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topic: Grasslands
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Nepal’s tigers & prey need better grassland management: Interview with Shyam Thapa
- Researcher Shyam Thapa, who recently completed his Ph.D. in ecology, highlights flaws in traditional grassland management methods, particularly in Bardiya National Park.
- Thapa’s findings suggest the need for improved grassland management to enhance the health and numbers of tiger prey species.
- He emphasizes the importance of tailored management approaches based on grassland functionality.
- Implementing his study’s recommendations could potentially increase herbivore numbers in tiger habitats, reducing human-wildlife conflicts, Thapa says.
Brazil’s Cerrado is main beneficiary of 2021 pledge to end deforestation
- The Financial Innovation for Amazonia, the Cerrado and Chaco, or IFACC, has allocated $234.5 million for projects aimed at expanding agriculture to already deforested land in Brazil’s Cerrado grasslands.
- First announced at the COP26 climate summit in 2021, the initiative aims to place small farms on the sustainability agenda by showing that it’s possible to increase profit without clearing native vegetation.
- Funded projects include soybean farming on degraded pastureland and financial incentives for farmers who maintain more preserved native vegetation on their land than the minimum required by law.
Agribusiness bill moves to block grassland protections in Brazilian biomes
- The Brazilian Congress is analyzing a bill that would leave all the country’s non-forestry vegetation unprotected, affecting an area twice the size of the United Kingdom.
- Behind the proposal are the interests of economic sectors such as agribusiness and real estate companies.
- The most affected biome would be the Pantanal wetlands, a Natural World Heritage Site known for its highly biodiverse grasslands and flooded fields.
Brazil risks losing the Pampa grassland to soy farms and sand patches
- Nearly a third of the Brazilian portion of South America’s Pampa grassland has been lost since 1985, largely to agricultural expansion and forestry plantations.
- This biome is often overlooked in comparison to the higher-profile Amazon, Pantanal and Cerrado landscapes, but has greater plant diversity than the others.
- The expansion of agriculture may also be exacerbating an age-old problem in the Pampa, which is the spread of barren, sandy patches of land.
- Efforts to reverse this process, known as arenization, often involve growing eucalyptus plantations, but experts say this commercial approach solves nothing.
In Kenya, vicious ants are nesting birds’ best neighbors, study finds
- The whistling-thorn acacias of East Africa are renowned for hosting aggressive species of ants.
- The ants defend the trees against destructive browsing from the likes of elephants and giraffes, in return for the food and shelter that the trees provide.
- A new study reveals that tree-nesting birds, like starlings, weavers and sparrows, prefer to nest in whistling thorns that host the most aggressive ant species, to take advantage of the ants’ protection against predators like mongooses.
- This important partnership is threatened by invasive African big-headed ants that are spreading in some parts of Kenya.
Keeping herbivores at bay helps in early stages of restoration, studies show
- Excluding herbivores from restoration areas may lead to an increase in both vegetation abundance and plant diversity, according to a new analysis.
- The global-scale analysis, which reviewed hundreds of studies, found that herbivores tend to be more common in areas undergoing restoration and can slow down vegetation recovery.
- While native herbivores play a crucial role in healthy ecosystems, researchers argue it may be beneficial to keep them from entering heavily degraded areas in the early stages of restoration.
- The impact of herbivores on restoration varies, and project managers should consider timing and local conditions when deciding whether to exclude, tolerate, or introduce herbivores.
Kenyan pastoralists fight for a future adapted to climate change (commentary)
- Pastoralism provides much of the milk and protein consumed in Kenya, but it faces a perilous future especially from climate change but also a lack of infrastructure and land rights.
- Recent droughts have exacerbated the challenges, leading to conflict between pastoralist communities struggling to find enough forage and water for livestock.
- Fresh ideas and new programs are arising to help ease the situation in areas of northern Kenya, from where this dispatch originates.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.
Do tree-planting projects on grasslands increase fire risk?
- Global tree-planting initiatives, aimed at storing carbon from the atmosphere, could include plantations in fire-prone African savannas.
- 58% of tree plantations grown in South African grasslands between 1980 and 2019 burned, polluting water and releasing carbon dioxide back into the air.
- As efforts to plant trees for carbon storage in Africa expand, researchers suggest cutting fossil-fuel emissions would be a better approach — but scientists are hotly debating the issue.
Ken Burns discusses heartbreak & hope of ‘The American Buffalo,’ his new documentary
- Mongabay’s Liz Kimbrough spoke with documentary filmmaker Ken Burns about his upcoming documentary, “The American Buffalo,” which premieres in mid-October.
- The buffalo was nearly driven to extinction in the late 1800s, with the population declining from more than 30 million to less than 1,000, devastating Native American tribes who depended on the buffalo as their main source of food, shelter, clothing and more.
- The film explores both the tragic near-extinction of the buffalo as well as the story of how conservation efforts brought the species back from the brink.
- Burns sees lessons in the buffalo’s story for current conservation efforts, as we face climate change and a new era of mass extinction.
Revealed: Why the UN is not climate neutral
- The UN has long championed the need for urgent climate solutions. It has claimed to be at least 95% “climate neutral” every year since 2018, largely through the use of carbon credits.
- The New Humanitarian teamed up with Mongabay to investigate the UN’s claims of climate neutrality. In an investigation that took a year and spanned multiple countries, reporters obtained details about carbon credits purchased by 33 UN entities, representing more than 75% of its reported offset portfolio since 2012.
- More than a dozen of the projects that issued the UN’s carbon credits were linked to reports of environmental damage, displacement, or health concerns. Others were deemed worthless by a number of leading climate experts.
Has the Buddha’s legacy in Nepal helped save sarus cranes?
- Nepali conservationists say they believe there’s a possible link between the Buddha’s legacy and the conservation of sarus cranes in Lumbini, Nepal, where he was born.
- A wetland sanctuary for the cranes in Lumbini and local traditional farming practices may have helped the species survive, they say.
- But the cranes face a host of challenges and threats such as habitat loss, electrocution, hunting and large-scale infrastructure development.
Translocation hurdles prompt new efforts to save rare swamp deer in Nepal
- Swamp deer, a rare and threatened species, have disappeared from Chitwan National Park after a failed translocation attempt.
- A new study maps the potential habitat of swamp deer in Nepal’s western Terai and suggests ways to conserve and restore the habitat.
- Researchers and officials stress the need for improving connectivity between habitats in Nepal and India and creating a second population of swamp deer in Chitwan.
Sheep offer a livelihood for Kenyan farmers, and a lifeline for a rare bird
- Farmers and conservationists in Kinangop, a grassland plateau in Kenya, are rearing sheep to conserve a bird species that’s restricted to the grasslands.
- The 77,000-hectare (190,000-acre) Kinangop Plateau is the global stronghold of the endangered Sharpe’s longclaw (Macronyx sharpei), a bird found only in Kenya.
- The grasslands are composed almost entirely of privately owned land, and the latest survey shows that less than 1% of what remains is suitable habitat for Sharpe’s longclaw.
Degraded, but not defunct: Modified land still has wildlife value, study says
- Researchers studying how species respond to repeated and rapid land cover changes say more focus needs to be placed on preserving the biodiversity value of human-dominated landscapes.
- With much of the world’s intact ecosystems now modified by humans, the study warns that without careful management, species will be lost each time land is converted from one land-use type to another, such as when forestry is transitioned to plantation or agriculture.
- The researchers call for biodiversity impact assessments when land is proposed for conversion, regardless of whether it is intact primary habitat or considered “degraded” land.
- They also recommend the identification, preservation and restoration of natural features of landscapes, such as forest fragments, large and old trees, and wetlands, which can serve as vital refuges for species between successive land conversions.
Tested by COVID and war, an Indigenous conservation system in Ethiopia prevails
- For more than 400 years, communities in the Guassa grasslands of Ethiopia’s central highlands have practiced a sustainable system for managing the area’s natural resources.
- The system’s robustness was severely tested from 2020 with the one-two punch of COVID-19 and the Tigray war, but held strong.
- Threats to the grassland persist, however, from a growing population and road projects, which the community hopes to address through ecotourism initiatives as an alternative source of income.
- The Guassa Community Conservation Area is home to rare plant and wildlife species such as gelada baboons, Ethiopian wolves, and the versatile guassa grass that’s a central part of community life.
Nepal’s rhinos are eating plastic waste, study finds
- A study found plastic waste in the dung of one-horned rhinos in Nepal’s Chitwan National Park, which could harm their health and survival.
- The plastic waste comes from the rivers that flood the park during monsoon season, as well as from visitors who litter the park.
- The study suggested that the government and its conservation partners should conduct clean-up programs and implement sustainable waste management plans to protect the rhinos, which are a vulnerable species.
Volunteers, First Nations work to bring back a disappearing oak prairie
- The rain-shadow regions of North America’s Pacific Northwest, stretching from British Columbia to Oregon, are home to a unique carbon-rich oak-prairie ecosystem dominated by Garry oaks and several species of grasses and shrubs, including endemic plants.
- The ecosystem also holds a special significance in the way of life for the Indigenous peoples in the region, who have stewarded it for millennia and depended on it for food.
- In the past few centuries, however, rapid urbanization, agricultural expansion, development along the coast and proliferation of invasive plants have destroyed more than 95% of the ecosystem, pushing it toward near-extinction.
- Communities, partnering with different national and regional agencies, First Nations and nonprofits, are working to restore and preserve the remnants using various strategies, many of which have borne fruit.
Fires threaten Afromontane forests’ ‘whole new world’: Q&A with Martim Melo
- A group of international and local scientists has warned of the threat to a key piece of one of Africa’s most threatened habitats: the Afromontane forests that occur in the highlands of western Angola.
- The scientists recently discovered up to 10 new species living in the patches of evergreen forest in the Namba Mountains.
- But pressure from growing human settlements nearby, mainly uncontrolled fires in the grasslands that surround the forests, threatens to overwhelm this unique ecosystem.
- Scientists are calling for the government and international agencies to establish a protected area to preserve this biodiverse hotspot.
Lack of large prey may be feeding rise in Nepal’s human-tiger conflicts
- Nepal has been lauded for its success in nearly tripling its wild tiger population in the past 12 years, but a consequence of that has been an increase in human-tiger conflicts.
- One factor for this is the lack of large-sized prey for the big cats in Bardiya National Park, home to a third of Nepal’s 355 tigers.
- Tigers here frequently prey on livestock in nearby human settlements, unlike the tigers in Parsa National Park, where large prey abound.
- Conservationists have called for efforts to reintroduce or boost large prey populations in tiger habitats, including through translocation programs — although previous attempts at these haven’t proved successful.
Rare hispid hares feel the heat from Nepal’s tiger conservation measures
- The deliberate burning of grasslands in Nepal to maintain tiger habitat poses a threat to another endangered species: the elusive and little-known hispid hare.
- The burning is meant to promote the growth of fresh grass shoots for tiger prey, and to prevent grasslands from turning into forests.
- However, intact grasslands are important habitat for hispid hares, which need dense ground cover for resting, feeding and mating.
- Researchers say the annual grassland burning should be done selectively and outside of the hare’s breeding season to save the species.
In Brazil, scientists fight an uphill battle to restore the disappearing Cerrado savanna
- Countries around the world have made ambitious targets to restore native ecosystems as an important nature-based solution, with Brazil committing to restoring 12 million hectares (30 million acres) of native vegetation by 2030.
- While restoration in places like the Amazon has attracted significant funding and resources, non-forested biomes like Brazil’s Cerrado savanna are struggling to attract the same resources, even as it faces some of the highest deforestation rates in years.
- Researchers working on Cerrado restoration are trying to change this, fighting an uphill battle to generate knowledge, strengthen expertise, and scale up restoration.
- But without more resources and focus on national and international policies, they warn that restoration efforts in the Cerrado won’t come close to reaching their targets.
Do tiger-dense habitats also help save carbon stock? It’s complicated
- A new study centered on Nepal’s Chitwan National Park attempts to identify whether there’s a relationship between successful tiger conservation and habitats with high levels of carbon locked away in the vegetation.
- It found that within protected areas, high-density mixed forests had the most carbon stock sequestered in vegetation; however, tiger density was highest in riverine forests.
- This represents a trade-off that conservation planners need to tackle between tiger and carbon conservation.
- Researchers have cautioned against generalizing the findings, saying that more studies and data are needed to better understand the issue.
Carbon credits from award-winning Kenyan offset suspended by Verra
- The carbon offset certifier Verra told Mongabay it had initiated a “quality control review” of the Northern Kenya Grassland Carbon Project, which claims to store carbon by managing Indigenous livestock grazing routes.
- The project has been a darling of carbon market supporters, winning a series of awards at COP27 last year, where it was described as “exemplary” by Kenyan President William Ruto.
- A new report by the advocacy group Survival International said the offset was altering long-standing Indigenous herding practices and couldn’t accurately account for how much carbon it was removing from the atmosphere.
- Purchasers of carbon credits generated by the product include Netflix, Meta and NatWest.
A liquid biofuels primer: Carbon-cutting hopes vs. real-world impacts
- Liquid biofuels are routinely included in national policy pathways to cut carbon emissions and transition to “net-zero.” Biofuels are particularly tasked with reducing emissions from “hard-to-decarbonize” sectors, such as aviation.
- Three generations of biofuel sources — corn, soy, palm oil, organic waste, grasses and other perennial cellulose crops, algae, and more — have been funded, researched and tested as avenues to viable low-carbon liquid fuels. But technological and upscaling challenges have repeatedly frustrated their widespread use.
- Producing biofuels can do major environmental harm, including deforestation and biodiversity loss due to needed cropland expansion, with biofuel crops sometimes displacing important food crops, say critics. In some instances, land use change for biofuels can add to carbon emissions rather than curbing them.
- Some experts suggest that the holy grail of an efficient biofuel is still obtainable, with much to be learned from past experiments. Others say we would be better off abandoning this techno fix, investing instead in electrifying the transportation grid to save energy, and rewilding former biofuel croplands to store more carbon.
Scientists map nearly 10 billion trees, stored carbon, in Africa’s drylands
- A recent study has mapped the locations of 9.9 billion trees across Africa’s drylands, a region below the Sahara Desert and north of the equator.
- The research, which combined satellite mapping, machine learning and field measurements, led to an estimate of 840 million metric tons of carbon contained in the trees.
- This figure is much lower than the amount of carbon held in Africa’s tropical rainforests.
- However, these trees provide critical biodiversity habitat and help boost agricultural productivity, and this method provides a tool to track both degradation and tree-planting efforts in the region.
Lula wants to mirror Amazon’s lessons in all biomes, but challenges await
- A new decree intends to protect all of Brazil’s biomes and promote sustainable development in arguably one of the country’s most ambitious environmental policies to date.
- The mandate establishes action plans for the Amazon Rainforest, Cerrado savanna, Atlantic Forest, semi-arid Caatinga, Pampas grasslands and Pantanal wetlands, based on past strategies in the Amazon that have already proven successful against deforestation.
- Environmentalists have welcomed the decree amid the country’s surging deforestation levels and rising greenhouse emissions during the past four years under Jair Bolsonaro’s rule.
- The decree’s implementation won’t be easy, experts warn, and its success depends on coordinated action across all levels of the government, increased personnel in struggling environmental enforcement agencies and highly tailored plans for each biome.
‘Grumpiest cat’ leaves its calling card on the world’s highest mountain
- The presence of the manul, a cold-adapted wild cat the size of a domestic cat, has been confirmed on the slopes of the world’s highest mountain, thanks to scat samples retrieved from there in 2019.
- The confirmation by DNA testing marks the first time the elusive cat has been formally recorded in Nepal’s eastern Himalayan region.
- The first confirmed sighting of the manul, also known as Pallas’s cat, in Nepal came in 2012, in the country’s western Himalayan region.
- Conservationists say the latest finding can help inform conservation actions for the species, including the protection of its prey.
Zero-deforestation commitments can push agriculture to other rich biomes, study warns
- Zero-deforestation commitments (ZDCs) made by the palm oil industry and adopted by producers of other crops as well focus on preserving rainforests, while leaving other biomes unprotected.
- New research by the University of York shows that even if current ZDCs are fully met, around 167 million hectares of mostly tropical grassy and dry forest would remain open for agricultural expansion.
- Often confused with degraded areas that emerge after clearing the rainforest, those biomes are actually rich and biodiverse and also play a role in storing and capturing carbon.
- New EU legislation approved in December adds extra protection for rainforests, but could push even more agricultural production to other biomes, most of them in Africa and Latin America.
Counterintuitive: Large wild herbivores may help slow climate change
- Large animals, especially herbivores such as elephants, are often seen as being destructive of vegetation, so are not thought of as a nature-based climate solution. Scientists are proving otherwise.
- By removing living and dead plants, large animals dispose of material that may fuel wildfires, which can add large amounts of carbon to the atmosphere; by consuming vegetation and excreting dung, large animals may improve the availability of nutrients to plants and support the storage of carbon in vegetation and soil.
- By creating gaps in the vegetation and dispersing seeds, large animals create diverse ecosystems with plenty of opportunities for a variety of plants to grow, making ecosystems more resilient and better able to deal with climate change.
- By nibbling down polar region shrubs and trampling snow, large animals help maintain permafrost, helping prevent the release of carbon to the atmosphere.
New Brazil bill puts cattle pasture over Pantanal wetland
- A bill loosening restrictions on cattle ranching in the Pantanal wetland has been approved by the Mato Grosso’s state legislature, prompting concerns it could lead to the loss of thousands of hectares of native vegetation.
- The Pantanal is a major transitional area between the country’s other major biomes — the Amazon Rainforest, the Atlantic Forest, and the Cerrado grasslands — and its wet area has already shrunk 29% since the 1980s.
- Advocates say they hope the new bill will bring an additional 1 million head of cattle to the Pantanal and improve declining socioeconomic parameters, but critics have warned of long-term environmental impacts.
- Another bill, currently being heard in Congress, aims to cut the state of Mato Grosso out from the country’s legally defined Amazon region, further reducing the protection of the biomes within the state.
Rains quell fire risk around Cambodia’s Tonle Sap, but the future looks fiery
- Cambodia has received an unusually high volume of rain since December, generally the start of the dry season, which has led to a relative lull in fire activity.
- According to NASA satellite data, there were only two high-confidence fire alerts reported in the forested area around Tonle Sap, Cambodia’s largest lake, between April 1 and July 1 this year, compared to 45 such alerts recorded during the same period in 2021.
- This year’s heavy rain, while a welcome respite, isn’t expected to last as temperatures rise and droughts increase in frequency due to climate change.
- Tonle Sap’s water levels have already been dropping for years, according to authorities; to mitigate future threats, the Department of Fisheries Conservation is rolling out provincial-level plans to respond to forest fires in the lake’s drying floodplain.
New near-real-time tool reveals Earth’s land cover in more detail than ever before
- A new tool co-developed by Google Earth Engine and the World Resources Institute is being billed as the planet’s most up-to-date and high-resolution global land cover mapping data set, giving unprecedented levels of detail about how land is being used around the world.
- The launch of the tool this week marks a big step forward in enabling organizations and governments to make better science-based, data-informed decisions about urgent planetary challenges, the developers say.
- Named Dynamic World, it merges cloud-based artificial intelligence with satellite imagery to give near-real-time global visualizations of nine types of land use and land cover.
- The tool is likely to be important for a variety of purposes, the developers say, such as monitoring the progress of ecosystem restoration goals, assessing the effectiveness of protected areas, creating sustainable food systems, and alerting land managers to unforeseen land changes like deforestation and fires.
‘Protecting snow leopards benefits other species’: Q&A with Rinzin Phunjok Lama
- Rinzin Phunjok Lama is an award-winning conservation biologist who studies one of the most elusive big cats in the world: the snow leopard.
- Based in Nepal’s Trans-Himalayan region, he puts his conservation learnings to practical use, working with local communities to minimize human-wildlife conflict, the main threat to the snow leopard.
- An evolving threat is climate change, which is pushing other top predators, including leopards and Himalayan black bears, into snow leopard territory, putting them in direct competition for prey.
Lama says that while the climate threat is largely out of conservationists’ control, there’s still room to work on the human threat, including helping communities build alternative livelihoods that don’t put them in conflict with snow leopards.
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.
Brazil bill seeks to redraw Amazon borders in favor of agribusiness
- A new bill before Brazil’s Congress proposes cutting out the state of Mato Grosso from the country’s legally defined Amazon region to allow greater deforestation there for agribusiness.
- Under the bill, known as PL 337, requirements to maintain Amazonian vegetation in the state at 80% of a rural property’s area, and 35% for Cerrado vegetation, would be slashed to just 20% for both.
- The approval of the bill would allow for an increase in deforestation of at least 10 million hectares (25 million acres) — an area the size of South Korea — and exempt farmers from having to restore degraded areas on their properties.
- Environmental law specialists warn that the departure of Mato Grosso from under the administrative umbrella of the Legal Amazon would set off a domino effect encouraging the eight other states in the region to push for similar bills.
Study: Farmland birds in Nepal, India in dire need of conservation action
- A new study shows that Nepal’s farmlands are an important habitat for a quarter of the bird species found in the country.
- The researchers also found that different agriculture practices influenced the abundance of birds: sugarcane fields attracted the greatest diversity of species, while rice fields had the highest number of individual birds.
- The study provides a baseline for tracking farmland birds and informing policies for their conservation, given that they’re found outside of formally protected areas.
- The findings also highlight the differences between the characteristics and threats faced by farmland bird populations in Nepal (and neighboring India), and those in countries where agriculture is more industrialized and mechanized.
Stamping out savanna fires doesn’t bolster carbon sink by much, study finds
- Stamping out fires in the African savanna generates smaller carbon sequestration gains than previously thought, an analysis published in the journal Nature found.
- The data from a decades-long experiment in South Africa’s Kruger National Park raises questions about whether fire suppression in savannas can help in combating climate change, according to an accompanying commentary.
- Shrubs and grasses that make up the savanna store more carbon below ground, on average, than forests, which is one reason why fires aren’t as damaging in these landscapes.
- Even for plots in the national park subject to intense fire activity, the researchers found that root and soil carbon stores are largely preserved.
Civil conflict in Cameroon puts endangered chimpanzees in the crosshairs
- Declared a national park in 2009, Mount Cameroon hosts an array of biodiversity, including endangered Nigeria-Cameroon chimpanzees.
- Efforts to protect the area have been complicated by an armed conflict, the Anglophone crisis, that has displaced hundreds of thousands of people and pushed both refugees and armed combatants into the area’s forests.
- The conflict compounds existing conservation challenges including population pressure, land clearing and conversion, demand for bushmeat, and weak law enforcement.
Pay or punish? Study looks at how to engage with farmers deforesting the Cerrado
- Businesses and countries are renewing their commitments to reducing deforestation in supply chains, but disagreements still exist over what the most effective, efficient and equitable tools are to make that happen.
- In the Brazilian Cerrado, the world’s most biodiverse savanna, soybean production is one of the key industries driving rampant deforestation and conversion of native vegetation.
- While some observers favor the “carrot” approach of paying farmers not to deforest, others advocate for a “stick” approach that would cut market access for farmers who deforest.
- A new study says that in the case of the Cerrado, just using a stand-alone policy that pays farmers not to deforest would be expensive, inefficient and inequitable, and that some measure of market exclusion is also needed.
Fires threaten vital peatland in Chile’s Tierra del Fuego
- Fires that started in mid-January continue to burn through forest, peatland and grassland near Chile’s Karukinka Natural Park on the island of Tierra del Fuego, the southernmost tip of the Americas.
- Conservationists are especially worried about the damage being done to the peatlands, an ecosystem that sequesters twice as much carbon as the Earth’s entire forest cover.
- Members of the Selk’nam Indigenous group, which was expelled from the area more than a century ago and is now attempting to return, say they’re concerned about the preservation of their ancestral territory.
- Due to the logistical difficulties of combating fires in such a remote area, rangers at the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) say they’re hoping for international assistance from Argentina and the United States.
As its end looms, Cerrado tracker records 6-year deforestation high
- The satellite-based deforestation-monitoring program focused on Brazil’s vast Cerrado savanna may end in April because of lack of funding, with some members of the team reportedly already laid off.
- Unlike the monitoring program for the Amazon, the one for the Cerrado isn’t included in the government budget and relies on external financing, which dried up in August 2020; since then, the program team has had to scrounge for funding from other projects and institutions.
- Sharing the scientists’ concerns is the agribusiness sector, which relies on the data to prove that its commodity is deforestation-free, and which has blasted the government’s “blurred” vision with regard to failing to fund the monitoring program.
- News of the impending closure of the monitoring program comes a week after its latest data release showed an area six times the size of the city of São Paulo was cleared between August 2020 and July 2021 — the highest deforestation rate in the Cerrado since 2015.
Getting African grasslands right, for people and wildlife alike: Q&A with Susanne Vetter
- Africa’s vast grasslands are well known for their iconic wildlife, but far less appreciated for the other ecosystem services they provide, including sequestering immense amounts of carbon and supporting millions of people practicing the ancient occupation of livestock herding.
- Susanne Vetter, a plant ecologist at Rhodes University in South Africa, studies the roles not only of plants but also of people in these landscapes.
- Through her work she has gained a rosier view of pastoralism, and its ability to coexist with wildlife, than many conservationists and policymakers hold.
- Mongabay recently interviewed Susanne Vetter via email about common misconceptions of African grasslands and the pastoralist communities who depend on them.
Agricultural frontier advances in Nicaraguan biosphere reserve
- The Río San Juan Biosphere Reserve in Nicaragua encompasses some 1.8 million hectares, as well as smaller protected areas such as Indio Maíz Biological Reserve, Los Guatuzos Wildlife Refuge, the Fortress of the Immaculate Conception, Bartola Nature Reserve, and the Solentiname Islands.
- The Río San Juan Biosphere Reserve lost around 600,000 hectares of forest between 2011 and 2018.
- Satellite data show forest loss has intensified in the northern and central parts of the reserve since 2018, and only fragmented portions of primary forest remain.
- Sources said that the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources and the National Forestry Institute are responsible for ensuring the effective conservation of the country’s protected areas, but that they are not currently fulfilling their monitoring duties.
Decline of threatened bird highlights planning importance of bison releases
- In a recent study, a team of biologists found that the release of American bison (Bison bison) on a small section of North American grassland led to declines in a species of bird called the bobolink (Dolichonyx oryzivorus), likely because the density of the bison in the fenced-in study area was too high.
- Bison once numbered in the tens of millions on the Great Plains, but hunting drove the population down to around a thousand by the end of the 1800s.
- Concerted efforts to protect remaining wild populations and reintroduce the animal to parts of the Plains has resulted in a resurgence, and the species is no longer in danger of imminent extinction.
- However, the results of the bobolink study reveals that bison releases and reintroductions must be done carefully to avoid negative impacts on the broader ecosystem.
As Ethiopia’s war rages, a 400-year-old conservation site is scarred by battle
- A major fire has burned more than 1,000 hectares (nearly 2,500 acres) of grassland in the Guassa Community Conservation Area in Ethiopia’s central highlands.
- The area is among the oldest examples of community-managed conservation in Africa, centered on preserving the Festuca grass that is used for thatching roofs.
- The grasslands are also home to endangered Ethiopian wolves and gelada baboons, and more recently have become a favored ecotourism site.
- It’s still unclear what triggered the blaze, but the area was the site of a battle in Ethiopia’s ongoing civil war in late November.
For South Africa’s dwindling renosterveld, there’s now a ‘panic button’ app
- The renosterveld shrubland once covered the Swartland and Overberg regions of western South Africa, but its rich soils led farmers to clear it for agriculture.
- Remaining fragments continue to provide habitat for birds like endangered black harriers and vulnerable southern black korhaans, and mammals like the grey rhebok, a near-threatened antelope.
- A “panic button” app has been developed in South Africa to alert the authorities to threats facing the renosterveld, the country’s most endangered ecosystem.
New study helps cattle ranchers monitor ecological impact on U.S. rangelands
- A new study lays out 20 indicators that could prove useful to U.S. cattle ranchers trying to better quantify the ecological impact of their operations on rangeland ecosystems.
- In recent years, ranchers have expressed confusion about the benefits of ecological regulatory programs, pointing to the need for a uniform methodology for understanding cattle ranching’s impact on the environment.
- Some of the indicators include soil stability, water quality, diversity of native plants and bird diversity, soil compaction, ground cover, plant productivity, rancher satisfaction with livelihood, capacity to experiment and community health, among others.
- While this study doesn’t instruct ranchers on how or why to apply these 20 indicators, they lay the groundwork for future studies that could instruct ranchers on how to best monitor their operations.
Timmermans vs. Bolsonaro: Will the EU get deforestation off our dinner plates? (commentary)
- The European Commission is drafting a plan to address deforestation linked with commodity supply chains.
- But Nico Muzi, Europe Director of global environmental group Mighty Earth and member of the EU Commission Expert Group on protecting and restoring the world’s forests, argues the measure has a significant loophole for soy-based animal feed and leather from Brazil.
- “The leaked plan has several major loopholes that would substantially and unnecessarily weaken its impact even as deforestation in Brazil surges,” Muzi writes. “Even while the law would protect parts of the Amazon rainforest, it would still allow big agriculture companies like Cargill to continue to drive large-scale deforestation right next door in Brazil’s Cerrado savanna and Pantanal wetlands and export the products of that destruction to Europe.”
- The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
Fires bear down on Brazil park that’s home to jaguars, maned wolves
- Thousands of fires caused by humans in Brazil’s Cerrado savanna region continue to spread, with several fires around and inside Chapada dos Veadeiros National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
- The park is home to dozens of rare and threatened species as well as the source of many important rivers and waterways; experts warn the intensity of the fires could permanently damage the natural vegetation.
- The fires don’t come as a surprise to many scientists who had predicted earlier this year that ongoing drought, rising rates of deforestation, and lack of enforcement would build up to a severe fire season.
- Every single month this year has seen above-average levels of fire in the Cerrado, with more than 36% of all fires in Brazil this year concentrated in this biome, even though it only covers just over 20% of Brazil’s land mass.
The Pantanal is burning again. Will it be another devastating year?
- Fires have reignited in the Pantanal region of South America, the world’s largest tropical wetland, a year after it lost 30% of its biome to the catastrophic fires of 2020.
- With more than 700,000 hectares (1.7 million acres) of the Pantanal already burned, some experts say this year’s fires could be nearly as devastating as last year’s if the situation is not carefully managed and the current fires are not contained.
- Others are not as concerned, noting that fire is part of the natural ecological process in the Pantanal, and that this year’s fires aren’t nearly as damaging or substantial as last year’s.
- One marked difference between 2020 and 2021 is this year’s increased efforts to fight the fires, with government agencies, NGOs and communities working together to protect the Pantanal.
Fires rage in Bolivia’s Chiquitania region
- Authorities are battling an outbreak of wildfires in eastern Bolivia’s Chiquitania region.
- Satellite data show fires have intensified over the past two weeks and are invading protected areas.
- The fires are destroying habitat spared by Bolivia’s extreme fire season of 2019.
- Wildfires in Bolivia are often associated with burning for agriculture, and satellite data and imagery show recent fires on agricultural land that directly preceded nearby blazes that have spread into protected forest.
‘Carving up my country’: Land clearing reignites fracking debate in Western Australia
- A recent data analysis shows that a single energy company has cleared 14,000 kilometers (8,700 miles) of vegetation for roads in the Kimberley, the northernmost part of Western Australia, Australia’s largest state, for fracking and mining exploration.
- The exploration occurred on First Nations’ territory, including those of the Yawuru people, recognized as “Traditional Owners” for their cultural associations with the land.
- Despite years of talk from government departments and industry, there is still no certainty about the rights of Traditional Owners to approve or veto such developments.
- Conservationists also warn this fracking exploration will enable the spread of feral cats who prey on native and endangered animals, one of Australia’s most pressing biodiversity issues.
End of deforestation tracker for Brazil’s Cerrado an ‘incalculable loss’
- For 20 years, Brazil’s space agency, INPE, has run a program monitoring deforestation and fire risk in the Cerrado savanna, a global biodiversity hotspot.
- But that program may be shut down at the end of this year due to a lack of money, after a funding agreement with the World Bank ended last year.
- Scientists, civil society groups, and the soy industry have all spoken out against allowing the program to end, calling it an “incalculable loss”; soy traders, in particular, depend on the data to prove their commodity is deforestation-free.
- INPE’s data is also crucial in guiding the work of environmental regulators, which has grown increasingly urgent in light of projections that the entire biome could collapse within 30 years under current rates of deforestation.
Debt deal with deforester BrasilAgro puts UBS’s green commitment in question
- Despite its sustainability rhetoric, Swiss bank UBS has financed controversial land developer BrasilAgro with a bond issuance that raised $45.5 million. The operation is part of a broader strategy to profit from Brazilian agribusiness, including the consolidation of a joint venture with the Brazilian bank.
- BrasilAgro is allegedly responsible deforesting nearly 22,000 hectares (54,000 acres) of native vegetation in its farms in Brazil’s Cerrado region and was fined $1.1 million by Brazil’s environmental protection agency for illegal deforestation.
- The financial product chosen to raise money for BrasilAgro, a CRA or “agribusiness receivable certificate,” is backed by future harvests and has been a favored tool used to raise record amounts of money from the capital markets for Brazilian agribusiness firms over the past several years.
- Although there are hopes that CRAs could support sustainable practices in Brazil, financial data reviewed by Mongabay show that the largest issuances in recent months have all been for highly controversial companies such as BrasilAgro, JBS and Minerva.
Cerrado desertification: Savanna could collapse within 30 years, says study
- Deforestation is amplifying climate change effects in the Brazilian Cerrado savanna biome, making it much hotter and drier. Researchers observed monthly increases of 2.24°C (4.03°F) in average maximum temperatures between 1961 and 2019. If this trend persists, temperature could be 6°C (10.8°F) higher in 2050 than in 1961.
- Cerrado air moisture is decreasing partly due to the removal of trees, which bring water up from as much as 15 meters (nearly 50 feet) underground to carry on photosynthesis during the dry season. Replacement of native vegetation by crops also reduces the absorption of sunlight by wild plants and leads to an increase in temperature.
- Even dew, the only source of water for smaller plants and many insects during the dry season, is being reduced due to deforestation and deepening drought. The demise of pollinators that rely on dew may prompt a cascading effect adversely impacting the biome’s biodiversity, which could collapse in the next 30 years.
- The Cerrado is often called Brazil’s “water tank,” as it is the source of eight of 12 Brazilian river basins. Its looming biome collapse and deepening drought mean less water for rural and urban populations and for agriculture. Low flows in rivers will also affect hydropower, likely causing energy shortages.
In Scotland, the rewilding movement looks to the past to plan its future
- Scotland, host of the COP26 climate summit this November, is the site of an ambitious rewilding project with a centuries-long timeline for restoring the forests that once blanketed the now-familiar landscape of barren moors.
- The effort brings together a patchwork of private landowners, government landholdings and conservation charities, all working to restore the habitat through tree planting.
- Scotland’s forests cover 19% of its land area, the highest proportion of the four nations that comprise the U.K.; but as a whole, the U.K. is one of the least forested countries in Europe, at 13% compared to the average 38% across the EU.
- Advocates of rewilding say it’s about “helping nature to manage itself”: “We kick-start this process by planting trees so in 30 to 50 years, we can walk away.”
On the Mongolian steppe, conservation science meets traditional knowledge
- Rangelands and the pastoralists who rely on them are an overlooked and understudied part of global conservation.
- Tunga Ulambayar, country director for the Zoological Society of London’s Mongolia office, says she wants to change this by complementing the scientific understanding with pastoralists’ traditional knowledge of nature.
- “There is no university teaching that kind of traditional knowledge, but if we really aim to care about these regions and their resources, even from an economic perspective, we need this knowledge,” she says.
- Ulambayar also notes that pastoralism, widely practiced in less industrialized countries, is increasingly recognized as an efficient system of resource management and a resilient culture.
‘Bad science’: Planting frenzy misses the grasslands for the trees
- Planting trees by the millions has come to be considered one of the main ways of reining in runaway carbon emissions and tackling climate change.
- But experts say many tree-planting campaigns are based on flawed science: planting in grasslands and other non-forest areas, and prioritizing invasive trees over native ones.
- Experts point out that not all land is meant to be forested, and that planting trees in savannas and grasslands runs the risk of actually reducing carbon sequestration and increasing air temperature.
- The rush to reforest has also led to fast-growing eucalyptus and acacia becoming the choice of tree for planting, despite the fact they’re not native in most planting areas, and are both water-intensive and fire-prone.
Can ‘Slow Food’ save Brazil’s fast-vanishing Cerrado savanna?
- The incredibly biodiverse Cerrado is Brazil’s second-largest biome after the Amazon. However, half of the savanna’s native vegetation has already been lost to industrial agribusiness, which produces beef, soy, cotton, corn, eucalyptus and palm oil for export.
- Those wishing to save the Cerrado today are challenged by the lack of protected lands. One response by traditional communities and conservationists is to help the rest of Brazil and the rest of the planet value the Cerrado’s cornucopia of endemic fruits, nuts and vegetables that thrive across South America’s greatest savanna.
- These include the baru nut, the babassu and macaúba coconut, the sweet gabiroba (looking like a small guava), the cagaita (resembling a shiny green tomato), the large, scaly-looking marolo (with creamy pulp and strong flavor), the berry-shaped mangaba, which means “good fruit for eating,” the egg-shaped, emerald-green pequi, and more.
- Small family farmers, beekeepers, traditional and Indigenous communities, Afro-Brazilian quilombolas (runaway slave descendants), socioenvironmental activists, and celebrity chefs have become allies in a fast-expanding slow food network, declaring: “We want to see the Cerrado on the plate of the Brazilian and the world!”
In Japan, scientists look to the past to save the future of grasslands
- Ecologists in Japan recorded several rare and endangered plant species in old grasslands that are not present in younger ones, mirroring findings from other continents that highlight the rich biodiversity of these landscapes.
- Grasslands face growing threats from humans on a global scale, especially land use change like agriculture and urban growth.
- But some human interventions have had a beneficial effect on biodiversity conservation in Japan, such as the maintenance of ski runs, which provide a safe haven for many of the plant species and pollinators that keep grassland ecosystems healthy.
- The study’s lead author says declining interest in skiing among Japanese may threaten the existence of these ancient grasslands.
‘What’s at stake is the life of every being’: Saving the Brazilian Cerrado
- The Cerrado boasts a third of Brazil’s biodiversity and is the largest savanna in South America with 44% of its 10,000 species of plants endemic. And yet, since the colonial period, this semi-arid region was largely ignored, and has even been portrayed as an “infertile, uninhabited region,” nothing more than “a place between places.”
- That all changed over recent decades with agribusiness declaring the Cerrado to be Brazil’s last great agricultural frontier. Today, half of the vast savanna which covers two million square kilometers (770,000 square miles) has been converted to crops of soy, cotton, corn and eucalyptus, or to pasture covered in massive cattle herds.
- As the savanna has been lost, its communities have simultaneously risen to save what’s left. The National Campaign in Defense of the Cerrado, launched in January 2016, has fought an uphill political battle to preserve the region’s native vegetation and biodiversity. The effort has grown more dogged during the Bolsonaro presidency.
- Working with Indigenous and traditional peoples, the organization is striving to build global awareness of the Cerrado’s natural significance and to get more of the region declared as World Heritage sites. “Defending the Cerrado is defending its people,” declares one activist.
Ambitious return to carbon markets to conserve Africa’s forests
- Growth of voluntary carbon market and new investor interest in natural climate solutions in Africa prompts The Nature Conservancy to launch effort to help local enterprises raise $300 million for forest conservation.
- The Africa Forest Carbon Catalyst will initially identify existing projects with potential to protect 100,000 hectares of natural forest or sequester three million tonnes of CO2 over 10 years.
- Clarifying and securing the rights, involvement, and benefits for local communities is a key challenge.
Protesters hold back military takeover of Balkans’ largest mountain pasture
- A 2019 decree by the government of Montenegro sets forth the country’s intention to set up a military training ground in the highland grasslands of Sinjajevina in the northern part of the country.
- But the pastures of Sinjajevina have supported herders for centuries, and scientists say that this sustainable use is responsible in part for the wide array of life that the mountain supports; activists say an incursion by the military would destroy livelihoods, biodiversity and vital ecosystem services.
- A new coalition now governs Montenegro, one that has promised to reevaluate the military’s use of Sinjajevina.
- But with the country’s politics and position in Europe in flux, the movement against the military is pushing for formal designation of a park that would permanently protect the region’s herders and the environment.
Restaura Cerrado: Saving Brazil’s savanna by reseeding and restoring it
- The Cerrado is Brazil’s second largest biome, and the most biodiverse tropical savanna in the world. It is of vital importance for Brazil’s watersheds, for global biodiversity, and is an important but undervalued carbon stock.
- But in recent decades, half of the Cerrado’s native vegetation has been destroyed to make way for cattle, soy, and other agricultural commodities. In the southern Cerrado, scientists are now shifting their focus to restoring the native vegetation
- However, scientific knowledge on savanna restoration is scarce. So one collaborative network, Restaura Cerrado, is bringing together scientists, seed collectors, and the public to advance practical knowledge about restoration. The group’s goal is to achieve the means for ongoing effective Cerrado restoration.
- Restaura Cerrado is a collaboration between ICMBio, the University of Brasília, the Cerrado Seeds Network, and Embrapa (the Brazilian Agriculture and Animal Husbandry Research Enterprise); together they hope to use restoration to bring sustainable development to the savanna region.
Hope and peace: Bison return to the Rosebud reservation
- The Sicangu Lakota Oyate, the Native nation living on the Rosebud Indian Reservation in the U.S. state of South Dakota, released 100 American bison onto part of an 11,300-hectare (28,000-acre) pasture.
- The project is a collaboration between the Sicangu Oyate’s economic arm, REDCO, the U.S. Department of the Interior, and WWF.
- Over the next five years, the leaders of the Wolakota Buffalo Range project hope to expand the herd to 1,500 buffalo, which would make it the largest owned by a Native nation.
Podcast: Is Brazil’s biodiverse savanna getting the attention it deserves, finally?
- On this episode of the Mongabay Newscast we look at how the largest and most biodiverse tropical savanna on Earth, Brazil’s Cerrado, may finally be getting the conservation attention it needs.
- We’re joined by Mariana Siqueira, a landscape architect who’s helping to find and propagate the Cerrado’s natural plant life, and is collaborating with ecologists researching the best way to restore the savanna habitat.
- Also appearing on the show is Arnaud Desbiez, founder and president of Brazilian NGO ICAS, who describes the Cerrado as an important part of the Brazilian range for the giant armadillo, a species whose conservation could play an important role in protecting what’s left of the Cerrado’s vast biodiversity.
In Brazil’s Pantanal, a desperate struggle to save a hyacinth macaw refuge from fire
- Firefighters are working around the clock to protect a forested ranch in Brazil’s Mato Grosso state that’s an important refuge of the threatened hyacinth macaw.
- The Pantanal wetlands in which the ranch is located are experiencing severe wildfires, sparked by human activity and exacerbated by drought and climate change.
- The São Francisco do Perigara ranch is home to around 1,000 hyacinth macaws — 15% of the total population of the species in the wild, and 20% of its population in the Pantanal.
Harvard’s half-billion land stake in Brazil marred by conflict and abuse
- Harvard University has plowed $450 million of its $40 billion endowment in Brazil, most of it to buying up at least 405,000 hectares (1 million acres) of land in the Cerrado.
- This is a region where major landowners have racked up human rights violations against smallholder farmers and crimes against the environment.
- Most investments in land in this region are purely speculative; while the land goes unused, locals are deprived of their water sources, farmland and other resources.
- Harvard would not comment on its Brazilian investments specifically, but said it is trying to divest from unsustainable ventures. But even as it has trouble finding buyers for the farms, it continues to profit from the appreciating value of the land.
Fires in Argentina’s Paraná Delta are burning ‘out of control’
- Hundreds of fires are currently burning through the Paraná Delta region, an important wetland ecosystem that hosts a range of wildlife in Argentina, raising concerns among conservationists.
- The Paraná River is also experiencing extremely low water levels due to a regional drought, although experts say an exact climatic reason for the drought has yet to be determined.
- Experts say most of the fires have been deliberately lit by people, but they are now raging “out of control” due to drought, lack of rainfall and low river levels.
Brazilian Amazon protected areas ‘in flames’ as land-grabbers invade
- The Área de Proteção Ambiental (APA) Triunfo do Xingu spans some 1.7 million hectares (4.2 million acres). Its dense forests boast a rich diversity of plant and animal species, and it is also home to Indigenous groups and traditional peoples who rely on the forest to survive.
- But the area has come under pressure, becoming one of the most deforested regions in the Amazon in recent years. Overall, the territory has lost nearly 30% of its forest cover, with some 5% cleared in 2019 alone.
- The number of fires has soared in Triunfo do Xingu too. Over the last two months, NASA satellites picked up 3,842 fire alerts in the territory. August and September – when Brazil’s fire season is normally at its peak – are expected to bring even more intense burning.
- The area has emerged as an epicenter of land-grabbing and illegal mining, amid a surge in invaders who are betting that the Bolsonaro administration will eventually loosen or scrap protections of the land they are occupying.
Fires in the Pantanal: ‘We are facing a scenario now that is catastrophic’
- Devastating wildfires that burned out of control in late 2019 and early 2020 in Brazil’s Pantanal wetland are back. Around 1.2 million hectares (3 million acres) in the region have been burned so far.
- The Pantanal is the world’s largest tropical wetland and straddles the borders of Brazil, Paraguay and Bolivia – with Brazil containing the lion’s share.
- The Brazilian Pantanal has seen the number of fires more than double so far in 2020, up some 200% over the same period in 2019. Sources say the fires were started by human activity – likely to clear land for agriculture – and are difficult to control due to a lack of access to the region and because the fires are burning underground, fueled by highly combustible peat and exacerbated by drought.
- Faced with the surging number of fires in June and July, state and federal authorities moved to reinforce bans on burning. However, early signs suggest these measures are doing little to mitigate fires.
Deer droppings help researchers understand sambar antler development
- The sambar is the most widespread deer species in the Asian region, but there are very few studies on their reproduction and antler development cycles.
- A new Sri Lankan study focusing on testosterone levels in sambar droppings sheds light on the link between hormone levels in males with the development cycle of their antlers, though it doesn’t show clear seasonality like in deer in temperate regions.
- The sambar population in Horton Plains National Park in central Sri Lanka is unique in the formation of herds, which can grow to up to 20 individuals, in contrast to the much smaller herds found elsewhere.
- Sambar deer are a flagship species for the conservation of Horton Plains National Park, a unique habitat of montane wet grassland.
Bison: (Back) home on the range
- The Rosebud Indian Reservation in the U.S. state of South Dakota plans to bring the American bison back to around 11,300 hectares (28,000 acres) of prairie on the reservation.
- Over the next five years, tribal groups will work with WWF and the U.S. Department of the Interior to release as many as 1,500 bison on the Wolakota Buffalo Range, which would make it the largest Native American-owned herd in North America.
- The Lakota people of Rosebud have an abiding connection with the bison, or buffalo, and the leaders of the project say that, in addition to the symbolic importance of returning the Lakotas’ “relatives” to their land, the herd will help create jobs, restore the ecological vigor of the landscape, and aid in the conservation of the species.
Grasslands claim their ground in Madagascar
- Grasslands cover most of Madagascar’s land area, but they are often regarded as nothing more than former forests, denuded by human destruction.
- In the last 15 years, scientists from Madagascar and abroad have set out to restore grasslands’ reputation as ancient and valuable ecosystems in their own right.
- New research shows that some of Madagascar’s grass communities are ancient, having co-evolved with natural fires and now-extinct grazing animals such as hippos and giant tortoises.
Tourism has crashed: Are carbon credits the future for funding conservation in Africa?
- Protected areas in Africa are grossly underfunded, leaving them exposed to degradation.
- Tanzania’s Yaeda Valley REDD+ project demonstrates how carbon credits can provide communities and governments economic incentives to protect valuable habitat.
- Real potential to replicate the model elsewhere — and ensure conserving carbon stocks leads to conserving wildlife — remains uncertain.
Feral horses gallop to the rescue of butterflies in distress
- A new study suggests that returning feral horses to grasslands in Czech Republic could increase populations of some threatened butterfly species.
- The research shows that the horses’ grazing creates and maintains short grasslands that some butterfly species thrive in.
- The research points to the importance of considering the impacts of species introductions on the restoration of natural ecosystems.
For India’s flood-hit rhinos, refuge depends increasingly on humans
- Kaziranga National Park in India’s Assam state is home to almost 70 percent of the world’s 3,500 greater one-horned rhinos.
- The park regularly floods during monsoon season. This natural phenomenon is essential to the ecosystem, but can be deadly for animals: 400 animals died in the 2017 floods, including more than 30 rhinos. This year, around 200 animals have died so far, including around a dozen rhinos.
- With increased infrastructure and tourism development around the park, animals’ natural paths to higher ground are often blocked.
- Authorities have responded by building artificial highlands within the park. Some criticize this approach, but park officials credit the highlands for reducing the death toll of this year’s floods.
Europe-bred rhinos join South African cousins to repopulate Rwanda park
- Five critically endangered eastern black rhinos have been flown from Europe to Akagera National Park in Rwanda.
- Eastern black rhino populations across the region are small and isolated, with the risk of inbreeding damaging long-term genetic viability.
- The rhinos come from the European Association of Zoos and Aquaria (EAZA) breeding program and will add vitally needed fresh genetics into Rwanda’s fledgling population, made up of rhinos bred in South Africa.
’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.
Phasepardhis and the lesser florican (commentary)
- Across India, grasslands are highly degraded and mismanaged ecosystems. Often considered wastelands, they face the constant threats of being turned into tree plantations by the Forest Department, devoured by urban expansion and industrial development, or converted for cultivation of agricultural crops.
- At the root of these practices are pre-independence colonial policies. Such policies have continued in post-independence times, severely impacting the habitat and consequently populations of birds like the lesser florican and the great Indian bustard.
- Phasepardi people face a fate similar to their habitat, the grasslands, and their co-inhabitants, the grassland birds. Together with Phasepardhi youth, non-profit organization Samvedana has initiated a process towards conservation of the lesser florican, re-generation of degraded grasslands, and strengthening livelihoods and dignity for the Phasepardhis.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
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.
Flashing lights ward off livestock-hunting pumas in northern Chile
- A new paper reports that Foxlights, a brand of portable, intermittently flashing lights, kept pumas away from herds of alpacas and llamas during a recent calving season in northern Chile.
- Herds without the lights nearby lost seven animals during the four-month study period.
- The research used a “crossover” design, in which the herds without the lights at the beginning of the experiment had them installed halfway through, removing the possibility that the herds were protected by their locations and not the lights themselves.
Deforestation in Brazil’s cerrado falls
- Deforestation in Brazil’s cerrado, a wooded grassland that covers more than two million square kilometers and is the country’s second largest biome, fell 11 precent relative to a year ago.
- According to analysis by Brazil’s national space research institute INPE, deforestation in the cerrado amounted to 6,657 square kilometers for the twelve months ended July 31, 2018, which beat out 2016 as the lowest annual forest loss since at least 2001.
- Last year 7,474 square kilometers of cerrado was cleared.
- By contrast, deforestation in the Amazon has been trending upward since 2012, including a 14 percent rise this year.
In pursuit of the rare bird that vanishes for half the year
- Until recently, the habits and habitats of the Bengal florican remained a mystery: males were easily seen in their seasonally flooded grassland habitat during the breeding season but effectively disappeared for half the year.
- Researchers in India and Nepal combined field surveys, satellite telemetry and remote sensing to model the distribution and assess the critically endangered bird’s movements, survival and home ranges.
- After years of not knowing the birds’ non-breeding whereabouts, the study found that Bengal floricans leave their protected, seasonally flooded breeding areas in favor of unprotected low-intensity agricultural fields and other upland grasslands during their non-breeding season.
This blue-throated hummingbird is new to science — but already endangered
- From Ecuador’s southwestern highlands, ornithologists have described a new species of hummingbird, named blue-throated hillstar after its glittering ultramarine-blue chin and throat feathers.
- The blue-throated hillstar prefers grasslands on the Ecuadoran Andes, which is being rapidly lost to human activity, and researchers think the bird is likely already critically endangered.
- The researchers are now working with the local communities to protect the bird and its habitat.
US could cut emissions more than one-fifth through ‘natural climate solutions’ like reforestation
- A new study looks at the natural solutions that could help the US do its part to keep global warming below 2 degrees Celsius (approximately 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), the goal adopted by the 195 countries who signed the Paris Climate Agreement in December 2015.
- Researchers analyzed 21 natural climate solutions and found that all of them combined could reduce global warming emissions by an amount equivalent to about 21 percent of US net emissions in 2016.
- Of the 21 natural solutions the researchers studied, increased reforestation efforts had the largest carbon storage potential, equivalent to keeping 65 million passenger cars off the road.
Video analysis shows baby birds avoid predators while building strength
- By monitoring grassland bird nests with small video cameras, researchers are learning why and when chicks first venture into the outside world.
- A recent study using video footage showed that nestlings of different species left their nests at different times of the day and over varying lengths of time, from less than one hour to three days for nests with multiple chicks.
- Smaller and more affordable video equipment is allowing scientists to study events, such as bird nest predation and fledging, that happen quickly, generally when humans are absent.
Common ground on the prairie (commentary)
- Good stewardship of our native grasslands is one of the best ways to survive the next weather event. Grasses are rooted in the ground, which enables the soil to absorb and retain more water. That, in turn, prevents sediment, fertilizer, pesticides, and other compounds in the soil from running off into nearby water ways. And by absorbing and storing more water, the land better withstands flood and drought alike.
- Healthy grasslands also serve as a check against climate change, pulling heat-trapping carbon dioxide out of the air and storing it in the soil. Research shows that improving grazing management practices on just one acre of grassland can pull an average of 419 extra pounds of carbon out of the atmosphere each year.
- This is an important message for the governors, mayors, CEOs and producers gathering in San Francisco for the Global Climate Action Summit (GCAS). There, they will demonstrate the progress the public and private sectors have made in reducing carbon emissions and they’ll set ambitious new goals. Land stewardship will be high on the agenda, as it should be.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
Saving rare orchids that are ‘confusingly difficult’ to grow in labs: Q&A with orchid expert Marc Freestone
- Leek orchids are a group of small, native wildflowers found in bushlands across southern Australia. Of the 140-odd leek orchids known today, one-third are at risk of extinction, primarily from habitat loss.
- For some of the more threatened leek orchids with just a handful of plants known to exist, captive breeding and reintroduction to the wild might be the only way to save them, researchers say.
- But leek orchids are notoriously difficult to grow in labs, unlike many other orchids that can be easily artificially propagated.
- Mongabay spoke with orchid expert Marc Freestone who is trying to save leek orchids along with his colleagues at Royal Botanic Gardens Victoria and Australia National University.
Grasslands may trump forests at carbon storage in a warming world
- A new study finds grasslands can be more effective than forests at storing carbon in places prone to drought and wildfire – a condition likely to worsen in many parts of the world.
- This is because grass stores much of its carbon underground in its root mass, which makes it less likely to be released in the event of a fire.
- Its authors say their findings highlight the important role grasslands can play in mitigating global warming. They urge grasslands in semi-arid areas be included in carbon offset schemes and greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets
Bolivia’s Madidi National Park home to world’s largest array of land life, survey finds
- A two-and-a-half-year biological survey of Madidi National Park in Bolivia added 1,382 species and subspecies of plants and animals to the list of those living in the park.
- The team believes that 124 species and subspecies may be new to science.
- WCS, the organization that led the study, said the 18,958-square-kilometer (7,320-square-mile) park is the world’s most biodiverse protected area.
Mining, erosion threaten Indian rhino haven
- India’s Kaziranga National Park, home to the world’s largest population of the greater one-horned rhinoceros, is under great risk of losing its connectivity with the larger Karbi Anglong landscape due to mining, quarrying and river erosion, a new report by the National Tiger Conservation Authority (NTCA) has warned.
- The NTCA report and directive comes in response to a complaint filed by activist Rohit Choudhury alleging significant environmental degradation and habitat destruction in the foothills of Karbi Anglong, a prime elephant habitat during the flood season.
- Illegal mining and stone crushing aside, the NTCA report highlighted river erosion as a “natural threat” to Kaziranga. But experts caution that erosion is a natural part of Kaziranga’s flood-plain ecology, and isn’t necessarily bad.
Tanzania’s Maasai losing ground to tourism in the name of conservation, investigation finds
- An investigation by the Oakland Institute, a policy think tank, has turned up allegations that the government of Tanzania is sidelining the country’s Maasai population in favor of tourism.
- The government and some foreign investors worry that the Maasai, semi-nomadic herders who have lived in the Rift Valley for centuries, are degrading parts of the Serengeti ecosystem.
- The authors of the Oakland Institute’s report argue that approaches aimed at conservation should focus on the participation and engagement of Maasai communities rather than their removal from lands to be set aside for high-end tourism.
India: This draft national forest policy too gives short shrift to grasslands
- The Draft National Forest Policy 2018, which is open for public comments till April 14, has initiated discussions and debates across the country.
- If this draft becomes policy, it will replace the National Forest Policy of 1988. Both the versions give importance to increasing forest and tree cover in the country.
- Experts rue that this draft also misses the opportunity to give importance to grasslands that are home to much biological diversity and support important ecosystem services.
Cerrado: can the empire of soy coexist with savannah conservation?
- With new deforestation due to soy production markedly reduced in recent years by Brazilian laws and by the 2006 Amazon Soy Moratorium, agribusiness, transnational commodities companies like Bunge and Cargill, and investors have shifted their attention to the Cerrado, savannah.
- Four Cerrado states, Maranhão, Tocantins, Piauí and Bahia, known collectively as Matopiba, are seeing a rapid reduction in native vegetation as soy, cotton, corn and cattle production rises. Over half of the Cerrado’s 2 million square kilometers has already been converted to croplands, with large-scale agribusiness owning most land.
- One reason for the focus on the Cerrado: Brazil’s Forest Code requires that inside Legal Amazonia 80 percent of forests on privately held lands be conserved as Legal Reserves. But in a large portion of the Cerrado, property owners are only required to protect 20 to 35 percent of native vegetation.
- With little help coming currently from government, conservationists are responding with creative approaches for protection – developing partnerships with local communities, seeking signers for the Cerrado Manifesto to curb new deforestation due to soy, and restoring degraded lands to market the Cerrado’s unique fruits and other produce.
A saiga time bomb? Bad news for Central Asia’s beleaguered antelope
- In May 2015, more than 200,000 saiga antelope (Saiga tatarica) suddenly died in Kazakhstan, reducing the global population of the critically endangered species by two-thirds.
- Research indicates the saigas were likely killed by hemorrhagic septicemia caused by a type of bacteria called Pasteurella multocida. But P. multocida generally exists harmlessly in healthy saigas and other animals, so the question remained: Why did so many saigas become infected so suddenly and severely by a normally benign type of bacteria?
- A new analysis may have solved part of this mystery, linking the spread of P. multocida to unusually high humidity levels and temperatures.
- The results indicate that saigas may be particularly sensitive to climate change, which stands to increase both temperature and humidity in Kazakhstan.
Power lines killing the last remaining Great Indian Bustards in India
- Of the 160-odd great Indian bustards remaining in the wild, about 140 occur in the Thar desert in Rajasthan, India.
- The bird’s prime habitat in Thar, however, is being taken over by a growing, dense network of wind turbines and electric power lines that have become a death trap for the birds.
- Even a few accidental deaths due to collisions could lead to extinction of the species, according to experts.
- Conservationists and forest department officials have recommended mitigation measures, but nothing has been implemented on ground.
Water sources under threat from mining in Ecuador’s mountains
- The Azuay páramos are restricted, alpine ecosystems that exist above the tree line but below the permanent snow line.
- Those who live in southern Ecuador’s páramos oppose gold and copper mining planned for in the region.
- Representatives from a mining company claim that the company won’t affect local communities and that they have permission to work.
Carbon sequestration role of savanna soils key to climate goals
- Savannas and grasslands cover a vast area, some 20 percent of the earth’s land surface — from sub-Saharan Africa, to the Cerrado in Brazil, to North America’s heartland. They also offer an enormous and underappreciated capacity for carbon sequestration.
- However, the role of forests in storing carbon has long been emphasized over the role of savannas (and savanna soils) by international climate negotiators, resulting in policies such as REDD+ for preserving and restoring forests, with no such incentives for protecting grasslands.
- Scientists warn that the planting of trees, such as nonnative eucalyptus in Africa and Brazil, could be counterproductive in the long term, potentially contributing to climate change emissions while harming grassland biodiversity and altering ecosystems.
- As participants prepare to meet for the COP23 climate summit in Bonn, Germany next week, grassland scientists are urging that policymakers turn an eye toward savannas, and begin to develop incentives for preserving them and their carbon storing soils. More research is also needed to fully understand the role savannas can play in carbon sequestration.
Study maps out reptiles’ ranges, completing the ‘atlas of life’
- The study’s 39 authors, from 30 institutions around the world, pulled together data on the habitats of more than 10,000 species of reptiles.
- They found little overlap with current conservation areas, many of which have used the numbers of mammal and bird species present as proxies for overall biodiversity.
- In particular, lizards and turtles aren’t afforded much protection under current schemes.
- The authors report that they’ve identified high-priority areas for conservation that protects reptile diversity, ranging from deserts in the Middle East, Africa and Australia, to grass- and scrublands in Asia and Brazil.
Healthy soils can boost food security and climate resilience for millions (commentary)
- Drylands take centre stage this week as world leaders gather in Ordos, in the Inner Mongolia region of China, for the thirteenth session of the Conference of the Parties to the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD COP13).
- The health of many dryland ecosystems has declined dramatically over recent decades, largely due to unsustainable farming methods, increasing drought, deforestation, and clearance of natural grasslands.
- Changing the way drylands are farmed to conserve life underground is the only way of restoring these ecosystems and the agricultural outputs they sustain.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
NOAA announces largest-ever Gulf of Mexico ‘dead zone’
- The dead zone is primarily the result of nutrient pollution that stimulates massive blooms of algae. This algae is fed by nutrient runoff from agricultural areas in the U.S. Midwest carried down by the Mississippi River.
- An investigation found meat production largely to blame for this nutrient runoff.
- However, representatives with the meat industry say the report failed to consider the impact of ethanol production.
- NOAA scientists say the dead zone is likely to continue growing if nutrient levels aren’t reduced.
How the World Heritage Convention could save more wilderness: Q&A with World Heritage expert Cyril Kormos
- Since its inception in the 1970s, the UNESCO World Heritage Convention has officially recognized 1,052 sites of cultural or ecological importance around the planet.
- Making the list as a World Heritage site can help provide a location with increased protection and attention.
- The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), an advisor to the World Heritage Committee, released a study showing that 1.8 percent of wilderness areas are covered under World Heritage protection.
- The IUCN recommends a more methodical approach to the designation of World Heritage sites to help fill these gaps.
Conservation group African Parks to look after West African wildlife
- The 10-year agreement includes funding of $26 million.
- African Parks and the government of Benin aim to double wildlife populations in the park by training guards and shoring up protections from poaching.
- The effort will create some 400 jobs and benefit the overall economy, say representatives of the government and the NGO.
Lizard DNA reveals India’s grasslands are likely pre-human – and need protection
- Researchers have described 5 species of lacertid lizards in the genus Ophisops in India’s tropical grasslands, but recent genetic research shows there may be at least 30 species.
- Tropical grasslands have been largely ignored by the Indian government, according to researchers, and are hugely threatened by conversion to agriculture.
- Recognizing tropical grasslands as pre-human, natural ecosystems with rich biodiversity and endemic species may be the first step to better protection.
New soy-driven forest destruction exposed in South America
- Mighty Earth looked at updated satellite imagery from 28 sites in the Cerrado in Brazil and the Gran Chaco and the Amazon in Bolivia.
- They found evidence of 60 square kilometers of land clearing for soy production since their September 2016 investigation.
- Bunge and Cargill, the two companies that figure prominently in Mighty Earth’s latest report, argue that they are working to eradicate deforestation from their supply chains.
Meet the 2017 ‘Green Oscars’ winners
- The winners include Purnima Barman from India, Sanjay Gubbi from India, Alexander Blanco from Venezuela, Indira Lacerna-Widmann from Philippines, Ian Little from South Africa and Ximena Velez-Liendo from Bolivia.
- At an awards ceremony held last evening at the Royal Geographic Society in London, each of the six winners received £35,000 (~$46,000) in project funding to help scale up their work.
- Zafer Kizilkaya, a 2013 Whitley Award winner from Turkey, received this year’s Gold Award (£50,000) for his conservation project “Guardians of the sea: securing and expanding marine reserves along the Turkish coastline”.
Rwanda welcomes 20 black rhinos to Akagera National Park
- The 20 black rhinos are of the eastern subspecies (Diceros bicornis michaeli).
- African Parks, the NGO that manages Akagera National Park in cooperation with the government of Rwanda, says that it has rhino trackers, canine patrols and a helicopter to protect the rhinos from poaching.
- Fewer than 5,000 black rhinos exist in Africa. Their numbers have been decimated by poaching for their horns, which fetch high prices for use in traditional Chinese medicine.
- Officials hope that the new rhino population will boost Akagera National Park’s visibility as a ecotourism destination.
‘We can save life on Earth’: study reveals how to stop mass extinction
- Researchers analyzed 846 regional ecosystem types in 14 biomes in respect to the “Nature Needs Half” scientific concept that states proper functioning of an ecosystem requires at least half of it to be there.
- They found 12 percent of ecoregions had half their land areas protected while 24 percent had protected areas and native vegetation that together covered less than 20 percent.
- The study indicates the tropical dry forest biome is the most endangered. Closely behind it are two others: the tropical grasslands, savannas, and shrublands biome, and the Mediterranean forests, woodlands, and scrub biome. All are highly biodiverse, providing habitat for many species.
- The researchers say while many ecosystems have been highly degraded, achieving 50 percent protection is still possible – if current conservation goals are scaled up.
Plans to mine coal in South African protected area trigger conservation battle
- In 2016, Indian company Atha-Africa Ventures was given permission to mine coal within the Mabola Protected Environment
- The deal required signatures from South Africa’s mineral resources and environmental affairs ministers. News that both officials had granted their approval was only revealed last month after public information requests by activists.
- Mabola is classified as a Strategic Water Source Area, and conservationists fear underground mining there could pollute or dry up vital fresh water.
Increasing tree cover threatens world’s most endangered antelope
- Between 1985 and 2012, tree cover in hirola’s habitat has more than doubled.
- This increasing encroachment by trees is likely to blame for the decline in hirola populations in Africa, researchers say.
- Decline in elephant and cattle numbers in the region, an increase in browsing livestock, and increased drier conditions could have resulted in the increasing tree cover.
Meet one of the filmmakers behind Planet Earth 2
- Planet Earth II, produced by the BBC, involved 40 different countries and more than 2,000 days of shooting.
- The six-part series showcased some of the rarest footage of wildlife from remote islands and deserts to high mountain ranges, forests, grasslands and bustling cities.
- Mongabay interviewed one of the filmmakers involved, Sandesh Kadur, to understand what it takes to film captivating sequences of animals in the wild and within cities.
‘Last frontiers of wilderness’: Intact forest plummets globally
- More than 7 percent of intact forest landscapes, defined as forest ecosystems greater than 500 square kilometers in area and showing no signs of human impact, disappeared between 2000 and 2013.
- In the tropics, the rate of loss appears to be accelerating: Three times more IFLs were lost between 2011 and 2013 as between 2001 and 2003.
- The authors of the study, published January 13 in the journal Science Advances, point to timber harvesting and agricultural expansion as the leading causes of IFL loss.
‘Racing against time’ to save the taguá and its vanishing Chaco home
- Taguá are one of three peccary species living in the Americas and are the only ones found nowhere else but the Gran Chaco.
- Scientists say that the Chaco is disappearing at an alarming rate – with nearly a million hectares of tree cover loss as recently as 2008 – due in large part to soy cultivation and cattle ranching.
- The destruction of the taguá’s habitat, along with hunting, have caused its numbers to drop, say scientists, far below the estimated 5,000 alive during the 1990s.
Grasslands in US Great Plains are being destroyed at “alarming rate”
- Only half of the Great Plains’ original grasslands remains intact today, the report states. Between 2009 and 2015, 53 million acres were converted to cropland every year, a two percent annual rate of loss.
- Yet little attention has been paid to the destruction of these oceans of grass, says Martha Kauffman, WWF’s managing director of the Northern Great Plains program, despite the fact that it threatens iconic species including grasslands songbirds, the monarch butterfly, and native bumble bees.
- The conversion of grasslands also compromises the ecological services provided by the Great Plains, the WWF report notes, such as the filtering of trillions of gallons of water that goes on to be used as drinking water for millions of people and helps support healthy fisheries in the Gulf of Mexico.
Land-use change and management failures in China lead to significant amounts of carbon emissions: Study
- Driven by the country’s rapid economic development in recent decades, especially urbanization, agricultural expansion, and reforestation, China has undergone large-scale changes in land use.
- According to the authors of the study, published earlier this month in the journal Science Advances, their results “highlight the importance of improving land-use management, especially in view of the recently proposed expansion of urban areas in China.”
- The researchers discovered large carbon losses resulted from China’s poor land management.
Over-fertilization diminishes the biodiversity of global grasslands
- Grasslands are critical global ecosystems, but pollution from agricultural fertilizers and nitrogen-laden smog threatens to dump too many nutrients onto the grasses.
- Ecologists applied various fertilizers to grassland plots at 45 sites on five continents annually and measured biodiversity and plant growth.
- Excess nutrients decreased biodiversity more and more over time, even when plant growth remained constant.
New report: Brazil’s Cerrado could sidestep conversion for agriculture
- Home to almost half of Brazil’s agriculture, the country’s leaders are looking toward the Cerrado to accelerate economic development.
- The Cerrado is also home to indigenous communities and traditional societies, such as the quilombolas, descendants of escaped African slaves.
- The report argues for a more inclusive process that preserves traditional farming practices, intensifies existing large-scale agriculture and protects the Cerrado’s water, habitat and biodiversity.
Beef consumers’ role in causing deforestation in South America (commentary)
- Beef production has proven to be a top driver of tropical deforestation in South America and globally.
- In South America, land ultimately used for cattle ranches frequently replaces tropical forests.
- Although many companies spin their deforestation-free beef commitments and practices as robust and comprehensive, we found all 13 of the companies that we scored in our recent report have gaps in their commitments and practices that can allow for continued deforestation.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.
‘All they need is a head start’: reforesting India’s Western Ghats
- The Western Ghats mountain chain lines South India’s west coast and provides important habitat for many unique species. But development pressure has led to the loss of large areas of forest within and around the range.
- One area that has been particularly hard-hit is the Nilgiris District, in the state of Tamil Nadu. Two centuries of land conversion for timber, tea, and other plantations has displaced much of the region’s native forests and grasslands.
- A team of conservationists is hoping to reverse the deforestation by restablishing native vegetation on degraded land.
- However, the effort is not without its critics who say that it may be more effective to simply let forests come back by themselves.
Savannas and grasslands are more biodiverse than you might think — and we’re not doing enough to conserve them
- The notion that grassy biomes arise from degraded forests and therefore harbor low levels of biodiversity is not only inaccurate, it also helps drive the lack of concern over their fate.
- Given the high rates of land-cover conversion, especially in Neotropical grassy biomes, however, they should be a high conservation priority and should be included in more protected areas, the authors argue.
- The grassy biomes of tropical Africa and Australia are still relatively intact, making them the least vulnerable to biodiversity loss in the near future.
“Ecological recession”: Researchers say biodiversity loss has hit critical threshold across the globe
- The researchers examined 2.38 million records of 39,123 terrestrial species collected at 18,659 sites around the world to model the impacts on biodiversity of land use and other pressures from human activities that cause habitat loss.
- They then estimated down to about the one-square-kilometer level the extent to which those pressures have caused changes in local biodiversity, as well as the spatial patterns of those changes.
- They found that, across nearly 60 percent of Earth’s land surface, biodiversity has declined beyond “safe” levels as defined by the planetary boundaries concept, which seeks to quantify the environmental limits within which human society can be considered sustainable.
Rekindling Australia’s Aboriginal past to fight climate change (Commentary)
- Australian’s indigenous communities traditionally managed land through low-intensity burning, which helped prevent larger fires later on.
- But Eurocentric land management, proscribing fire at all costs, was based on a belief that newly settled territories were wild places where the first people exercised no custodianship over nature. This, say researchers, allowed flammable vegetation to build up and fuel catastrophic wildfires that release significant amounts of greenhouse gases.
- Australia has started programs that encourage low-intensity burning to prevent big fires and reduce emissions, while enhancing biodiversity and improving livelihoods. Some say this practice could be used in other countries to help achieve emissions reductions targets.
- This post is a commentary – the views expressed are those of the author.
In the rush to reforest, are the world’s old-growth grasslands losing out?
- Old-growth grasslands contain multitudes of unique species – including underground trees that may be thousands of years old.
- Researchers say that a lack of study may have led to the mislabeling of many ancient tropical grasslands as artificially cleared landscapes, making them prime targets for reforestation activities.
- They urge the need for more research and better technology that will help distinguish old-growth from secondary grasslands.
Turning prairies into gas: study finds U.S. biofuel production has big impacts on grasslands
A cornfield stretches as far as the eye can see. Photo by Rhett A. Butler. Corn and soybean cultivation soared in the late 2000s, as U.S. agribusiness rushed to respond to federal legislation rewarding biofuels production. Debate since the institution of the program has centered on the question of whether biofuel crop expansions have come […]
King of the jungle returns to Gabon after nearly 20 year absence
Male lion in Kruger National Park, South Africa. Most of the world’s lions are now found in southern and eastern Africa. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. There’s a new cat in town. For the first time since 1996, conservationists have proof of a lion roaming the wilds of the Central African country of Gabon. The […]
Plant wars: some tree species compete better against grasses for reforestation
Biologists may have discovered essential information that could help trees overcome specific grass species on tropical forest restoration sites What happens to degraded pastureland once the cows are kicked out? After years of letting the area rest, does it eventually become what it once was? Not likely. When disruptions such as invasive species and human […]
Too much of a good thing: fertilizer ‘one of the three major drivers of biodiversity loss this century’
Excess nutrients impacting productivity, biodiversity, functioning of grasslands around the world The world’s grasslands are being destabilized by fertilization, according to a paper recently published in the journal Nature. In a study of 41 grassland communities on five continents, researchers found that the presence of fertilizer weakened grassland species diversity. The researchers surveyed grasslands in […]
Good intentions, collateral damage: forest conservation may be hurting grasslands
Tropical grassland biomes often defined, mismanaged as forests Trees absorb CO2 and trap carbon molecules, and countless are lost as forests are felled around the world. So why not plant as many as we can? A recent paper by Dr. Kate Parr and collaborators from the University of Liverpool suggests otherwise; the planting of more […]
New study finds environmental damage globally may cost more than U.S. GDP
A new study published in Global Environmental Change added up all the world’s ecosystem services – from carbon storage and crop pollination, to recreation and flood mitigation – and found, every year, nature provides $145 trillion in benefits. It also indicates that land use changes, most of which has been caused by humans, may be […]
Key highland habitat for rare condor protected in Ecuador
Andean Condor. Photo by Francisco Sornoza. Conservationists have acquired a 2,800-ha (7,000-acre) property that completes the acquisition of some 108,000 ha of key Andean Condor habitat in Ecuador. The lands will serve as a buffer zone for the Antisana Ecological Reserve, an area that protects 140,000 ha of high-altitude forests, canyons, and páramo grasslands around […]
Population growth and associated food demand to take heavy toll on rainforests
Conversion of rainforest to oil palm plantations in Malaysia. Photo by Rhett A. Butler Human population growth and associated food demand will likely take a heavy toll on tropical ecosystems unless major shifts occur in how crops are produced and consumed, warns a new review published in Trends in Ecology & Evolution. Noting that projections […]
Good news: Refuge for last blue-throated macaws doubles in size in Bolivia
The Barba Azul extension protects more than 20 small isolated forest islands (including those shown above) which are preferred nesting and roosting sites for the Blue-throated Macaw. Photo by B. Hennessey, Asociación Armonía. A reserve that is home to the world’s largest population of the critically endangered blue-throated macaw (Ara glaucogularis) has been more than […]
Scientists make one of the biggest animal discoveries of the century: a new tapir
Update: The classification of Tapirus kabomani as a distinct species was officially contested in 2014. In what will likely be considered one of the biggest (literally) zoological discoveries of the Twenty-First Century, scientists today announced they have discovered a new species of tapir in Brazil and Colombia. The new mammal, hidden from science but known […]
Climate change could kill off Andean cloud forests, home to thousands of species found nowhere else
One of the richest ecosystems on the planet may not survive a hotter climate without human help, according to a sobering new paper in the open source journal PLoS ONE. Although little-studied compared to lowland rainforests, the cloud forests of the Andes are known to harbor explosions of life, including thousands of species found nowhere […]
Zoo races to save extreme butterfly from extinction
In a large room that used to house aquatic mammals at the Minnesota Zoo, Erik Runquist holds up a vial and says, “Here are its eggs.” I peer inside and see small specks, pale with a dot of brown at the top; they look like a single grain of cous cous or quinoa. Runquist explains […]
Little NGO takes on goliath task: conserving the vanishing ecosystems of Paraguay
Landlocked in the navel of South America, the forests, wetlands and savannahs of Paraguay boast rich biodiversity and endemic species, yet the unique landscapes of Paraguay also face increasing threats, primarily from agricultural expansion. Controlled burns and clear cutting have become common practice as wildlands are converted for soy and cattle production. In some areas […]
Saving the Raja of India’s grasslands: new efforts to conserve the Critically Endangered Great Indian Bustard
The flagship species of India’s grasslands and savannas, the Critically Endangered Great Indian Bustard (Ardeotis nigriceps). Photo by: Ramki Sreenivasan/Conservation India. The Great Indian Bustard, one of India’s iconic birds, once ranged across most of the Indian subcontinent. Due to a variety of factors, however, the Great Indian Bustard is also now India’s rarest bird […]
Higher CO2 levels cause ‘greening’ from fertilization effect
Rising atmospheric carbon dioxide levels has triggered “greening” in arid regions around the world due to a fertilization effect that has increased plant growth, reports a new study published in Geophysical Research Letters. The study is based on mathematical modeling of the extent of the CO2 fertilization effect and analysis of satellite imagery in dry […]
Africa’s great savannahs may be more endangered than the world’s rainforests
Grasslands in Kenya’s Masai Mara. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Few of the world’s ecosystems are more iconic than Africa’s sprawling savannahs home to elephants, giraffes, rhinos, and the undisputed king of the animal kingdom: lions. This wild realm, where megafauna still roam in abundance, has inspired everyone from Ernest Hemingway to Karen Blixen, and […]
Ecological Restoration and Environmental Change: Renewing Damaged Ecosystems – book review
Stuart K. Allison, PhD’s excellent book Ecological Restoration and Environmental Change: Renewing Damaged Ecosystems clearly explains the current state of affairs regarding ecological restoration. He addresses key issues and challenges to ecosystem restoration science dogma. He questions how we define ecosystem restoration and against which baseline. Baselines are various and can be difficult to define […]
Photos: new mammal menagerie uncovered in remote Peruvian cloud forest
Possible new species of night monkey in the Aotus genus. Photo by: Alexander Pari. Every year scientists describe around 18,000 new species, but mammals make up less than half a percent of those. Yet mammal surprises remain: deep in the remote Peruvian Andes, scientists have made an incredible discovery: a rich cloud forest and alpine […]
Conflict and perseverance: rehabilitating a forgotten park in the Congo
The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)’s last herd of zebra run free in Upemba. Photo courtesy of the FZS. Zebra racing across the yellow-green savannah is an iconic image for Africa, but imagine you’re seeing this not in Kenya or South Africa, but in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Welcome to Upemba National Park: […]
Forest expands 3% in Colombia during 2000s, but loss grows in llanos region
Vegetation change in Colombia’s moist forest biome Colombia gained nearly 17,000 square kilometers of forest between 2001 and 2010 as forests recovered in mountainous regions in the Andes, reports a new study published in the journal PLoS One. The research, based on analysis of satellite imagery, assessed vegetation change across all Colombia’s six biomes and […]
Chart: Forest loss in Latin America
Change in vegetation cover by biome across Latin America, 2001-2010. Click image to enlarge. Latin America lost nearly 260,000 square kilometers (100,000 square miles) of forest — an area larger than the state of Oregon — between 2001 and 2010, finds a new study [PDF] that is the first to assess both net forest loss […]
Making reforestation work in abandoned pasturelands
Pasture with rainforest behind in the Lacandon rainforest. Photo by: Alejandro Linares Garcia. Tropical reforestation is not easy, especially in abandoned pasturelands. But a new study in mongabay.com’s open access journal Tropical Conservation Science finds that removing grasses prior to and after planting native tree seeds significantly improves the chances of forests to take root. […]
Exploring Asia’s lost world
Abandoned by conservationists and the global community, Virachey National Park in Cambodia remains a wildernesses of surprises. An interview with Greg McCann. Haling-Halang and the barrier mountains separating Cambodia and Laos as seen from the Veal Thom grasslands, a place few outsiders have ever seen. Could tigers, Javan rhinos, or saola live in these mountains? […]
Scientists unlock indigenous secret to sustainable agriculture in the Amazon’s savannas
Forest clearing in the Amazon. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Indigenous populations in the Amazon successfully farmed without the use of fire before the arrival of Europeans, demonstrating a potentially sustainable approach to land management in a region that is increasingly vulnerable to man-made fires. The research, published this week in the journal Proceedings of […]
Conserving Ecuador’s Paramos, the alpine tundra ecosystem of the Andes
Páramo: Paisaje estudiado, habitado, manejado e institucionalizado á Pramo – an Ecuador overview Páramos © Robert Hofstede. Grupo de Trabajo en Páramos del Ecuador (GTP) is a remarkable self-organized group of páramo experts that have met over the past 13 years in Quito, Ecuador. Páramo is an alpine tundra ecosystem which is located in the […]
Volcano and cloud forests conserved in Ecuador
Antisana Volcano. Photo by: Stefan Weigal. Conservation organizations and the Ecuadorian government have succeeded in securing over 250,000 acres (106,000 hectares) of cloud forest and grasslands surrounding the Antisana Volcano for protection. The area, long-used for cattle ranching, is home to Andean condors (Vultur gryphus), cougars (Puma concolor), Andean fox (Lycalopex culpaeus), silvery grebes (Podiceps […]
New eco-tour to help save bizarre antelope in ‘forgotten’ region
Saiga calves. Photo by: Igor Shpilenok. Imagine visiting a region that is largely void of tourists, yet has world-class bird watching, a unique Buddhist population, and one of the world’s most bizarre-looking and imperilled mammals: the saiga. A new tour to Southern Russia hopes to aid a Critically Endangered species while giving tourists an inside […]
From the Serengeti to Lake Natron: is the Tanzanian government aiming to destroy its wildlife and lands?
Thousands of lesser flamingoes (Phoenicopterus minor) crowd in Lake Bogoria in Kenya. Nearly all of these flamingoes will breed in Tanzania’s Lake Natron, now a proposed site for soda ash mining. Photo by: Steve Garvie. What’s happening in Tanzania? This is a question making the rounds in conservation and environmental circles. Why is a nation […]
Conversion of Brazil’s cerrado slows
Destruction of Brazil’s cerrado, a woody savanna that covers 20 percent of the country, slowed during the 2008-2009, reports Brazil’s Ministry of Environment. Data from Brazil’s National Space Research Institute (INPE) shows that cerrado conversion amounted to 7,637 square kilometers between 2008 and 2009, down from the 14,179 square kilometers cleared annually from 2002 to […]
Serengeti road project opposed by ‘powerful’ tour company lobby
Government plans to build a road through Serengeti National Park came up against more opposition this week as the Tanzanian Association of Tour Operators (Tato) came out against the project, reports The Citizen. Tato, described as powerful local lobby group by the Tanzanian media, stated that the road would hurt tourism and urged the government […]
Foreign big agriculture threatens world’s second largest wildlife migration
As the world’s largest migration in the Serengeti plains—including two million wildebeest, zebra, and Thomson’s gazelles—has come under unprecedented threat due to plans for a road that would sever the migration route, a far lesser famous, but nearly as large migration, is being silently eroded just 1,370 miles (2,200 kilometers) north in Ethiopia’s Gambela National […]
First International Serengeti Day hopes to halt road project
Migrating wildebeest and zebra. Photo by: Jan Martin McGuire. On March 19th the conservation organization, Serengeti Watch, is planning the world’s first International Serengeti Day to celebrate one of the world’s most treasured wildlife ecosystems. But the day also has another goal: bring attention to a Tanzanian government plan to build a road that would […]
Complaint lodged at FSC for plantations killing baboons
The African environmental group, GeaSphere, has lodged a complaint with the Forest Stewardship Council’s (FSC) for certifying tree plantations as sustainable that are culling baboons in South Africa, as first reported by FSC-Watch. The primates are trapped with bait and then shot. According to the complaint, “unofficial numbers from reliable sources state that more than […]
New plan underway to save South America’s migratory grassland birds
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A meeting between government representatives, scientists, and conservationists in Asuncion, Paraguay this month resulted in the adoption of an action plan to provide urgently needed conservation framework for the migratory birds of South America’s disappearing grasslands. The grasslands of Brazil, Uruguay, Argentina, Paraguay, and Bolivia count amount the world’s most valuable ecosystems, and are home […]
Brazil’s cerrado wins protection, but will it be enough to save the wildlife-rich grassland?
Brazil announced a plan to protect the cerrado, the vast woody savanna that covers 20 percent of the country but has become the nation’s biggest single source of carbon emissions due to conversion for agriculture and cattle pasture, reports Brazil’s Ministry of the Environment. Unveiled today in Brasilia, the $200 million initiative establishes the “political […]
U.S. signs debt-for-nature swap with Brazil to protect forests
75 percent of birds and dung beetles remain even after a forest is logged twice. The United States will cut Brazil’s debt payments by $21 million under a debt-for-nature that will protect the Latin American country’s endangered Atlantic Rainforest (Mata Atlantica), Caatinga and Cerrado ecosystems. The agreement, announced Thursday, comes under the Tropical Forest Conservation […]
Photo: monster worm is less than a monster
Some places have Loch Ness and Bigfoot, but the Palouse prairie of the western United States has the giant Palouse earthworm. Reported to stretch 3 feet long, spit, and—even more strangely—smell like lilies, the earthworm has become apart of the region’s folklore and has only been seen a few times since the 1980s leading to […]
Vlad the Impaler of the bird world now at Bronx Zoo: skewers prey on thorns and barbed wire
The loggerhead shrike, also known as the ‘butcher bird’, employs a feeding strategy that would have been right at home in 15th Century Transylvania. Like the infamous Vlad the Impaler (the brutal prince which Bram Stoker based Dracula off), the loggerhead shrike is truly skilled at impaling. Using its hooked beak to break the spines […]
Emissions from cerrado destruction in Brazil equal to emissions from Amazon deforestation
Damage to Brazil’s vast cerrado grassland results in greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to those produced by destruction of the Amazon rainforest, said Carlos Minc, the country’s Environment Minister. Speaking on National Cerrado Day on September 11, Minc said that 21,000 square kilometers of cerrado was destroyed per year between 2002 and 2008, twice the rate […]
Brazil to step up efforts to save the cerrado grassland
Brazil will try to reduce deforestation of the cerrado, a wooded grassland ecosystem in Brazil that is being destroyed twice as fast as the Amazon rainforest, according to the country’s Environment Minister Carlos Minc. Outlining the new policy Wednesday at the Reuters Alternative Energy Summit in Brasilia, Minc said the government will increase monitoring, create […]
Degraded grasslands better option for palm oil production relative to rainforests, finds study
Degraded grasslands best for palm oil biofuel production, finds study Degraded grasslands better option for palm oil production relative to rainforests, finds study Rhett A. Butler, mongabay.com December 3, 2008
Biofuels can reduce emissions, but not when grown in place of rainforests
Biofuels can reduce emissions, but not when grown in place of rainforests Biofuels can reduce emissions, but not when grown in place of rainforests mongabay.com July 22, 2008 Biofuels meant to help alleviate greenhouse gas emissions may be in fact contributing to climate change when grown on converted tropical forest lands, warns a comprehensive study […]
Some grasslands resilient against climate change, according to 13 year study
Some grasslands resilient against climate change, according to 13 year study Some grasslands resilient against climate change, according to 13 year study Jeremy Hance, mongabay.com July 7, 2008 In Buxton, England–a spa town lying in the county of Derbyshire–scientists have spent 13 years subjecting grasslands to temperature increases and precipitation shifts consistent with climate change […]
U.S. grazing lands at risk due to rising CO2 levels
U.S. grazing lands at risk due to rising CO2 levels U.S. grazing lands at risk due to rising CO2 levels mongabay.com August 27, 2007 Rising carbon dioxide levels could cause significant changes to open grazing lands and rangelands around the world, reports a study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences […]
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