JAKARTA — A new study on certified oil palm plantations and their links to past deforestation has sparked a debate over whether they can be considered sustainable if they’re established on once-forested land. The study, published in the journal Science of the Total Environment, analyzed highly detailed satellite images from 1984, the oldest available, to […]
Tag: tropical forests
Brazilian Amazon drained of millions of wild animals by criminal networks: Report
The Brazilian Amazon is hemorrhaging illegally traded wildlife according to a new report released Monday. Each year, thousands of silver-voiced saffron finches and other songbirds, along with rare macaws and parrots, are captured, trafficked and sold as pets. Some are auctioned as future contestants in songbird contests. Others are exported around the globe. Fish bound […]
NGOs reject new oil palm plantation in southern Cameroon
KRIBI, Cameroon — Alarm flashed through Cameroon’s conservation community in mid-September, when images of untidy rows of black polythene bags in a freshly bulldozed gash in the rainforest made the rounds of social media. It was soon confirmed that the pictures came from a forest concession adjacent to Campo Ma’an National Park, in the south […]
Why I support the California Tropical Forest Standard (commentary)
The Amazon is a rich, beautiful, and magical place. I’ve visited this vast region on several occasions to learn about the indigenous communities who live there and protect it, and to raise awareness of their struggle, as part of the organization I co-founded, REVERB. The indigenous leaders I met told me how deeply they depend […]
Deforested areas bleed heat to nearby forests, drive local extinctions
Areas cleared of forests bleed heat to neighboring forests, and this fuels increases in temperatures there, new research has found. Average temperatures in forests around the world are already rising because of climate change; this leaked heat exacerbates the problem and accelerates local extinctions of forest-dwelling species. “The warming is happening from global climate change […]
In a predator-infested forest, survival for baby birds comes by the road
More young birds survived near a road through a Thai forest than those living deeper in the forest where more predators lurked, researchers found during a recent study. The disruptive impacts of roads on ecosystems are well-documented, and studies in temperate parts of the planet have shown that fewer fledglings survive to adulthood along the […]
Road building spree hurts Amazon birds
A city-dwelling crow in Japan strategically drops a nut near a crosswalk into moving traffic. The bird then waits patiently for the light to turn before dropping down to the road and collecting the cracked nut in safety. While this type of animal behavior is fascinating, such adaptation to the human world is not possible […]
Ornithologists Map Family Tree of Mysterious Cotinga Birds
Yale University ornithologists Prof Richard Prum and Jacob Berv have mapped out the first large-scale evolutionary family tree for the Neotropical cotingas – some of the brightest, loudest, oddest-looking birds in the world. There are more than 60 species of the cotingas, a highly diverse group of birds that make up the family Cotingidae. They […]
