topic: Wetlands

topic: Wetlands

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Tackling climate change in one of Colombia’s largest wetlands
- La Mojana, a complex network of more than 500,000 hectares (1.2 million acres) of different types of wetlands, has drastically deteriorated in recent decades.
- Thousands of farmers are working to restore their livelihoods, and the swamps, marshes and streams they inhabit.
- By doing so, they hope that floods and droughts, which are becoming more unpredictable and more severe than ever due to climate change, will affect them less.

Bangladesh island’s switch from solar power to fossil fuels threatens birds
- The Bangladesh government recently converted off-grid Nijhum Dwip Island in the Bay of Bengal into an on-grid locality powered by fossil fuel-fired plants, posing a threat to the country’s second-largest mangrove forest.
- The island’s inhabitants had depended on individual solar-run power, and the government planned to install a mini solar grid for an uninterrupted power supply a few years back.
- Instead, the government has facilitated the construction of a 15 megawatt heavy-fuel-run power plant at Hatiya, the subdistrict headquarters of Nijhum Dwip, under the ‘100% Reliable and Sustainable Electrification Project,’ which seems to be a reverse transition from renewable to fossil fuel-based electrification.
- Nature conservationists believe that due to the connection to the national grid, human activities will increase around the forest and endanger the already cornered wildlife of the national park on the island.

Fishers, scientists restore mangroves on a Mexican isle wrecked by salt mining
- For decades, salt mining has deteriorated the wetlands and natural flood patterns of Isla del Carmen, part of Bahía de Loreto National Park in Mexico.
- Collaboration between two conservation organizations and a community of fishers on the mainland are working to restore the mangroves of Isla del Carmen by rehabilitating its hydrology and constructing “vegetation terraces” for the trees.
- The project also involves training and educating communities about the importance of conserving the ecosystem for the sake of wildlife, the local economy and protecting against the effects of climate change.

Saving Asia’s fishing cat means protecting threatened wetland habitat
- Fishing cats are uniquely adapted to life in wetlands, possessing a double-layered coat that serves as a water barrier and insulation, partially webbed feet, ears that plug when submerged, and a curious call reminiscent of a duck.
- Spread across Asia, this small wild cat species faces myriad threats, including habitat loss, hunting and retaliatory killings, road kill, and more. Considered vulnerable across its range, the felid is also elusive and underresearched, with many knowledge gaps about its distribution and ecology.
- Conservationists are working across its range to raise the profile of this wildcat, reduce threats and understand the species. Linking its protection to equally threatened wetlands is vital, they say. Initiatives such as the Fishing Cat Project in India have achieved success in making this cat the face of these habitats.
- Multiple conservation and research projects operate in Asia under the banner of the Fishing Cat Conservation Alliance, a cooperative model that provides funding lifelines and enables international collaboration to protect this small cat.

Navigating the rise in conflicts between humans and fishing cats in Bangladesh
- In Bangladesh, rapid village expansion shrinks wetlands, forcing fishing cats (Prionailurus viverrinus) closer to humans. This triggers human-cat conflicts occurring every two weeks, with over half of them ending in a cat’s death.
- The main reason for the killings is fear. Locals often mistake fishing cats for tigers and feel threatened. Social pressure to participate in killings and revenge for livestock losses (often caused by other animals) further fuel the conflicts.
- Despite ongoing threats like infrastructure projects that fragment habitats, some hope exists. Government awareness campaigns and dedicated nongovernmental efforts are educating communities and finding solutions to promote peaceful coexistence with fishing cats.

Costa Rican community struggles to stop an airport ‘destroying our country’
- Some 350 families in Palmar Sur, in southeastern Costa Rica, face eviction over the construction of a new international airport designed to serve the country’s growing tourism industry.
- The project, endorsed by the country’s president, also threatens a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the Terraba Sierpe National Wetlands, a large mangrove ecosystem that provides habitat for scores of bird species.
- Since its approval in 2010, the airport project has faced opposition from local communities, who fear the loss of their land, for which they lack property titles.
- Now, locals are considering taking legal action against the state, and are pinning their hopes on pre-Columbian archaeological finds on their land putting an end to the airport project.

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.

Tien Hai reserve saved from development in win for nature in Vietnam
- In 2023, the government of Vietnam’s Thai Binh province announced plans to remove protection from 90% of Tien Hai Nature Reserve, part of the UNESCO-recognized Red River Delta Biosphere Reserve.
- This month, Vietnam’s prime minister signed a decision that will fully retain the reserve’s protected status.
- The reversal announcement marks a rare win for environmental protection over development, and comes after local NGOs led awareness-raising efforts about the importance of the reserve.

Fishers’ memories on par with scientific data on historic catches: Study
- A new study investigated how the memories of about 400 fishers from traditional communities in Brazil can serve as sources of data on historic fishing effort and catch size.
- It measured the reliability of this “harvest recall data” by comparing it to other data collected by standard scientific methods.
- The researchers found that when considered as a whole, the fishers’ memories agreed with standard data collection methods about 95% of the time, which suggests that this recall method can be an effective fisheries management tool.

Risks to Myanmar’s last saltwater crocs point to coastal conservation needs
- A new study confirms that Myanmar’s last population of saltwater crocodiles is perilously isolated and that without efforts to connect suitable coastal wetlands, the future of the species is in the country is uncertain.
- Deforestation and conversion of coastal habitats for commercial production, persecution due to conflicts with people, and hunting and wild capture to supply demand for crocodile meat and skin products have all taken their toll on crocodile numbers.
- The researchers recommend conservationists and policymakers in Myanmar focus on reconnecting remaining coastal habitats, including existing coastal protected areas, and identify key crocodile habitat areas and potential movement corridors to aid such conservation action.
- Enhancing coastal habitat connectivity would not only enable crocodile population recovery, it would also reduce pressure on communities coping with negative interactions with crocodiles.

Livelihoods at stake as Lake Victoria’s papyrus swamps come under pressure: Photos
- The papyrus swamps at the edges of Lake Victoria in East Africa have for generations provided a livelihood to communities living here.
- While some harvest reeds to make into mats, baskets, and handicrafts, others catch the plentiful fish that nurse in the shelter of the reedbeds.
- The swamps are also home to birds that have become specialized to live amidst the papyrus reeds in a narrow geographic range, while the reedbeds serve as filters taking up nutrients and retaining sediment — in the process also allowing carbon storage through the buildup of significant detritus and peat deposits.
- However, development pressure for new resorts and farmland is putting this ecosystem under threat, while the introduction of the Nile perch here in the 1950s has devastated native fish species.

Courage & calm despite attacks: Q&A with Colombian activist Yuly Velásquez
- For years, Colombia’s largest oil refinery, owned by the national oil company Ecopetrol, has discharged oil and toxic waste into water bodies, impacting fish and the livelihoods of fishers.
- Yuly Velásquez, a local fisher and president of an environmental organization, has spent years documenting water contamination and corruption linked to the refinery, and she faces consistent threats and attacks.
- According to a 2022 report by the NGO Global Witness, Colombia is the most dangerous country in the world for environmental and land defenders, with 60 murders that year.
- In this interview with Mongabay, she discusses the threats environmental defenders face in Colombia and what helps her stay resilient in the face of attacks.

Thailand tries nature-based water management to adapt to climate change
- With an economy largely underpinned by irrigated crops like rice, water is a crucial resource in Thailand. But as climate change exacerbates floods and droughts in the country, sustainable water management is an increasing challenge.
- Nature-based solutions that incorporate the natural processes of the country’s abundant rivers, floodplains and watershed forests are beginning to be trialed via various projects at large and small scales.
- A new report assesses the efficacy of two nature-based approaches to water management in Thailand, which represent a step away from the country’s typically top-down, hard-engineering approach and present several benefits to the environment and communities.
- However, environmental and societal tradeoffs, complex policy frameworks, and the need for greater understanding and expertise around the concept, design and implementation of nature-based approaches are barriers to their widespread implementation.

New study pushes for protection of one of Africa’s ‘least understood treasures’
- A new study reveals the extent of a tropical water tower in Angola, which performs the same role as snow-capped mountains in the Northern Hemisphere.
- The Angolan Highlands Water Tower contains peatlands and freshwater lakes that supply major rivers in the region, and the wildlife-rich Okavango Delta in Botswana.
- Despite this vital hydrological role, the water tower currently has no formal protection.
- The team behind the study hopes it will help to strengthen the case for recognition of a vast portion of the water tower as a Ramsar Site of International Importance.

Oil firm Perenco eyes new blocks in DRC amid criticism of its track record
- Oil multinational Perenco has bid on two new oil blocks being auctioned off by the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
- Perenco operates the country’s only oil production facilities, at Muanda, near the mouth of the Congo River.
- Local and international critics accuse the oil company of polluting the environment, affecting fishing and farming, as well as residents’ health; the company denies this.

Tien Hai Nature Reserve latest battleground in Vietnam’s push for development
- In April, the government of Vietnam’s Thai Binh province quietly issued a decision to remove protection from 90% of Tien Hai Nature Reserve, which forms an integral part of the UNESCO-recognized Red River Delta Biosphere Reserve.
- After environment activists publicized the decision last month, public backlash prompted officials to pause plans to develop a resort in the degazetted area — at least for now.
- The project is just one of several recent cases in which the country’s protected wetlands and forests have been threatened by development projects.

Fisherwomen fight plan for coastal salt farms on Indonesia’s Madura Island
- A group of women in Sumenep district of East Java province is leading a protest against the local government’s proposal to develop a salt farm on 20 hectares (49 acres) of land on the coast of Gersik Putih village.
- In 2009, the local government issued land titles on 73 hectares (180 acres) of land along the coast of Tapakerbau hamlet in Gersik Putih, and all of it was to become salt farms.
- The fishers say the plan could jeopardize their fishing jobs and the sustainability of the marine ecosystem on which they have for generations depended for their livelihoods, and they say they believe the salt ponds have exacerbated the flooding there in recent years.
- The protest in Sumenep is one of many against plans for the development of coastal aquaculture in Indonesia, a country that has the world’s second-longest coastline.

For the oceans, global community must fund Sustainable Development Goal 14 (commentary)
- Oceans sustain life by providing myriad ecosystem services and foods which over three billion people depend on for survival, so its conservation is covered in Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 14.
- Though #14 is underfunded, leaders of the global community can take action during the 2023 SDG Summit taking place today and tomorrow, 18-19 September, in New York City.
- “We call on the President of the General Assembly and donor governments to increase investments in the ocean [as it is] vital to the success of each of the other sustainable development goals. We must ensure a vital ocean for the billions that depend upon its health,” a new op-ed argues.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

Skepticism as Cambodia expands protected areas by more than a million hectares
- Cambodia expanded the coverage of its protected areas by 1.06 million hectares (2.62 million acres) in July and August, a flurry of subdecrees shows.
- However, civil society groups have expressed skepticism about the lack of consultation involved in the process and the ability of authorities to police this much larger area, given the ineffective enforcement of existing protected areas.
- Much of the newly protected land appears to be corridors neighboring existing protected areas, where homes and farms are already established.
- This has raised concerns about a surge in conflicts over land and access to natural resources, particularly affecting Indigenous communities.

South Africa community members decry traditional leaders’ power amid mine plans
- Community members, commercial farmers and environmentalists are raising concerns that Jindal’s proposed $2 billion iron ore mine project, slated to be one of the largest in the Southern Hemisphere, could be allowed to exploit the mineral without community consent — but only with that of their leader.
- Due to the structure of South African law, traditional leaders tend to see themselves as the sole decision-makers in their communities and approve of extractive projects for their stated economic benefits in the region.
- Many communities sit on valuable resources like platinum and titanium, and there is a significant possibility that with the current structure of the law, people will be removed from their lands to make way for extractive industries, say land policy researchers.
- Traditional leaders maintain that it is important for the law to recognize traditional authorities after decades and centuries of fighting for formal recognition after colonization.

Tropical lakes are carbon super sinks, even more than forests, study shows
- Research shows that Amazonian water bodies capture 39% more carbon per unit area than the rainforest itself.
- The research also revealed that lakes and rivers located in tropical regions with preserved forests sequester 10% of the carbon in these locations.
- The study shows the importance of preserving wetlands against climate change, the researchers say.

In Sumatra’s Jambi, community forest managers fish to protect peatlands
- A community in Indonesia’s Jambi province has resorted to fish farming to raise money for its efforts to prevent wildfires in the community.
- In 2015, around 80% of the province’s peat forest was damaged during the Southeast Asia wildfire crisis.
- Jambi-based nonprofit KKI Warsi cites the number of peatland canals as the greatest barrier to replenishing the wetland.

Philippines’ largest freshwater wetland and Indigenous livelihoods face multiple threats
- The floating community of the Manobo Indigenous tribe depend on the rise and fall of water in the Philippines’ Agusan Marsh; however, the marsh faces challenges that threaten its ecosystem and the lives of the people who depend on it.
- Development projects, locals and others moving into the fertile region are burning and draining the peatlands and swamp forests for conversion into farmland.
- The continued expansion of agricultural areas in the Agusan Marsh, known as the Philippines’ least-disturbed freshwater wetland, has changed habitats in the basin and, with land use conversion, fragmented ecosystems.
- A recent study published in the journal Nature found extensive global wetland loss over the past three centuries due to various causes, including similar ones seen in the Agusan Marsh.

Can Spain keep the rising sea from washing away a critical delta?
- One of Europe’s most important deltas, a vital wildlife sanctuary and economic engine, is facing a myriad of threats stemming from climate change and water management.
- Rising sea levels and stronger storms are washing away the very sediment that constitutes the Ebro Delta and sending saltwater far inland.
- The government plan to bolster the delta relies heavily on trucking sediment to its exposed outer banks, but it’s a stop-gap measure until researchers can develop a more sustainable long-term solution.
- The question is: Can they find one in time?

Indonesia to expand ‘smart fisheries’ program aimed at empowering communities
- Indonesia will expand its smart fisheries village program, aiming to empower fishing communities to boost their productivity, achieve sustainability standards, and improve their overall economic welfare.
- Twenty-two fishing communities are enrolled in the initial batch of the program, which will focus primarily on fisheries, but also look to improve community welfare through tourism, public health interventions, financial literacy, and other initiatives.
- The participating communities are involved in catching or farming a wide range of seafood and other products, from octopus and tilapia to shrimp and organic salt.
- The fisheries sector employs about 12 million Indonesians, with most of the fleet today, about 650,000 vessels, operated by small-scale and traditional fishers.

Landfill in Colombia continues to pollute protected wetlands despite court-ordered clean-up
- A landfill near Barrancabermeja, in Santander, Colombia, has been leaking heavy metals and other pollutants into the water since 2015, according to a report from Global Witness.
- The landfill sits in the middle of the San Silvestre wetlands, a 69,959-hectare (172,872-acre) protected area that serves as part of a regional jaguar corridor.
- French utilities company Veolia took over the site in 2019 but has continued to store contaminated chemicals irresponsibly and operate heavy machinery in a buffer zone meant to prevent leakage into water sources, according to a Global Witness report.

Peatlands, Indonesia’s carbon trove, are mostly unprotected, study finds
- A new study finds that less than 16% of Indonesia’s peatlands in need of conservation measures are currently protected.
- The remainder, covering a combined area nearly twice the size of Belgium, are located outside of protected areas.
- This indicates that current conservation and restoration efforts aren’t sufficient and need to be increased, researchers say.
- They offer their study as a tool for policymakers to precisely identify peat areas where different types of interventions should be prioritized.

Fewer migratory birds stopping at key Bangladesh wetland amid human disturbances
- Numbers of most species of migratory waterbirds in Bangladesh’s Tanguar Haor wetland, a key stopping point, have fallen over the past 15 years, a new study shows.
- The cause of the decline isn’t fully known yet, researchers say, but it’s clear that human activity has impacted the wetland, with 40% of the basin’s original area converted to farmland and settlements in just 30 years.
- The study recommends prioritizing conservation at two of the permanent waterbodies, or beels, in the Tanguar Haor complex, citing the high abundance and diversity of the birds that stop there.
- Tanguar Haor is the second Ramsar site in Bangladesh, after the Sundarbans mangrove forest, and accounted for nearly half of the more than 1.2 million waterbirds recorded in the country between 2008 and 2015.

Dhaka faces manifold problems as water bodies diminish
- A study by the Bangladesh Institute of Planners, or BIP, says the capital has lost 36% of its water bodies since 2010.
- Dhaka city has experienced water scarcity during dry months, which puts a strain on firefighters as they battle large fire; during monsoon months, the city experiences regular waterlogging as water retention points fill up.
- The disappearance of water bodies has created multifaceted problems like rising water levels, airborne disease, and mosquito-related diseases.
- In 2000, the government passed the Natural Water Reservoir Conservation Act, which mandates that natural water bodies be kept intact.

‘Chasing giants’: Q&A with megafish biologist and author Zeb Hogan
- Earth’s freshwater ecosystems are among the most at risk from human-induced threats including overfishing, dam building, pollution and climate change.
- But biologists know relatively little about the animals that live in the murky depths of our rivers and lakes, perhaps least of all about some of their largest inhabitants.
- In a new book, fish conservation biologist Zeb Hogan teams up with journalist Stefan Lovgren to get to the bottom of a curious question: What is the world’s largest freshwater fish?
- An exploration of the world’s freshwater ecosystems from Australia to the Amazon, “Chasing Giants” also looks into the range of threats giant fish face the world over and what scientists, policymakers and the public can do to support their conservation.

Small farmers in limbo as Cambodia wavers on Tonle Sap conservation rules
- In 2021, Cambodia’s government began enforcing a ban on farming in designated conservation zones around the Tonle Sap wetland, moving to protect the health of this vital fishery but also disrupting the lives of thousands of farmers who live around the lake.
- With general elections scheduled for July, authorities now appear to be taking a softer line on enforcing the ban; in December 2022, Prime Minister Hun Sen ordered the boundaries of the conservation zone be redrawn by the end of May this year.
- Subsistence farmers, who experts say have been given little support to find alternate forms of livelihood, wait as their futures hang in the balance.
- This story was produced in partnership with fellows of the Global Reporting Program at the University of British Columbia’s School of Journalism, Writing, and Media, and won a silver prize in the 2023 Canadian Online Publishing Awards for the best feature article in the academic category.

Indigenous women in Colombia protect rich Amazonian wetland from overfishing
- Dozens of Indigenous women in Colombia’s Amazon are monitoring, managing, raising awareness and restoring a wetland ecosystem impacted by overfishing.
- After partnering with environmental organizations to establish a fishing agreement in the area, they have witnessed the increase and recovery of fish species such as sardines, catfish and the pirarucu (Arapaima gigas).
- The wetland area of Lake Tarapoto, located in the department of Amazonas in southern Colombia, provides a habitat for numerous aquatic animals and supports the livelihoods of 22 Indigenous communities.

Drying wetlands and drought threaten water supplies in Kenya’s Kiambu County
- Prolonged drought in Kenya has caused a water crisis, threatening local livelihoods and biodiversity; one of the badly affected areas is Kiambu County, a region normally known for its high agricultural productivity.
- Human activities such as dumping, encroachment and overgrazing coupled with dire effects of climate change exacerbate the degradation of wetlands, worsening the water crisis.
- Scientists say that conservation efforts must center around local communities to ensure the restoration of natural resources and combat the impacts of climate change.

Loss of wetlands threatens South Sumatra’s rich fish-preserving tradition
- Rural communities in South Sumatra, an Indonesian province that’s two-fifths wetlands, have long relied on catching freshwater fish as a source of livelihood.
- The region is renowned for its variety of preserved fish products, which are sold throughout Indonesia.
- However, the wetlands are disappearing at a rapid rate, filled in to make way for oil palm plantations and highways, and threatening the region’s long-running fish-preserving tradition.
- Today, most of the freshwater fish processed here comes from fish farms, and include exotic species not native to the region, which some say doesn’t taste as good as the traditional species.

Restoration turns pastures into wildlife haven in Brazil’s Atlantic Forest
- After centuries of intensive deforestation, experts say fragmentation and degradation are worse in Brazil’s Atlantic Forest than in the Amazon.
- Experts say restoration can complement primary forest conservation by helping to reconnect fragments of original forest and to bring back lost biodiversity.
- The nonprofit Guapiaçu Ecological Reserve conserves 12,000 hectares (29,652 acres) of Atlantic Forest in the Guapiaçu River Basin, protecting both the environment and the water supply of 2.5 million people.
- In two decades, the nonprofit has planted 750,000 trees, seen a return of hundreds of birds, and reintroduced the lowland tapir (Tapirus terrestris) to Rio de Janeiro for the first time in 100 years.

Bangladesh bans suckermouth catfish in light of threats to native fish species
- Considering its aggressive breeding nature and the threats the species poses to native fish populations, the Bangladesh government has recently banned suckermouth fish.
- The suckermouth catfish is mainly an aquarium species that was imported into Bangladesh in the 1980s as an ornamental fish and later introduced into water bodies that are home to the country’s main sources of native fish.
- However, in recent years, the number of suckerfish has increased manifold as local fish species have decreased.
- Earlier, in 2002, Bangladesh banned two other fish species: African catfish and piranhas.

For key Bangladesh wetland, bid for Ramsar status is no guarantee of protection
- Bangladesh has proposed designating a third Ramsar site in the country, but the current state of its two other important wetland ecosystems suggests such a designation won’t be of much protection.
- The Sundarbans, the world’s biggest mangrove forest, and Tanguar Haor, a freshwater swamp forest, have been severely degraded by deforestation, hunting of wildlife and fish, overexploitation of natural resources, and water pollution.
- Hakaluki Haor, the largest marsh wetland ecosystem in South Asia, which the government wants designated a Ramsar site, is already facing similar threats.
- “The problem is, the government does nothing after the recognition. They completely fail to take necessary measures, in the interest of vested quarters in the government,” says environmental lawyer Syeda Rizwana Hasan.

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.

Peatland restoration in temperate nations could be carbon storage bonanza
- Much maligned and undervalued over the centuries, temperate peatlands have seen a lot damage in that time — drained for agriculture, planted with trees, mined for horticulture and fuel. But in an age of escalating climate change, people are now turning to restoration.
- As potent carbon sequesters, peatlands have only recently been given new attention, with active restoration taking place in many nations around the world. This story focuses on groundbreaking temperate peatland restoration efforts in the U.S. Southeast, Scotland and Canada.
- Every temperate peatland is different, making each restoration project unique, but the goal is almost always the same: restore the natural hydrology of the peatland so it can maximize carbon storage and native biodiversity, and improve its resilience in the face of climate change and increasingly common fires in a warming world.

Plastic works its way up the food chain to hit fishing cats, study shows
- A recent study published in the journal Environmental Pollution found plastics in the scat of fishing cats dwelling in urban areas near Colombo, Sri Lanka.
- Different sizes of plastics, from micro to macro, were found in some samples, and were believed to have been ingested by the cats via their prey.
- Potential health effects on the vulnerable small cat species are unknown, but based on knowledge of the impacts of plastic on other species there is cause for concern, say conservationists.

Ecotourism and education: Win-win solution for Pantanal jaguars and ranchers
- Conflicts between cattle ranchers and jaguars are among the biggest threats to the big cat population in the Brazilian Pantanal, experts warn.
- Studies reveal that nearly a third of jaguars’ diets are cattle, causing economic losses to ranchers and consequent retaliatory killings.
- Conservationists are using new solutions, such as ecotourism, tourism fees and education, to protect both jaguars and the livelihoods of cattle ranchers.
- Empirical evidence suggests that jaguar populations in the Pantanal are now recovering, thanks to shifting perceptions of the wetland’s famous big cat.

Brazil’s Pantanal is at risk of collapse, scientists say
- Though the Pantanal is 93% privately owned, this vast Brazilian tropical wetland remains a stronghold for jaguars and untold other species, and connects animals with the Amazon, Cerrado and other biomes.
- A confluence of human activities in Brazil and worldwide — including deforestation and climate change — are heating and drying this watery landscape, threatening the entire ecosystem with drought, wildfires and habitat loss.
- Now, a plan to dredge and straighten the Paraguay River that feeds the Pantanal could serve as the death knell for this vast wetland ecosystem.
- There’s hope that president-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who campaigned on an environmental platform, will initiate stewardship that stops Pantanal deforestation and the waterway project, helping curb greenhouse gas emissions.

Global study reveals widespread salt marsh decline
- The world lost 1,453 square kilometers (561 square miles) of salt marsh between 2000 and 2019, an area twice the size of Singapore, according to a new study based on satellite imagery.
- In addition to providing wildlife habitat and numerous ecosystem services, salt marshes store a great deal of carbon.
- Salt marsh loss resulted in 16.3 teragrams, or 16.3 million metric tons, of carbon emissions per year, according to the study. That’s the rough equivalent of the output of around 3.5 million cars.
- Climate change is one of the greatest threats to marshes. Other contributors to their global decline include conversion to aquaculture, coastal erosion, eutrophication, drainage, mangrove encroachment and invasive species.

In Bangladesh, Ecologically Critical Areas exist only on paper
- Since 1999, Bangladesh has declared 13 biodiversity-rich areas as Ecologically Critical Areas (ECAs) under the Environment Conservation Act.
- The government has failed to conserve the ECAs so far, despite some protection measures undertaken in Saint Martin’s Island, Tanguar Haor, Hakaluki Haor, Cox’s Bazar and Sonadia Island.
- The government has permitted industries to be set up in one of the major ECAs, the Sundarbans, including an oil refinery and coal-fired power plant.
- Authorities blame inadequate budget allocation and staff shortage, which environmentalists describe as a “lack of interest of the government.”

Peat on land and kelp at sea as Argentina protects tip of Tierra del Fuego
- Argentinian legislators recently approved a law to permanently protect the Mitre Peninsula at the tip of South America, which harbors vast peatlands and kelp forests that host an assortment of species.
- The Mitre Peninsula is thought to hold about 84% of Argentina’s peatlands, which are known to sequester about 315 million metric tons of carbon dioxide, roughly equivalent to three years of emissions in Argentina.
- The region also holds more than 30% of the world’s kelp forests, another key store of carbon.

Scientists plead for protection of peatlands, the world’s carbon capsules
- As the United Nations Biodiversity Conference begins, a group of researchers from more than a dozen countries are calling for worldwide peatland protection and restoration for the protection of species and because of the vast amounts of carbon they contain.
- In a signed statement released Dec. 1, more than 40 scientists note that peatlands contain twice as much carbon as is found in all the world’s forests.
- As long as peatlands remain waterlogged, that carbon will stay in the soil; but if they’re degraded or drained, as around 12% of the world’s peatlands have been, they quickly become a source of atmospheric carbon.
- The scientists are asking for a more prominent role in international negotiations to address climate change and species’ global loss.

In South Africa, a community says no after a coal miner said go
- A South African court has ordered one of the country’s largest coal mines to redo an environmental impact assessment for expanding its footprint by nearly 18 square kilometers (7 square miles).
- The court agreed with residents of Somkhele who said that the pre-2016 public participation process to expand the mine — and extend its productive life — was seriously flawed.
- Communities around the mine are deeply divided; the traditional authority and some residents support its extension and the jobs and income this would provide, while others stand firm against the destruction of their homes and way of life.
- The new EIA process is allowing community members to raise a range of concerns about the mine’s social and environmental impacts.

‘I have anger every day’: South African villagers on the mine in their midst
- Rural families removed from their homes in Somkhele, in northern KwaZulu-Natal province, to make way for a giant coal mine are suffering from collective trauma, a new report has found.
- A psychologist evaluated members of 26 of the 220 families displaced and found alarming levels of clinical depression and suicidal feelings.
- He found they had been traumatized by witnessing the exhumation of family graveyards as well as the loss of both income and cultural space provided by cattle encosures.
- The report, commissioned by a law firm representing opponents of the mine, recommends that the mine rehabilitate polluted land and water resources and make greater financial compensation available to allow families who wish to leave to reestablish themselves elsewhere.

Habitat loss, climate change threaten Bangladesh’s native freshwater fishes with extinction
- There were at one time more than 300 native freshwater fish species in Bangladesh, but many have disappeared while others are on the verge of extinction due to habitat loss, overfishing, pollution and climate change.
- Open rivers and other bodies of water in Bangladesh are dwindling fast due to development interventions, unplanned urbanization, encroachment and siltation, which are destroying the habitats of indigenous fish species.
- According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), the statuses of 64 freshwater fish species in Bangladesh range from vulnerable to critically endangered while 30 have become extinct in the wild during the last 30 to 40 years.
- Bangladesh Fisheries Research Institute (BFRI) has so far revived 37 out of 67 species that disappeared from the wild through captive breeding programs and conservation efforts.

Cambodia’s elites swallow up Phnom Penh’s lakes, leaving the poor marooned
- Lakes in Phnom Penh are fast being filled in and parceled off as prime real estate to wealthy and politically connected individuals.
- Families who have for generations fished and practiced aquaculture on the lakes and surrounding wetlands face eviction and the loss of livelihoods.
- At the same time, experts warn that filling in these natural rainwater reservoirs risks exacerbating flood intensity and damage in the Cambodian capital.
- This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network where Gerald Flynn is a fellow.

Fires in the world’s largest wetland turns Brazilian farmers into firefighters
- Fires in 2020 ravaged an area larger than Belgium in the Brazilian Pantanal, the world’s largest tropical wetland, killing at least 17 million animals and leaving locals without water.
- Several initiatives by local nonprofits are taking on the challenge of protecting this unique region by educating residents about fire hazards and training Pantanal cattle ranchers as volunteer firefighters.
- Most of the 2020 fires in the Pantanal started on private farms, according to a study, underscoring the importance of training farmers to suppress flames before they surge into wildfires.
- Experts say fire alerts in the Pantanal are down by 91% so far this year compared to the same period in 2020, thanks to increased efforts by the state government and volunteer programs, as well as wetter weather.

Cambodian mega dam’s resurrection on the Mekong ‘the beginning of the end’
- Cambodian authorities have greenlit studies for a major hydropower dam on the Mekong River in Stung Treng province, despite a ban on dam building on the river that’s been in place since 2020.
- Plans for the 1,400-megawatt Stung Treng dam have been around since 2007, but the project, under various would-be developers, has repeatedly been shelved over criticism of its impacts.
- This time around, the project is being championed by Royal Group, a politically connected conglomerate that was also behind the hugely controversial Lower Sesan 2 dam on a tributary of the Mekong, prompting fears among local communities and experts alike.
- This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center’s Rainforest Investigations Network where Gerald Flynn is a fellow.

Niger Delta mangroves in ‘grave danger’ from oil spills, poverty, invasive species
- Southern Nigeria’s vast Niger Delta boasts Africa’s most extensive mangrove forests — and some of the world’s largest fossil fuel reserves.
- Efforts to extract oil and gas have resulted in numerous oil spills, which have damaged the region’s biodiversity, as well as the livelihoods of coastal communities.
- Niger Delta mangroves are also affected by logging, farming and urban expansion, and are being replaced by invasive nipa palm.
- Research suggests Niger Delta’s mangroves could be gone within 50 years at the current rate of loss.

In Brazil’s Pantanal, early flames signal a ‘new normal’
- Fresh fires are engulfing swaths of the Pantanal, including Pantanal do Rio Negro State Park, a protected reserve with a rich biodiversity of plant and animal species. The flames have affected at least 10,062 hectares of the 78,302-hectare park.
- These fires follow devastating blazes in 2020 and 2021, which consumed huge parts of the Pantanal, the world’s largest tropical wetlands which straddles the borders of Brazil, Paraguay and Bolivia.
- Fire brigades fear more fires may be in store for the Pantanal, as ranchers and farmers continue to use fire to clear agricultural plots of land, despite a ban prohibiting this practice during the region’s dry season.
- Environmentalists warn a changing climate is having a devastating impact on the Pantanal, fueling fires that are more frequent.

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.

In Congo, a carbon sink like no other risks being carved up for oil
- New research has revealed that the peatlands of the Congo Basin are 15% larger than originally thought.
- This area of swampy forest holds an estimated 29 billion metric tons of carbon, which is the amount emitted globally through the burning of fossil fuels in three years.
- Beginning July 28, the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo, where two-thirds of these peatlands lie, will auction off the rights to explore for oil in 27 blocks across the country.
- Scientists and conservationists have criticized the move, which the government says is necessary to fund its operations. Opponents say the blocks overlap with parts of the peatlands, mature rainforest, protected areas, and a UNESCO World Heritage site.

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.

Farmers feel the pressure after conservation crackdown around Cambodia’s Tonle Sap Lake
- Cambodia’s Tonle Sap Lake is surrounded by a conservation area that consists of three zones: Zone 1 and 2, where farming is allowed, and Zone 3, which is closest to the lake and where agriculture and fishing are officially banned.
- The conservation area was enacted in 2011, but farmers and fishers largely had unfettered use of Zone 3 land until 2021, when Prime Minister Hun Sen ordered a crackdown on all clearing and agricultural use of flooded forest land.
- The ban opens an opportunity for the government to restore Tonle Sap’s unique forests, and satellite data already show a drop in deforestation activity in 2022.
- However, farmers living around the lake say they’re hard-pressed to survive without the agriculture they’ve depended on for years.

First-of-its-kind freshwater mangroves discovered in Brazil’s Amazon Delta
- Researchers on an expedition in the Amazon River Delta have found mangroves growing in freshwater — a phenomenon never before documented in deltas or coastal mangroves anywhere else in the world.
- The mangroves, overlooked by previous satellite mapping efforts, increase the known area of mangroves in the region by 20%, or an additional 180 square kilometers (70 square miles).
- Mangroves are a more effective carbon sink than other types of tropical forest, with more than 8% of all carbon stocks worldwide held in Brazil’s mangroves.
- Despite their many ecosystem services, mangroves are not well protected or funded in Brazil.

Podcast: ‘Water always wins,’ so why are we fighting it?
- On this week’s episode of the Mongabay Newscast we examine humanity’s approach to harnessing water, and how the current “us-first” mindset is actually exacerbating our water access problems.
- Journalist and author Erica Gies joins us to discuss the concept of ‘slow’ solutions to water shortages presented in her new book “Water Always Wins: Thriving in an Age of Drought and Deluge,” and how communities can work with water rather than against it.
- Gies discusses how hydrologists, engineers, and urban planners are creating ‘slow’ water projects with traditional hydrological knowledge, which are less invasive ways of harnessing water, in places such as Chennai, India.

Habitat loss, climate change send hyacinth macaw reeling back into endangered status
- The hyacinth macaw, the world’s largest flying parrot, is closer to return to Brazil’s endangered species list, less than a decade after intensive conservation efforts succeeded in getting it off the list.
- The latest assessment still needs to be made official by the Ministry of the Environment, which is likely to publish the updated endangered species list next year.
- Conservation experts attribute the bird’s decline to the loss of its habitat due to fires in the Pantanal wetlands and ongoing deforestation in the Amazon and Cerrado biomes.
- Climate change also poses a serious threat, subjecting the birds to temperature swings that can kill eggs and hatchlings, and driving heavy rainfall that floods their preferred nesting sites.

Return of the king? Pakistan moves to bring gharials from Nepal to its rivers
- Pakistani officials have requested the transfer of hundreds of gharial crocodiles from Nepal in an effort to reintroduce a species last seen in Pakistan in 1985.
- Wildlife conservation officials in Nepal have confirmed communications on the issue, but say a decision hasn’t been made yet.
- A key obstacle to any future transfer is the concern that Pakistan may not have done enough to change the conditions that led to the gharial’s local extinction there.
- The slender-snouted crocodile once ranged west from Pakistan to Bangladesh in the east, but is now almost entirely restricted to India and Nepal, both of which run captive-breeding programs to boost the species’ population.

Mennonite colony builds bridge, clears forest in Bolivian protected areas
- In 2018, a Mennonite colony purchased 14,400 hectares (35,500 acres) of land in the Bolivian department of Santa Cruz. Colonists have since built a bridge and developed a network of roads, and are in the process of clearing vast swaths of forest.
- The construction of the bridge appears to have been done without authorization from the government, and without an environmental impact assessment.
- Portions of the property lie within two protected areas: Kaa-Iya del Gran Chaco National Park and Integrated Management Natural Area, and the Bañados de Izozogy el río Parapetí wetland of international importance.
- Members of a local Indigenous community voiced support for the clearing activities, saying that the new roads and bridge will help connect them to medical facilities. However, scientists and conservationists are concerned about the impact of deforestation on water sources, wildlife and isolated Indigenous groups.

Giant stingray caught in Cambodia is world’s largest freshwater fish
- The largest freshwater fish ever recorded was captured last week in Cambodia’s stretch of the Mekong River: a giant freshwater stingray measuring 4 meters (13 feet) from snout to tail and weighing 300 kilograms (661 pounds).
- The discovery occurred in a stretch of the Mekong known for its diversity of freshwater habitats that support crucial fish-spawning grounds and migration corridors and provide refuges for other mega fish species and threatened species, such as Irrawaddy dolphins and giant softshell turtles.
- Local fishers collaborating with researchers to document the area’s underwater life alerted a monitoring team who measured the ray, fitted it with an acoustic tag to learn more about its behavior, and facilitated its release back into the wild.
- Experts say the find emphasizes what’s at stake in the Mekong, a river that’s facing a slew of development threats, including major hydropower dams that have altered the river’s natural flow. “It is a signal to us to protect our rivers and lakes,” they say.

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.

For traditional peoples in Brazil’s Maranhão state, progress brings violence
- Brazil’s Maranhão state is home to Indigenous peoples and traditional Afro-Brazilian communities known as quilombos, who for generations have lived sustainably off the rich natural resources of the waterlogged Amazonian plains that make up this region.
- But tensions have escalated in recent years between these communities and outsiders, including agribusiness interests and infrastructure developers, who see opportunities for livestock ranching and power transmission lines on these vast plains.
- In 2017, in the ancestral lands of the Indigenous Akroá Gamella people, the conflict culminated in a violent attack blamed on agribusiness interests that left 22 community members injured, including two whose limbs were severed; today, the survivors live with serious psychological and physical scars.
- In the wetlands, the construction of electricity towers for transmission lines has been blamed for declining fish stocks, affecting the livelihoods of traditional fishing communities. The company responsible for the works rejects this allegation.

Canada mining push puts major carbon sink and Indigenous lands in the crosshairs
- A massive mining project called the Ring of Fire is being proposed in Canada’s Hudson Bay lowlands, a region that houses one of the biggest peatland complexes in the world and is home to several Indigenous communities.
- According to the federal and provincial governments, this region hosts one of the “most promising mineral development opportunities,” which is expected to generate jobs and revenues in the remote region.
- Environmentalists say the proposed development threatens to degrade peatlands, which act as a massive carbon store, and could lead to an increase in emissions; First Nations communities have also voiced concerns about mining impacts on traditional lands and livelihoods.
- Many of the affected First Nations have issued moratoriums against the project or have taken the provincial government to court, citing treaty violations and lack of consultations by the governments prior to greenlighting the project and issuing mining claims.

In the Mekong’s murky depths, giants abound, new expedition finds
- An underwater expedition into the deepest pools in the Mekong River has confirmed the presence of giant freshwater fish, fish migration routes, and high volumes of discarded fishing gear and plastic waste.
- The international team of underwater explorers, local fish biologists and fishermen used deep-sea camera technology to document the ecological value of the unique area in northeastern Cambodia, which is characterized by 80-meter-deep (260-foot) pools, flooded forests and braided river channels.
- But just as researchers reveal the value of its biodiversity, food security and fisheries livelihoods, the area faces a new threat: earlier this year, feasibility surveys began for a hydropower dam planned for directly upstream of the deep-pool habitats.
- According to the expedition team, construction of the Stung Treng dam would have “devastating ecological effects and could seriously threaten local food security in an area of the world already impacted by changing climate.”

Oil exploration in DR Congo peatland risks forests, climate and local communities
- The Democratic Republic of Congo is putting 16 oil exploration blocks up for auction, including nine in the peatlands of the Cuvette Centrale.
- Environmentalists warn that oil exploration and infrastructure for production could release huge amounts of carbon stored in the peatland and threaten the rights of local communities.
- The Congolese government says it needs to exploit its natural resources in order to generate income to develop the country, much as countries in other parts of the world have done before it.

Saving the near-extinct estuarine pipefish means protecting estuary health
- The critically endangered estuarine pipefish is known to inhabit only two estuaries on the eastern coast of South Africa.
- Recent studies are uncovering how the health of its estuarine habitat rests on a dynamic balance between freshwater inflows that support the food change, and salinity levels that promote growth of eelgrass habitat for pipefish and other species.
- Genetic analysis of the remaining estuarine pipefish populations has found low genetic diversity, highlighting a further risk to its conservation.
- Conservationists are working toward a plan to protect the species and the wider ecology of the estuaries it inhabits.

In Mexico, a race to save the last wetlands of San Cristóbal de las Casas
- The mountain wetlands of La Kisst and María Eugenia are protected areas in the state of Chiapas, and have been listed as Ramsar sites of international importance. But that hasn’t been enough to guarantee their conservation.
- For more than a decade, local organizations have spoken out against the degradation of the wetlands, which provide around 70% of the water used in the city of San Cristóbal de las Casas.
- The National Commission on Human Rights (CNDH) said not all officials have worked to guarantee wetland conservation.
- It has called for the creation of a program to recover ecosystems and investigate those responsible for environmental crimes.

Traditional knowledge guides protection of planetary health in Finland
- Undisturbed peatlands act as carbon sinks and support biodiversity. Finland has drained 60% — more than 60,000 km2 (23,000 mi2) — of its peatlands, releasing vast amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and destroying entire ecosystems.
- But scientists and Finnish traditional and Indigenous knowledge holders are collaborating to rewild and protect peatlands and associated forests and rivers, turning them into carbon sinks again, while bringing back wildlife and supporting fishing, hunting, and even tourism, offering economic benefits to local communities.
- These Finnish collaborations are already serving as both inspiration and guide to those seeking to use rewilding to curb climate change, enhance biodiversity, create sustainable land use systems, and restore forest, freshwater and wetland ecosystems, while supporting traditional communities.
- “Rewilding is very much about giving more freedom to nature to shape our landscapes, and looking at nature as an ally in solving socioeconomic problems,” says Wouter Helmer former rewilding director of Rewilding Europe. “It’s a holistic way of putting nature back on center stage in our modern society.”

Cambodian project aims to revive flagging fish populations in Tonle Sap Lake
- Struggling freshwater fish populations in the Mekong River catchment received a boost earlier this month when a team of scientists and fisheries specialists released 1,500 captive-reared juvenile fish into Tonle Sap Lake in Cambodia.
- Experts say the release is the first step in rejuvenating the Mekong’s depleted fish populations and fisheries, which have been suffering in recent years due to overfishing, drought, habitat destruction, and the impacts of upstream dams on the Mekong River’s natural flow.
- The fish, including critically endangered Mekong giant catfish and giant barb, and endangered striped river catfish, were released into a series of fish sanctuaries and community conservation areas that protect crucial fish nursery habitat in Tonle Sap Lake, the world’s most productive inland fishery.
- Long-term survival of the Mekong’s threatened fish species will also depend on protection of migration corridors and upstream spawning grounds, and on maintenance of free-flowing and connected watercourses, say experts.

Colombian palm oil company under investigation for polluting rivers
- Oro Rojo began extracting palm oil in 2013 and was granted three environmental permits by environmental authority Corporación Autónoma de Santander (CAS), two of which are currently under investigation.
- Complaints have been filed alleging Oro Rojo discharged waste into nearby waterways.
- According CAS, the company has also been fined for violations relating to air pollution.

Threatened wetlands in Paraguay’s Lake Ypacaraí raise legal questions
- Wetlands surrounding the protected Lake Ypacaraí in Paraguay are being filled in to allow for the construction of housing and tourism projects.
- In addition to providing habitats for countless species of flora and fauna, the wetlands act as a filter for freshwater and help control flooding and erosion.
- The projects were approved by the Ministry of Environment, sparking outcry from congressmen who want to know if protected area laws are being ignored in favor of urban development.

The small cats nobody knows: Wild felines face intensifying planetary risks
- Around the world, there are 33 species of small wild cat that often fly under the conservation and funding radar. Out of sight, and out of mind, some of these species face the risk of extreme population declines and extinction.
- But small cat species are reclusive and notoriously difficult to study. In some cases, basic ecological knowledge is lacking, hindering conservation efforts. Their failure to garner the public attention achieved by the more charismatic big cats has left small cat research severely underfunded.
- These species, many of them habitat specialists with narrow ecological niches, face a wide array of threats including habitat degradation and loss, poaching, human-wildlife conflict, and increasingly, pollution and climate change.
- Despite these global challenges, many conservationists and researchers, hampered by low funding, are fighting to conserve small cats by partnering with traditional communities to build public awareness and reduce immediate threats.

‘We should be pretty concerned’: Study shows only 15% of coastal regions still intact
- A new study has found that only 15.5% of the world’s coastal regions remain intact, while the majority of coastal areas are either highly or extremely impacted by human activities such as fishing, agriculture and development.
- The nations with the largest swaths of undamaged coastlines included Canada, Russia and Greenland.
- The researchers only had access to data up to 2013, so their findings are likely to be an underestimation.
- The study also did not factor in the impacts of climate change, which would place additional pressure on coastal regions.

Indonesia aims for sustainable fish farming with ‘aquaculture villages’
- Indonesia plans to have a network of 136 villages dedicated to aquaculture by the end of this year.
- The initiative is part of the government’s efforts to boost exports of its world-renowned aquaculture commodities, namely shrimp, lobster, crab and seaweed.
- Experts have welcomed the plan, but say it must be supported by sound environmental planning, particularly avoiding the clearing of mangrove forests and ensuring proper waste management.
- Indonesia is one of the top exporters of farmed seafood, but fish farming in the country has long come at the expense of carbon-rich mangrove forests and other important coastal ecosystems.

The past, present and future of the Congo peatlands: 10 takeaways from our series

This is the wrap-up article for our four-part series “The Congo Basin peatlands.” Read Part One, Part Two, Part Three and Part Four. In the first half of December, Mongabay published a four-part series on the peatlands of the Congo Basin. Only in 2017 did a team of Congolese and British scientists discover that a […]
Madagascar gemstone rush puts a wetland and its community under pressure
- The discovery of gemstones near Madagascar’s largest wetland has fueled a mining boom that threatens the environment and the local community.
- The rural commune of Andilana Avaratra has seen its population nearly double as miners flock there from across Madagascar in search of beryl, a mineral family that includes gems like aquamarine.
- The mining activity, none of it permitted, has scarred a hill and threatens to wash large volumes of sediment into Lake Alaotra, a Ramsar Site that’s home to unique and endangered species.
- The miners’ presence has also led to a surge in crime and sexually transmitted diseases, with the local community seeing little in the way of benefits from the boom.

Carbon and communities: The future of the Congo Basin peatlands
- Scientific mapping in 2017 revealed that the peatlands of the Cuvette Centrale in the Congo Basin are the largest and most intact in the world’s tropics.
- That initial work, first published in the journal Nature, was just the first step, scientists say, as work continues to understand how the peatlands formed, what threats they face from the climate and industrial uses like agriculture and logging, and how the communities of the region appear to be coexisting sustainably.
- Researchers say investing in studying and protecting the peatlands will benefit the global community as well as people living in the region because the Cuvette Centrale holds a vast repository of carbon.
- Congolese researchers and leaders say they are eager to safeguard the peatlands for the benefit of everyone, but they also say they need support from abroad to do so.

‘Cooling the climate for 10,000 years’: How saving wetlands can help save the world
- From the vast frozen mires of the arctic to the peat swamps of Asia: “all wetlands are under threat,” said Jane Madgwick, CEO of Wetlands International. “We’re losing them three times as fast as forests.”
- Peat swamps, or peatlands, are particularly effective at storing carbon, which has accumulated over centuries and even millennia as dead plant matter became trapped in waterlogged soil.
- But if drained or otherwise damaged, peat quickly turns from carbon sink to carbon source.
- As nations race to protect and replant forests in an effort to curtail global warming, wetlands experts such as Madgwick are urging leaders to place similar importance on wetland conservation and restoration.

Holding agriculture and logging at bay in the Congo peatlands
- The peatlands of the Congo Basin are perhaps the most intact in the tropics, but threats from logging, agriculture and extractive industries could cause their rapid degradation, scientists say.
- In 2021, the government of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) announced that it was planning to end a moratorium on the issuance of logging concessions that had been in place for nearly two decades.
- The move raised concerns among conservation groups, who say the moratorium should remain in place to protect the DRC’s portion of the world’s second-largest rainforest.
- Today, timber concession boundaries overlap with the peatlands, and though some companies say they won’t cut trees growing on peat, environmental advocates say that any further issuance of logging concessions in the DRC would be irresponsible.

Layers of carbon: The Congo Basin peatlands and oil
- The peatlands of the Congo Basin may be sitting on top of a pool of oil, though exploration has yet to confirm just how big it may be.
- Conservationists and scientists argue that the carbon contained in this England-size area of peat, the largest in the tropics, makes keeping them intact more valuable, not to mention the habitat and resources they provide for the region’s wildlife and people.
- Researchers calculate that the peatlands contain 30 billion metric tons of carbon, or about the amount humans produce in three years.
- As the governments of the Republic of Congo and the Democratic Republic of Congo work to develop their economies, they, along with many policymakers worldwide, argue that the global community has a responsibility to help fund the protection of the peatlands to keep that climate-warming carbon locked away.

The ‘idea’: Uncovering the peatlands of the Congo Basin
- In 2017, a team of scientists from the U.K. and the Republic of Congo announced the discovery of a massive peatland the size of England in the Congo Basin.
- Sometimes called the Cuvette Centrale, this peatland covers 145,529 square kilometers (56,189 square miles) in the northern Republic of Congo and the Democratic Republic of Congo, and holds about 20 times as much carbon as the U.S. releases from burning fossil fuels in a year.
- Today, the Congo Basin peatlands are relatively intact while supporting nearby human communities and a variety of wildlife species, but threats in the form of agriculture, oil and gas exploration and logging loom on the horizon.
- That has led scientists, conservationists and governments to look for ways to protect and better understand the peatlands for the benefit of the people and animals they support and the future of the global climate.

Study shows ‘encouraging’ results of China’s bid to protect coastal wetlands
- China’s coastal wetlands experienced a significant recovery in recent years after many decades of loss and destruction, a new study suggests.
- Satellite imagery shows that different kinds of coastal wetlands deteriorated between 1984 and 2011, but began to improve from about 2012.
- The degradation of China’s coastal wetlands is largely attributed to land reclamation, construction and other economic activities, the study suggests.
- But the nation has recently recognized the importance of coastal wetlands, and initiated several projects aiming to restore and conserve these ecosystems.

Philippine wetland oil riches untouched by war now up for grabs in peacetime
- At 288,000 hectares (712,000 acres), Liguasan Marsh in the southern Philippine island of Mindanao is the country’s largest and most intact wetland, a haven for birds and a source of livelihood for the 100,000 families who live there.
- The marsh was a hotspot during the decades of conflict between the Philippine government and the separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF); it also has known oil and gas reserves.
- With a peace deal forged and the establishment of the Bangsamoro Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao in 2019, the new regional government is seeking investors to develop the marsh’s oil and gas reserves.
- Some fear this extractive activity will damage the marsh’s ecosystem and exacerbate land conflict in an area where land tenure is already complex and contested.

Snapshot of hatchlings raises hopes for Siamese crocs in northeast Cambodia
- Researchers have found and photographed eight Siamese crocodile (Crocodylus siamensis) hatchlings in northeastern Cambodia — the first confirmed evidence that the critically endangered species is breeding in this area.
- The new breeding population significantly expands the known breeding range of the species in Cambodia; until now, most breeding was recorded around the Cardamom Mountains landscape in the southwest.
- With fewer than 1,000 adults remaining in the wild globally, the species is on the brink of extinction; threats include habitat loss, hydropower schemes, poaching, and entanglement in fishing gear.
- Wildlife experts say conservation measures, including community engagement, captive breeding and reintroduction programs, will help to ensure Siamese crocodiles’ long-term survival.

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.

Cost of wetlands: Free. Storm damage they prevent: $38 million per estuary.
- A new study has put a value on property damage from storms that can be prevented by coastal wetlands: $38 million per estuary.
- In all storm scenarios modeled by the study authors, wetlands reduced both the extent of flooding as well as damages from floods, providing the greatest benefits during the most powerful storm scenarios.
- Experts say there’s growing appreciation among policymakers and planners about the importance of nature-based engineering solutions, such as maintaining healthy estuaries, but this hasn’t translated into real action on the ground.

In Chile, a prickly coalition tries to bring a salt flat back to life
- Indigenous communities, environmental activists and a mining company have agreed on a set of measures to try to save the Salar de Punta Negra salt flat in northern Chile.
- Communities say the extraction of groundwater by copper miner Minera Escondida has drained the salt lake and caused irreparable environmental harm.
- Under a court-mediated settlement, all sides have agreed to a series of scientific studies to help identify the cause of the problem and options for addressing it.
- Not everyone is happy about the agreement, however, with some criticizing the meager budget allocation for carrying out the studies compared to the much larger funding for publishing the results.

To save salt marshes, researchers deploy a wide arsenal of techniques
- Salt marshes sequester significant carbon in their sediment — more per hectare than tropical rainforests.
- They protect the land from storm surges and sea level rise, and they shelter a variety of birds, fish and crustaceans.
- However, salt marshes are being lost quickly to erosion and development.
- Governments, institutions and researchers around the world are looking into low-cost ways to protect and restore these vulnerable and valuable habitats.

Environmental defenders in Ecuador aren’t safe, new report shows
- A new report by Ecuador’s Alliance for Human Rights examines abuses against environmental rights defenders over the past 10 years, and finds 449 defenders subjected to intimidation, threats, harassment, persecution, and assassination.
- The report concludes that not only has the Ecuadoran state failed to protect rights defenders, but it has also been directly responsible for some of the abuses, like the concerning number of persecutions and prosecutions of rights defenders.
- Three environmental rights defenders have been murdered in Ecuador over the past 10 years — Andres Durazno, Freddy Taish and José Tendetza — with no one brought to justice for the crimes.

Demand for soy puts pressure on Pantanal, Brazil’s largest wild wetland
- Global demand for soybean has seen annual production of the crop in Brazil soar from 30 million tons in 2000 to 125 million tons today. Most of the agrochemicals consumed in Brazil are used on this crop.
- Soybean farming also accounts for most of the agrochemicals used in Brazil, and the farming activity concentrated in the state of Mato Grosso is now seeing those chemicals washing downstream to the Pantanal wetlands.
- The planet’s largest floodplain, the Pantanal is relatively untouched by agriculture, with only 0.01% of its area occupied by soy farms.
- Scientists have shown that waterways feeding the Pantanal are contaminated and silted up, and that fish are growing scarce in certain locations.

Madagascar: Businesses drive disappearance of a wetland ‘reed forest’
- Lake Alaotra and its surrounding marshes are Madagascar’s largest wetland, a Ramsar Site that is home to globally significant biodiversity.
- Despite layers of legal protection and conservation programming, around 850 hectares (2,100 acres) of marsh disappear each year to make way for rice cultivation, much of it perpetrated by businesses.
- Local people are keenly feeling the lake’s decline, though, and a commitment to protecting it, along with some success stories, persist in pockets around its shores.
- The government is implementing a zero-tolerance campaign against illegal environmental destruction, but it remains to be seen whether this can reduce the lawlessness and impunity enough to safeguard the lake.

Growing concern over Okavango oil exploration as community alleges shutout
- Public consultations are under way for 450 kilometers (280 miles) of seismic surveys, the next phase of oil exploration in northeastern Namibia.
- Critics say the consultations offer only limited public participation, preventing members of affected communities from attending or understanding the unfolding process.
- There is also concern that a series of incremental environmental impact assessments potentially obscures the full implications of ReconAfrica’s ultimate goal of oil production in this region, which may include fracking.

Researchers urge better protection as wetlands continue to vanish
- Wetlands provide many benefits to ecological and human communities alike, from nutrients and nurseries to flood control and climate change mitigation.
- However, as much as 87% of the world’s wetlands has been lost over the past 300 years, with much of this loss happening after 1900.
- In response, nations banded together and in 1971 ratified the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, an intergovernmental treaty designed to facilitate wetland conservation and sustainable use around the world.
- But 50 years on, researchers say the convention has not led to effective protection and wetlands continue to blink out.

Invasion of the crayfish clones: Q&A with Ranja Andriantsoa
- An unusual invasive crayfish has been spreading in Madagascar, threatening aquatic biodiversity even as it helps nourish the country’s food-insecure population.
- The marbled crayfish (Procambarus virginalis) evolved only in recent decades as part of the German aquarium trade. It’s entirely female and reproduces clonally without males.
- Ranja Andriantsoa, a Malagasy biologist and epigenetics researcher, began studying marbled crayfish as a way to learn about cancerous tumors, which reproduce in a similar way.
- Andriantsoa’s ongoing research focuses on the social and health impacts of the marbled crayfish and aims to inform Madagascar’s strategy for managing the crayfish’s ecological impact.

Award-winning Thai community continues the fight to save its wetland forest
- In 2018, community members in Ban Boon Rueang, in Thailand’s northern Chiang Rai province, successfully campaigned against plans to convert a wetland forest into a special economic zone.
- The wetland, which supports residents’ livelihoods as well as providing a haven for wildlife, remains under the customary management of villagers.
- However, it faces ongoing threats due to climate change and dam construction on the Mekong River. Local officials also cannot guarantee that future administrations won’t revive plans to convert the area for industrial use.

Indonesia renews peat restoration bid to include mangroves, but hurdles abound
- Indonesia’s peatland restoration agency has had its mandate renewed for four more years, with the added task of restoring mangroves.
- Known as the BRGM, the agency now has the job of restoring an estimated 2 million hectares (5 million acres) of degraded peatland and mangrove ecosystems across 13 provinces.
- Experts have lauded the mandate extension and expanded scope of work, but point out a number of challenges ahead, such as government policies and legislation that undermine environmental protection in favor of economic growth.

Industrial agriculture threatens a wetland oasis in Bolivia
- An oasis within dry Chiquitano forest in eastern Bolivia, Concepción Lake and its surrounding wetland provide valuable habitat for 253 bird, 48 mammal and 54 fish species.
- However, despite being officially listed as a protected area, cultivation of commodity crops like soy and sorghum is expanding and supplanting habitat.
- Agricultural activity is also linked to phosphate pollution in Concepción Lake, and some think it may also be contributing to the lake’s dramatic drop in water level.
- While the clearing is illegal, local government sources say those responsible are simply paying fines and refusing to stop.

Alarm as exploratory drilling for oil begins in northern Namibia
- Reconnaissance Energy Africa, an oil and gas company with headquarters in Canada, has recently begun exploratory drilling in northern Namibia.
- Conservationists and local communities are concerned over the potential environmental impact that oil and gas extraction could have on such an important ecosystem.
- Northern Namibia and Botswana have a number of interconnected watersheds including the Okavango Delta – the potential for pollutants to enter watercourses and spread throughout the region are a particular concern.

‘Devastating’ fires engulf Brazilian Pantanal wetlands – again
- Wildfires erupting in August have ravaged much of Brazil’s Pantanal Matogrossense National Park, which is a part of the Pantanal region, the world’s largest tropical wetland.
- Fires have so far consumed nearly 4.5 million hectares across the Pantanal, totaling about 30% of the biome and nearly 22 times the area lost between 2000 and 2018.
- This year’s intense fires added to damage already done in 2019, when flames engulfed hundreds of thousands of hectares across the Pantanal.
- Sources say most of the fires started from slash-and-burn farming, which is becoming more prevalent due to the weakening of environmental agencies under the Bolsonaro administration.

A Malagasy community wins global recognition for saving its lake
- A community association charged with managing Lake Andranobe in central Madagascar has won this year’s Equator Prize from the UNDP in the category “Nature for Water.”
- The association’s efforts, including implementing fishery closures, regulating water use, and reforestation, have led to increased fish catches and helped revive the lake ecosystem.
- As in the rest of the world, Madagascar’s wetlands are often overlooked in conservation priorities, despite the fact that freshwater species are even more threatened than terrestrial or marine biodiversity.
- The prize highlights the benefits of community-driven management, which often works better than initiatives undertaken by outsiders but also carries considerable challenges.

As fire season ends, Brazil cited for failed Amazon and Pantanal policies
- The Brazilian Amazon saw devastating fires from August to October 2020, while the Pantanal suffered losses of 28% of the entire wetland biome. Critics contend that Jair Bolsonaro’s Amazon Council and the Brazilian armed forces, sent to the Amazon to combat deforestation and this year’s fires, failed to perform either task effectively.
- Meanwhile, Brazilian President Bolsonaro has made more major cuts to IBAMA and ICMBio, the nation’s two funding-strapped principal environmental agencies, while Environment Minister Ricardo Salles has held back the grand majority of the ministry’s environmental policies budget this year.
- Millions of dollars in funding earmarked for the Army’s Green Brazil Operation 2 this year was reportedly spent not on controlling deforestation or Amazon fires, but on military barracks improvements at bases located well outside the Amazon region. Other Amazon operations were delayed and/or poorly coordinated and executed.
- Critics also argue that IBAMA firefighting resources arrived far too late to the Pantanal, or were poorly focused by the Army in the Amazon. The military, however, claims it gave out large fines for environmental crimes; but environmental fines in Brazil are rarely if ever paid.

Video: Vets hail ‘victory’ as jaguar burned in Pantanal fires returns to wild
- This year, fires in the Pantanal, the world’s largest wetland region, burned through about 4.1 million hectares (10.1 million acres), which constitutes about 28% of the region.
- A 3-year-old jaguar caught in the fires suffered third-degree burns on all four of his paws as he ran across burning peat.
- In September, the jaguar was rescued by a group of veterinarians and delivered to a clinic that helped treat his wounds.
- A month later, rains had extinguished most of the fires, and the jaguar was released in the same spot from which he was rescued.

South African activist killed as contentious coal mine seeks to expand
- Unknown gunmen have shot and killed a prominent critic of a coal mine and its proposed expansion in South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal province.
- No arrests have been made or suspects identified in the killing of Fikile Ntshangase, 65, at her home near the Tendele coal mine, which borders the Hluhluwe-iMfolozi game park.
- Ntshangase was part of a group taking legal action to prevent the mine’s expansion on the grounds that its existing operations fail to comply with environmental and other laws.
- The mine operator has linked the killing and other recent incidents of violence and intimidation to concerns in the community about job losses, suggesting that the violence will decrease if the proposed expansion is approved.

Fire burns Pantanal’s upland heart and threatens nature’s fragile balance
- After spreading for 9 months across the biodiverse Brazilian Pantanal wetlands, fires have reached the Amolar Mountains. This upland area is at the heart of the ecosystem and shelters traditional communities like Barra de São Lourenço.
- Humans and animals, who thrive on the Pantanal’s seasonal cycle of rising and ebbing floods, now see their way of life menaced by an unprecedented wave of drought and fire.
- The region’s inhabitants are already suffering from air and water contamination due to smoke and soot, and dread the fires’ aftermath. With the uplands devastated by the blazes, jaguars, other mammals and birds won’t have anywhere to flee during the next cycle of annual floods.
- “For me, being a ‘pantaneira’ is loving each stick, each tree, each bird. Is feeling part of it,” says resident Leonida Aires de Souza. But now that much of this remote area has burned, the future is uncertain.

Fires raze nearly half of Indigenous territories in Brazil’s Pantanal
- Data indicate that some of the fires began on private land that was supposed to have been conserved, before spreading to Indigenous territories and state and national parks.
- Indigenous people say the fires “came from outside” and “destroyed everything,” including the food and medicinal plants that form an important part of their culture.
- Firefighting officials say there was ample warning about a higher-than-average number of fires this year, but budget cuts and a delay in hiring dashed any chance of efforts to prevent the burning.
- This year’s surge in the number and extent of fires comes amid a plunge in the number of fines imposed by the Brazilian government for environmental crimes, including those related to burning and deforestation.

For the Pantanal’s jaguars, fires bring ‘death by a thousand needle wounds’
- The Pantanal, the world’s largest wetland region, is experiencing catastrophic fires, with current estimates stating that approximately 3.3 million hectares (8.1 million acres), or 22% of the region, have gone up in flames.
- There are approximately 2,000 jaguars living in the Pantanal’s jaguar corridor, and conservationists estimate that about 600 jaguars have had their habitat impacted by the fires, as well as many injured or killed.
- Jaguars are having trouble escaping the situation due to the fires burning underground, which makes them difficult to visually detect.
- While it’s not entirely clear how the fires will affect jaguar populations into the future, the fires could lead to food insecurity issues and genetic instability, according to experts.

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.

500 years of species loss: Humans drive defaunation across Neotropics
- A new study indicates that human activities, such as overhunting, habitat loss, and fires, have contributed to a more than 56% decline in species in mammal assemblages in the American tropics.
- The study drew on animal inventories at more than 1,000 Neotropical study sites, from studies published in the past 30 to 40 years, but with data going back to the time of European colonization of the American tropics.
- The Amazon and Pantanal wetland regions are considered to be relatively “faunally intact,” according to the study, but the current fires in these regions would be adversely affecting wildlife and their habitats.
- The researchers say they hope their findings can inform effective conservation policies, such as better management and policing of existing protected areas, and efforts to stop illegal hunting, deforestation and fires.

Mauritius grapples with worst environmental crisis in a generation
- A ship that ran aground on a coral reef has leaked about 900 tons of fuel oil into the waters off the southeastern coast of Mauritius.
- The incident occurred on July 25, and by Aug. 6 the Japanese-owned ship started to spill oil from its fuel tank, leading Mauritian authorities to declare an environmental emergency.
- The oil sludge threatens Pointe d’Esny, the largest remaining wetland in Mauritius, and other ecologically sensitive areas like the Ile aux Aigrettes Nature Reserve, Blue Bay Marine Area, and Mahebourg Fishing Reserves.
- Water currents appear to be carrying the oil slick north along the eastern shoreline, putting mangrove forests in harm’s way.

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.

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.

In Bogotá, communities weave an unlikely wetland success story
- Around 27 years ago, a community on the northwest border of Bogotá launched a concerted campaign to defend the Conejera wetland against a city and business sector that saw it as disposable.
- The success of their efforts launched a long-standing community movement of wetland defenders in an otherwise urbanized city, where 98% of its original wetlands have been wiped out.
- Today the Colombian capital’s 15 official wetlands are home to dozens of endemic species, including 202 species of birds, and take up about 727 hectares (1,800 acres).

Mangrove collapse ‘inevitable’ unless emissions curbed
- If carbon dioxide emissions are not reduced, mangroves will be unable to keep up with the resulting rise in sea levels and they could start drowning by 2050, according to new study in the journal Science.
- Researchers base their findings on the fate of mangroves from 10,000 years ago, when glacial melting made sea levels rise.

In a Colombian wetland, oil woes deepen with the arrival of fracking
- The wetlands around the Colombian city of Barrancabermeja have for a long time been battered by pollution, including from the region’s oil industry.
- Fishermen say the century of oil extraction here has failed to yield the promised social and economic dividends, while compromising local water resources.
- State oil company Ecopetrol now plans to carry out fracking in a series of pilot projects here, but many communities are skeptical that it will be done responsibly.

‘Out of control’: Unprecedented fires ravage Brazil’s Pantanal wetlands
- Stretching 210,000 sq km across Brazil, Bolivia and Paraguay, the Pantanal is the world’s largest tropical wetland. In Brazil, it stretches across the states of Mato Grosso and Mato Grosso do Sul. The Pantanal is home to many different species of plants and animals, some of them threatened with extinction.
- Fueled by a toxic combination of searing temperatures and high winds, the Brazilian Pantanal was hit by unprecedented fires that engulfed at least 2.4 million hectares across the region in October and November 2019.
- Then in January, just two months after the first bout and during what is supposed to be the rainy season, fires erupted once again. Both times, fires invaded well into Pantanal Matogrossense National Park.
- Local sources say the fires were primarily the result of burning by farmers that spread out of control over an El Niño-dried landscape. Firefighters were caught largely unprepared for the unseasonal fires, as the state normally disassembles its response forces in December and enters a phase of planning for the next fire season. After burning for over a month, the fires were extinguished when rains finally fell in mid-February.

Lucky ducks: Once thought extinct, rare pochards take steps toward recovery
- 12 Madagascar pochard (Aythya innotata) ducklings were born in the wild in November.
- Conservationists had introduced 21 young adult pochards to Lake Sofia in northern Madagascar in December 2018, but did not expect them to reproduce so quickly.
- The pochard was once common in Madagascar’s highlands, but the population declined rapidly in the mid-20th century. Only a single pochard was spotted from 1970 until 2006.
- The new crop of ducklings marks a victory for conservation groups that have been working to save the species since then. However, the pochard’s future remains precarious due in part to a lack of food, with its total population measurable in the dozens.

Endangered migratory birds on collision course with Philippine airport project
- The ongoing construction of an international airport north of Manila may displace at least 12 endangered and threatened bird species, a bird-watching group says.
- Among these species is the endangered black-faced spoonbill (Platalea minor), 24 of which were spotted last month as part of the Asian Waterbird Census — the biggest flock recorded so far in the Philippines.
- The “aerotropolis” project, a 2,500-hectare (6,200-acre) airport complex located 25 kilometers (16 miles)from Manila, will encroach on one of the largest intact coastal wetlands in Manila Bay.
- Every year, more than 50 million waterbirds, including 32 globally threatened species, travel through the Philippines by the East Asian Australasian Flyway, one of the world’s biggest migratory bird flight paths.

Wise use and wetlands: Why we need to nurture nature (commentary)
- Rainforests grab the headlines, but with 87% of wetlands lost globally, it is time to nurture these immensely productive and diverse ecosystems.
- Wetlands are some of the planet’s most productive ecosystems, supporting immense biodiversity. These relatively small areas are often home to hundreds, if not thousands, of individual plant, fish, bird, reptile, and mammal species. Wetland ecosystems also provide more social benefits, per unit area, than other ecosystems, including support for farming, recreation, culture, and urban flood control. And they play a vital role in climate change mitigation and adaptation.
- We lose wetlands three times faster than natural forests, but wise use of wetlands could help reverse this trend. The central idea behind wise use is that all the benefits wetlands provide must be considered and incorporated when people make decisions that affect them.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Community conservation agreements a lifeline for Uganda’s grey crowned cranes
- Uganda’s grey crowned crane has been in sharp decline due to loss of habitat and poaching.
- Across its range in East and Southern Africa, grey crowned crane populations fell by more than half between 1995 and 2005.
- Uganda’s National Environment Management Authority has acted to reclaim and restore wetland habitat vital to the cranes’ breeding.
- The Cranes and Wetlands initiative is creating self-sustaining incentives for communities living around wetlands to rehabilitate and protect wetlands areas.

Indonesia to revive idle shrimp farms to boost fisheries and save mangroves
- More than half of the shrimp farms carved out of mangrove forests in Indonesia have been left idle or abandoned.
- The government plans to revive these aquaculture farms to both boost fisheries production and prevent the clearing of more mangroves.
- Fisheries experts have welcomed the plan to boost aquaculture, but say the government should focus on boosting yields from existing shrimp farms rather than expanding the number of operating farms.
- In addition to the deforestation of mangroves, shrimp farms have drawn criticism for degrading the quality of freshwater available for communities living in the vicinity of the ponds.

Activists fighting for their lands swept up in Philippines crackdown
- A security crackdown in the Philippines targeting an armed communist insurgency has swept up environmental and land defenders in a raid on Oct. 31.
- International humanitarian and church groups have also been included in the military’s list of “legal front groups” of the outlawed New People’s Army and tied to terror financing.
- Security forces rounded up a total of 63 activists: 57 on the island of Negros and six in Manila. They include leaders of peasant groups, farmers, and anti-reclamation activists.
- At least six of the arrested critical groups are environmental and land defenders advocating for land campaigns on Negros and against the ongoing Manila Bay reclamation.

Grassroots campaign saves major wetland in Montenegro
- Campaigners have saved the Ulcinj Salina in Montenegro from development after an 18-year campaign.
- They lobbied European Union ministers, mindful of fact that Montenegro’s leadership was looking to join the EU, but its poor environmental record was holding it back.
- They also used the influence of European diplomats to augment pressure on local officials and of the internet to broadcast their cause worldwide. They won local support with their plans for sustainable tourism.

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.

Fires still being set in blazing Bolivia (commentary)
- Firefighters in Bolivia are tackling conflagrations that have burned an area larger than Costa Rica. Several national parks and Indigenous territories have been affected.
- Many Indigenous and civil society groups are calling for an end to laws that allow burning.
- I spoke to ecologists and biologists about what is being lost, and what the chances of recovery are for affected areas. Some did not want to be named, as the political situation is tense right now in the run up to Bolivia’s October elections.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

How climate change could throw Māori culture off-balance
- Māori culture is at risk due to predicted changes in the ranges of two culturally important native plants, kuta and kūmarahou.
- Under projected climate change models, traditional weavers will face a shortage of kuta, a grass-like sedge used for weaving, in their ancestral harvesting sites.
- Kūmarahou, a shrub used for medicinal purposes, will become more abundant, devaluing the plant as a form of cultural currency in Māori tradition.

In Indonesia, bigger catches for a fishing village protecting its mangroves
- For years, weak law enforcement and low public awareness meant environmentally dangerous practices were commonly employed in countries like Indonesia.
- But local and national government reforms, combined with customary traditions and ambitious NGO programs, are beginning to address the problem.
- One village in western Borneo has seen a dramatic recovery in fish stocks after temporary fisheries closures were enacted.

‘Judas’ snakes lead scientists on a high-tech Easter egg hunt for pythons
- Scientists are exploring various technologies to address the spread of highly invasive Burmese pythons, which have devastated native mammal and bird populations across much of southern Florida.
- Researchers who recently captured a large pregnant Burmese python did so using the “Judas” technique: the radio-tagging of adult pythons that will approach others of the opposite sex during the breeding season, “betraying” them to the research teams.
- More recently, separate research teams have trialed the use of environmental DNA (eDNA) to determine the spatial distribution, range limits, and expansion rates of Burmese pythons in the region. They found python eDNA within a wildlife refuge, indicating that the invaded area extends further north than previously thought and that pythons are likely resident there.

Deforestation diminishes access to clean water, study finds
- A recent study compared deforestation data and information on household access to clean water in Malawi.
- The scientists found that the country lost 14 percent of its forest between 2000 and 2010, which had the same effect on access to safe drinking water as a 9 percent decrease in rainfall.
- With higher rainfall variability expected in today’s changing climate, the authors suggest that a larger area of forest in countries like Malawi could be a buffer against the impacts of climate change.

Solving the mystery of the UK’s vanishing hen harriers
- The numbers of breeding hen harriers, one of England’s rarest birds and a protected species, dropped sharply in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
- To better understand why hen harriers were vanishing, researchers tracked the movements of 58 birds using satellite-based tags in conjunction with remote sensing land management data.
- Birds with tags that stopped transmitting spent their last week of life predominantly on moors where hunters shoot grouse and were 10 times more likely to disappear or die when grouse moors dominated their ranges, suggesting they were killed.
- The findings indicated that 72 percent of the tagged harriers were either confirmed or considered very likely to have been illegally killed.

Malaysian state chief: Highway construction must not destroy forest
- The chief minister of Sabah, one of two Malaysian states on the island of Borneo, said that the Pan Borneo Highway project should expand existing roads where possible to minimize environmental impact.
- A coalition of local NGOs and scientific organizations applauded the announcement, saying that it could usher in a new era of collaboration between the government and civil society to look out for Sabah’s people and forests.
- These groups have raised concerns about the impacts on wildlife and communities of the proposed path of the highway, which will cover some 5,300 kilometers (3,300 miles) in the states of Sabah and Sarawak.

New maps show where humans are pushing species closer to extinction
- A new study maps out how disruptive human changes to the environment affect the individual ranges of more than 5,400 mammal, bird and amphibian species around the world.
- Almost a quarter of the species are threatened by human impacts in more than 90 percent of their range, and at least one human impact occurred in an average of 38 percent of the range of a given species.
- The study also identified “cool” spots, where concentrations of species aren’t negatively impacted by humans.
- The researchers say these “refugia” are good targets for conservation efforts.

Putting the Blue in the Green New Deal (commentary)
- The Green New Deal (GND) is a U.S. resolution that aims to address economic inequality and global warming through a set of proposed economic stimulus projects.
- As nearly half of the U.S. populace lives in or near coastal areas, the GND needs to prioritize the sustainable use and preservation of the marine environment – called the “blue economy.”
- David Helvarg of Blue Frontier and Jason Scorse of the International Environmental Policy Program and the Middlebury Institute of International Studies suggest a series of policy and investment priorities for incorporation of the blue economy into the GND.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Freshwater fishes and other threatened but overlooked biodiversity must be new flagships for conservation (commentary)
- Today there are believed to be at least 15,000 species of freshwater fishes. Only 54 percent of them have been assessed under the IUCN Red List, and one-third of these species are considered to be under threat of extinction. For the many species that remain unassessed, or for which there is too little information to make an assessment, the situation is likely to be as bad or worse.
- While there is so much to do, there are only a handful of dedicated freshwater fish conservation organizations, and few have full-time staff. Trout and salmon have received large amounts of attention and, as a consequence, there are many stories of conservation success. There are fewer stories of success for species outside North America and northern Europe. And this is what we will change with Shoal.
- The call by leading conservation agencies for a “new deal for nature” at the next Conference of the Parties of the Convention for Biological Diversity in 2020 needs to be firmly founded on neglected species, particularly freshwater biodiversity. Shoal will engage thousands of people and businesses across the globe who share a love of and stake in the future of freshwater species and healthy, productive wetlands but until now have had little opportunity to engage in the more mainstream conservation movement.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

European Parliament to vote on timber legality agreement with Vietnam
- The European Parliament begins debate March 11 on a resolution to consent to the recently signed Voluntary Partnership Agreement (VPA) with Vietnam on the trade of timber and timber products from the Southeast Asian country.
- The VPA is the result of nearly eight years of negotiations aimed at stopping the flow of illegally harvested timber into the EU.
- Members of parliament are expected to vote in favor of the resolution on March 12, though officials in the EU and outside observers have voiced concerns about the legality of the wood imported into Vietnam from other countries, such as the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Wetland forests: What are they worth? (commentary)
- The wetland forests of the Southern United States are a valuable, yet vulnerable, national treasure. Their tangled branches, ancient butted roots, and swampy mystique conceal rare and beautiful wildlife and are deeply ingrained in the cultural heritage of the region.
- Wetland forests provide vital ecosystem services for people living in the U.S. South. These benefits include protecting communities from the worst impacts of hurricanes and flooding, supporting a vibrant recreation economy, improving property values, providing opportunities for ecotourism, filtering water, treating waste, supporting pollinators, growing food and forest products, and even cooling the worst of the South’s sticky hot summers.
- Just a few hundred years ago, the swamps of the South were drastically different. They stretched over the landscape where tree plantations, farms, and cities have now replaced them. The forested wetlands of the Southern US and the myriad benefits they provide are crucial to the health and wellbeing of the region, which is why we should work to protect them.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Latam Eco Review: Some whales may benefit from Japan’s whaling commission exit

More than 2,000 illegal mining sites in the Amazon, a wetland in Chile threatened by a highway extension, and a possible new monkey species in Peru were among the top stories from our Spanish-language service, Mongabay Latam. Interactive map shows more than 2,300 illegal mining sites across the Amazon A new interactive map shows 2,312 […]
Chile renews contract with lithium company criticized for damaging wetland
- A lithium company operating in the Atacama salt flats in northern Chile has been cited for environmental impacts related to over-extraction of the mineral-rich brine.
- The region contains more than half the world’s lithium reserves, a crucial component in energy storage technologies, with widespread applications in the automotive and electronics industries.
- Situated in the heart of the driest desert in the world, the salt flats support a unique wetland environment home to multiple flamingo species.

New species of giant salamander described after decades of mystery
- Scientists have described a new species of giant salamander that grows up to 60 centimeters (2 feet) long and is a type of siren, a group of eel-like salamanders that have only front limbs, and large, frilled gills behind their heads.
- The formal description of the species, named the reticulated siren, comes after decades of surveys and exploration.
- The researchers do not have a complete understanding of the reticulated siren yet, but given that much of its habitat lies in wetlands within the endangered longleaf pine ecosystem, the species is of conservation concern, they say.

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.

Cheap prices lead to more exotic pets in the wild, research finds
- New research shows that exotic amphibians and reptiles sold inexpensively as pets are more likely to end up in the wild, where they can pose problems for native wildlife.
- The authors of the study believe that many pet owners may not fully understand the responsibility of owning these animals, some of which can grow to large sizes and live for decades.
- They suggest that limiting the numbers of certain species popular as pets could help limit their often-destructive impact on ecosystems.

Podcast: Beavers matter more than you think
- We discuss one of the world’s most overlooked keystone species, the beaver, on this episode of the Mongabay Newscast.
- Environmental journalist and writer Ben Goldbarb is a big proponent of giving beavers far more attention than they’re paid. His latest book is fittingly called Eager: The Surprising, Secret Life of Beavers and Why They Matter.
- Today, the North American beaver population is on the rebound thanks to conservationists who are helping bring this keystone species back to habitat across the continent. Goldfarb tells us all about these efforts and just why beavers’ role as “ecosystem engineers” is so crucial.

India’s dancing deer and their unique floating home are under threat
- The critical floating habitats of the rare sangai, or dancing deer, in Loktak Lake in Manipur, India, are losing out to mushrooming agricultural practices and human settlements, a new study has found.
- The loss of floating islands from the southern and northern part of Loktak is a “major concern,” the study noted, one that could lead to the “destruction of the only floating national park in the world.”
- Much of the changes in the unique floating meadows of Loktak Lake can be attributed to the construction of the Ithai barrage on the Manipur River in 1979 for a hydroelectric project, researchers say.

A boon for birds: Once overlooked, China’s mudflats gain protections
- The shoreline of the Yellow Sea has been transformed dramatically over the last half-century as mudflats have been filled in with rock and soil, replacing dynamic, natural tidal zones with solid ground for ports, chemical plants and farmland.
- Losing the intertidal flats has proved devastating for the millions of shorebirds that funnel through the Yellow Sea during migration.
- In January, the Chinese government announced a sweeping package of reforms aimed at ending much of the land reclamation taking place on the mudflats.
- “Stunned joy” is how one bird conservationist described her reaction to news of the reforms, which she said could avert one of the biggest extinction crises facing migratory birds — if they work.

More than 40 percent of Madagascar’s freshwater life sliding toward extinction, IUCN finds
- In an assessment of 653 freshwater plant and animal species living on Madagascar and nearby islands, biologists found that 43 percent are threatened with extinction or there isn’t enough information to assess how well they’re doing.
- Nearly 80 percent of endemic plants examined in the study face extinction.
- The team lists unsustainable farming practices, deforestation, dam construction, mining and the overuse of natural resources, such as overfishing, as causes for the widespread declines.

Video: Arkani, the Dayak known as Jenggot Naga — Dragon Beard
- “The palm oil fiefdom” is an investigation by Mongabay and The Gecko Project, an initiative of the UK-based research house Earthsight.
- The article reveals how Darwan Ali, the former head of Indonesia’s Seruyan district, presided over an elaborate scheme to use shell companies as vehicles to make money from major palm oil firms.
- Short films produced in conjunction with the article feature some of those affected by Darwan’s licensing spree, including an indigenous man from Borneo named Arkani.

Data fusion opens new horizons for remote imaging of landscapes
- Scientists use remotely sensed data from satellites to map and analyze habitat extent, vegetation health, land use change, and plant species distributions at various scales.
- Open-source data sets, analysis tools, and powerful computers now allow scientists to combine different sources of satellite-based data.
- A new paper details how combining multispectral and radar data enables more refined analyses over broader scales than either can alone.

Waterbirds flock to well-run countries, new study shows
- A new study demonstrates that how a country is governed is the factor that has the most influence on waterbird populations.
- Governance plays a bigger role than climate change or human population booms.
- The authors suggest that waterbirds, which include ducks, flamingos and pelicans, could serve as indicators to demonstrate the impact that governance has on biodiversity in general.

Land reclamation threatens extremely rare spoon-billed sandpipers in China
- Every year, the critically endangered spoon-billed sandpiper makes a crucial three-month stopover at Tiaozini mudflats in Jiangsu province on China’s eastern coast.
- The Jiangsu government, however, has already converted 67.5 square kilometers of Tiaozini’s coastal waters into land and plans to reclaim another 599.5 square kilometers of Tiaozini by 2020.
- Conservationists say that virtually all spoon-billed sandpipers that currently use Tiaozini could disappear if the reclamation goes ahead as planned, pushing the species to extinction.

Pulp and paper giant sues Indonesian government over peat protection obligation
- A company owned by the billionaire Tanoto family of Indonesia is seeking to overturn a government decision to invalidate its plans to operate on peatlands.
- The parties are clashing over new rules issued by the Indonesian government in the wake of the 2015 fire and haze crisis.
- The government recently rezoned some areas within the company’s concession for conservation, but the company argues it should be allowed to keep operating on them for now.

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.

Indonesia for Sale: in-depth series on corruption, palm oil and rainforests launches
- The investigative series Indonesia for Sale, launching this week, shines new light on the corruption behind Indonesia’s deforestation and land rights crisis.
- In-depth stories, to be released over the coming months, will expose the role of collusion between palm oil firms and politicians in subverting Indonesia’s democracy. They will be published in English and Indonesian.
- The series is the product of nine months’ reporting across the country, interviewing fixers, middlemen, lawyers and companies involved in land deals, and those most affected by them.
- Indonesia for Sale is a collaboration between Mongabay and The Gecko Project, an investigative reporting initiative established by UK-based nonprofit Earthsight.

Land-swap rule among Indonesian President Jokowi’s latest peat reforms
- To prevent another round of devastating wildfires, Indonesian President Joko Widodo’s administration has issued a series of policies governing the management of peatlands — carbon-rich swamps that have been widely drained and dried by the nation’s agribusinesses, rendering them highly flammable.
- The administration hopes a new land-swap scheme will help it claw back peat from big oil palm and timber planters, providing a means to supply the firms with additional land elsewhere in the country.
- Business associations complain about the new policy, saying it’s not feasible for a company in Sumatra to move its operations all the way to Papua.
- Environmental pressure groups, meanwhile, call the regulation an unfair boon for large firms, providing a rapacious industry with more land than the vast amounts it already controls.

First real test for Jokowi on haze as annual fires return to Indonesia
- Land and forest fires have broken out in pockets of Indonesia since mid-July.
- Last year the country caught a break, when a longer-than-normal wet season brought on by La Niña helped mitigate the fire threat.
- This year, hotspots have started appearing in regions with no history of major land and forest fires, like East Nusa Tenggara and Aceh.
- The government has responded by declaring an emergency status as well as deploying firefighters.

Mounting outcry over Indonesian palm oil bill as legislators press on
- The bill cements the right of oil palm planters to operate on peat soil, at a time when President Joko Widodo is trying to enforce new peat protections to stop another outbreak of devastating fires and haze.
- The bill has also been criticized for outlining a variety of tax breaks and duty relief schemes for palm oil investors, although those provisions have been dialed back — but not completely eliminated — in the latest draft.
- The bill’s main champion in the House of Representatives is the Golkar Party’s Firman Soebagyo. He says it will help farmers and protect Indonesian palm oil from foreign intervention.
- Responding to mounting public criticism, some cabinet members recently asked the House to abandon the bill, but Soebagyo, who is leading the deliberations, says they will continue.

Indonesia blocks major artery in haze-causing Mega Rice canal network
- The Ministry of Public Works and Housing is narrowing and installing dams in one of the largest canals built as part of the failed Mega Rice Project in the mid-1990s.
- Authorities are negotiating with local residents who rely on some of the canals for transportation through the peat swamps of Central Kalimantan.
- Officials say that to really solve the problem of dried out and flammable peat, not just the largest canals but the smaller ones too will have to be blocked.

Mangrove loss threatens migratory shorebird route in North Sumatra
- A new study examines the impact of agricultural expansion on an important shorebird habitat in North Sumatra.
- Mangrove cover in the Indonesian province has dropped 85 percent in the last 14 years.
- The study’s authors want the government to issue a regulation to protect shorebirds specifically.

Communities band together to protect El Salvador’s last mangroves
- Jiquilisco Bay is home to about half of El Salvador’s remaining mangroves. But many mangrove tracts were nearly wiped out by Hurricane Mitch in 1998, and siltation from upstream deforestation and controlled flooding were damaging the rest.
- In response, local communities formed a coalition, called the Mangrove Association, to help protect and expand the region’s mangroves.
- Around 80 communities are involved in the Mangrove Association. They work to restore damaged areas, and have re-planted hundreds of acres of mangrove forest.

Indonesian governor asks president to let timber firms drain peat in his province
- West Kalimantan Governor Cornelis asked President Joko Widodo to let some timber plantation companies drain peatlands, even though Jakarta banned the practice last year.
- In a letter to the president dated Apr. 25, Cornelis makes an economic argument for allowing the companies to proceed as usual.
- Cornelis is a member of an international consortium of governors dedicated to fighting climate change; Greenpeace said his request to the president amounted to a “double standard.”
- His request came just days after Jakarta sanctioned a timber firm in his province for building an illegal canal through the Sungai Putri peat swamp forest.

Over the bridge: The battle for the future of the Kinabatangan
- Proponents of the project contend that a bridge and associated paved road to Sukau would have helped the town grow and improve the standard of living for its residents.
- Environmental groups argue that the region’s unrealized potential for high-end nature tourism could bring similar economic benefits without disturbing local populations of elephants, orangutans and other struggling wildlife.
- The mid-April cancellation of the bridge was heralded as a success for rainforest conservation, but bigger questions loom about the future of local communities, the sanctuary and its wildlife.

A Sumatran king’s 1,400-year-old vision for sustainable landscape planning
- Indonesia’s South Sumatra is an epicenter of the annual peat fires that ravage the archipelago country.
- The province has become a staging ground for projects like KELOLA Sendang, which is intended to promote sustainable landscape management in an important tiger habitat.
- More than a millennium ago, the ruler of the Srivijaya kingdom put forth his own vision for sustainable prosperity — one of which today’s policymakers could take heed.

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.

Green groups want paper giant to stop using drained peat in Indonesia
- Indonesia’s vast peat swamp zones have been widely drained and dried for agriculture. The practice underlies the devastating annual fires that in 2015 burned an area the size of Vermont and sickened half a million people.
- Asia Pulp & Paper is Indonesia’s largest paper company. About a quarter of its vast holdings consist of peat.
- The government has banned any new development on peatlands. NGOs want the company to go farther, rewetting and restoring all of the peat in its concessions, even that which has already been planted with acacia.

As accusations fly, paper giant appears to stand by its replanting of burned peat in Sumatra
- After the 2015 fire and haze crisis, the Indonesian government barred plantation firms from replanting the peatlands that had burned in their concessions. Instead, the companies were ordered to restore the dried-out peat soil to prevent future fires.
- Some agribusinesses, however, are said to be resurrecting their drainage-dependent acacia and oil palm estates in violation of the directive from President Jokowi’s administration. One of them is Asia Pulp & Paper, an arm of the Sinar Mas conglomerate.
- APP declined to comment substantively for this article, except to imply that everything it does is in accordance with the rules. But a director in the Indonesian Ministry of Environment and Forestry explained that the company had been authorized to replant burned peat with acacia trees because, he said, it would serve to mitigate certain fire risks.
- NGOs surveyed by Mongabay rejected the contention that planting peat with drainage-dependent acacia constitutes a valid means of peatland restoration, although some were more understanding of the government’s position than others.

Green groups raise red flags over Jokowi’s widely acclaimed haze law
- Indonesian President Joko Widodo last week codified a much-praised moratorium on peatland development into law.
- Though widely reported as a permanent ban on clearing and draining the archipelago’s carbon-rich peat swamps, the prohibition will only last until the government finishes mapping and zoning the nation’s peatlands, although stronger protections have been put in place.
- Norway praised the policy’s legalization, announcing it would release $25 million to support the sustainable management of Indonesia’s peatlands.
- Some environmental groups tell Mongabay that the regulation pays insufficient heed to the scientific evidence of what is required to prevent the wholesale collapse of peatland ecosystems.

From loathed to loved: Villagers rally to save Greater Adjutant stork
- The Greater Adjutant stork (Leptoptilos dubius) could once be found from India to Southeast Asia in the hundreds of thousands. Long despised and treated as a pest, this giant, ungainly bird is Endangered by habitat loss, with just 1,000 remaining by the 1990s.
- Purnima Devi Barman fell in love with the species. But with most of the remaining birds living on private property, how to save it? She launched a one-woman campaign to teach local villagers in India’s Assam to value L. dubius, showing them it can enhance their livelihoods.
- Arvind Mishra transformed another Indian community’s disgust for the huge storks into a strong desire to preserve them. With a Bihar community’s help, he’s established a rescue and rehabilitation center devoted exclusively to the care of downed Greater Adjutant chicks.
- Barman and Mishra both serve as vibrant examples of how the unflinching commitment of just one person to a species can make the difference between conservation and extinction, and how engaged local communities can make the difference.

Illegal logging ‘ravaging’ Myanmar’s Indawgyi Lake Wildlife Reserve
- Indawgyi is Myanmar’s most important wetland site and under consideration as a biosphere reserve and a Natural World Heritage Site by UNESCO for its global biodiversity value.
- Myanmar’s timber is worth about $550 million a year on the international market, according to the World Bank. A country-wide logging ban has increased concerns over illegal logging activity in certain parts of the country.
- The domestic energy market that uses timber for fuel is a key driver of deforestation in Myanmar, particularly in the region of Indawgyi.

Parents who say Indonesia’s haze killed their children testify in citizen suit
- Indonesian President Joko Widodo has promised to prosecute companies linked to last year’s fire and haze disaster.
- In July, though, the Riau Police terminated investigations into 15 companies the environment ministry had listed in connection with the burning.
- At least two lawsuits challenging the dropping of the cases are now underway.

Hectare by hectare, an indigenous man reforested a jungle in Indonesia’s burned-out heartland
- In 1998, a Dayak Ngaju man named Januminro started buying up and reforesting degraded land not far from Palangkaraya, the capital of Indonesia’s Central Kalimantan province.
- Today the forest spans 18 hectares and is home to orangutans, sun bears and other endangered species.
- Januminro uses funds from an adopt-a-tree program to operate a volunteer firefighting team. He has big plans to expand the forest.

Company poised to destroy critical orangutan habitat in breach of Indonesia’s moratorium
- Sungai Putri is a beautiful natural forest area in West Kalimantan that is home to between 750 and 1750 orangutans.
- This makes it the third largest population of this Critically Endangered species in the province. Sungai Putri has extensive deep peat areas, up to 14.5 meters deep in places.
- A company named PT Mohairson Pawan Khatulistiwa apparently plans to clear more than half of their license area for conversion into an industrial tree plantation.

139 scientists shoot down ‘misleading’ reports from Malaysia peat congress
- The researchers issued an open letter in response to certain newspaper articles about the 15th International Peat Congress, held recently in Malaysia, a top palm oil producer.
- One article erroneously portrays an IPC executive as endorsing new studies finding drainage-based peatland agriculture to be not necessarily unsustainable, when the executive made no such comments.
- More broadly, the articles in question portray as fringely held the view that drainage-based peatland development is unsustainable, when in fact it is backed by an extensive body of research and held by a large number of scientists, not just by “militant environmentalists” and “green NGOs” as implied by the articles.
- The articles were published in The Jakarta Post and The Borneo Post.

Indonesia seeks foreign funds to aid peat restoration drive
- The head of Indonesia’s peat restoration agency said corporate social responsibility and donor funds would not be enough to meet the country’s target.
- Indonesia’s finance ministry is preparing a reform package to provide incentives to invest in peat rehabilitation.
- The environment ministry has moved to issue five timber companies with administrative sanctions for complicity in wildfires burning on their concessions.
- Three companies had their licenses altogether revoked; land from two of those concessions will be converted into a buffer zone for Tesso Nilo National Park.

Indonesia’s peat restoration chief calls for protection of all peat domes

Drainage canal dug through peat swamp in Riau Province. Photo by Rhett A Butler

The Indonesian agency set up to prevent a recurrence of last year’s devastating forest and peatland fires is calling for all peat domes in the country to be designated as protected areas. Indonesian law already prohibits development on deep peatlands, where the carbon-rich peat soil can extend for many meters below the surface. But the country’s vague peat […]
Company ordered to pay record $76m over fires in Sumatra
- The case concerned fires that burned across PT National Sago Prima’s concession in Indonesia’s Riau province in 2014.
- The company was deemed to have been negligent in failing to prevent the fires because it did not have the proper firefighting equipment and infrastructure on hand.
- The fires were also deemed to have damaged the environment and the economy.

Out of sight, out of mind: Asia’s elusive Fishing Cat in trouble
- Fishing cats have a broad but discontinuous range, including wetland areas of mainland Asia (India, Nepal, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, and perhaps Malaysia), as well as the islands of Sri Lanka and maybe Java. But these small nocturnal wild cats are rarely seen. Habitat loss has caused a drastic decline, and as few as 3,000 may remain in the wild.
- Fishing cats are prestigious swimmers, love the water, and eat mostly fish, but they also eat just about anything that they can catch, including birds, snakes, frogs, insects, terrestrial mammals such as civets and rodents, along with domestic livestock such as ducks and chickens.
- While primarily wetland species, Fishing cats have recently proven to be quite adaptable, and the animals have been discovered making night time raids on fishponds in the highly urbanized city of Colombo, Sri Lanka, population 650,000+.
- The major block to Fishing cat conservation is that it is almost unknown to the public and to funders. The animals are almost never seen in the wild, but researchers who have spent time with Fishing cats say that this species’ time in the public limelight could be on the verge of occurring.

9 new natural sites added to World Heritage List
- The World Heritage Committee yesterday added nine new natural sites to the World Heritage List during its 40th session in Turkey.
- The list includes diverse landscapes such as Khangchendzonga National Park in India, Canada’s Mistaken Point, and Iran’s Lut Desert.
- The list also has little-known places such as the Ahwar of Southern Iraq, which includes Iraqi marshlands once drained by Saddam Hussain as well as ancient cities of Uruk, Ur and the Tell Eridu.

SE Asia’s damaged peat swamps could release 8.7 gigatons of CO2
- Conversion of carbon-rich peatlands is a major driver of climate change, especially in Indonesia and the rest of Southeast Asia.
- A new study finds that the land use most detrimental to peat is the current standard practice of clearing, draining and burning for plantations and construction.
- The researchers found that activities that require draining peat will always result in near-term carbon loss, but some types of agriculture are more damaging than others.

How effective will Indonesia’s palm oil permit freeze really be?
- Last month, Indonesian president Joko Widodo took a major step toward preventing a repeat of 2015’s fire and haze crisis when he declared a moratorium on new oil palm and mining permits.
- It appears, though, that the licensing freeze will not be passed into law, prompting concerns over the penalties that can be applied to violators.
- A recent Greenpeace study has found 1,404 oil palm concessions the NGO says need to be reviewed because they contravene the the 2011 forestry moratorium brought in under similar terms by Widodo’s predecessor.

Another pulp and paper supplier suspended for role in Indonesian haze crisis
- After last year’s devastating fires, the Indonesian government is cracking down on companies thought to have played a role in causing them.
- Many of the fires occurred on land belonging to pulp and paper giant APRIL.
- The recent suspension of PT Rimba Lazuardi follows a similar action against PT Sumatra Riang Lestari, another APRIL supplier.

Companies asked to pitch in to Indonesia’s peat restoration drive as early fires flare in Sumatra
- Twenty-two hotspots were spotted in Riau province on Thursday, with rain expected to quell them in mid-April.
- Central Kalimantan province, the worst-hit of last year’s fire and haze crisis, continues to suffer an urgent shortage of doctors, a local politician said.
- A prominent NGO official called on Jakarta to establish a dedicated agency to see through the all-important One Map initiative.

$1m for devising best way to map Indonesia’s peatlands
- Bad maps have undermined Indonesia’s development for a long time.
- For one, they have made it tough to fight the annual forest and peatland fires.
- Now, the government wants to establish a national standard for mapping the country’s peat. It will do so through a competition, the Indonesian Peat Prize.

Indonesia’s peat peninsula being drained into oblivion, study finds
- The practices of agribusiness are causing the Kampar Peninsula to sink below flooding levels, according to a new report by the consultancy Deltares.
- 43.4% of the peatlands on the carbon-rich peninsula have been drained and converted to acacia plantations, mainly by APRIL, and also by Asia Pulp & Paper.
- APRIL disputes the notion that its practices aren’t sustainable, arguing that it has worked hard to protect the remaining forest there.

Norway pledges $50m to fund Indonesia’s peat restoration
- The pledge follows last year’s fire and haze disaster, which burned 2 million hectares of land, mostly peat, in the archipelago.
- The money will support the newly created Peat Restoration Agency.
- The U.S. government also pledged $17 million for peatland restoration in Indonesia’s Jambi province.

Measuring the Heartbeat of the Delta
- National Geographic Explorers traverse the Okavango Delta to highlight the pristine wilderness in a human context using open-source data, images and social media.
- This is the first time open-source software and hardware applications have been applied to a wilderness expedition and displayed for the public.
- Explorers send real-time data from the field and make it accessible to anyone to use for their own research or projects.

Controversial Nicaragua canal on hold

Construction work on a controversial canal that would link the Pacific Ocean with the Caribbean via an overland route across Nicaragua and through Central America’s largest lake has been postponed until late 2016, says the company behind the project. China-based HKND Co. issued a statement Wednesday saying that “the construction of locks and the big […]
Indonesia bans peatlands destruction
- Indonesian president Joko Widodo has banned clearance and conversion of carbon-dense peatlands across the archipelago.
- A series of presidential and ministerial instructions bars planting of newly burned areas, instead mandating restoration.
- Notably the instructions ban clearance of peatlands even in existing concession areas.

Photos confirm Indonesia being burned for palm oil
- New photos released today by Greenpeace show that palm oil developers are quickly planting burned peatlands with oil palm seedlings in Indonesian Borneo.
- The findings strongly refute a statement made by GAPKI, Indonesia’s palm oil trade association, which claimed that the country’s palm oil industry is the victim of a smear campaign.
- Greenpeace noted that there is no way to know who burned the land because the Indonesian government hasn’t released concession maps for the area in years. That makes it impossible to hold those responsible to account.

The Black-faced Spoonbill: Asia’s beloved wading bird fights for space
- The Black-faced Spoonbill, with its fascinating feeding behaviors, has won the hearts of birders and the Asian public, making it a signature umbrella species for establishing coastal preserves that protect many other less charismatic bird species.
- The long-term conservation of this migratory species will require a commitment to protecting summer nesting grounds and winter roosting grounds, plus resting areas along the coasts of Korea, China, Taiwan, Japan, Vietnam, Thailand and the Philippines.
- Rapid population growth and coastal development for homes, recreation, industry, aquaculture and agriculture are the major threat to the species, and their preservation depends on ongoing human attention and intervention.

Indonesia’s massive haze problem is Jokowi’s big opportunity
- Indonesia’s haze crisis presents an opportunity for Jokowi to assert leadership on climate change.
- The crisis is driving consensus for action to address the issues that unpin forest and peatland degradation in Indonesia.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author alone.

Plantation companies challenged by haze-causing fires in Indonesia
- Six major plantation companies spoke with Mongabay about their efforts to battle haze-causing fires in Sumatra and Kalimantan.
- All acknowledged challenges in battling peat fires. All blamed illegal encroachers or fires that spread from outside their concession areas.
- All six companies – Asia Pulp & Paper, Asia Pacific Resources International Limited (APRIL), Golden Agri Resources (GAR), Cargill, Wilmar, and Musim Mas – contacted by Mongabay responded.

Coastal dune lakes: the threatened ‘jewels’ of Florida
- Coastal dune lakes are shallow, freshwater lakes located within two miles of a coastline and found only in small numbers in New Zealand, Australia, Madagascar, the United States.
- The film Coastal Dune Lakes: Jewels of Florida’s Emerald Coast, produced by Florida resident and Emmy award-winning filmmaker Elam Stoltzfus, reveals what makes this complex marine environment so special, as well as, some of the conservation challenges the Florida panhandle is currently facing.
- The documentary will have its World Premiere at the upcoming Wildlife Conservation Film Festival in New York City on Sunday, October 25th.

APP to clear plantations to restore peatlands
- Indonesian forestry giant Asia Pulp & Paper announces a peatland management program.
- APP will retire 7,000 ha of acacia plantations in five sensitive peat areas, allowing forests to recover.
- APP has also commissioned LiDAR work that will produce a 4.5 million ha map of Sumatran peatlands.

Rising seas, sinking peat to swamp Malaysian and Indonesian palm oil

Forest set alight to clear land for oil palm in Riau’s peatlands June 3, 2015. Photos by Rhett Butler. With global sea levels going up at a rate of about 9 millimeters per year, the livelihoods of many coastal people in the world look increasingly threatened, especially in those parts of the world with limited […]
Restoration of artificial swamps could be a key to restoring rainforest health in Sumatra

The term “artificial” has acquired negative connotations in recent years. However, a recent study in Sumatra’s Harapan rainforest details not only the ecological benefits, but rather the necessity, of improving artificial wetlands found along waterways in this rainforest ecosystem. Tropical forest streams across Southeast Asia are in a degraded state, especially where obstructed by logging […]
Amazonian peatlands store mega carbon

Google Earth image showing a portion of the Pastaza-Marañón peatland Peatlands in the Peruvian Amazon store ten times the amount of carbon as undisturbed rainforest in adjacent areas, making them critical in the battle to fight climate change, finds a new study published in Environmental Research Letters. While peatlands in Southeast Asia — namely Sumatra, […]
Aceh’s largest peat swamp at risk from palm oil

Singkil Swamp Forest Wildlife newly burned for palm plantations in Trumon, South Aceh District, Aceh. Photo: Chik Rini. Oil palm plantations and other developments are threatening Rawa Singkil Wildlife Preserve—Aceh’s largest peat swamp, and home to the densest population of Sumatran orangutan in the Leuser Ecosystem. The lack of clear boundaries, and construction of roads […]
Featured video: new documentary highlights the Long March to save the Sundarbans

Last fall tens of thousands of Bangladeshis participated in a five day march that took them from the country’s capital to the Sundarbans, the world’s largest mangrove forest. They marched to protest the proposal to build a coal plant on the edge of the great wetland. Filmmaker, Bratto Amin, was there and just released a […]
On babies and motherhood: how giant armadillos are surprising scientists (photos)

Uncovering the reproductive mysteries of the little-known giant armadillo. Arguably the most important moment in any animal’s life— whether it be a whale, a human, or a mosquito— is the act of giving birth, of bringing a new member of the species into the world. It’s no wonder that biologists treat reproduction— from conception to […]
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 […]
Nicaragua Canal could cause ecological disaster, warn experts

Nicaragua’s plans for a canal linking the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans could trigger an environmental disaster through habitat destruction and alteration, introduction of non-native species, pollution, and sedimentation, warns a commentary published in this week’s issue of Nature. The ambitious project, which aims to compete with the recently-expanded Panama Canal, is being developed by HK […]
Handful of species key to ecosystem health, finds study

While conducting field research in the humid salt marshes of Sapelo Island, scientists Marc Hensel and Brian Silliman made an astonishing discovery: species type, not just quantity, is vital for maintaining healthy ecosystems. For decades, scientists believed that preserving the largest number of species was critical for ecosystem function, regardless of their genetic makeup. However, […]
Court orders logging company to clean up pollution disaster in Chile wetlands

Chile is probably best known for its volcanoes, earthquakes and the formidable peaks of the Andes, but as a country that spans 4,300 km (2,670 miles) from top to bottom, it also boasts a huge variety of bird life. And, until recently, it was home to what was thought to be the largest population of […]
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 […]
Featured video: U.S. forests decimated for ‘green’ bio-energy in Europe
Wetland forests in the southern U.S. are becoming the victims of a drive for so-called green energy in Europe, according to activist group Dogwood Alliance, which has produced a new video highlighting the issue. The activists contend that bio-energy that depends on chopping down forests not only devastates vital ecosystems, but actually emits more greenhouse […]
Armored giant turns out to be vital ecosystem engineer

Massive, but little-known, the giant armadillo caught on cameratrap. Photo by: Kevin Schafer/The Pantanal Giant Armadillo Project. The giant armadillo (Priodontes maximus) is not called a giant for nothing: it weighs as much as a large dog and grows longer than the world’s biggest tortoise. However, despite its gigantism, many people in its range—from the […]
Scientists discover that threatened bird migrates entirely within Amazon Basin

When one thinks of bird migrations, it’s usually a north-south route that follows seasonal climates. But researchers in the Amazon have tracked, for the first time, a largely-unknown long-distance migration that sticks entirely to the Amazon Basin. Using satellite telemetry, scientists tracked a pair of Orinoco geese (Neochen jubata) from Peru and a male from […]
Iraq gets its first national park: just call it Eden

Late last month, the Iraqi Council of Ministers approved the nation’s first national park: the Mesopotamian marshes, which some scholars believe were the site of the historical Garden of Eden. The establishment of the park is a major milestone for a nation still plagued by violence with the park itself linked to the ravages of […]
Southern U.S. logging soars to meet foreign biofuel demand

In order to meet the European Union’s goal of 20% renewables by 2020, some European utility companies are moving away from coal and replacing it with wood pellet fuel. The idea is simple: trees will regrow and recapture the carbon released in the burning of wood pellets, making the process supposedly carbon-neutral. But just like […]
New endangered list for ecosystems modeled after ‘Red list’ for species

The IUCN has unveiled the first iteration of its new Red List of Ecosystems, a ranking of habitats worldwide. The Red List of Ecosystems is modeled after the IUCN’s Red List of Threatened Species, which now serves as the global standard for assessing the extinction risk of plants and animals. Like the species ranking system, […]
Unconventional swine: how invasive pigs are helping preserve biodiversity in the Pantanal

Ordinarily, invasive and exotic species are a grave threat to native wildlife: outcompeting local species, introducing parasites and disease, and disturbing local ecological regimes. A unique case in the Brazilian Pantanal, however, has turned the tables; here, an introduced mammal has actually aided the conservation of native wildlife. The impact of feral pigs (Sus scrofa) […]
World’s rarest duck on the rebound in Madagascar

After a final sighting in 1991, the Madagascar pochard was thought to have vanished for good. But this diving duck was rediscovered in 2006 when a flock of 22 individuals was found on Lake Matsaborimena in northern Madagascar by conservationists during an expedition. Soon after Madagascar pochard eggs were taken and incubated in a joint […]
Two new frog genera discovered in India’s Western Ghats, but restricted to threatened swamp-ecosystems

The misty mountains of the Western Ghats seem to unravel new secrets the more you explore it. Researchers have discovered two new frog genera, possibly restricted to rare and threatened freshwater swamps in the southern Western Ghats of India. The discoveries, described in the open-access journal Zootaxa, prove once again the importance of the mountain […]
Iraqi who is bringing back the Garden of Eden wins top environment award

The vast Mesoptomian marshes in southern Iraq were said to be the site of the original Garden of Eden. On their fringes have risen and fallen 12,000 years of Sumerian, Assyrian, Chaldean, Persian and Arab civilizations. Organized farming is thought to have begun here, as did the first cities and writing. In legend, Gilgamesh fell […]
Cambodia loses half its seasonal wetlands in 10 years

Cambodia lost more than half of its seasonally flooded grasslands in ten years due to industrial agricultural conversion, abandonment of traditional farming, and illegal drainage, putting several endangered bird species at risk and undermining traditional livelihoods in the region, reports a new study published in the journal Conservation Biology. The research is based on aerial […]
Bolivia leads the way in wetland protection

A family of capybaras (the world’s largest rodent) in Bolivian wetlands. Photo by: Anouchka Unel. Bolivia continues to be a champion for Amazonian conservation. On February 2, 2013, Bolivia celebrated World Wetlands Day with the designation of more than 6.9 million hectares of the Llanos de Moxos to the Ramsar Convention’s Wetlands of International Importance. […]
Deforestation, wetlands loss in Brazil and Indonesia generated 45b tons of CO2 in 20 years

Annual deforestation emissions estimates released by the FAO Deforestation in Borneo. Photo by Rhett A. Butler. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has launched a global set of statistics on carbon emissions from deforestation, agriculture and other forms of land use for the 1990-2010 period. The dataset, which is part of the FAO’s […]
World has lost half its wetlands

A cow stands in Brazil’s Pantanal, the world’s largest wetland which is threatened by cattle ranching and agriculture. In 2006 it was announced that 17 percent of the Pantanal had been lost to deforestation. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Half of the worlds wetlands have been destroyed in just the last 100 years, says a […]
Mangrove deforestation 3x worse for climate than rainforest loss

Mangroves in Panama Degradation and destruction of the world’s seagrasses, tidal marshes, and mangroves may generate up to a billion tons in carbon dioxide emissions annually, reports a new study published in the journal PLOS ONE. The research looked at the world’s 49 million hectares of coastal ecosystems and attempted to estimate emissions from conversion. […]
Flooded savannas in Latin America shrinking 3 times faster than rainforests

Click image to enlarge Flooded grasslands and savannas in Latin America are disappearing nearly three times faster than tropical rainforests in the region, finds a new study published in the journal Biotropica. The research, led by Mitchell Aide of the University of Puerto Rico, used NASA satellite data to assess change in woody vegetation cover […]
Protecting jaguars a good business decision for ranchers

Jaguar in the Brazilian Pantanal. Live jaguars can be worth considerably more for ecotourism than they livestock they kill, according to a study presented at the annual meeting of the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation in Bonito, Brazil. Henrique Concone, a biologist with the wildlife conservation group Pró-Carnívoros, and Fernando Azevedo analyzed revenue generated […]
Global wetlands shrink 6% in 15 years

Map of extent of global wetlands. Courtesy of Prigent et al 2012. Click image to enlarge. Global wetlands declined by six percent between 1993 and 2007 due to conversion for agriculture, drainage, and water diversion, reports a new satellite-based assessment published by European researchers in Geophysical Research Letters. The study, which tracked changes in wetland […]
Photos of the day: a celebration of wetlands (for World Wetlands Day)

The vast peatlands of Borneo are being destroyed at record rates, leading to among other impacts vast carbon emissions. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Forget the groundhogs, February 2nd is also World Wetland Day, commemorating the historic convention of wetlands in Ramsar, Iran in 1971. The Ramsar Treaty was an international agreement meant to address […]
Invasion!: Burmese pythons decimate mammals in the Everglades

An American alligator and a Burmese python struggle in Everglades National Park. Photo by: Lori Oberhofer, U.S. National Park Service. The Everglades in southern Florida has faced myriad environmental impacts from draining for sprawl to the construction of canals, but even as the U.S. government moves slowly on an ambitious plan to restore the massive […]
Protecting original wetlands far preferable to restoration

Even after 100 years have passed a restored wetland may not reach the state of its former glory. A new study in the open access journal PLoS Biology finds that restored wetlands may take centuries to recover the biodiversity and carbon sequestration of original wetlands, if they ever do. The study questions laws, such as […]
U.S. implements snake ban to save native ecosystems

An American alligator and a Burmese python struggle in Everglades National Park. Photo by: Lori Oberhofer, U.S. National Park Service. Last week the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) announced it was banning the importation and sale across state lines of four large, non-native snakes: the Burmese python (Python molurus bivittatus), the yellow anaconda (Eunectes […]
Economic slowdown leads to the pulping of Latvia’s forests

Aerial view over Latvian forests—please note almost all cutting patches are fresh, not yet regenerated. Photo by: R.Matrozis, 2007. The economic crisis has pushed many nations to scramble for revenue and jobs in tight times, and the small Eastern European nation of Latvia is no different. Facing tough circumstances, the country turned to its most […]
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 […]
Eco-toilets help save hippos and birds in Kenya

The common hippo (this one in Botswana) is considered Vulnerable to extinction. Photo by: Tiffany Roufs. It may appear unintuitive that special toilets could benefit hippos and other wetland species, but the Center for Rural Empowerment and the Environment (CREE) has proven the unique benefits of new toilets in the Dunga Wetlands on Lake Victoria’s […]
Photos: 208 species discovered in endangered Mekong region in 2010

A new monkey, dubbed the Myanmar snub-nosed monkey (Rhinopithecus strykeri), was only discovered after researchers heard reports from hunters of a strange monkey with upturned nostrils and prominent lips in the remote Kachin region of Myanmar. It is known locally as mey nwoah, or ‘monkey with an upturned face’. Reportedly its easy to locate since […]
Locals key to saving primate-rich wetlands in Cote D’Ivoire

One of the world’s top 25 most endangered primates: the roloway monkey (Cercopithecus diana roloway) photographed in the Munich Zoo. Saved from being converted into a vast palm oil plantation by PALM-CI in 2009, the Ehy Tanoé wetlands and forest in the Cote D’Ivoire (Ivory Coast) is home to three gravely endangered primates and as […]
Extinct frog rediscovered in Israel

The Hula painted frog (Discoglossus nigriventer) was last seen in 1955. Photo by Professor Heinrich Mendelssohn/Conservation International. After its marshland was drained, researchers thought the Hula painted frog (Discoglossus nigriventer) had vanished for good. However a patrol at the Ha-Hula lake in Israel recently discovered a single female amphibian that turned out to be the […]
Putting people to work: restoring our ecosystems, sequestering carbon

Richard Blaustein is a freelance environmental journalist writing primarily on climate change, biodiversity, and genetic resource issues. He has written articles for BioScience, World Watch and Ecosystem Marketplace, and other publications. Reforestation project in Madagascar. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. President Obama’s sole focus of his September 8th speech to the United States Congress was […]
Valuing Ecosystem Services: The Case of Multi-functional Wetlands
Valuing Ecosystem Services: The Case of Multi-functional Wetlands provides the clearest guide yet to describing and implementing in a systematic fashion payments for ecosystems services (PES) strategies for wetland protection mechanisms. By focusing initially on frameworks and obstacles to implementation of wetland protection strategies such as property rights, measuring and monitoring, behavior and compensation, cultural […]
North America’s tiniest turtle vanishing

Despite decades of conservation work, populations of North America’s smallest turtle, the bog turtle (Glyptemys muhlenbergii), is continuing to decline. Habitat destruction, invasive plants, road-kill, and the illegal pet trade have all played a role in the bog turtle historic decline, but researchers are now reporting increased mortalities across bog turtle populations, bringing fears of […]
Beaver dam lessens impact of massive oil spill in Canada

Google Earth view of location of Little Buffalo, Alberta near site of oil spill. Yellow line is the Canadian border with the US. The Canadian province of Alberta has suffered its worst oil spill in 35 years with 28,000 barrels of oil (over a million gallons) spilling from a ruptured pipeline operated by Plains Midstream […]
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 […]
More biodiversity equals cleaner water, but why?

New study shows how greater biodiversity more efficiently scrubs pollutants from freshwater. A new landmark study not only proves that adding more species to a freshwater stream linearly increases the ecosystem’s ability to clean pollutants, but also shows why. The study, published in Nature found that by increasing the biodiversity of a lab controlled mini-stream […]
How to save the Pantanal and increase profits for the cattle industry

Continuous versus rotational grazing. Photo courtesy of: Eaton, D. P., Santos, S. A., Santos, M. C. A., Lima, J. V. B. and Keuroghlian, A. 2011. Rotational Grazing of Native Pasturelands in the Pantanal: an effective conservation tool. Tropical Conservation Science. Vol. 4 (1):39-52. The Pantanal spanning Brazil, Bolivia, and Paraguay is the world’s largest wetland—the […]
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 […]
Malaysian palm oil producers destroying Borneo peat forests faster than ever before

Oil palm plantations, peatland, and forest in Sarawak. Courtsy of Google Earth. Peatlands and rainforests in Malaysia’s Sarawak state on the island of Borneo are being rapidly destroyed for oil palm plantations, according to new studies by environmental group Wetlands International and remote sensing institute Sarvision. The analysis shows that more than one third (353,000 […]
Rivers worldwide in peril: society treats symptoms, ignores causes

Dams, agricultural runoff, pesticides, sewage, mercury pollution from coal plants, invasive species, overconsumption, irrigation, erosion from deforestation, wetland destruction, overfishing, aquaculture: it’s clear that the world’s rivers are facing a barrage of unprecedented impacts from humans, but just how bad is the situation? A new global analysis of the world’s rivers is not comforting: the […]
Nearly half of the world’s wetlands used for crops

Wetlands used for crops have expanded significantly over the past eighty years. According to a new study in the open-access journal Tropical Conservation Science, wetlands being utilized for crop production has jumped from 25 percent in 1926 to 43 percent in 2006 of the world’s wetlands as identified by the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands. According […]
Visiting the Gulf: how wildlife and people are faring in America’s worst environmental disaster, an interview with Jennifer Jacquet

“President Obama called it ‘the worst environmental disaster America has ever faced.’ So I thought I should face it and head to the Gulf”—these are the opening words on the popular blog Guilty Planet as the author, marine biologist Jennifer Jacquet, embarked on a ten day trip to Louisiana. As a scientist, Jacquet was, of […]
Oil devastates indigenous tribes from the Amazon to the Gulf

For the past few months, the mainstream media has focused on the environmental and technical dimensions of the Gulf mess. While that’s certainly important, reporters have ignored a crucial aspect of the BP spill: cultural extermination and the plight of indigenous peoples. Recently, the issue was highlighted when Louisiana Gulf residents in the town of […]
UE amanatkan standar lingkungan biofuel untuk lindungi hutan dan lahan basah

UE kini bergerak untuk membuat standar lingkungan untuk biofuel yang digunakan di Eropa, mensyaratkan biofuel untuk memberikan “pengurangan substansial” pada emisi gas rumah kaca dan tidak menghasilkan perubahan fungsi hutan atau lahan basah, menurut pernyataan dari Komisi Eropa. Rencana ini meminta industri, pemerintah, dan LSM untuk menyiapkan “skema sukarela” yang memberikan sertifikasi bahwa biofuel yang […]
EU mandates biofuel environmental standards to protect forests, wetlands

The E.U. today moved to establish environmental standards for biofuels used in Europe, requiring biofuels to deliver “substantial reductions” in greenhouse gas emissions and not result in conversion of forests or wetlands, according to a statement from the European Commission. The plan calls for industry, governments and NGOs to set up “voluntary schemes” which certify […]

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