
- In the age of iNaturalist when tools are reopening the hallowed tradition of the amateur naturalist, it is perhaps time to address the ways institutions can encourage–rather than discourage–this growing movement.
- With the world faced with a decline in trained, salaried naturalists and biodiversity institutes, we desperately need to elevate and champion the amateurs who are willing to interpret and speak up for wildlife, a new op-ed argues.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.
From traditional practice to top climate solution, agroecology gets growing attention
- The recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report states in its strongest terms yet the need for action to reduce emissions, and one of the key strategies it outlines for policymakers is agroecology.
- Encompassing a range of techniques from intercropping to agroforestry, agroecology is a solution that can “contribute to both climate mitigation and adaptation,” the IPCC stressed.
- Based on traditional knowledge, agroecology can solve multiple challenges at once, including the biodiversity crisis and food insecurity.
- As part of a special series, top food systems author Anna Lappé discusses the power and promise of agroecology to mitigate and adapt to climate change.
Global biodiversity is in crisis, but how bad is it? It’s complicated
- Biodiversity has been defined as one of nine planetary boundaries that help regulate the planet’s operating system. But humanity is crossing those boundaries, threatening life on Earth. The big question: Where precisely is the threshold of environmental change that biodiversity can withstand before it is destabilized and collapses planetwide?
- The planetary boundary for biodiversity loss was initially measured by extinction rates, but this, as well as other measurements, have proved to be insufficient in determining a global threshold for biodiversity loss. At present, a worldwide threshold for biodiversity loss — or biosphere integrity, as it is known now — remains undetermined.
- However, thresholds for biodiversity loss can be clearly defined at local or regional levels when an ecosystem goes through a regime shift, abruptly changing from one stable state to another, resulting in drastic changes to biodiversity in the changed ecosystem.
- While the planetary boundary framework provides one way of understanding biodiversity or biosphere integrity loss, there are many other measures of biodiversity loss — and all point toward the fact that we are continuing to dangerously destabilize life on Earth.
Reaching the Paris Agreement without protecting Indigenous lands is “impossible”, says report
- A new report by the Forest Declaration Assessment says that fulfilling the Paris Agreement won’t be possible without acknowledging and supporting the crucial role of Indigenous peoples and other local communities’ (IPLCs) in protecting lands.
- About 90% of IPLC lands are carbon sinks, say the report authors, Climate Focus and the World Resources Institute (WRI), which analyzed the IPLC lands in Brazil, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru.
- Each hectare of IPLC land sequesters an average of 30 metric tons of carbon every year, about twice as much as lands outside IPLC protection. This equates to about 30% of the four nation’s Paris Agreement targets.
- Countries should facilitate the titling of all IPLC lands, ensure consent to development projects, commit to protecting environmental defenders and make sure IPLCs are included in U.N. targets, says the report.
It’s a girl: Super rare Sumatran rhino born in captive-breeding center
- Indonesia has reported the birth of a Sumatran rhinoceros in a captive-breeding program targeted to save the critically endangered species from extinction.
- The new calf is the first child of captive rhino Rosa at the Way Kambas Sumatran Rhino Sanctuary, and Andatu, a male who was himself born at the sanctuary in 2012.
- This new captive birth of a Sumatran rhino has rekindled hopes among experts and officials for more newborns in the future.
The Great Barrier Reef is bleaching — once again — and over a larger area
- The Great Barrier Reef is currently experiencing its sixth mass bleaching event, and the fourth event of this kind to happen in the past six years.
- Based on aerial surveys that were concluded this week, bleaching has affected all parts of the Great Barrier Reef, with the most severe bleaching occurring between Cooktown, Queensland, and the Whitsunday Islands.
- Sea surface temperatures around the Great Barrier Reef have been higher than normal, despite the region going through a La Niña climate pattern, which usually brings cooler, stormier weather.
- Climate change remains the biggest threat to the Great Barrier Reef and other reefs around the world, experts say.
‘No planet B’: Groups call for $60bn increase in annual biodiversity funding
- A group of international conservation and environmental organizations is calling on wealthy countries to provide an extra $60 billion in funding a year to protect the planet’s species.
- They argue that the amount compensates for the toll exacted on biodiversity by international trade, which largely benefits rich nations.
- At a March 1 press conference, representatives of the organizations said the inclusion of Indigenous communities, known to be “nature’s best stewards,” would be critical, and they advocated for the bulk of the financing to be in the form of grants to these communities and other “grassroots” organizations.
Indigenous-led report warns against ‘simplistic take on conservation’
- To deal with climate change and biodiversity loss effectively and equitably, conservation needs to adopt a human rights-based approach, according to a new report co-authored by Indigenous and community organizations across Asia.
- Unlike spatial conservation targets such as “30 by 30,” a rights-based approach would recognize the ways in which Indigenous people lead local conservation efforts, and prioritize their tenure rights in measuring conservation success.
- Without tenure rights, strict spatial conservation targets could lead to human rights abuses, widespread evictions of Indigenous communities across Asia, and high resettlement costs, the report warned.
- Also without tenure rights, the inflow of money into nature-based solutions such as carbon offsets and REDD+ projects could also result in massive land grabs instead of benefiting local communities.
‘Everything is on fire’: Flames rip through Iberá National Park in Argentina
- Fires in the central Corrientes province of northeast Argentina have burned through nearly 60% of Iberá National Park, home to protected marshlands, grasslands and forests that hosts an array of species.
- Many of the fires originated from nearby cattle ranches, and spread across significant portions of the park due to a prolonged drought.
- Conservationists are working to relocate a number of reintroduced species, including giant river otters and macaws, to places of safety.
- While experts say they expect a substantial loss to biodiversity, they add that the park should mount a rapid recovery thanks to all the rewilding work already done.
Preventing the next pandemic is vastly cheaper than reacting to it: Study
- A new study emphasizes the need to stop pandemics before they start, stepping beyond the quest for new vaccines and treatments for zoonotic diseases to also aggressively fund interventions that prevent them from happening in the first place.
- Researchers estimated that based on Earth’s current population and on past pandemics, we can expect 3.3 million deaths from zoonotic diseases each year in future. COVID-19 pushed numbers in 2020-21 even higher. These outbreaks are now happening more frequently, and their cost is calculated in trillions of dollars.
- Addressing the main drivers — deforestation, the wildlife trade and burgeoning agriculture, especially in the tropics — could prevent future pandemics, save lives and catastrophic societal disruptions.
Greater Mekong primates struggle to cling on amid persistent threats: Report
- The Greater Mekong region is home to 44 species of non-human primates, including gibbons, lorises, langurs, macaques and snub-nosed monkeys, several of which were first described within the last few years.
- Habitat loss and hunting driven by the wildlife trade and consumption have driven many of the region’s primates to the brink of extinction, with many species now only existing as tiny populations in isolated, fragmented pockets of habitat.
- Experts say controlling the illegal wildlife trade is complicated by the presence of legal markets for primates, often for use in biomedical research.
- Despite the challenges, conservation action at local levels is achieving results for some primate species in the region while also enhancing livelihoods and ecosystem services for local communities.
Total’s oil pipeline gets go-ahead from Ugandan MPs despite secret terms
- Uganda’s parliament has passed a bill approving the construction of a controversial pipeline that will cut through high-biodiversity areas and displace thousands of people.
- Critics say the bill was rushed through parliament to pave the way for a secretive agreement between the government and French oil giant TotalEnergies, the pipeline’s operator.
- The $3.5 billion heated oil pipeline will run 1,445 kilometers (898 miles) from Uganda’s Lake Mwitanzige, in the Albertine Rift, to the Indian Ocean port of Tanga in Tanzania.
- The new bill that undergirds it holds “supremacy” over all existing legislation other than Uganda’s Constitution, making it “very difficult” for laws that offer environmental and social protections to be upheld in the event of a conflict.
Despite sanctions, U.S. companies still importing Myanmar teak, report says
- U.S. timber companies undercut sanctions to import nearly 1,600 metric tons of teak from Myanmar last year, according to a new report.
- Advocacy group Justice for Myanmar said in its report that firms have been buying timber from private companies acting as brokers in Myanmar, instead of directly from the state-owned Myanma Timber Enterprise, which is subject to U.S. sanctions.
- With MTE under military control, Myanmar’s timber auctions have become more opaque, making it difficult to take action against companies circumventing sanctions.
More trees means healthier bees, new study on air pollution shows
- Scientists analyzed levels of chemical pollutants in native jataí bees across eight landscapes in Brazil’s São Paulo state.
- They found that in landscapes with more vegetation, the bees had fewer pollutants, at lower levels, indicating that the plants act as a filter and protective barrier
- The findings add to the growing scientific evidence about the importance of afforestation in urban areas, including creating ecological corridors to connect separate landscapes.
- Air pollution is the world’s top driver of illness and death from chronic noncommunicable diseases.
E.O. Wilson’s last dream
- On December 26, 2021, biologist and author Edward O. Wilson died in Burlington, Massachusetts at the age of 92.
- Routinely compared to Darwin E.O. Wilson is renowned for his work on evolution, biogeography, sociobiology and myrmecology—the study of ants.
- Wilson devoted the last few years of this life to the concept of “Half-Earth”, which he saw as a way to stave off mass extinction, ecological collapse, and create a panacea for climate change.
- In this piece, author Jeremy Hance recounts a 2017 conversation with Wilson and what could be his greatest legacy: the idea of protecting half the planet in a natural or regenerating state for the benefit of people and nature.
Dual pressures of hunting, logging threaten wildlife in Myanmar, study shows
- Combating illegal logging in Myanmar’s Rakhine state helps preserve wildlife populations, but is insufficient without addressing unsustainable local hunting pressures, according to new research.
- Researchers used camera trap data from between 2016 and 2019 to investigate the effects of environmental and human factors on medium to large mammals.
- Common species regularly targeted for bushmeat were negatively affected by increased human presence, they found, highlighting the pressures of illegal hunting on their populations.
- By contrast, threatened species were generally unaffected by human presence, but were positively linked to continuous stretches of evergreen forest, indicating their vulnerability to illegal logging, deforestation and habitat loss.
How can illegal timber trade in the Greater Mekong be stopped?
- Over the past decade, the European Union has been entering into voluntary partnership agreements (VPAs) with tropical timber-producing countries to fight forest crime.
- These bilateral trade agreements legally bind both sides to trade only in verified legal timber products.
- There is evidence VPAs help countries decrease illegal logging rates, especially illegal industrial timber destined for export markets.
- Within the Greater Mekong region, only Vietnam has signed a VPA.
How does political instability in the Mekong affect deforestation?
- Myanmar’s return to military dictatorship earlier this year has sparked worries among Indigenous communities of possible land grabs.
- It has also ignited concerns about a return to large-scale natural resource extraction, which has historically been an important source of funding for the junta.
- In the months since the coup, many of the country’s environmental and land rights activists have either been arrested or gone into hiding.
- The military has bombed forests and burned down Indigenous villages in Karen state, forcing minorities to flee to neighboring Thailand.
Scientists on a quest to map worldwide web of fungi beneath our feet
- Interconnected bodies of fungi form vast underground networks through the Earth’s soils, transporting nutrients and water across ecosystems and sequestering vast amounts of carbon out of the atmosphere.
- Experts agree that protecting fungi and focusing conservation efforts belowground could help to mitigate global challenges like climate change, biodiversity loss, land use change and pollution.
- A new initiative is embarking on the first global effort to document and map the world’s network-forming fungi, using eDNA and machine learning to identify and protect global hotspots of fungal biodiversity.
- Fungi are increasingly viewed as a nature-based solution to manage global carbon budgets, restore degraded ecosystems, remediate contaminated soils and speed the transition toward sustainable agriculture.
Where does the Greater Mekong’s illegal timber go?
- Not all lumber is created equal; within the Greater Mekong region, high-quality hardwoods such as Burmese teak and rosewood are particularly valuable and have been logged almost to commercial extinction.
- Burmese rosewood is highly sought after in China for furniture, while Burmese teak is popular in the European shipbuilding sector as decking for superyachts.
- Recognizing their role in Myanmar’s illegal timber trade, European Union member states developed a common position in 2017 acknowledging imports of Myanmar timber into the EU to be against the law due to their high risk of illegality.
- However, shipments continue to leak into the region through countries where enforcement is weaker, including Italy and Croatia.
A ‘probiotic’ approach to agriculture is better for people and planet (commentary)
- Reversing biodiversity loss is a critical component of limiting climate change and vice versa, but less widely acknowledged is how agriculture is needed to deliver both.
- With agriculture occupying 40% of the world’s land surface, governments with the greatest chance of meeting conservation goals on all fronts will be those that address healthy food production, mitigating climate change and regenerating biodiversity as three sides of the same triangle.
- Agriculture can contribute to climate action and conservation, but only if managed as unique ecosystems capable of producing both healthy food and environmental goods.
- This article is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
Why has illegal logging increased in the Greater Mekong?
- In recent decades, rich tropical forests of the Greater Mekong region have been steadily depleted by the world’s growing appetite for timber.
- Recognizing the impact of the timber trade on natural forests, governments in the Greater Mekong region have come up with laws to regulate logging and timber exports.
- However, insufficient political will and collusion between officials, businesspeople and criminal groups means enforcement is often limited.
- There is a clear need to strengthen local laws and enforcement, but pressure from foreign governments, businesses and consumers can help.
Allegations of displacement, violence beleaguer Kenyan conservancy NGO
- The California-based Oakland Institute published a report on Nov. 16 alleging that the Kenya-based nonprofit Northern Rangelands Trust (NRT) keeps pastoralists and their herds off of their ancestral grazing areas.
- The institute’s research relied on petitions, court cases and in-person interviews with community members in northern Kenya, with report lead author Anuradha Mittal alleging that NRT’s model of “fortress conservation” exacerbates interethnic tensions and prioritizes the desires of wealthy tourists over the needs of the Indigenous population.
- Tom Lalampaa, NRT’s CEO, denies all allegations that the organization keeps communities from accessing rangeland or that it has played any role in violence in the region.
- Lalampaa said membership with NRT provides innumerable benefits to community-led conservancies, which retain their legal claim to the land and decide on how their rangelands are managed.
How sharing and learning from failures can transform conservation (commentary)
- There is a long history of failure in joint conservation and development projects, prompting growing efforts to explicitly acknowledge the value of failure as a means to learn and further success.
- The authors of a new paper find that the framing of failures is problematic in two main ways – it can reduce accountability for negative project impacts on people and nature, and it can also reinforce dominant conservation paradigms and approaches that are insufficient to address the biodiversity crisis.
- It is important to openly and critically examine failure in conservation, they argue in this opinion piece, but to do so in ways that genuinely question existing approaches and open up opportunities for transformation.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of Mongabay.
The Greater Mekong region: A hotspot of wildlife and crime
- The global illegal timber trade generates up to $152 billion a year, accounting for up to 90% of deforestation in tropical countries and attracting the world’s biggest organized crime groups.
- Illegal logging is today responsible for 15% to 30% of global timber production. Estimates vary because complex international supply chains make it difficult to ensure the timber has been lawfully handled at every stage.
- Illegal logging is devastating forests in the Greater Mekong region, which consists of Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar, Vietnam and parts of China.
With Bachman’s warbler and others added to the ‘extinct’ list, we must support biodiversity agreements (commentary)
- The US Fish and Wildlife Service recently proposed removing 23 species like the ivory-billed woodpecker from its list of endangered species ‘due to extinction.’
- Among these is the Bachman’s warbler, a beautiful yellow bird last seen in the late 1980s.
- “Of all the areas of environmental degradation, biodiversity loss cannot be undone. Now is the time to raise our voices in support of global biodiversity agreements,” argues the author of this opinion piece.
- The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
Advocates call for a new human rights-based approach to conservation
- Delegates to COP15 began meeting this week to discuss a draft framework that will guide the world’s response to a worsening biodiversity crisis.
- Advocates say that a new approach to conservation based in human rights and legal recognition of Indigenous and other community land tenure is needed.
- Some have criticized the most recent draft of the world’s biodiversity plan for going easy on industry and failing to include language that would protect vulnerable people from dispossession and abuse.
In Half-Earth Project, a full-on bid to get countries to protect biodiversity
- Last year, the Half-Earth Project launched its “national report cards,” which show how much land is currently protected in each country, how many land vertebrate species (including endemics) each country holds, and how much and also which areas of land should be preserved to protect its biodiversity in the future.
- Each country also receives a score based on several indicators, including the National Species Protection Index (SPI), which was generated by the Map of Life and endorsed by the Convention on Biological Diversity.
- The team at the Half-Earth Project say the map and accompanying tools can be valuable resources for decision-makers trying to reach the objective of protecting 30% of land by 2030, although they argue that the ultimate goal should be protecting half of the Earth.
- While supporters of the Half-Earth Project say achieving their goal benefits everyone, critics say a large number of people, particularly those living in poorer countries, could be adversely affected by such large-scale area-based protection.
Podcast: Indigenous rights and the future of biodiversity conservation
- On today’s episode of the Mongabay Newscast we discuss the importance of Indigenous rights to the future of biodiversity conservation and efforts to build a more sustainable future for life on Earth.
- We speak with Victoria Tauli-Corpuz, a former UN Special Rapporteur on the rights of Indigenous peoples and the current executive director of the Tebtebba Indigenous Peoples’ International Centre for Policy Research and Education. Tauli-Corpuz tells us about the Global Indigenous Agenda released at the IUCN World Conservation Congress, why it calls for Indigenous rights to be central to conservation efforts, and what she hopes to see achieved at the UN Biodiversity Conference taking place in Kunming, China next year.
- We also speak with Zack Romo, a program director for the Coordinator of Indigenous Organizations of the Amazon Basin (commonly known by its Spanish acronym, COICA). Romo fills us in on the details of the motion to protect 80% of the Amazon by 2025 that was approved by IUCN members at the World Conservation Congress, the rights-based approach that Amazon protection plan calls for, and what the next steps are to making the plan a reality.
Bridge the North-South divide for a UN Biodiversity Framework that is more just (commentary)
- The upcoming UN Biodiversity Conference (COP-15) features proposals like the 30×30 biodiversity conservation plan that we’ve all been hearing so much about lately.
- This proposal may work well for the North, including the U.S. with its “America the Beautiful” plan, but not well for the poorer nations of the global South: any effort to build a Global Biodiversity Framework must begin with sincere listening to all parties, and learning from that listening.
- “Scientists and the conservation leaders of the global North do not know how to talk to the grassroots conservationists of the global South when it comes to biodiversity conservation,” Subhankar Banerjee argues, and urges environmental justice campaigners and Indigenous rights advocates to look very closely at the current COP-15 30×30 proposal.
- The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
Nitrogen: The environmental crisis you haven’t heard of yet
- The creation of synthetic fertilizers in the early 20th century was a turning point in human history, enabling an increase in crop yields and causing a population boom.
- But the overuse of nitrogen and phosphorus from those fertilizers is causing an environmental crisis, as algae blooms and oceanic “dead zones” grow in scale and frequency.
- Of the nine “planetary boundaries” that scientists say we must not cross in order to sustain human life, the boundary associated with nitrogen and phosphorus waste has been far surpassed, putting Earth’s operating system at risk.
- Global policymakers are beginning to slowly recognize the scale of the problem, as climate change threatens to make it worse. Absent major reforms to agribusiness practices, scientists are aiming to convince the world to reduce waste.
We’ve crossed four of nine planetary boundaries. What does this mean?
- The Earth has nine Planetary Boundaries that determine the threshold beyond which human impact on Earth’s systems will put society at risk. We’ve already crossed four of these boundaries.
- Over the past year, Mongabay’s series on planetary boundaries has focused attention on the implications of crossing them.
- Below are some highlights that cover the consequences of crossing four of those boundaries (and solutions to address them), as well as the looming challenges in preventing humanity from overreaching the boundaries we have yet to cross.
One in three tree species is in the red, new global assessment says
- Of the 60,000 known species of trees, 440 are critically endangered, an assessment spearheaded by Botanic Gardens Conservation International (BGCI) has found.
- There are more threatened tree species in the world today than there are threatened mammal, reptile, bird and amphibian species combined.
- Among tree biodiversity hotspots, which boast a large number of indigenous trees, Brazil, Indonesia and Malaysia fare poorly.
- Lack of in-country expertise is holding back such initiatives, Frank Mbago, a Tanzanian botanist, told Mongabay.
Italian firms flout EU rules to trade in illegal Myanmar timber, report says
- Negligible fines and inadequate enforcement are turning Italy into a hotspot for illegal Myanmar timber, a new report has found.
- The report identified 27 Italian traders that have been importing Burmese teak into Europe despite a long-held common position acknowledging timber imports from Myanmar to be against the law.
- In June, the EU further imposed sanctions on the only possible source of legal timber in the country; yet traders did not confirm they would stop imports, the report said.
- Italian traders are exploiting the country’s inadequate enforcement to ship timber to the rest of Europe and circumvent the EU’s sanctions and timber regulations, the researchers wrote.
Building the Campaign for Nature: Q&A with Brian O’Donnell
- In 2018, philanthropist Hansjörg Wyss put $1 billion toward initiatives to help a range of stakeholders conserve 30% of the planet in its natural state by 2030. One of the products of that commitment is the Campaign for Nature, an advocacy, communications, and alliance-building effort to turn that 30×30 target into a reality.
- The campaign’s strategy has three major components: building political support for 30×30, ensuring Indigenous and local community rights are advanced in the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework, and boosting funding for nature conservation, especially for developing countries where biodiversity is concentrated.
- The Director of Campaign for Nature is Brian O’Donnell, who told Mongabay that more than 70 countries have endorsed the “30×30” goal over the past three years, but that many leaders still do not recognize or understand the importance of protecting biodiversity.
- “Global leaders have not given biodiversity the attention it warrants. Most global leaders do not fully understand or value the importance of biodiversity, and are not aware of the scale of the current crisis facing biodiversity,” he said. “Protecting at least 30% of the world’s lands, freshwater and oceans will help prevent extinctions, provide clean water to communities, reduce the impacts of storms, and improve the health of the world’s oceans.”
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.”
As COP15 approaches, ’30 by 30’ becomes a conservation battleground
- In July, the U.N. released a draft of the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework, which called for 30% of Earth’s land and sea areas to be conserved.
- Known as “30 by 30,” the plan has drawn fire from Indigenous rights activists and their allies, who say that it could prompt mass evictions.
- Earlier this month, 49 foundations sent a joint letter to the plan’s drafters, saying a focus on creating new protected areas would “lead to human rights abuses across the globe.”
- “30 by 30” is exposing fault lines in the modern conservation movement over who should control biodiversity protection and where funding should be directed.
‘Shared earth’ conservation promises to prioritize nature and people
- A new article in Science calls for conservation in Africa to take a “shared earth” approach that prioritizes both nature and people.
- According to the authors, this approach would empower local communities, Indigenous people and governments to make decisions that would meet both equity and biodiversity goals.
- The authors suggest retaining or restoring 20% of living and working areas to help address global conservation targets while giving local people the benefits of nature and building resilience against climate change.
Address risky human activities now or face new pandemics, scientists warn
- The new, highly-contagious Delta variant — spread with the ease of chickenpox — is causing COVID-19 cases to skyrocket across the globe as health officials respond with alarm. “The war has changed,” said a recent internal U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) document.
- Globally, numerous infectious diseases are being transmitted between wildlife, livestock and humans at escalating rates, including outbreaks of COVID-19, Ebola, dengue, HIV and others, as the threat of new emergent zoonotic diseases grows ever greater. The cost is huge in lives lost and ruined economies.
- The driver: human activities, particularly intrusion into wild landscapes and eating and trading wild animals. Bringing people, domestic and wild animals into unnatural proximity exposes all to pathogens for which they lack immunity. International travel and a booming global wildlife trade quickly spread viruses.
- Experts say that a “One Health” approach is urgently needed to prevent future pandemics — simultaneously addressing human, animal and ecosystem health, protecting humanity and nature, and incorporating disease risk into decision-making.
EU sanctions no ‘silver bullet’ against Myanmar’s illegal timber trade, experts say
- The European Union has imposed sanctions on Myanma Timber Enterprise, a state-owned entity that regulates all harvesting and sales of Myanmar timber.
- The new sanctions mean it is now illegal for businesses in the EU to directly import any timber from Myanmar.
- While the sanctions send a strong political signal to the junta, experts say their actual impact on Myanmar’s illegal timber trade could be limited.
- Local activists are urging the international community to do more as globally significant tracts of forests in the country come under threat, with illicit logging financing the military’s repressive rule.
Scientists call for solving climate and biodiversity crises together
- A new report from United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) highlights the importance of confronting climate change and biodiversity loss together.
- Global climate change and the unprecedented loss of species currently underway result from a similar suite of human-driven causes, the report’s authors write.
- As a result, solutions that take both issues into account have the best chance of success, they conclude.
U.N. declares decade of ecosystem restoration to ‘make peace with nature’
- The U.N. has declared the coming decade a time for ecosystem restoration, highlighting in a new report the importance of preventing, halting and reversing ecosystem degradation worldwide.
- It calls on the world to restore at least 1 billion hectares (2.5 billion acres) of degraded land in the next decade — an area larger than China — warning that degradation already affects the well-being of 3.2 billion people.
- The report also makes an economic case for restoration, noting that for every dollar that goes into restoration, up to $30 in economic benefits are created.
- A key message of the report is that nature is not something that is “nice to have” — it is essential to our survival, and we are a part of it.
New Attenborough film sounds alarm on planetary boundaries, but offers hope
- A newly released Netflix documentary, “Breaking Boundaries: The Science of Our Planet,” features David Attenborough and Johan Rockström, one of the scientists who introduced the concept of planetary boundaries.
- Planetary boundaries are Earth system processes essential for the planet’s functioning but have an environmental limit to which they can tolerate changes.
- According to experts, if these limits are transgressed, the Earth can be pushed into a new, dangerous state.
- While the film suggests that the planet requires urgent repair, it also offers a clear path forward — and a message of hope.
Podcast: Can Biden’s 30×30 plan put U.S. on a positive conservation track?
- On today’s episode of the Mongabay Newscast, we discuss the 30×30 conservation plan recently released by the administration of US President Joe Biden and its potential to transform the way the US conserves its natural resources.
- Joe Walston, executive vice president of global conservation for the Wildlife Conservation Society, tells us that the Biden 30×30 plan has been welcomed by environmentalists, even though many important details of the plan still need to be hammered out, and that it sends a signal to the rest of the world that the US is once again looking to lead the world in conservation.
- Sarah Derouin, a Mongabay contributor and a producer of the weekly radio show and podcast “Big Picture Science,” tells us about two agroforestry programs that are already changing the way food is produced in the US and how agroforestry might help meet the 30×30 targets.
Reptile traffickers trawl scientific literature, target newly described species
- The descriptions and locations of new reptile species featured in scientific literature are frequently being used by traders to quickly hunt down, capture and sell these animals, allowing them to be monetized for handsome profits and threatening biodiversity.
- New reptile species are highly valued by collectors due to their novelty, and often appear on trade websites and at trade fairs within months after their first description in scientific journals.
- In the past 20 years, the Internet, combined with the ease and affordability of global travel, have made the problem of reptile trafficking rampant. Some taxonomists now call for restricted access to location information for the most in demand taxa such as geckos, turtles and pythons.
- Once a new species has been given CITES protection (typically a lengthy process), traders often keep the reptiles in “legal” commercial circulation by making false claims of “captive breeding” in order to launder wild-caught animals.
Protected areas now cover nearly 17% of Earth’s surface: U.N. report
- A new report from the United Nations Environment Programme and the International Union for Conservation of Nature reveals that countries are closing in on the target set in 2010 of protecting or conserving 17% of the Earth’s surface.
- Since 2010, the area of the marine environment that’s under protection has more than tripled, although global coverage is less than 8%, falling short of the 10% goal set in Aichi Target 11.
- While there has been some success, international leaders agree there should be more focus on quality as well as quantity in designating protected and conservation areas.
- As the U.N. Biodiversity Conference scheduled for October 2021 in Kunming, China, approaches, the report calls for a stronger emphasis on the contributions of Indigenous and local communities, while also ensuring that the world’s poorest don’t shoulder an outsize burden from these efforts.
The Pope, a prince and a judge walk into a bar…to argue for nature’s rights (commentary)
- It sounds like the beginning of a bad joke, but Pope Francis, Prince Charles, and judges around the world are now supporting the rights of nature.
- The belief that nature was something to be both feared and conquered provided legitimacy for the enactment of laws that authorized the domination and destruction of nature by the Western world.
- Today, the growing movement for the rights of nature is in its nascent stages but the outcome could help humanity onto a much more sustainable path.
- This post is a commentary, the views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
In the Honduran Río Plátano Biosphere Reserve, an illegal road for cattle and drugs
- Multiple sources, backed by satellite data, say an illegal road is being cut through the Río Plátano Biosphere Reserve in Honduras, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
- Sources say the road will facilitate land invasions into the biosphere and is likely to be used as a drug-trafficking route.
- The road has created divisions between Indigenous groups, with the Bakinasta Miskito denouncing its presence and demanding the government step in to halt it.
- Despite knowing about the road for more than a year, the Honduran government has not taken definitive action to enforce the law.
New paper urges shift to ‘nature positivity’ to restore Earth
- A new paper, published by leading conservationists and the heads of various global institutions, argues for adopting a “nature-positive” goal.
- This would require restoring the Earth from 2020, placing the world on a nature positive path by 2030 to mount a full recovery by 2050.
- According to the authors, nature positivity would provide an overarching goal for nature that would coincide with the Convention on Biological Diversity’s (CBD) mission and streamline agreements for climate, biodiversity, and sustainable development into one common vision.
- The paper was released a few days before the start of the meeting of the Subsidiary Body on Scientific, Technical and Technological Advice (SBSTTA), where parties will provide advice on the CBD’s post-2020 global biodiversity framework.
‘Profound ignorance’: Microbes, a missing piece in the biodiversity puzzle
- Researchers are certain that human activity has resulted in a decline in plant and animal species. But a huge unknown remains: what impacts have human actions —ranging from climate change, to ocean acidification, deforestation and land use change, nitrogen pollution, and more — had on the Earth’s microbes?
- A new paper poses this significant question, and offers a troubling answer: Science suffers from “profound ignorance” about the ways in which microbial biodiversity is being influenced by rapid environmental changes now happening on our planet.
- Researchers are supremely challenged by the microbial biodiversity question, finding it difficult to even define what a microbe species is, and uncertain how to effectively identify, analyze and track the behaviors of microbes on Earth —microorganisms estimated to be more numerous than stars in the known universe.
- We do know microbes play crucial roles — helping grow our food, aiding in the sequestering and release of soil carbon, curing and causing disease, and more. One thing researchers do agree on: knowing how human activities are influencing the microbial world could be very important to the future of humanity and our planet.
Momentum is building for a ‘robust’ biodiversity framework: Q&A with Elizabeth Mrema
- One of the many impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic has been to rally global ambition for a biodiversity framework that sets the world on a path to a sustainable future, says Elizabeth Maruma Mrema.
- Mrema, executive secretary of the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), says there’s growing awareness of the importance of biodiversity for everything from food security to the regulation of water and air quality, to pest and disease regulation.
- “World leaders fully recognize that the continued deterioration and degradation of Earth’s natural ecosystems are having major impacts on the lives and livelihoods of people around the world,” she says.
- In an interview with Mongabay founder Rhett A. Butler, Mrema talks about building a robust post-2020 framework after the Aichi Biodiversity Targets fell short, how the conservation sector has changed over her career, and her hopes for the CBD summit coming up later this year.
Podcast: Though humanity exceeds key ‘planetary boundaries’ there are many solutions
- On this episode of the Mongabay Newscast, we speak with two recent contributors to our “Covering the Commons” special reporting project who wrote pieces that deal with the concept of Planetary Boundaries and how we can build a more sustainable future.
- Claire Asher tells us about her recent article detailing the nine Planetary Boundaries, the four environmental limits we’ve already exceeded, and the chances 2021 offers us to make transformative change.
- Andrew Willner discusses his recent article on how a “New Age of Sail” might soon transform the international shipping industry, the sixth-largest source of carbon emissions in the world.
New map shows where the 80% of species we don’t know about may be hiding
- A new study maps out the regions of the world most likely to hold the highest number of species unknown to science.
- The study found that tropical forests in countries like Brazil, Indonesia, Madagascar and Colombia had the highest potential for undescribed species, mostly reptiles and amphibians.
- According to the lead researcher, the main reason for species going undescribed is a lack of funding and taxonomic experts in some parts of the world.
- He added that it’s essential to learn about as many species as possible to protect them, but that undescribed species are currently not taken into account by governing bodies like the UN’s Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD).
The nine boundaries humanity must respect to keep the planet habitable
- All life on Earth, and human civilization, are sustained by vital biogeochemical systems, which are in delicate balance. However, our species — due largely to rapid population growth and explosive consumption — is destabilizing these Earth processes, endangering the stability of the “safe operating space for humanity.”
- Scientists note nine planetary boundaries beyond which we can’t push Earth Systems without putting our societies at risk: climate change, biodiversity loss, ocean acidification, ozone depletion, atmospheric aerosol pollution, freshwater use, biogeochemical flows of nitrogen and phosphorus, land-system change, and release of novel chemicals.
- Humanity is already existing outside the safe operating space for at least four of the nine boundaries: climate change, biodiversity, land-system change, and biogeochemical flows (nitrogen and phosphorus imbalance). The best way to prevent overshoot, researchers say, is to revamp our energy and food systems.
- In 2021, three meetings offer chances to avoid planetary boundary overshoot: the Convention on Biological Diversity meeting in Kunming, China; the U.N. Climate Summit (COP26) in Glasgow, U.K.; and the U.N. Food Systems Summit in Rome. Agreements with measurable, implementable, verifiable, timely and binding targets are vital, say advocates.
Turtle conservation hits the SPOT in North Cyprus
- Green and loggerhead turtle nest counts have increased by 162% and 46% respectively in less than two decades on North Cyprus in the Mediterranean.
- The increase has been achieved through preventing nests being raided by dogs and foxes, and protecting the beaches from tourism development.
- Conservation begun by enthusiasts in 1983 is now organized by a local NGO, the Society for the Protection of Turtles (SPOT), in collaboration with scientists from the University of Exeter in the U.K. and the local Department of Environmental Protection.
- Many issues still impact the recovery of turtle populations: loggerheads are killed in fishing nets, while both species are affected by plastic pollution in a variety of ways.
U.N. report lays out blueprint to end ‘suicidal war on nature’
- According to a new report from the United Nations Environmental Programme, the world faces three environmental “emergencies”: climate change, biodiversity loss, and air and water pollution.
- U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres said we should view nature as “an ally,” not a foe, in the quest for sustainable human development.
- The report draws on assessments that quantify carbon emissions, species loss and pollutant flows to produce what the authors call concrete actions by governments, private companies and individuals that will help address these issues.
Cat corridors between protected areas is key to survival of Cerrado’s jaguars
- Only 4% of the jaguar’s critical habitat is effectively protected across the Americas, and in Brazil’s Cerrado biome it’s just 2%.
- A survey in Emas National Park in the Cerrado biome concludes that the protected area isn’t large enough to sustain a viable jaguar population, and that jaguars moving in and out could be exposed to substantial extinction risk in the future.
- The study suggests that improving net immigration may be more important than increasing population sizes in small isolated populations, including by creating dispersal corridors.
- To ensure the corridors’ effectiveness, conservation efforts should focus on resolving the conflict between the jaguars and human communities.
New approaches needed to protect biodiversity as Aichi Targets go unmet
- The Aichi Biodiversity Targets are an ambitious set of global goals aimed at protecting and conserving global biodiversity.
- In a recently published paper, a team of international researchers offer suggestions for how the newest version of the Aichi targets, referred to as the post-2020 global biodiversity framework, can be implemented effectively.
- The authors suggest strengthened accountability for parties participating in the Aichi targets similar to the Paris Agreement.
- Researchers also point to the need for greater resources directed toward biodiversity, more research about biodiversity and how to protect it, and better review mechanisms for Aichi commitments at the national level.
‘Race against time’: Saving the snakes and lizards of Brazil’s Cerrado
- Brazil’s Cerrado is among the world’s most biodiverse savannas, covering two million square kilometers (772,204 square miles), nearly a quarter of the country and half the size of Europe.
- Once thought of as a “wasteland,” scientists have counted 208 snake species, some 80 lizards, 40 worm lizards, seven turtles and four crocodile species — many recently logged in the biome’s grasslands, palm-covered riverscapes, lowland forests and dry plateaus.
- But half of the Cerrado’s natural vegetation has been lost to mechanized agribusiness and ranching, with native plants and wildlife also at risk from climate change, and more frequent and intense fires. Today’s biome is fragmented, with just 3% under strict protection, and another 5% “protected” in farmed, inhabited mixed-use areas
- While researchers agree that there is an urgent need to protect large swathes of remaining savanna, there is also a vital requirement to preserve patches of unique habitat where diverse, niche-specialized reptilians make their homes.
Podcast: Agroforestry, an ancient climate solution that boosts food production and biodiversity
- On today’s episode of the Mongabay Newscast, we speak with three different guests about why agroforestry is increasingly being implemented worldwide to address industrial agriculture’s contributions to the global environmental crises we’re facing as well as to create new livelihood opportunities and build food security for local communities.
- Agroforestry is the practice of incorporating woody perennials like trees and shrubs into a system with agricultural crops or livestock. It’s been practiced by indigenous peoples for thousands of years, and they are still perhaps the chief practitioners of it today.
- We speak with Mongabay’s own Erik Hoffner, who edits Mongabay’s ongoing coverage of agroforestry, as well as Sarah Lovell, who talks about agroforestry in the US, and Roger Leakey, who discusses agroforestry in the tropics.
Humanity’s ‘ecological Ponzi scheme’ sets up bleak future, scientists warn
- In a recently published perspective piece, 17 leading scientists say the world is facing a “ghastly future” due to ongoing environmental degradation, including biodiversity loss, climate change, and human overpopulation and overconsumption.
- The authors say their message is meant to give a “cold shower” to leaders who can help make positive changes for the planet.
- While other scientists agree with some of the report’s messages, they point out several issues with the argument’s framework, including its possible misidentification of migration and population growth in places like sub-Saharan Africa as driving environmental problems.
Crimefighting NGO tracks Brazil wildlife trade on WhatsApp and Facebook
- A nonprofit, the National Network Combating Wild Animal Trafficking (RENCTAS) was founded in 1999, and since then has won international awards and acclaim for its innovative approach to tracking and combating the global illegal wildlife trade, especially the sourcing of animals in the Brazilian Amazon rainforest and Cerrado savanna biomes.
- The group’s pioneering strategy: use social media to track the sale and movement of animals out of Brazil, and turn over the data to law enforcement. In 1999, it identified nearly 6,000 ads featuring the illegal sale of animals on e-commerce platforms. By 2019, it reported 3.5 million advertisements for the illegal trade on social networks.
- The most trafficked Brazilian animals currently: the double-collared seedeater (Sporophila caerulescens); a small, finch-like songbird with a yellow bill that thrives in the southern Cerrado, and the white-cheeked spider monkey (Ateles marginatus), found across the Amazon basin. Sales of animals have been tracked to 200+ illegal trafficking organizations.
- Tragically, of the millions of Brazilian animals captured, sold, resold, and transported, only an estimated 1 in 10 ever reach Brazilian and foreign consumers alive. The rest, ripped from their homes, starved and abused, die in transit.
One Health: A necessary blend of biodiversity and human health goals (commentary)
- This week, the German Federal Foreign Office & WCS will co-host “One Planet, One Health, One Future: Moving forward in a post-COVID19 world.”
- The One Health approach acknowledges the interconnectedness of human, animal, and ecosystem health.
- COVID-19 provides an unfortunate but essential opportunity to demonstrate the fundamental importance of the One Health approach, and make connections with important biodiversity targets.
- This article is a commentary, the views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.
One year on: Insects still in peril as world struggles with global pandemic
- In June 2019, in response to media outcry and alarm over a supposed ongoing global “Insect Apocalypse,” Mongabay published a thorough four-part survey on the state of the world’s insect species and their populations.
- In four, in-depth stories, science writer Jeremy Hance interviewed 24 leading entomologists and other scientists on six continents and working in 12 nations to get their expert views on the rate of insect decline in Europe, the U.S., and especially the tropics, including Latin America, Africa, and Australia.
- Now, 16 months later, Hance reaches out to seven of those scientists to see what’s new. He finds much bad news: butterflies in Ohio declining by 2% per year, 94% of wild bee interactions with native plants lost in New England, and grasshopper abundance falling by 30% in a protected Kansas grassland over 20 years.
- Scientists say such losses aren’t surprising; what’s alarming is our inaction. One researcher concludes: “Real insect conservation would mean conserving large whole ecosystems both from the point source attacks, AND the overall blanket of climate change and six billion more people on the planet than there should be.”
Lemurs might never recover from COVID-19 (commentary)
- This World Lemur Day, it is worth pointing out that the Covid-19 pandemic poses a threat to Madagascar’s endemic primates, which are some of the planet’s most endangered species.
- Almost all 115 species of lemurs are threatened with extinction and their habitats are rapidly disappearing on the island nation.
- The pandemic and the resulting economic crisis has emerged as a moment of reckoning for conservation efforts, exposing the risks of relying heavily on foreign revenue and not focusing enough on communities at the frontline of safeguarding biodiversity.
- This post is a commentary: the views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
IPBES report details path to exit current ‘pandemic era’
- A new report from the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) calls for a “transformative change” in addressing the causes of virus outbreaks to prevent future pandemics and their devastating consequences.
- Human-driven climate change, the wildlife trade, and conversion of natural ecosystems all increase the potential for the spillover of viruses that infect animals to people.
- The current COVID-19 pandemic is likely to cost the global economy trillions of dollars, yet preventive measures that include identification of the hundreds of thousands of unknown viruses that are thought to exist would cost only a fraction of that total.
With a drastic decline in tropical fruit, Gabon’s rainforest mega-gardeners go hungry
- Climate change appears to be disrupting the yield of fruit trees, a critical food source for many large mammals in Central Africa.
- A new study warns that endangered forest elephants and other keystone species in Lopé National Park in central Gabon — such as western lowland gorillas, chimpanzees, and mandrills — could be facing famine.
- “The changes are drastic,” says Emma Bush, co-lead author of the study. “The massive collapse in fruiting may be due to missing the environmental cue to bear fruit.”
- Some tropical trees depend on a drop in temperature to trigger flowering, but since the 1980s, the region recorded less rainfall and a temperature increase of 1°C.
David Attenborough’s ‘witness statement’ for the planet (commentary)
- By the time Sir David Attenborough had reached his 50s, the human population had doubled in size from when he was born, multiplying our species’ impacts on the planet.
- Famed for documentary films that reveal the natural world in startling detail and beauty, he’s also received criticism for these depictions, which some see as hiding the true level of the global environment’s startling decay.
- In a new documentary, A Life on our Planet, Attenborough expresses the dire status of the planet and points to solutions.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
Ambitious and holistic goals key to saving Earth’s biodiversity, study says
- A recently published study in the journal Science gives recommendations for decision-makers preparing to set new biodiversity goals at the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in 2021.
- The researchers urge CBD negotiators and policymakers to consider three critical points as they create the new biodiversity goals: the goals must be multifaceted, developed holistically, and highly ambitious.
- “No net loss” of diversity is an example of a highly ambitious goal. Its targets include increasing natural ecosystem area, saving culturally important species, and conserving 90% of Earth’s genetic diversity.
- To turn the tide, the new biodiversity goals must be both highly ambitious and unified, and address ecosystems, species, genetic diversity, and nature’s contributions to people.
At-risk Cerrado mammals need fully-protected parks to survive: Researchers
- A newly published camera trap study tracked 21 species of large mammal in Brazil’s Cerrado savanna biome from 2012-2017.
- The cameras were deployed in both fully protected state and federal parks and less protected mixed-use areas known as APAs where humans live, farm and ranch.
- The probability of finding large, threatened species in true reserves was 5 to 10 times higher than in the APAs for pumas, tapirs, giant anteaters, maned wolves, white-lipped and collared peccaries, and other Neotropical mammals.
- With half the Cerrado biome’s two million square kilometers of native vegetation already converted to cattle ranches, soy plantations and other croplands, conserving remaining habitat is urgent if large mammals are to survive there. The new study will help land managers better preserve biodiversity.
We’re not protecting enough of the right areas to save biodiversity: Study
- In 2010, the member nations of the U.N.’s Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), 195 countries plus the EU, agreed that at least 17% of global land and 10% of the ocean needed to be protected by 2020.
- A new global review finds that many countries have fallen short of these targets, and the expansion of protected areas over the past 10 years has not successfully covered priority areas such as biodiversity hotspots and areas providing ecosystem services.
- The research team overlaid maps of protected areas, threatened species, productive fisheries, and carbon services, and found that 78% of known threatened species do not have adequate protection.
- Adequate protection of the world’s biodiversity will require conservation areas in the right places, the involvement of Indigenous peoples and local communities in decision-making and management, ecologically connectivity between protected areas, and much more financing.
We are failing to save the planet’s species, finds UN report
- In an effort to slow the ongoing sixth mass extinction and safeguard the world’s plants and animals, 20 Aichi Biodiversity Targets were established in 2010. According to a recently released U.N. report, not one goal was met completely.
- Little progress has been made towards eliminating, phasing out or reforming subsidies and other incentives potentially harmful to biodiversity. An estimated $500 billion in government subsidies potentially cause environmental harm, the report states.
- The establishment of the target area of marine and freshwater protected areas has been nearly met. Some extinctions, including up to seven mammal and eighteen bird species, have been prevented by conservation efforts in the past decade.
- Looking to the future, the report outlines eight transitions needed to shift humanity away from “business as usual” toward “a society living in harmony with nature.” However, “action is needed now.”
For European chemical giants, Brazil is an open market for toxic pesticides banned at home
- In 2018, Brazil used more than 60,000 tonnes of highly hazardous pesticides banned in the European Union.
- Three Europe-based multibillion-dollar companies control 54% of the world market.
- They include German agrochemical giants BASF and Bayer, as well as Swiss company Syngenta, one of whose pesticides still being sold in Brazil has been banned in its home country for more than 30 years.
Global wildlife being decimated by human actions, WWF report warns
- Between 1970 and 2016, wild populations of mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles and fish shrank by 68% on average, according to a new report by WWF and the Zoological Society of London.
- The most catastrophic declines were documented from Latin America and the Caribbean, where populations of monitored species contracted by more than 90% during that 46-year period.
- Among the 3,741 populations of freshwater species they tracked, the researchers found overall declines of more than 80%, underlining the threat from excessive extraction of freshwater, pollution and the destructive impacts of damming waterways.
- The assessment aims to grab the attention of world leaders who will gather virtually for the U.N. General Assembly that kicks off Sept. 15.
Is Chinese investment driving a sharp increase in jaguar poaching?
- A 200-fold increase in the number of trafficked dead jaguars seized by authorities in Central and South America between 2012 and 2018 has been reported in a new study.
- Researchers suggest the major surge in the trade may be facilitated by Chinese investment networks in Latin America.
- Corruption and low incomes in source countries also are likely a significant factor boosting trafficking.
- Acting on the paper’s findings, initiatives organized by nations, states, municipalities, NGOs, universities and research institutes could help improve collaborative regional efforts to combat the illicit trade.
Traversing Russia’s remote taiga in pursuit of the Blakiston’s fish owl
- The Blakiston’s fish owl is the world’s largest owl, ranging from the eastern woodlands of Hokkaido, Japan, to the Primorye territory in the south of Russia’s Far East.
- The species is endangered, with only 1,500 to 3,700 fish owls remaining in the wild.
- In his new, just published book, Owls of the Eastern Ice, biologist Jonathan Slaght chronicles his experiences and misadventures as an American researcher in Siberia, while also revealing the fish owl’s fascinating secret world.
- To protect the fish owl, Slaght and his Russian colleagues advocate for limiting road access into high biodiversity areas in Siberia.
The Large-antlered muntjac — Southeast Asia’s mystery deer (Commentary)
- 12 species of muntjac, the so-called barking deer because of its unique auditory calls, are found only in Asia. The Large-antlered muntjac is Critically Endangered with members of its scant, rarely seen population inhabiting the rugged Annamites Range bordering the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Vietnam and Cambodia.
- One of the biggest dangers to muntjacs is snaring, a hunting method used widely across Indochina. No one knows how many tens or hundreds of thousands of snares clutter Southeast Asia. But rangers in one Cambodian national park found 27,714 snares in 2015 alone — 7 snares per square kilometer, or 17.5 per square mile.
- If muntjacs are to be preserved, greater public awareness of their plight is required. On Vietnam’s Dalat Plateau and in Lao’s Nakai–Nam Theun National Protected Area, conservation appears possible, and scientists hope to garner better population density estimates in relation to the snaring threat. Captive breeding may be needed.
- This story is the second in a series by biologist Joel Berger written in conjunction with colleagues in an effort to make seriously endangered animals far better known to the public. This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.
Brazilian Amazon drained of millions of wild animals by criminal networks: Report
- A new 140-page report is shining a bright light on illegal wildlife trafficking in the Brazilian Amazon. The study finds that millions of birds, tropical fish, turtles, and mammals are being plucked from the wild and traded domestically or exported to the U.S, EU, China, the Middle East and elsewhere. Many are endangered.
- This illicit international trade is facilitated by weak laws, weak penalties, inadequate government record keeping, poor law enforcement — as well as widespread corruption, bribery, fraud, forgery, money laundering and smuggling.
- While some animals are seized, and some low-level smugglers are caught, the organizers of this global criminal enterprise are rarely brought to justice.
- The report notes that this trafficking crisis needs urgent action, as the trade not only harms wildlife, but also decimates ecosystems and puts public health at risk. The researchers point out that COVID-19 likely was transmitted to humans by trafficked animals and that addressing the Brazilian Amazon wildlife trade could prevent the next pandemic.
38 endangered Brazilian tree species legally traded, poorly tracked: Study
- A recent study found that 38 tree species officially listed by Brazil as threatened with extinction were traded between 2012 and 2016. Though prohibited from being harvested, the timber of the threatened trees was traded within Brazil and exported.
- Of the 38 threatened tree species traded, 17 were classified as Vulnerable, 18 as Endangered, and three as Critically Endangered.
- To end this exploitation, scientists urge that the timber no longer be tracked only at the genus level, but at the species level. They also recommend better coordination between IBAMA, Brazil’s environmental agency, which designates threat levels, and the Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) which tracks wood products.
- Another systemic problem: of the 38 threatened species, some are not included on the IUCN Red List or on the CITES species checklist. The study urged IUCN and CITES update their lists to include all 38 of the species found to be threatened by IBAMA.
Amazon river dolphin risks extinction if Brazil moratorium not renewed
- The Amazon river dolphin (also known as the pink river dolphin, or boto) is the largest of the world’s freshwater dolphins. It lives in the Amazon and Orinoco river systems.
- For years, the dolphin’s populations, though protected in Brazil, trended downward, halving every decade there, as poachers hunted the animals, using their fatty blubber as bait to catch a carnivorous catfish known as the piracatinga, which is drawn to the scent of rotting flesh.
- In 2015, the government of Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff tried to curb this chronic criminal behavior and protect the dolphins by introducing a five-year moratorium on catching piracatinga.
- Early in 2020 that moratorium lapsed and scientists urged its quick renewal to prevent the Amazon river dolphin from going extinct. UPDATE: Within days of this Mongabay story being published, Brazil’s Ministry of Agriculture announced that the piracatinga moratorium will be extended for one year starting 1 July.
Audio: Conservationists find opportunity and community amidst current crises
- On today’s episode of the Mongabay Newscast we look at how the environmental crises we’re currently facing intersect with two other major crises: the Covid pandemic and the systemic racism and police brutality that have sparked protests around the world in recent weeks.
- We welcome two guests onto the Mongabay Newscast today. Leela Hazzah, founder and executive director of Lion Guardians, joins us to discuss conservation as an essential service, how the Covid pandemic has impacted Lion Guardians’ community-based conservation work, and what she sees as opportunities for transformative change in conservation due to the pandemic.
- We’re also joined by Earyn McGee, a herpetologist and science communicator who helped organize the first-ever Black Birders Week, a week-long celebration of black birders and outdoor enthusiasts. McGee tells us how Black Birders Week came together so quickly and why it is necessary to celebrate black nature lovers.
Brazil’s native bees are vital for agriculture, but are being killed by it
- Native Brazilian bees provide several environmental services, the most important being pollination of plants, including agricultural crops.
- Stingless beekeeping also helps to keep the forest standing, as honey farmers tend to preserve the environment and restore areas used in their activity.
- But food production based on monoculture and heavy on pesticide use is threatening native bee populations.
- The western honey bee (Apis mellifera), an imported species, dominates Brazil’s beekeeping and its research into the harmful effects of pesticides; but studies show that pesticides affect stingless bees more intensely.
Taylor and Tate: Canine-human teams rescue Australia’s fire-ravaged koalas
- Specially-trained koala detection dogs joined rescue teams during and after the catastrophic Australian bushfires to help find the injured marsupials quickly and increase their chance of survival.
- Koalas had a hard time escaping the fires. Because they are slow moving and their first instinct is to climb into the canopy, curl into a ball, and wait, they were often killed or injured by the incredibly intense bushfires.
- Koalas numbers had already dropped significantly in New South Wales due to habitat loss, climate change, drought and disease. The fires exacerbated what was already a precarious situation.
- Eventually, surviving koalas will be released back into the wild, but it will take great care due to their specialized diets, need for social cohorts, and time required to recover from their burns.
‘Don’t let your cat outside’: Q&A with author Peter Christie
- Journalist Peter Christie has published a new book about the effects that pets have on wildlife and biodiversity.
- In addition to the billions of birds and small mammals killed by free-roaming pets each year, the wild pet trade, invasive pets, disease spread and the pet food industry are harming biodiversity and contributing to the global crisis.
- Christie calls the book “a call to action,” and he says he hopes that humans’ love for their pets might extend to wild species as well.
Consider what’s below the canopy, too, when counting up forest areas (commentary)
- More and more of the world’s forests are becoming “empty” or “silent,” as wildlife populations decline.
- This has many ecological consequences, but notably hinders a forests’ ability to regenerate and hence its ability to absorb and store carbon. It has been a challenge, however, to put a global measure on this worsening trend for forest wildlife.
- WWF’s Will Baldwin-Cantello argues we need to measure forest biodiversity better to fix our imbalanced relationship with forests and nature, which has tipped ecosystems out of balance.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
Disaster interrupted: How you can help save the insects
- In a new paper, a group of 30 scientists offers suggestions for industry, land managers, governments and individuals to protect insects in the face of a global decline.
- Noting that invertebrates lack the “charisma” of larger species like pandas and elephants, the scientists call for spreading “the message that appreciation and conservation of insects is now essential for our future survival.”
- They suggest a list of actions that individuals can take to help, including planting native plants, going organic and avoiding pesticides, and reducing carbon footprint.
- “As insects are braided into ecosystems, their plight is essentially integrated with more expansive movements such as global biodiversity conservation and climate change mitigation and in an alliance with them,” the scientists say.
As habitat degradation threatens Amazon species, one region offers hope
- Two recent studies looked into the impact of human disturbance on ecological diversity in Amazonia habitats. Another study in the Rupununi region of Guyana found how important maintaining connectivity is to maintaining ecosystem health.
- The first study investigated how forest fragmentation impacts mixed-species flocks of birds. The research found evidence that forest habitat fragmentation in the Amazon has caused mixed-species bird flocks to severely diminish and even disappear.
- A second study evaluated the impact of logging and fire on seed dispersal in tropical forest plots in the eastern Brazilian Amazon. The research team found that Amazon forests which have been heavily logged and burned are populated primarily by tree species with smaller seeds, and smaller fruits.
- The remote Rupununi region provides water connectivity between the ancient Guyana Shield and the Amazon basin. A recent study there identified more than 450 fish species within the Rupununi region. The research illustrated the value of conserving connectivity between diverse habitats.
Will the next coronavirus come from Amazonia? Deforestation and the risk of infectious diseases (commentary)
- Many “new” human diseases originate from pathogens transferred from wild animals, as occurred with the COVID-19 coronavirus. Amazonia contains a vast number of animal species and their associated pathogens with the potential to be transferred to humans.
- Deforestation both brings humans into close proximity to wildlife and is associated with consumption of bushmeat from hunted animals.
- Amazonian deforestation is being promoted by the governments of Brazil and other countries both through actions that encourage clearing and by lack of actions to halt forest loss. The potential for releasing “new” diseases adds one more impact that should make these governments rethink their policies.
- The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.
Tax exemptions on pesticides in Brazil add up to US$ 2.2 billion per year
- Aside from saving from generous discounts or total exemptions on taxes, multinational giants in the pesticides sector also receive millions in public resources to fund research through the BNDES [Brazil’s National Development Bank]
- The amount that the Brazilian government fails to collect because of tax exemptions on pesticides is nearly four times as much as the Ministry of the Environment’s total budget this year (US$ 600 million) and more than double what the nation’s national health system [SUS] spent to treat cancer patients in 2017 (US$ 1 billion).
- Tax exemptions related to pesticides are upheld by laws passed decades ago, which view these products as fundamental for the nation’s development and that, because of this, need stimulus—like what happens with the national cesta básica [basket of basics] food distribution program.
- The scenario that benefits pesticide companies could change, as the Federal Supreme Court [STF] is expected to soon judge a Direct Action of Unconstitutionality comparing pesticides to categories like cigarettes, harmful to health and which generate costs that are paid by the entire population—and for which reason are subject to extra taxes instead of tax breaks.
Audio: The links between COVID-19, wildlife trade, and destruction of nature with John Vidal
- On today’s episode of the Mongabay Newscast, we speak with acclaimed environmental journalist John Vidal about the coronavirus pandemics’ links to the wildlife trade and the destruction of nature.
- As the current coronavirus pandemic spread across the world, Vidal penned an article co-published by The Guardian and non-profit media outlet Ensia that looks at how scientists are beginning to understand the ways that environmental destruction makes zoonotic disease epidemics more likely.
- We speak with Vidal about what we know about the origins of COVID-19, what he’s learned while reporting from disease outbreak epicenters in the past, how the destruction of nature creates the perfect conditions for diseases like COVID-19 to emerge, and what we can do to prevent future zoonotic disease outbreaks.
The next great threat to Brazil’s golden lion tamarin: Yellow fever
- Once critically endangered due to extremely high levels of poaching, the golden lion tamarin — a primate endemic to Brazil’s Atlantic Forest — was down to just a few hundred by the 1980s, holding out in forest fragments 80 kilometers from Rio de Janeiro city. Intensive conservation efforts restored that number to 3,700 by 2014.
- But now, yellow fever, transferred from people via mosquitoes, is putting the tamarin’s recovery at risk. In May 2018, the first tamarin death due to yellow fever was recorded in the wild following an outbreak of the mosquito-borne disease across Brazil. An astonishing 32% of the population has disappeared in the year since.
- Dr. Carlos Ruiz, President of the Golden Lion Tamarin Association, told Mongabay that the disease could set back conservation efforts thirty years. However, another Brazilian researcher is pioneering a possible yellow fever vaccine for the primate. The approval application is currently being considered by the Brazilian government.
- While trafficking continues, that risk has been much reduced. Experts today believe that a combination of climate change and deforestation (drastically reducing tamarin habitat) is largely driving the devastating yellow fever epidemic.
Overworked, underpaid and lonely: Conservationists find a new community online
- Created by a 26-year-old Australian, a new online community called Lonely Conservationists is bringing together young and struggling conservationists.
- Members post about their experiences, including unpaid jobs, financial woes, mental health issues, and, of course, loneliness.
- The community has succeeded in creating a space for candid, sympathetic conversations about the difficulties of working in conservation.
Extreme El Niño drought, fires contribute to Amazon insect collapse: Study
- A recent study found that dung beetle species experienced significant diversity and population declines in human-modified tropical Brazilian ecosystems in the aftermath of droughts and fires exacerbated after the 2015-2016 El Niño climate event.
- Forests that burned during the El Niño lost, on average, 64% of their dung beetle species while those affected only by drought showed an average decline of 20%. Dung beetles provide vital ecoservices, processing waste and dispersing seeds and soil nutrients.
- For roughly the past three years, entomologists have been sounding alarms over a possible global collapse of insect abundance. In the tropics, climate change, habitat destruction and pesticide use are having clear impacts on insect abundance and diversity. However, a lack of funds and institutional interest is holding back urgently needed research.
Western lowland gorillas may be territorial, a new study finds
- A new study presents evidence of territoriality among western lowland gorilla groups in the Republic of Congo.
- Camera trap images revealed that groups avoided one another and also stayed away from the central area of each other’s home ranges — evidence that the species may be more territorial than previously thought.
- An estimated 80% of western lowland gorillas live outside of protected areas, where shrinking territory due to forest loss and habitat fragmentation is a big problem.
- This new information on their territoriality, combined with their shrinking habitat, means gorillas may experience increased competition for food as well as for the limited space.
US economy will take biggest hit if we continue with business as usual: report
- New research finds that if humans carry on with business as usual and the environmental degradation that results, we will pay a steep price — quite literally.
- Researchers found that if we simply continue under the status quo, the global economy will lose at least $479 billion a year, adding up to nearly $10 trillion in losses by 2050, as compared to the “baseline” scenario in which there is no change in ecosystem services over the next 30 years.
- Of the 140 countries included in the study, the United States stands to take the biggest economic hit, losing $83 billion per year by 2050 under this “business as usual” scenario that includes intense consumption of energy and raw materials, widespread land-use change, ongoing rises in greenhouse gas emissions, and continued loss of biodiversity.
Coronavirus outbreak may spur Southeast Asian action on wildlife trafficking
- Illegal wildlife trafficking remains a perennial problem in Southeast Asia, but with the ongoing spread of the new coronavirus, there’s added impetus for governments in the region to clamp down on the illicit trade.
- The coronavirus disease, or COVID-19, has infected more than 90,000 people worldwide and killed more than 3,000, according to the World Health Organization.
- Initial findings, though not conclusive, have linked the virus to pangolins, the most trafficked mammal on Earth and one of the mainstays of the illegal wildlife trade in Southeast Asia that feeds the Chinese market.
- Despite having a regional cooperation framework designed to curb wildlife trafficking, Southeast Asian governments have yet to agree on and finance a sustainability plan to strengthen efforts against the illegal trade.
Unsung Species: One of Earth’s rarest land mammals clings to a hopeful future (commentary)
- South America’s huemul (Hippocamelus bisulcus) is the Western Hemisphere’s most endangered large land mammal, a fleet-footed Patagonian deer. The species once enjoyed broad distribution, but its numbers have been fractured into roughly 100 small disconnected populations, with huemul totals likely less than 1500 individuals.
- Historically, the huemul was diminished by habitat destruction, poachers, livestock competition and alien predators (especially dogs). More recently climate change may be playing a role, hammering Patagonian coastal fisheries, so possibly causing local villagers to increase hunting pressure on the Andean mountain deer.
- The huemul also suffers from being an unsung species. Unlike the polar bear or rhino, it lacks a broad constituency. If it is to be saved, the species requires broad recognition and support beyond the scientific community. This story is the first in a series by biologist Joel Berger in an effort to make such animals far better known.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.
After a mine killed their river, a Brazil tribe fights for a new home
- A group of indigenous Pataxó and Pataxó Ha-ha-hãe are fighting to be relocated to a new home as the banks of the Paraopeba River where they live remains contaminated with heavy metals a year after the collapse of a tailings dam belonging to miner Vale.
- To date, Paraopeba’s waters still run dark with the mining waste, and there are no fish in it. Residents also complain of skin diseases and other health problems as a result of the contamination.
- In August 2019, the Nahô Xohã community filed a formal request with the Federal Prosecutor’s Office in Minas Gerais state for a temporary new home.
- The plan is to find a farm nearby of similar size to their current territory, where they can grow their own food and live with access to drinking water until the final reparation process is concluded by Vale.
Indigenous lands hold 36% or more of remaining intact forest landscapes
More than one-third of the world’s remaining pristine forests, known as intact forest landscapes, exist within land that’s either managed or owned by indigenous peoples, a new study has found. The study, published Jan. 6 in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, builds on previous work by lead author John Fa and his […]
As we act on climate, we mustn’t neglect nature (commentary)
- The discussion of the environment has been unbalanced. While all the talk is about carbon and climate, that is actually only half the story when it comes to our environmental crisis. The other catastrophe is of course the destruction of the natural world, the ecological crisis which threatens a million species with extinction over the coming decades.
- These twin evils are as important and serious as each other, but you wouldn’t think it from a glance at the papers – media coverage of the ecological crisis is being completely eclipsed by the climate, which received eight times more press attention in recent years.
- This imbalance needs to be rectified, and we must start treating our twin crises equally, because we cannot address them in isolation. Natural ecosystems, such as forests, wetlands, and seagrass beds, store huge amounts of carbon, and protecting and restoring them is the cheapest and most effective action we can take to lessen the climate crisis. The trouble is, our efforts to mitigate and adapt to climate change can seriously undermine these key natural ecosystems.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
EU/Chinese soy consumption linked to species impacts in Brazilian Cerrado: study
- The Brazilian Cerrado, the world’s largest tropical savanna, is a biodiversity hotspot with thousands of unique species and is home to 5 percent of the world’s biodiversity.
- However, half of the Cerrado has already been converted to agriculture; much of it is now growing soy which is exported abroad, particularly to the European Union (EU) and China, primarily as animal feed. But tracing soy-driven biodiversity and species losses to specific commodities traders and importing nations is challenging.
- Now a new groundbreaking study published in the journal PNAS has modeled the biodiversity impacts of site-specific soy production, while also linking specific habitat losses and species losses to nations and traders.
- For example, the research found that the consumption of Brazilian soy by EU countries has been especially detrimental to the giant anteater (Myrmecophaga tridactyla), which has lost 85 percent of its habitat to soy in the state of Mato Grosso.
As pesticide approvals soar, Brazil’s tapirs, bees, other wildlife suffer
- Brazil has been recognized as the world’s largest pesticide consumer since 2008, which has resulted in widespread application and in significant environmental contamination. Since then there has been an explosion of new pesticide registrations, first under President Michel Temer, now under Jair Bolsonaro.
- While research is scant, evidence points toward pesticide harm to Brazil’s wildlife, including the death of 500 million bees in four Brazilian states between December 2018 and February 2019. Another report found that 40 percent of samples collected from 116 tapirs were contaminated with insecticides, herbicides and heavy metals.
- High concentrations of the insecticide carbamate aldicarb were detected in 10 of 26 stomach content samples. Because the animals much prefer native vegetation to crops, this suggests that aerial spraying — with residue carried by wind — may be resulting in the spread of the pesticide from croplands into unsprayed natural areas.
- The Bolsonaro administration and bancada ruralista agribusiness lobby in Congress are moving rapidly to deregulate pesticides, especially pushing for passage of amendment 6299/2002, dubbed “The Poison Bill” by critics. It would transfer pesticide regulation to the Agriculture Ministry, a move that analysts decry as a serious conflict of interest.
Mountain gorilla census reveals further increase in numbers
- A census of one of the two populations of mountain gorillas living in eastern Africa revealed an increase from 400 to at least 459 individuals, bringing the total count for the subspecies to 1,069 gorillas.
- Teams conducted the survey in the Bwindi-Sarambwe ecosystem straddling the border between Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo in 2018.
- An earlier survey of the other population living in the Virunga Mountains of DRC, Uganda and Rwanda showed that gorilla numbers there are also on the rise.
- That led to a change in the subspecies status on the IUCN Red List from critically endangered to endangered.
Indonesian dam raises questions about UN hydropower carbon loophole
- North Samatera Hydro Energy (PT NSHE) wants to build the Batang Toru dam, a 510-megawatt project, in Indonesia. But, the discovery of a new primate species, the Tapanuli orangutan (Pongo tapanuliensis), with under 800 individuals mostly inhabiting the project site, has alarmed activists and put the dam’s funding at risk.
- PT NSHE is at the COP25 climate summit this month extolling the project’s contribution to curbing global warming: company reps say the dam will reduce Indonesia’s carbon emissions by 4 percent. In fact, the nation is already counting the proposed project as part of its 2015 Paris Climate Agreement carbon reduction pledge.
- However, while the United Nations and Paris Agreement count most new hydroelectric dams as carbon neutral, recent science shows that tropical dams can emit high levels of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide; this especially occurs when reservoirs are first filled.
- Dams built over the next decade will be adding their greenhouse gas emission load to the atmosphere when the world can least afford it — as the world rushes to cut emissions to prevent a 2 degree Celsius increase in global temperatures. PT NSHE argues its dam will have a small reservoir, so will not produce significant emissions.
Amazon’s giant South American river turtle holding its own, but risks abound
- The arrau, or giant South American River turtle (Podocnemis expansa), inhabits the Amazon and Orinoco rivers and their tributaries. A recent six nation survey assessed the health of populations across the region in Brazil, Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, and Peru.
- The species numbered in the tens of millions in the 19th century. Much reduced today, P. expansa is doing fairly well in river systems with conservation programs (the Tapajós, Guaporés, Foz do Amazonas, and Purus) and not so well in others (the Javaés and Baixo Rio Branco, and the Trombetas, even though it has monitoring).
- The study registered more than 147,000 females protected or monitored by 89 conservation initiatives and programs between 2012 and 2014. Out of that total, two thirds were in Brazil (109,400), followed by Bolivia (30,000), Peru (4,100), Colombia (2,400), Venezuela (1,000) and Ecuador (6).
- The greatest historical threat to the arrau stems from eggs and meat being popular delicacies, which has led to trafficking. Hydroelectric dams and large-scale mining operations also put the animals at risk — this includes mining noise impairing turtle communication. Climate change could be the biggest threat in the 21st century.
World is fast losing its cool: Polar regions in deep trouble, say scientists
- As representatives of the world’s nations gather in Madrid at COP 25 this week to discuss global warming policy, a comprehensive new report shows how climate change is disproportionately affecting the Arctic and Antarctic — the Arctic especially is warming tremendously faster than the rest of the world.
- If the planet sees a rise in average temperatures of 2 degrees Celsius, the polar regions will be the hardest hit ecosystems on earth, according to researchers, bringing drastic changes to the region. By the time the lower latitudes hit that mark, it’s projected the Arctic will see temperature increases of 4 degrees Celsius.
- In fact, polar regions are already seeing quickening sea ice melt, permafrost thaws, record wildfires, ice shelves calving, and impacts on cold-adapted species — ranging from Arctic polar bears to Antarctic penguins. What starts in cold areas doesn’t stay there: sea level rise and temperate extreme weather are both linked to polar events.
- The only way out of the trends escalating toward a climate catastrophe at the poles, say scientists, is for nations to begin aggressively reducing greenhouse gas emissions now and embracing sustainable green energy technologies and policies. It remains to be seen whether the negotiators at COP 25 will embrace such solutions.
Heat stress is causing desert bird populations to collapse
- Sites in the Mojave Desert in the western U.S. surveyed by ecologists a century ago have lost an average of 43 percent of their breeding bird species.
- New research suggests higher temperatures have increased the daily water needs of birds, which could decimate their populations if climate change worsens.
- The most vulnerable birds are larger, carnivorous species such as turkey vultures and prairie falcons that get most of their water from prey.
Why you should care about the current wave of mass extinctions (commentary)
- The extinction crisis we are witnessing is only the beginning of a wave of mass ecocide of non-human life on Earth, a process that could wipe out a million species of plants and ani-mals from our planet in the short term (read: decades). About 15 thousand scientific studies (!) support this terrifying conclusion, as it can be read in the assessment report produced by the independent UN Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosy-stem Services (IPBES).
- Certainly this is not what I dreamed of as a child in love with nature and wildlife. But how could I have ever imagined back then, in the 1970s, that during my first 50 years of life the global human population would literally double? That the global economy would increase four-fold, and that in parallel — and not by coincidence — wildlife populations would drop by a staggering 60 percent globally? How could I have ever imagined back then that I would personally witness and document, as a field conservationist, actual extinctions on the ground?
- In order to create a critical mass of awareness globally, there is still an important question to answer: Why should we care to conserve what is left of wild ecosystems and species of our planet? This is a question we should be ready to answer clearly, especially considering that most of the world population currently lives in urban centers, remains quite unaware of eco-logical matters, and is disconnected from nature — and therefore can’t fully appreciate how much our survival as a species is still deeply dependent on ecosystems and nature.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
Study finds massive reorganization of life across Earth’s ecosystems
- A new study pulls together data from 239 studies that looked at more than 50,000 biodiversity time series.
- The research reveals that almost 30 percent of all species are being swapped out for other species every 10 years.
- The scientists found that the reorganization and loss of species are happening much more quickly in some environments than in others, a finding that could help inform future conservation.
Biodiversity ‘not just an environmental issue’: Q&A with IPBES ex-chair Robert Watson
- The World Bank and IMF meetings from Oct. 14-20 will include discussions on protecting biodiversity and the importance of investing in nature.
- A recent U.N. report found that more than 1 million species of plants and animals face extinction.
- In a conversation with Mongabay, Robert Watson, who chaired the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services that produced the report, discusses the economic value of biodiversity.
Biodiversity boosts crop pollinators and pest controllers, study finds
- A new study looks at the reliance on biodiversity of ecosystem services provided by pollinating and pest-controlling insects.
- Up to half of the detrimental impacts of the “landscape simplification” that monocropping entails come as a result of a diminished mix of ecosystem service-providing insects.
- The scientists found that the reduction in ecosystem services provided by these insects tended to lead to lower crop yields.
Audio: Traveling the Pan Borneo Highway with Mongabay’s John Cannon
- On today’s episode of the Mongabay Newscast, we speak with Mongabay staff writer John Cannon, who traveled the length of the Pan Borneo Highway in July and wrote a series of reports for Mongabay detailing what he discovered on the journey.
- The Pan Borneo Highway is expected to make commerce and travel easier in a region that is notoriously difficult to navigate, and also to encourage tourists to see the states’ cultural treasures and rich wildlife. But from the outset, scientists and conservationists have warned that the highway is likely to harm that very same wildlife by dividing populations and degrading habitat.
- Cannon undertook his 3-week reporting trip down the Pan Borneo Highway in an attempt to understand both the positive and negative effects the road could have on local communities, wildlife, and ecosystems, and he’s here to tell us what he found.
Fires still being set in blazing Bolivia (commentary)
- Firefighters in Bolivia are tackling conflagrations that have burned an area larger than Costa Rica. Several national parks and Indigenous territories have been affected.
- Many Indigenous and civil society groups are calling for an end to laws that allow burning.
- I spoke to ecologists and biologists about what is being lost, and what the chances of recovery are for affected areas. Some did not want to be named, as the political situation is tense right now in the run up to Bolivia’s October elections.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
The climate crisis and the pain of losing what we love (commentary)
- World leaders came to the UN last week to decisively tackle climate change again. “This is not a negotiation summit because we don’t negotiate with nature. This is a Climate Action Summit!” declared the UN Secretary-General. But again, global leaders failed and committed to carbon cuts that fall far short of curbing catastrophe.
- In doing so, our leaders committed us to an escalating global environmental crisis that is already unleashing vast changes across Earth’s ecosystems — with many sweeping alterations charted by our scientists, but many other local shifts and absences only noted by those who observe and cherish wild things.
- The loss of familiar weather patterns, plants and animals (from monarchs to native bees) and an invasion of opportunistic living things (Japanese knotweed to Asian longhorned ticks) can foster feelings of vertigo — of being a stranger in a strange land — emotions, so personal and rubbing so raw, they can be hard to describe.
- So I’ve tried to express my own feelings for one place, Vermont, my home, that is today seeing rapid change. At the end of this piece, Mongabay invites you to tally your own natural losses. We’ll share your responses in a later story. This post is a commentary. Views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
Nature-based climate action no longer ‘the forgotten solution’
- At the Global Climate Action Summit (GCAS) held in San Francisco last year, nature-based solutions to the climate crisis — like keeping forests standing and restoring degraded ecosystems to enhance their carbon storage potential — were referred to as “the forgotten solution.”
- Though conservation of forests and other landscapes could be playing a crucial role in mitigating global climate change, renowned conservationist and UN messenger for peace Dr. Jane Goodall, in a speech delivered last September at the GCAS, said she had personally attended a number of conferences where forests went unmentioned. “Saving the forest is one third of the solution,” Goodall said. “We must not let it be the forgotten solution.”
- That message appears to have been heeded by a number of governments, companies, and civil society groups who committed to major nature-based climate initiatives at the UN Climate Summit held last Monday and the NYC Climate Week that concludes this weekend.
Camera trap study reveals Amazon ocelot’s survival strategies
- Ocelots suffered severe declines in the 1960s and 70s due to hunting, but populations have rebounded since the international fur trade was banned. Now, heavy deforestation and increasing human activity across their range threaten to put this elegant creature back on the endangered list.
- Researchers collected images from hundreds of camera traps set across the Amazon basin and analyzed the effect of different habitat characteristics on the presence of ocelots. Statistical modeling revealed the cat’s preference for dense forests and a dislike of roads and human settlements.
- Experts say ocelots may also be responding to human activity and forest degradation in ways that camera traps cannot easily detect, such as changing how and when they use a particular habitat. The study looked at ocelot behavior in protected and forested habitat, not in degraded landscapes.
- Ocelots are considered ambassador species for their forest ecosystem, and studies like this give support to maintaining protected areas, which are increasingly under threat from agricultural expansion and other human activities.
Loss of Madagascar’s biodiversity is a loss for Earth, Pope says
- On a visit to Madagascar this weekend, Pope Francis denounced the “excessive” forest loss in the country.
- He was speaking at the presidential palace, during a courtesy call to President Andry Rajoelina.
- The pope also visited Mozambique before arriving in Madagascar, where he addressed the ecological disaster faced by the African nation after it was hit by two back-to-back cyclones this year.
- His seven-day tour which includes a day trip to Mauritius on Monday comes to a close on Tuesday.
Half a billion bees dead as Brazil approves hundreds more pesticides
- Exposure to pesticides containing neonicotinoids and fipronil caused the deaths of more than 500 million bees in four Brazilian states between December 2018 and February 2019, according to an investigation by Agência Pública and Repórter Brasil.
- Both classes of chemicals are banned in the European Union, but the Brazilian government under President Jair Bolsonaro is clearing the way for their widespread use.
- With 290 pesticide products approved for use since the start of the year, beekeepers are bracing for an increase in beneficial insect die-off.
- The real toll on bees from pesticide use is likely much larger, given that no one knows how many wild bees have been impacted by indiscriminate spraying, including in areas beyond plantation borders.
Indigenous-managed lands found to harbor more biodiversity than protected areas
- Researchers say they found that amphibian, bird, mammal, and reptile abundance in Australia, Brazil, and Canada is highest on lands managed or co-managed by indigenous communities — higher even than on protected areas like parks and wildlife reserves, which were found to have the second highest levels of biodiversity.
- Both indigenous-managed lands and protected areas harbored more biodiversity than unprotected areas included in the study that the researchers selected at random. The researchers also determined that the size and geographical location of any particular area had no effect on levels of species diversity, suggesting that it’s the land-management practices of indigenous communities that are conserving biodiversity.
- The researchers said their results demonstrate the importance of expanding the boundaries of traditional conservation strategies, which frequently rely on establishing protected areas to conserve critical habitat for biodiversity.
Study shows how to protect more species for less money in western Amazon
- A new study identifies nearly 300 areas for proposed protection in the western Amazon that would give the most bang for the buck in terms of the number of species conserved in this biodiversity hotspot.
- The researchers considered management and lost-opportunity costs in their analyses, and found that the presence of indigenous communities in protected areas can actually bring down the costs of conservation.
- While the estimated cost for protecting these proposed areas is just $100 million a year — less than a hundredth of the GDP of the countries in the western Amazon — the researchers say there needs to be clear political will to implement such a solution.
Small-scale farming is a big threat to biodiversity in the western Amazon: Study
- Smallholder farming poses a significant threat to biodiversity in the western Amazonian forests of northeastern Peru, one of the most biodiverse places on Earth, a study led by researchers at Princeton University has found.
- Small-scale agricultural operations are generally considered to be much less harmful to wildlife than the wholesale clearance and conversion of forests to pasture or cropland, but the study, published in the journal Conservation Biology in May, shows that small-scale farmers’ activities are having a substantially negative impact on wildlife and plant life all the same.
- Plans to build more roads in the northern Peru could exacerbate the situation, but the researchers say their findings have important implications for conservation policy in the western Amazon region and could help point a way towards mitigating the impact of future development.
Altered fish communities persist long after reefs bleach, study finds
- In a new study, bleached reefs in the Indian Ocean archipelago of Seychelles had fewer predators like snappers and groupers and more plant-eating fish such as parrotfish and rabbitfish.
- The researchers found that this change in the composition of fish species persisted for more than a decade and a half after bleaching occurred in 1998.
- Scientists expect bleaching events to occur more frequently as a result of climate change, making it likely that these shifts in fish communities will become permanent.
New film details wrenching impact of illegal rhino horn trade on families
- A new short film, titled Sides of a Horn, looks at the impacts of the illegal trade of rhino horn on a community in South Africa.
- The 17-minute film follows two brothers-in-law, one who is a wildlife ranger and another who contemplates poaching as a way to pay for his ailing wife’s medical care.
- A trip to South Africa in 2016 inspired British filmmaker Toby Wosskow to write and direct the short feature, which was publicly released June 25.
Logging road construction has surged in the Congo Basin since 2003
- Logging road networks have expanded widely in the Congo Basin since 2003, according to a new study.
- The authors calculated that the length of logging roads doubled within concessions and rose by 40 percent outside of concessions in that time period, growing by 87,000 kilometers (54,000 miles).
- Combined with rising deforestation in the region since 2000, the increase in roads is concerning because road building is often followed by a pulse of settlement leading to deforestation, hunting and mining in forest ecosystems.
Mongabay investigative series helps confirm global insect decline
- In a newly published four-part series, Mongabay takes a deep dive into the science behind the so-called “Insect Apocalypse,” recently reported in the mainstream media.
- To create the series, Mongabay interviewed 24 entomologists and other scientists on six continents and working in 12 nations, producing what is possibly the most in-depth reporting published to date by any news media outlet on the looming insect abundance crisis.
- While major peer-reviewed studies are few (with evidence resting primarily so far on findings in Germany and Puerto Rico), there is near consensus among the two dozen researchers surveyed: Insects are likely in serious global decline.
- The series is in four parts: an introduction and critical review of existing peer-reviewed data; a look at temperate insect declines; a survey of tropical declines; and solutions to the problem. Researchers agree: Conserving insects — imperative to preserving the world’s ecosystem services — is vital to humanity.
The mine that promised to protect the environment: A cautionary tale
- In 2004, mining behemoth Rio Tinto made a bold commitment not just to protect but to “improve” the environment at its mining sites in ecologically sensitive areas around the world, through a strategy it called “net positive impact.”
- A site in southeastern Madagascar where it was opening an ilmenite mine amid a gravely threatened coastal forest that’s home to unique species found nowhere else on the planet seemed like a good place to start.
- A little more than a decade later, however, the initiative was dead: facing financial headwinds and falling behind on its pledges, Rio Tinto abandoned the NPI strategy in 2016.
- In an article in the July issue of Scientific American, Mongabay contributor Rowan Moore Gerety tells how Rio Tinto came to make that promise and then to renege on it — and describes the result for Madagascar’s coastal forest and the people who live there.
’Livestock revolution’ triggered decline in global pasture: Report
- Since 2000, the area of land dedicated for livestock pasture around the world has declined by 1.4 million square kilometers (540,500 square miles) — an area about the size of Peru.
- A new report attributes the contraction to more productive breeds, better animal health and higher densities of animals on similar amounts of land.
- The report’s authors say that technological solutions could help meet rising demand for meat and milk in developing countries, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, without reversing the downward trend.
At least one species has been lost on more than half of Earth’s land area
- A study published in the journal Frontiers In Forests And Global Change last week largely supports the conclusions of the IPBES report released last month, determining that there is less intact habitat harboring its original community of life than has previously been estimated. And the authors of the study say their findings show that methods used to determine the most important areas for wildlife conservation using remote sensing and global datasets may not be accurately assessing faunal intactness.
- Researchers found that at least one species has gone extinct on 54.7 percent of our planet’s land area (not including Antarctica), with some sites losing as many as 52 species. Even many forests identified as being intact because they have intact canopies have lost species below the canopy, the researchers found.
- They conclude: “Recent papers have highlighted the small percentage of remaining wilderness or intact sites and yet our results indicate that truly intact sites with a full complement of species are likely to be much rarer still.”
Primates lose ground to surging commodity production in their habitats
- “Forest risk” commodities, such as beef, palm oil, and fossil fuels, led to a significant proportion of the 1.8 million square kilometers (695,000 square miles) of forest that was cleared between 2001 and 2017 — an area almost the size of Mexico.
- A previous study found that 60 percent of primates face extinction and 75 percent of species’ numbers are declining.
- The authors say that addressing the loss of primate habitat due to the production of commodities is possible, though it will require a global effort to “green” the international trade in these commodities.
Exotic pet trade responsible for hundreds of invasive species around the globe
- According to a new study, published in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment last week, Burmese pythons in Florida are just one example of the hundreds of non-native and invasive species that are harming native species and ecosystems around the world thanks to the multibillion-dollar exotic pet trade.
- “The volume of vertebrate animals that are traded worldwide is shocking, even to relatively seasoned invasion biologists,” the study’s lead author, Julie L. Lockwood, a professor at Rutgers University–New Brunswick in the United States, said in a statement. “The market in exotic pets has grown considerably since the 1970s, and so I don’t think most of us fully grasped how expansive the trade has become.”
- Lockwood and colleagues note in the study that research has shown that, of the 140 non‐native reptiles and amphibians known to have been introduced in Florida so far, close to 85 percent arrived via the pet trade.
The Great Insect Dying: How to save insects and ourselves
- The entomologists interviewed for this Mongabay series agreed on three major causes for the ongoing and escalating collapse of global insect populations: habitat loss (especially due to agribusiness expansion), climate change and pesticide use. Some added a fourth cause: human overpopulation.
- Solutions to these problems exist, most agreed, but political commitment, major institutional funding and a large-scale vision are lacking. To combat habitat loss, researchers urge preservation of biodiversity hotspots such as primary rainforest, regeneration of damaged ecosystems, and nature-friendly agriculture.
- Combatting climate change, scientists agree, requires deep carbon emission cuts along with the establishment of secure, very large conserved areas and corridors encompassing a wide variety of temperate and tropical ecosystems, sometimes designed with preserving specific insect populations in mind.
- Pesticide use solutions include bans of some toxins and pesticide seed coatings, the education of farmers by scientists rather than by pesticide companies, and importantly, a rethinking of agribusiness practices. The Netherlands’ Delta Plan for Biodiversity Recovery includes some of these elements.
Out on a limb: Unlikely collaboration boosts orangutans in Borneo
- Logging and hunting have decimated a population of Bornean orangutans in Bukit Baka Bukit Raya National Park in Indonesia.
- Help has recently come from a pair of unlikely allies: an animal welfare group and a human health care nonprofit.
- Cross-disciplinary collaboration to meet the needs of ecosystems and humans is becoming an important tool for overcoming seemingly intractable obstacles in conservation.
The Great Insect Dying: The tropics in trouble and some hope
- Insect species are most diverse in the tropics, but are largely unresearched, with many species not described by science. But entomologists believe abundance is being impacted by climate change, habitat destruction and the introduction of industrial agribusiness with its heavy pesticide use.
- A 2018 repeat of a 1976 study in Puerto Rico, which measured the total biomass of a rainforest’s arthropods, found that in the intervening decades populations collapsed. Sticky traps caught up to 60-fold fewer insects than 37 years prior, while ground netting caught 8 times fewer insects than in 1976.
- The same researchers also looked at insect abundance in a tropical forest in Western Mexico. There, biomass abundance fell eightfold in sticky traps from 1981 to 2014. Researchers from Southeast Asia, Australia, Oceania and Africa all expressed concern to Mongabay over possible insect abundance declines.
- In response to feared tropical declines, new insect surveys are being launched, including the Arthropod Initiative and Global Malaise Trap Program. But all of these new initiatives suffer the same dire problem: a dearth of funding and lack of interest from foundations, conservation groups and governments.
The Great Insect Dying: Vanishing act in Europe and North America
- Though arthropods make up most of the species on Earth, and much of the planet’s biomass, they are significantly understudied compared to mammals, plants, birds, amphibians, reptiles and fish. Lack of baseline data makes insect abundance decline difficult to assess.
- Insects in the temperate EU and U.S. are the world’s best studied, so it is here that scientists expect to detect precipitous declines first. A groundbreaking study published in October 2017 found that flying insects in 63 protected areas in Germany had declined by 75 percent in just 25 years.
- The UK Butterfly Monitoring Scheme has a 43-year butterfly record, and over that time two-thirds of the nations’ species have decreased. Another recent paper found an 84 percent decline in butterflies in the Netherlands from 1890 to 2017. Still, EU researchers say far more data points are needed.
- Neither the U.S. or Canada have conducted an in-depth study similar to that in Germany. But entomologists agree that major abundance declines are likely underway, and many are planning studies to detect population drops. Contributors to decline are climate change, pesticides and ecosystem destruction.
The Great Insect Dying: A global look at a deepening crisis
- Recent studies from Germany and Puerto Rico, and a global meta-study, all point to a serious, dramatic decline in insect abundance. Plummeting insect populations could deeply impact ecosystems and human civilization, as these tiny creatures form the base of the food chain, pollinate, dispose of waste, and enliven soils.
- However, limited baseline data makes it difficult for scientists to say with certainty just how deep the crisis may be, though anecdotal evidence is strong. To that end, Mongabay is launching a four-part series — likely the most in-depth, nuanced look at insect decline yet published by any media outlet.
- Mongabay interviewed 24 entomologists and researchers on six continents working in over a dozen nations to determine what we know regarding the “great insect dying,” including an overview article, and an in-depth story looking at temperate insects in the U.S. and the European Union — the best studied for their abundance.
- We also utilize Mongabay’s position as a leader in tropical reporting to focus solely on insect declines in the tropics and subtropics, where lack of baseline data is causing scientists to rush to create new, urgently needed survey study projects. The final story looks at what we can do to curb and reverse the loss of insect abundance.
Altered forests threaten sustainability of subsistence hunting
- In a commentary, two conservation scientists say that changes to the forests of Central and South America may mean that subsistence hunting there is no longer sustainable.
- Habitat loss and commercial hunting have put increasing pressure on species, leading to the loss of both biodiversity and a critical source of protein for these communities.
- The authors suggest that allowing the hunting of only certain species, strengthening parks and reserves, and helping communities find alternative livelihoods and sources of food could help address the problem, though they acknowledge the difficult nature of these solutions.
Conservation groups concerned as WHO recognizes traditional Chinese medicine
- The World Health Organization (WHO) will include traditional Chinese medicine in the revision of its influential International Classification of Diseases for the first time.
- The move concerns wildlife scientists and conservationists who say the WHO’s formal backing of traditional Chinese medicine could legitimize the hunting of wild animals for their parts, which are used in some remedies and treatments.
- The WHO has responded by saying that the inclusion of the practice in the volume doesn’t imply that the organization condones the contravention of international law aimed at protecting species like rhinos and tigers.
The health of penguin chicks points scientists to changes in the ocean
- A recent closure of commercial fishing around South Africa’s Robben Island gave scientists the chance to understand how fluctuations in prey fish populations affect endangered African penguins (Spheniscus demersus) absent pressure from humans.
- The researchers found that the more fish were available, the better the condition of the penguin chicks that rely on their parents for food.
- This link between prey abundance in the sea and the condition of penguin chicks on land could serve as an indicator of changes in the ecosystem.
Interest in protecting environment up since Pope’s 2015 encyclical
- New research into the usage of environmentally related search terms on Google suggests that interest in the environment has risen since Pope Francis released Laudato Si’ in 2015.
- Laudato Si’, a papal encyclical, argues that it is a moral imperative for humans to look after the environment.
- Researchers and scholars believe that the pope’s support for protecting the environment could ripple well beyond the 16 percent of the world’s population that is Catholic.
Public education could curb bushmeat demand in Laos, study finds
- A recent survey of markets in Laos found that the demand for bushmeat in urban areas was likely more than wildlife populations could bear.
- The enforcement of Laos’s laws controlling the wildlife trade appeared to do little to keep vendors from selling bushmeat, but fines did appear to potentially keep consumers from buying bushmeat.
- The researchers also found that consumers could be turned off of buying bushmeat when they learned of specific links between species and diseases.
Climate change spurs deadly virus in frogs in the U.K.
- As temperatures climb, ranaviruses cause more frog deaths over a longer part of the year, according to a new study.
- The researchers combined data from outbreaks of disease caused by ranaviruses in common frogs (Rana temporaria) with laboratory investigations.
- They say that shaded areas and deeper ponds could provide refuges for afflicted animals that might slow the spread of the virus, but they also caution that this “short-term solution” is only a stopgap as the warming climate continues to make life difficult for amphibians.
Social media enables the illegal wildlife pet trade in Malaysia
- Conservationists say that prosecuting wildlife traffickers in Malaysia for trading in protected species isn’t easy, as traders have several loopholes to aid their efforts.
- One wildlife trafficker known as Kejora Pets has been operating in Peninsular Malaysia for years, selling “cute” pets to individuals through social media.
- Malaysia’s wildlife act doesn’t address the posting of protected animals for sale on social media, and operators like Kejora Pets appear to avoid ever being in possession of protected animals, allowing them to skirt statutes aimed at catching illicit traders.
- Proposed changes to Malaysia’s wildlife act could offer some relief to besieged populations of protected species by making it easier to prosecute online trafficking of protected animals.
Climate change is causing marine species to disappear from their habitat twice as fast as land animals
- New research finds that marine animals have disappeared from their habitat due to global warming at twice the rate of wildlife on land.
- According to the study, published late last month in Nature, the loss of whole populations of ocean-dwelling species not only depletes the genetic diversity of those species, but can also trigger a cascade of impacts on predators and prey, thereby altering entire marine ecosystems.
- The heightened vulnerability of marine life to global warming could have significant implications for the food supply and economies of seafood-reliant human communities.
’Unprecedented’ loss of biodiversity threatens humanity, report finds
- The U.N.’s Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services released a summary of far-reaching research on the threats to biodiversity on May 6.
- The findings are dire, indicating that around 1 million species of plants and animals face extinction.
- The full 1,500-page report, to be released later this year, raises concerns about the impacts of collapsing biodiversity on human well-being.
Community buy-in stamps out elephant poaching in Zambian park
- No elephants were poached in Zambia’s North Luangwa National Park in 2018, and the surrounding area had a 50 percent decrease in poached carcasses found.
- The North Luangwa Conservation Programme, a partnership between the Frankfurt Zoological Society and the country’s Department of Parks and Wildlife, has been around since the late 1980s and has focused its efforts on community involvement in stopping poachers from going after elephants, rhinos and other wildlife in the park.
- Staff of the program say the participation of the communities living near the park’s borders is critical to protecting the elephants of North Luangwa.
- The broader Luangwa ecosystem is home to more than 63 percent of Zambia’s elephants.
Sage spending to save species (commentary)
- As we unite to celebrate the 49th Earth Day today, let us also unite to shift the conservation paradigm from intervention to prevention. If we can make the necessary investments to save species of “Least Concern” today, we’ll forego hiring armed guards to save the last of their kind in the future.
- The architecture of the current conservation funding structure is in need of an overhaul to allow greater distribution of resources across all species, regardless of their conservation status, in order to strategically and wisely allocate the life-saving dollars bestowed upon the environmental community.
- Procrastination has a hefty price tag, both in what we stand to lose financially and intrinsically for our planet. While species protection is costly, recovery of the survivors is exponentially greater.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
New paper proposes a science-based ‘Global Deal for Nature’
- A paper published in Science today outlines a new “Global Deal for Nature,” officially launching an effort to establish science-based conservation targets covering all of planet Earth, including terrestrial, freshwater, and marine ecosystems.
- The Global Deal for Nature proposes a target of 30 percent of the planet to be fully protected under the UN Convention on Biological Diversity by 2030. But because much more of Earth’s natural ecosystems need to be preserved or restored in order to avert the worst impacts of runaway global warming, another 20 percent of the planet would be protected under the GDN as Climate Stabilization Areas (CSAs).
- Conservation scientists, environmental NGOs, and indigenous groups are urging governments to adopt the GDN as a companion commitment alongside the Paris Climate Agreement approved by nearly 200 countries in 2015.
Swelling amount of plastic in the ocean confirmed by new study
- A new study used log books from 60 years of plankton research to document the increase in the amount of plastic in the ocean.
- The study’s authors tabulated the entanglements of the continuous plankton recorder, a sampling device that’s towed behind ships, revealing a significant increase in plastic in the ocean since the 1990s.
- Scientists have long suspected such a trend but have been unable to demonstrate it with data until now.
Scientists urge overhaul of the world’s parks to protect biodiversity
- A team of scientists argues that we should evaluate the effectiveness of protected areas based on the outcomes for biodiversity, not simple the area of land or ocean they protect.
- In a paper published April 11 in the journal Science, they outline the weaknesses of Aichi Biodiversity Target 11, which set goals of protecting 17 percent of the earth’s surface and 10 percent of its oceans by 2020.
- They propose monitoring the outcomes of protected areas that measure changes in biodiversity in comparison to agreed-upon “reference” levels and then using those figures to determine how well they are performing.
To stop extinctions, start with these 169 islands, new study finds
- New research shows that culling invasive, non-native animals on just 169 islands around the world over roughly the next decade could help save almost 10 percent of island-dwelling animals at risk of extinction.
- A team of scientists surveyed nearly 1,300 islands where 1,184 threatened native animals have collided with 184 invasive mammals.
- Their analyses gave them a list of 107 islands where conservationists could start eradication projects by 2020, potentially keeping 80 threatened species from sliding closer to extinction.
Crab season to be cut short in California to protect whales and turtles
- A settlement between the Center for Biological Diversity and the California Department of Fish and Wildlife will close California’s Dungeness crab fishery three months early in 2019 to reduce the chances that whales and other sea life will become entangled in fishing gear.
- The crabbing season in 2020 and 2021 will also be shuttered early in places where high concentrations of whales come to feed in the spring, such as Monterey Bay.
- Conservationists applauded the changes, saying that they will save animals’ lives.
- The Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations was also involved in hammering out the settlement, and its representative said that the new rules, while “challenging,” would help the industry move toward a “resilient, prosperous, and protective fishery.”
Malaysian state chief: Highway construction must not destroy forest
- The chief minister of Sabah, one of two Malaysian states on the island of Borneo, said that the Pan Borneo Highway project should expand existing roads where possible to minimize environmental impact.
- A coalition of local NGOs and scientific organizations applauded the announcement, saying that it could usher in a new era of collaboration between the government and civil society to look out for Sabah’s people and forests.
- These groups have raised concerns about the impacts on wildlife and communities of the proposed path of the highway, which will cover some 5,300 kilometers (3,300 miles) in the states of Sabah and Sarawak.
Madeira River dams may spell doom for Amazon’s marathon catfish: Studies
- Independent monitoring of a giant Amazon catfish population in the Madeira River, a major tributary of the Amazon, confirms that two hydroelectric dams have virtually blocked the species’ homing migration upstream — the longest known freshwater fish migration in the world.
- Research completed in 2018 indicates a serious decline in catches of the gilded catfish (Brachyplatystoma rousseauxii) and other key commercial species on the Madeira, both upstream and downstream of the two dams.
- New monitoring techniques show that the disruption of the migration route raises the risk of extinction for this species, for which researchers have recommended the conservation status be elevated from vulnerable to critically endangered.
- If the gilded catfish and other migratory species are to survive, mechanisms to assist their migration past the dams must be improved, researchers say.
Protecting small, old-growth forests fails to preserve bird diversity: Study
- Recent research suggests that designating small fragments of old-growth temperate forests as protected areas is not sufficient to halt loss of bird diversity, and that better monitoring and management of forests is required to achieve conservation goals.
- A research team led by Jeffrey Brown, a doctoral student at Rutgers University in the U.S., used data spanning a 40-year time period to study bird populations in Mettler’s Woods, a 64-acre old-growth forest within the Rutgers-owned William L. Hutcheson Memorial Forest in the state of New Jersey.
- Mettler’s Woods is one of the last uncut stands of oak-hickory forest to be found in the United States. It would, on its surface, appear to provide ideal habitat for many bird species. But nine birds known to historically inhabit the forest no longer nest there, and many other species have lower populations than expected.
Possible vaquita death accompanies announcement that only 10 are left
- The environmental organization Sea Shepherd said it found a dead vaquita in a gillnet on March 12.
- One day later, scientists from the group CIRVA announced that around 10 — as many as 22 or as few as six — vaquitas survive in the Gulf of California.
- Despite a ban on gillnets used catch totoaba, a fish prized for its swim bladders used in traditional Chinese medicine, vaquita numbers have continued to decline.
New maps show where humans are pushing species closer to extinction
- A new study maps out how disruptive human changes to the environment affect the individual ranges of more than 5,400 mammal, bird and amphibian species around the world.
- Almost a quarter of the species are threatened by human impacts in more than 90 percent of their range, and at least one human impact occurred in an average of 38 percent of the range of a given species.
- The study also identified “cool” spots, where concentrations of species aren’t negatively impacted by humans.
- The researchers say these “refugia” are good targets for conservation efforts.
Freshwater fishes and other threatened but overlooked biodiversity must be new flagships for conservation (commentary)
- Today there are believed to be at least 15,000 species of freshwater fishes. Only 54 percent of them have been assessed under the IUCN Red List, and one-third of these species are considered to be under threat of extinction. For the many species that remain unassessed, or for which there is too little information to make an assessment, the situation is likely to be as bad or worse.
- While there is so much to do, there are only a handful of dedicated freshwater fish conservation organizations, and few have full-time staff. Trout and salmon have received large amounts of attention and, as a consequence, there are many stories of conservation success. There are fewer stories of success for species outside North America and northern Europe. And this is what we will change with Shoal.
- The call by leading conservation agencies for a “new deal for nature” at the next Conference of the Parties of the Convention for Biological Diversity in 2020 needs to be firmly founded on neglected species, particularly freshwater biodiversity. Shoal will engage thousands of people and businesses across the globe who share a love of and stake in the future of freshwater species and healthy, productive wetlands but until now have had little opportunity to engage in the more mainstream conservation movement.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
Proximity to towns stretches giraffe home ranges
- A recent study found that female giraffes that live close to towns have larger home ranges than those living further afield.
- The study’s authors believe that large human settlements reduce giraffes’ access to food and water.
- The team cites the importance of understanding the size of the area that giraffe populations need to survive to address the precipitous decline in the animal’s numbers across Africa in the past 30 years.
You’re gonna need a smaller boat: Media obscures shrinking ‘newsworthy’ fish
- The sizes of certain species of fish that qualify as “newsworthy” have diminished over time, a new study has found.
- The authors scoured English-language newspapers going back to 1869, searching for terms like “massive” and “giant” in mentions of noteworthy fish landings, and compared the reported lengths with the largest specimens on record for that species.
- They found that for some “charismatic megafish,” such as whale sharks and manta rays, the size that qualified as large has declined over time.
- That shifting baseline could pose a problem for conservation efforts because it gives the impression that “there are still a lot of very large fish in the sea,” marine ecologist Isabelle Côté said.
Indigenous hunters vital to robust food webs in Australia
- A new study has found that the removal of indigenous hunters from a food web in the Australian desert contributed to the local extinction of mammal species.
- The Martu people had subsisted in the deserts of western Australia for millennia before the government resettled them to make space for a missile test range in the 1950s.
- A team of researchers modeled the effects of this loss, revealing that the hunting fires used by the Martu helped maintain a diverse landscape that supported a variety of mammals and kept invasive species in check.
Blue whales remember best times and places to find prey
- A new study demonstrates that blue whales in the northern Pacific Ocean use their memories, instead of cues in the environment, to guide them to the best feeding spots.
- The researchers used 10 years of data to discern the movements of 60 blue whales.
- They compared the whales’ locations with spots with high concentrations of prey over the same period.
- The whales’ reliance on memory could make them vulnerable to changes in the ocean brought about by climate change.
In a predator-infested forest, survival for baby birds comes by the road
- Fledglings of a common bird, the white-rumped shama, in a tropical forest in Thailand were more likely to survive if they came from nests near a roadway than if they fledged deeper in the forest, researchers have found.
- The scientists believe that predators’ preference for the forest’s interior at this study site led to the difference in survival rates.
- Still, they caution that the apparent benefits of one road for a small subset of a single species don’t necessarily extend to the broader bird community, and say that planners should avoid building roads through areas of high conservation value.
- More research is necessary to determine if this effect is specific just to this study site.
What’s in a name? The role of defining ‘wilderness’ in conservation
- In a recent opinion piece published in the journal Nature, several ecologists question recent efforts to delineate areas of wilderness and intactness around the world to define conservation targets.
- They argue that it would be better to build broadly supported consensus that includes the perspectives of local and indigenous communities.
- But the leader of a team that recently mapped out the remaining wilderness on land and in the ocean said that identifying these areas and developing new targets that incorporate their conservation is critical because current international agreements do not prioritize their protection.
Conservation groups press world leaders to protect 30% of the planet
- Thirteen nature conservation organizations are urging world leaders to back a plan to protect 30 percent of the world’s surface and oceans by 2030.
- Recent research has shown that less than a quarter of the world’s wilderness still remains.
- The group released a statement as negotiators were meeting in Japan to begin drafting a plan to meet that goal.
Cities could help conserve pollinator communities
- While cities are generally considered to be poorer in biodiversity than rural areas, new research finds that urban areas could actually play a key role in conserving pollinator communities.
- A team of researchers led by scientists at the UK’s University of Bristol studied pollinators and floral resources at 360 sites in four British cities representing all major urban land uses, including allotments (community gardens), cemeteries, gardens, man-made surfaces like parking lots, nature reserves and other green spaces, parks, sidewalks, and road verges.
- After sampling 4,996 insects and documenting 347 flower-visiting pollinator species interacting with 326 plant species, the researchers found that gardens and allotments provide especially good habitat for pollinators, and that lavender, borage, dandelions, thistles, brambles, and buttercups are important plant species for pollinator communities in cities.
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