location: France

location: France

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In the dark of the night, sponges help possum shrimp ‘smell’ their way home
- Tiny mysid shrimp in Mediterranean underwater caves use a unique “smelling” ability to navigate back to their specific home caves after nightly feeding trips in the open sea.
- Researchers discovered that these shrimp can distinguish their home cave’s unique “chemical seascape” from other nearby caves, spending up to 16 times longer in water from their home cave in experimental settings.
- The mysids’ ability to return to their caves is crucial for their survival and for the broader ecosystem, as they transport nutrients from the sea into cave environments.
- Climate change and pollution pose significant threats to this delicate ecosystem; they could alter the chemical signatures that guide the mysids and impact the sponges that help generate these signatures.

Reef damage from 2024 Olympics surfing venue is avoidable (commentary)
- Parisians are not the only ones criticizing the 2024 Olympic Games: residents of Tahiti in French Polynesia are concerned about negative impacts on its celebrated reef from a surfing event venue being built in Teahupo’o.
- A coalition of fishermen, farmers, surfers, and citizens of Teahupo’o have started a petition and have held at least one protest in hopes of forcing Olympic organizers to change their plans.
- “If Paris 2024 intends to follow through with its promises to ‘bring about a new era’ of sustainability in the sporting world, it must take action to ensure that the Teahupo’o reef is left undamaged for its marine and human populations,” a new op-ed argues.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

‘The deep sea is vital to protect the ocean’: Q&A with France’s Hervé Berville
- In November, France took a strong position on deep-sea mining by declaring that this future activity should be banned in international waters. The nation has also banned it from its national waters.
- Berville also said he wants to make sure there is a “coalition in favor of a principle of precaution or moratorium.”
- Member states of the International Seabed Authority, the UN-associated mining regulator, recently agreed to push back its timeline for finalizing rules that would enable deep-sea mining to start.
- Mongabay’s Elizabeth Claire Alberts interviewed Berville at the French Embassy in Kingston, Jamaica, during the meeting of the ISA assembly in July.

Top French court orders closure of fisheries amid mass dolphin deaths
- France’s Council of State has ordered the closure of certain fisheries during specific times of the year in a bid to lower the rising number of dolphin deaths.
- A separate European Commission-ordered phaseout of non-selective fishing methods, including bottom trawling, could further help restore marine ecosystems.
- The number of dead dolphins washing ashore on France’s Atlantic coast during winter has worried environmental groups for years, finally prompting the EC to set up new marine life protection targets.
- Complaints to the French government have multiplied over time, demanding that it takes measures to minimize unwanted catches and also sparking fears within the fishing industry, which warns of impacts to food security and jobs.

Climate change lawsuits take aim at French bank BNP Paribas
- French bank BNP Paribas is being sued by a group of environmental and human rights advocacy groups that allege it provides financial services to oil and gas companies as well as meat producers that clear the Amazon to make space for cattle pastures.
- The basis of both lawsuits is a 2017 French law known as the “Duty of Vigilance Act,” which requires companies and financial institutions to develop reasonable due diligence measures that identify human rights and environmental violations.
- Even though the bank has committed to financing a net-zero carbon economy by 2050, the groups that filed the lawsuits said it still isn’t meeting the standards of the 2017 law.

France seeks EU okay to fund biomass plants, burn Amazon forest to power Spaceport
- As the European Union finalizes its third Renewable Energy Directive (REDIII), France is seeking an exemption to enable the European Space Agency and French Space Agency to build and operate two biomass power plants in French Guiana. An estimated 5,300 hectares of Amazon rainforest would need to be cut and biomass crops grown on the cleared land to service the power plants.
- The biomass would be burned to help power Europe’s Spaceport in French Guiana. The exemption request — which would allow EU and French public subsidies to flow to a France-based bioenergy plant builder — comes as the EU moves toward banning commodities contributing significantly to global deforestation.
- This latest move by France comes soon after it won an appeal of a 2021 court ruling in French Guiana that blocked massive Amazon clearcutting for croplands to provide liquid biofuels for three new, large power plants to make energy for the Fr. Guiana populace. Decisions on the REDIII exemption and liquid biofuels plan could come in March.
- Environmentalists are decrying the French Guiana biomass plans — and French President Emmanuel Macron’s passive support of them — not only for the Amazon deforestation it will cause, but because biomass burned to produce energy has been scientifically shown to release higher levels of carbon emissions than coal.

Illegal bottom trawling widespread inside Mediterranean marine protected areas
- A new “atlas” reveals widespread illegal bottom trawling inside Mediterranean marine protected areas.
- The atlas, an interactive online map, shows thousands of days of apparent bottom-trawling activity in areas where it is banned, in 2020 and 2021.
- Bottom trawlers can damage the seabed, destroy coral and sponge habitats, and catch unintended species at a high rate.
- The findings demonstrate “the lack of enforcement and transparency in the Med, which is the most overfished sea in the world,” an atlas coordinator told Mongabay.

France’s Macron joins growing chorus calling for deep-sea mining ban
- On Nov. 8, French President Emmanuel Macron became the first head of state to call for a complete ban on deep-sea mining, an activity that would extract industrial quantities of minerals from the seabed in international waters in the near future.
- Delegates of the International Seabed Authority (ISA) are currently meeting in Kingston, Jamaica, to discuss deep-sea mining regulations, and many member states are using this forum to express their concerns about mining going ahead.
- In June 2021, the Pacific island nation of Nauru, which sponsors Nauru Ocean Resources Inc. (NORI), a subsidiary of Canadian firm The Metals Company (TMC), triggered a “two-year rule” that could force the ISA to allow mining to go ahead in two years with whatever regulations are in place.

Fish-feed industry turns to krill, with unknown effects on the Antarctic ecosystem
- The Antarctic krill fishing industry has been growing in the past two decades.
- The global growth of fish farming is driving the demand for Antarctic krill as an alternative to wild fish in fish feeds, amid the depletion of many wild fish stocks.
- Independent scientists say the krill fishery could have a detrimental effect on Antarctica’s predator populations, which are also suffering from the impacts of global warming.
- The krill industry is expanding its fleet and planning to significantly increase catches in the next few years.

New tech aims to track carbon in every tree, boost carbon market integrity
- Climate scientists and data engineers have developed a new digital platform billed as the first-ever global tool for accurately calculating the carbon stored in every tree on the planet.
- Founded on two decades of research and development, the new platform from nonprofit CTrees leverages artificial intelligence-enabled satellite datasets to give users a near-real-time picture of forest carbon storage and emissions around the world.
- With forest protection and restoration at the center of international climate mitigation efforts, CTrees is set to officially launch at COP27 in November, with the overall aim of bringing an unprecedented level of transparency and accountability to climate policy initiatives that rely on forests to offset carbon emissions.
- Forest experts broadly welcome the new platform, but also underscore the risk of assessing forest restoration and conservation projects solely by the amount of carbon sequestered, which can sometimes be a red herring in achieving truly sustainable and equitable forest management.

‘There’s not much hope’: Mediterranean corals collapse under relentless heat
- In 2003, a marine heat wave devastated coral reef communities in the Mediterranean Sea, including the reefs in the Scandola Marine Reserve, a protected region off the coast of Corsica.
- More than 15 years later, the coral reef communities in Scandola still have not recovered.
- Researchers determined that persistent marine heat waves, which are now happening every year in the Mediterranean, are preventing Scandola’s slow-growing coral reefs from recuperating.
- Human-induced climate change is the culprit; persistent rising temperatures in the ocean have normalized marine heat waves, not only in the Mediterranean, but in the global oceans.

French deforestation database pressures Brazilian soy traders to clean up supply chain
- France has published a new risk analysis platform that allows companies to more easily determine which soy traders are contributing to illegal deforestation in Brazil.
- Brazilian soy is the single largest French import of deforestation, contributing to the massive reduction of the cerrado grasslands.
- Access to thorough, organized data may force soy traders to change their practices and agree to a sweeping moratorium on the use of cerrado land deforested after 2020.

Deep-sea mining gets a resounding rejection from conservation authorities
- Members of the IUCN World Conservation Congress have voted overwhelmingly in support of a moratorium on deep-sea mining, an activity that conservationists say could cause irreversible damage to the ocean.
- The South Pacific nation of Nauru recently triggered a two-year rule, which would require the International Seabed Authority (ISA) to grant it a license to begin mining under whatever regulations are in place by then.
- Conservationists say there is currently little to no understanding of how deep-sea mining could negatively affect the deep-sea environment.

European public roundly rejects Brazil trade deal unless Amazon protected
- The gigantic trade agreement between the European Union and the Mercosur South American bloc (Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay), if ratified, would be the biggest trade deal in history, totaling US $19 trillion.
- However, an extremely poor environmental record by the Mercosur nations, especially Brazil, has become a stumbling block to clinching the agreement. In new polling 75% of respondents in 12 European nations say the EU-Mercosur trade pact should not be ratified if Jair Bolsonaro’s Brazil doesn’t end Amazon deforestation.
- France, the Parliaments of the Netherlands, Austria and Belgium’s Walloon region, have announced they will not endorse the trade pact. The ratification also finds resistance by Ireland and Luxembourg. Portugal’s government appears ready to move forward with ratification without environmental safeguards put in place.

France’s tropical forest conservation efforts: an interview with AFD’s Gilles Kleitz
- Since hosting the United Nations Climate Change Conference in 2015 which resulted in the Paris Climate Agreement, France has become a leading proponent for tropical forest conservation. This effort has included establishing a National Strategy to Combat Imported Deforestation (SNDI) to effectively apply a zero deforestation policy to commodities produced at the expense of forests in the tropics.
- One of the key institutions charged with implementing the SNDI abroad is the Agence Française de Développement (AFD), France’s overseas development agency. AFD programs in tropical forests have not always been without controversy—NGOs have alleged that AFD has supported companies which contribute to deforestation—but AFD says it has incorporated this criticism as well as findings from research institutions into safeguards it now applies to the projects it finances.
- Accordingly, AFD’s emphasis around tropical forests in recent years has shifted toward conservation and “sustainable forest management”, which includes establishing forest management plans to reduce the impact of logging operations in places like the Congo Basin.
- To provide some context on AFD’s current approaches and priorities, Mongabay spoke with Gilles Kleitz, head of Agriculture, Water and Biodiversity at the French Development Agency.

French Guiana soy biofuel power plants risk massive Amazon deforestation
- The French government, with the support of President Emmanuel Macron, appears eager to approve legislation that would bypass French environmental law banning large scale deforestation to build several soy-fired biofuel power plants in French Guiana — a French overseas department on the northeast coast of South America.
- Currently, 98% of this region is still covered in Amazon rainforest and mangrove forest. The largest of the proposed biofuel plants — Larivot in Cayenne, the French Guiana capital — would require between 84,000 and 140,000 metric tons of soy per year to generate enough liquid biofuel to power the 120-megawatt plant.
- Growing that much soy would require a large amount of rainforest clearing, totaling between 536 square miles and 892 square miles (nearly three times larger than the land area of New York City). Environmentalists are very concerned over the loss in forest carbon sequestration and harm to French Guiana’s Amazon biodiversity.
- “The fact that France is pushing for policy deviations in French Guiana from European Union sustainability standards is incredibly alarming.… There will be an impact on forests if they change the laws and it could be pretty massive,” said Almuth Ernsting, a biomass researcher with Biofuelwatch, an environmental NGO.

Meet the 2020 Goldman Environmental Prize Winners
- This year marks the 31st anniversary of the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize, which honors one grassroot activist from each of the six inhabited continents.
- The 2020 prize winners are Kristal Ambrose from The Bahamas, Chibeze Ezekiel from Ghana, Nemonte Nenquimo from Ecuador, Leydy Pech from Mexico, Lucie Pinson from France, and Paul Sein Twa from Myanmar.

France falls short in ending deforestation linked to imported soy
- A new agreement signed by eight grocery store chains in France is aimed at ending the importation of soybeans grown on deforested lands.
- France introduced a national strategy to address deforestation in supply chains in 2018.
- But environmental and watchdog NGOs say the country must go beyond voluntary commitments from companies and mandate an end to trade with producers linked to deforestation.

Better wines among the pines: Agroforestry can climate-proof grapes, French researchers show
- Climate change is affecting the growth of grapes used in winemaking worldwide, causing them to ripen too soon which changes the quality and character of the product; but new research in the global home of wine suggests that trees can help growers adapt.
- In southern France, long trellises of wine grapes are being grown among rows of trees that provide shading and other microclimate benefits that cause the grapes to ripen weeks later than in surrounding areas, leading to higher-quality wine.
- This agroforestry system, where crops are grown among woody perennials like trees, appears to have additional benefits in vineyards including increased tolerance of vines to heat and frost, and harboring populations of beneficial insects.
- Agroforestry also sequesters large amounts of carbon from the atmosphere and is therefore recognized as a top solution to countering the effects of climate change.

Spiny lobsters raise an undersea racket that can be heard miles away
- European spiny lobsters can create a sound that might, under the right conditions, be detectable up to 3 kilometers, nearly 2 miles, away.
- Researchers used underwater microphones to determine how loud lobsters are, and found that the larger the lobster, the louder the sound.
- Spiny lobsters were overharvested in the 1970s, and though populations have rebounded, there is still a need to monitor population levels.
- The study suggests that lobsters may be a candidate for acoustic monitoring.

What one of the world’s most active volcanoes tells us about missing trees
- Lava flows from the Piton de la Fournaise, one of the most active volcanoes in the world, are helping scientists study the long-term impacts of human settlement on forests on La Réunion, an island off the eastern coast of Africa.
- The disappearance of large frugivores like giant tortoises and flying foxes from the island by the end of the 18th century after humans settled permanently on the island has shaped its plant communities as well.
- A group of researchers at the University of La Réunion looked at eruptions dated between 1401 and 1956, to study how plant recovery differed following lava flows that took place before human settlement and after.
- They found that large-fruited trees faded away from the landscape after the animals that were capable of dispersing their seeds were lost because of overhunting, habitat loss and introduction of invasive species by human settlers.

Europe’s ‘ruthless’ animal attractions: Q & A with filmmaker Aaron Gekoski
- While Asia’s wildlife tourism industry is often critiqued in the media, similarly troubling European attractions featuring large animals go largely unreported.
- Mongabay interviewed Aaron Gekoski who, with filmmaker Will Foster-Grundy, traveled around France, Germany, Spain, and the Czech Republic observing animal attractions.
- Wolves, bears, tigers, rhinos, and even hippos and zebras were observed in very small and makeshift enclosures, while being made to perform tricks for tourists.

These rare pigs can dig it. With a tool, that is. And moonwalk too
- A viral video shows a family of Visayan warty pigs (Sus cebifrons) using a piece of tree bark or branch to build a nest at a zoo in Paris.
- Tool use has been widely reported among vertebrates, particularly primates, but this is the first published study and first recorded video of pigs using tools.
- The study suggests that using a stick is a socially learned behavior, and expands the possibility of tool use and social learning among pig species.
- There are limited studies on the Visayan warty pig, a critically endangered species in its native Philippines, due to its dwindling population in the wild.

World Agroforestry Congress gathers huge group of global boosters in France
- The 4th World Agroforestry Congress is this week and aims to bridge the gap between agroforestry science and its practical implementation worldwide.
- Over 1,200 attendees from all over the world are here presenting new research and sharing ideas for implementation of this agricultural technique that is good for food security, biodiversity, the climate, and more.
- One topic gaining extra attention at this Congress is the involvement of the private sector in boosting agroforestry’s implementation worldwide, because it can be quite profitable to do so while also supporting people and planet.
- Agroforestry combines trees alongside shrubs, crops and livestock in systems that produce food, support biodiversity, build soil horizons and water tables, and sequester carbon from the atmosphere. Mongabay has been publishing a special series on its implementation and impact worldwide.

‘The ultimate agricultural practice’: Q&A with organizers of World Agroforestry Congress 2019
- Agroforestry is an agricultural technique that combines growing trees alongside shrubs, crops and livestock in a system that produces food, supports biodiversity, builds soil horizons and water tables, and sequesters carbon from the atmosphere. Mongabay has been publishing a special series on its implementation and impact worldwide.
- The 2019 World Agroforestry Congress in Montpellier, France, from May 20-22, aims to bridge the gap between agroforestry science and its practical implementation worldwide.
- Mongabay interviewed two of the key people involved, including congress organizer Emmanuel Torquebiau, who is also a senior scientist with the French Agricultural Research Centre for International Development (CIRAD).
- Keynote speaker Christian Dupraz is a senior scientist at the French National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA) and also shared his thoughts about the goals and potential of the event.

France pledges to stop ‘deforestation imports’ by 2030
- The French government has adopted a national strategy to combat unsustainable imports known to be key drivers of deforestation.
- The European Union is a major importer of agricultural products such as soybeans, palm oil, beef, cocoa and rubber, which are said to drive almost 80 percent of all deforestation.
- Pressure is growing on the EU to take action, as the deadline for its goal to at least halve gross tropical deforestation by 2020 rapidly approaches.

Indonesia seeks to get palm oil used as jet fuel in U.S., France
- Indonesia wants the U.S. and France to let Indonesian companies build palm oil jet fuel plants in the Western countries.
- Indonesia’s trade minister said he had conveyed this request to the U.S. and French governments, and made it a condition for future purchases of Boeing and Airbus planes.
- The request comes amid a wider campaign by the Indonesian government to prop up demand for palm oil, of which it is the world’s top producer.

Largest king penguin colony in the world has shrunk by 90%
- In 1982, researchers estimated that there were more than 500,000 breeding pairs and over 2 million king penguins on the remote Île aux Cochons, or Pig Island, a French territory in southern Indian Ocean.
- More than three decades later, by 2017, the number of king penguins on the island had dropped drastically to just about 200,000 penguins, including some 60,000 breeding pairs, researchers report in a new study.
- The reasons for this decline are still unknown, but the researchers hope that further field studies will be able to verify the massive drop and identify the factors that led to it.

Activists blast EU for extending deadline to ban palm oil in biofuels
- The European Parliament and EU member states have agreed to phase out palm oil from motor fuels by 2030, much later than the initially proposed deadline of 2021.
- Environmental activists say the extension will allow the environmental and human rights violations linked to the production of palm oil — which prompted the push for the ban in the first place — to continue unabated for several more years.
- By one estimate, swaths of rainforest and peatland the size of the Netherlands could be destroyed to make way for palm oil plantations in the intervening years.

Meet the winners of the 2018 Goldman Environmental Prize
- Six of the seven winners of the 2018 Goldman Environmental Prize recipients are women.
- Dubbed the Green Nobel Prize, the annual award honors grassroots environmental heroes from Europe, Asia, North America, Central and South America, Africa, and islands and island nations.
- This year’s winners are Makoma Lekalakala and Liz McDaid from South Africa; Claire Nouvian from France; Francia Márquez from Colombia; Khanh Nguy Thi from Vietnam; LeeAnne Walters from the United States; and Manny Calonzo from the Philippines.

COP23: U.S., wealthy nations curtail climate aid for developing world
- The small U.S. delegation sent by President Trump to the COP23 climate summit in Bonn has apparently led a successful effort to obstruct significant, much needed, climate change adaptation financing and loss-and-damage financing for the developing world.
- Over the past two weeks in Bonn, the U.S. provided cover for the other developed countries, especially coal-producing Australia, tar sands-producer Canada, and the European Union, as they curtailed offering financial climate aid to the world’s developing nations, including island nations whose existence is at risk from rising oceans.
- One victory: delegates agreed to draft language for Pre-2020 Ambitions, a measure requiring that developed countries be transparent about their current emissions and describe voluntary steps they will take prior to 2020 to further reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.
- It is now hoped by some that the issue of adaptation financing and loss-and-damage financing to the developing world will be finally effectively addressed at COP24 in Poland in December 2018.

Should I stay, or should I go: is U.S. facing a climate scientist brain drain?
- When Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the Paris Agreement last June, French President Emmanuel Macron offered U.S. climate scientists refuge to continue their research. So did Germany. Several hundred answered that call, though many others are in a wait-and-see holding pattern.
- With Trump proposing major budget cuts to scientific programs, and an “anti-science” mantra resounding throughout the new administration, young scientists face a difficult climb up the career ladder. Some are actively looking for research opportunities in the private sector or abroad, while others are staying put in the U.S. and stepping up to resist Trumpian anti-science policies.
- Some experts warn that a decline in U.S. political openness and Trump’s closing of the door to immigrants, who often staff research positions, could pose greater problems for science in the U.S. than any outflow of researchers. Einstein, Enrico Fermi, and many other scientists were immigrants to the U.S. and provided some of the nation’s greatest scientific advances.

Poachers kill rhino at French zoo
- Poachers killed four-year-old rhino named Vince at the Thoiry Zoo and Wildlife Park near Paris.
- Vince’s keeper found him the next morning, with one of his horns hacked off, probably with a chainsaw, the zoo said in a statement.
- Two other white rhinoceros living in the Thoiry zoo — Gracie aged 37 and Bruno aged 5 years — have “escaped the massacre” and are safe, the zoo said.

French MPs say they were pressured into dropping palm oil tax
- Indonesian and Malaysian officials at the highest levels have lobbied hard for the tax to be scrapped.
- French politicians said Indonesia had threatened the country with “economic retaliation.”
- Palm oil is an engine of Indonesia’s economy but leads the way in damaging the environment.

Unclear if France will revisit ‘discriminatory’ palm oil tax
- The proposed tax became a controversy in Indonesia and Malaysia, the two largest palm oil producers, which lobbied hard to get it rescinded.
- France consumes less than two-tenths of a percent of the palm oil produced globally, most of which goes to India and China.
- Palm oil is crucial to the Southeast Asian nations’ economies but leads the way in damaging the environment.

France imposes new palm oil tax; Indonesia, Malaysia protest
- The tax is part of France’s new biodiversity bill. It was imposed on environmental grounds.
- The Indonesian and Malaysian governements, and industry associations in both countries, protest the tax.
- The tax will eventually reach 90 euros per ton in 2020.

Cambodian communities follow different routes to justice over Socfin rubber project
- Ethnic Bunong people from Cambodia are taking their grievance against Socfin to a court in Paris.
- The suit was presented by renowned lawyer Fiodor Rilov.
- The decision to pursue a path to courts overseas has not been universally adopted by all the affected farmers and villagers, revealing divisions within the communities over the dispute.

Progress being made in curbing illegal timber imports

Logging in Malaysian Borneo. Photo by Rhett A. Butler Five major timber importers are making progress in cutting contraband wood from their markets, argues a series of reports published by Chatham House. The analysis — which covers Britain, France, Japan, the Netherlands, and the United States — is based on point of origin data for […]
Bambi in the 21st Century: roe deer not adapting to climate change

Once almost extinct in parts of Europe in the late 17th century, the roe deer (Capreolus capreolus) eventually bounced back, and how: today, it is one of the most widespread deer in Europe, perhaps more familiar to us as Bambi, a European roe deer in the original book. But will its luck dry out in […]
‘Lost’ bird rediscovered in New Caledonia along with 16 potentially new species (photos)

In early 2011, Conservation International (CI) dubbed the forests of New Caledonia the second-most imperiled in the world after those on mainland Southeast Asia. Today, CI has released the results of a biodiversity survey under the group’s Rapid Assessment Program (RAP) to New Caledonia’s tallest mountain, Mount Panié. During the survey researchers rediscovered the ‘lost’ […]
France upholds nationwide ban on fracking
France’s landmark ban on fracking has survived constitutional challenges lobbed by U.S.-company, Schuepbach Energy. On Friday, the nation’s Constitutional Council decided that the ban did not violate France’s constitution. Passed in 2011 under then President Nicolas Sarkozy, the ban has since been upheld by current President Francios Hollande. “This law has been contested several times,” […]
Local economy ruined by pesticide pollution in the Caribbean

On 15 April more than 100 fishermen demonstrated in the streets of Fort de France, the main town on Martinique, in the French West Indies. In January they barricaded the port until the government in Paris allocated €2m ($2.6m) in aid, which they are still waiting for. The contamination caused by chlordecone, a persistent organochlorine […]
New illegal logging ban in EU could sever all ties with companies working in DRC

Yesterday, the EU joined the U.S. and Australia in banning all timber that was illegally harvested abroad. The new regulation could have a major impact on where the EU sources its timber, and no where more so than the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). According to a new report by Greenpeace, the DRC’s current moratorium […]
Gold mine approved in French Guiana’s only national park

Limonade River in French Guiana. The French government has approved a new gold mine near the river, which locals depend on. Photo by: Sébastien Brosse. Tensions have risen in the small Amazonian community of Saül in French Guiana after locals discovered that the French government approved a large-scale gold mining operation near their town—and inside […]
New study adds to evidence that common pesticides decimating bee colonies

Honeybees in an apiary in Germany. Photo by: Björn Appel. The evidence that common pesticides may be partly to blame for a decline in bees keeps piling up. Several recent studies have shown that pesticides known as “neonicotinoid” may cause various long-term impacts on bee colonies, including fewer queens, foraging bees losing their way, and […]
Wealthy consumption threatens species in developing countries

Deforestation of tropical forests for oil palm plantations in Sabah, Malaysia. Palm oil is one of over 15,000 commodities in a recent study that have been linked to biodiversity loss in developing countries connected to consumption abroad. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Consumption in wealthy nations is imperiling biodiversity abroad, according to a new study […]
After damning research, France proposes banning pesticide linked to bee collapse

Following research linking neonicotinoid pesticides to the decline in bee populations, France has announced it plans to ban Cruiser OSR, an insecticide produced by Sygenta. Recent studies, including one in France, have shown that neonicotinoid pesticides likely hurt bees’ ability to navigate, potentially devastating hives. France has said it will give Sygenta two weeks to […]
A slow comeback for the endangered Eurasian otter in France

In the late 1970s, the fate of the Eurasian Otter (Lutra lutra) in France was very gloomy. By just looking at the otter’s range map, one could see that most of the country was left with vast regions devoid of a species that was once found in every region. Estimations barely reached 1,500 otters left […]
Nation’s wealth does not guarantee green practices

Brazil, the US, and China have biggest overall environmental impact. Developing countries are not the only ones that could benefit from a little environmental support. Wealthier countries may need to ‘know themselves’ and address these issues at home too. According to a recent study in the open access journal PLoS ONE, wealth may be the […]
Meski Menurun, Pembalakan Liar Masih Masalah Besar

Laporan terbaru dari Chatham House mengungkapkan pembalakan liar di hutan tropis nasional di seluruh dunia secara umum menurun. Temuan ini membuktikan regulasi-regulasi baru dan usaha internasional dalam memerangi pembalakan liar berdampak positif. Menurut laporan tersebut, total kayu ilegal yang dihasilkan di seluruh dunia turun hingga 22% sejak tahun 2002. Chatham House juga menyebutkan negara penghasil […]
Eleven new species discovered in France

Usually announcements of new species come from biodiverse rainforests or unexplored marine depths, but researchers have announced the discovery of nearly a dozen new species in one of Earth’s most well-trodden place: France. Eleven new species have been discovered in Mercantour National Park in southern France. All the new species are insects, including one beetle, […]
Illegal logging declining worldwide, but still ‘major problem’

Global production of illegal timber down by 22 percent from 2002. A new report by the Chatham House finds that illegal logging in tropical forest nation is primarily on the decline, providing evidence that new laws and international efforts on the issue are having a positive impact. According to the report, the total global production […]

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