Tag archives for deforestation
Carbon Dioxide Milestone Revised by NOAA
Posted by Tim Profeta of Nicholas Institute for Environmental Policy Solutions, Duke University on May 16, 2013 The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced last week that carbon dioxide concentrations at the Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii surpassed the milestone 400 parts per million for a sustained period. NOAA has since revised the figure—on the basis of computer analysis—saying its May 9 readings actually remained fractions of a point below the historic level, coming in at…
Threats to the Amazon come not only from deforestation, but also from dams, roads, human-induced climate change, gold mining, petroleum extraction, shipping and the unplanned growth of cities, whose expanding populations consume more and more of the Amazon River’s resources.
Support for People and Wildlife Merge in Ecuador’s Yasuní National Park
Posted by Wildlife Conservation Society on March 6, 2013 Along Ecuador’s eastern border with Peru sits Yasuní National Park (YNP). At close to one million hectares, Yasuní is the largest expanse of protected lowland tropical forest in the country. Designated as a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve in 1989, the park is one of the world’s biodiversity jewels, containing at least 170 species of mammals, well over 596 bird species, more than 382 fish species, and a fantastic variety of flora.
Google Mapping Tool Exposes Illegal Logging
Posted by Christine Dell'Amore of National Geographic News in News From Nature+ on September 8, 2012 
Conservationists working to save forests and species on the ground are looking to the sky, thanks to mapping tools and satellites that capture Earth like never before. With video.
Posted by Deforestation, especially of tropical forests, makes up 18 percent of annual global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions — more emissions than the entire global transportation sector. The 2007 Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) emphasized that reducing deforestation would be the most significant and immediate way to begin reducing global levels of…
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Editor’s Note: Rane Cortez works for The Nature Conservancy and is based in Belem, Brazil. She moved for two months to the highly-deforested frontier town of São Felix do Xingu in northern Brazil to work with local farmers, ranchers, landowners, indigenous groups and city officials to together promote forest-friendly sustainable growth for the area. This…
Editor’s Note: Rane Cortez works for The Nature Conservancy and is based in Belem, Brazil. She has just moved for two months to the highly-deforested frontier town of São Felix do Xingu in northern Brazil to work with local farmers, ranchers, landowners, indigenous groups and city officials to together promote forest-friendly sustainable growth for the…
Editor’s Note: Rane Cortez works for The Nature Conservancy and is based in Belem, Brazil. She has just moved for two months to the highly-deforested frontier town of São Felix do Xingu in northern Brazil to work with local farmers, ranchers, landowners, indigenous groups and city officials to together promote forest-friendly sustainable growth for the…
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Editor’s Note: Rane Cortez works for The Nature Conservancy and is based in Belem, Brazil. She has just moved for two months to the highly deforested frontier town of São Felix do Xingu (roughly pronounced sow felix do shingoo) in northern Brazil to work with local farmers, ranchers, landowners, indigenous groups, and city officials…
Help Needed for Survivors of Devastating Floods in Madagascar
Posted by Mireya Mayor, Ph.D. of National Geographic Explorer, Scientist, Correspondent on March 9, 2012 Dozens of people have died and tens of thousand are homeless in the wake of devastating floods that swept through the African island country of Madagascar during a recent cyclone. The disaster was aggravated by ongoing deforestation and environment degradation. Survivors need our help.
Posted by Like the other remaining wilderness areas around the world, the vast Peruvian Amazon has become ring-fenced by land conversion for pastures, rampant logging, commercial forestry, mining, dams, agricultural development, and other drivers of global trade and development. This vast wilderness that seemed impossible to destroy or harm is under threat and in decline… Listen here…
Africa’s parrots are a unique assemblage of lovebirds, Poicephalus parrots, grey parrots, and Rose-ringed parakeets that have managed to find a home in the forests and savanna of this wild and primordial continent. All species are now under serious threat from escalating trade due to emerging markets in the Far East and habitat loss due to deforestation,…
Posted by Pak Bastarian was once an illegal logger, cutting trees in the forests of West Kalimantan, Borneo. Today he is a conservationist, leading his village of former headhunters in the fight to prevent oil palm plantations from clearing forest in his village.
A Death Foretold
Posted by Scott Wallace on June 8, 2011 In Brazil’s violent backwoods, environmental destruction and murder go hand in hand.
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For 20 years, field scientists participating in Conservation International’s Rapid Assessment Program (RAP) have been exploring some of the world’s most abundant, mysterious and threatened tropical ecosystems; to date, they’ve discovered more than 1,300 species new to science.
