Tag archives for forests
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Things are changing for a motley crew of pint-sized slowpokes on a previously undisturbed island ten miles off the coast of Panama. But scientists are utilizing an “environmental air force” to slow the tide.
Posted by According to local legends in Madagascar, the aye-aye lemur is a demon that can kill just by pointing a finger. That sounds mythical, but for insects inside tree trunks, there is truth to the killing part. The nocturnal aye-aye uses its multipurpose middle finger to tap forest wood in search of its meals (see above…
The Secret World of the Old Water
Posted by Octavio Aburto of Scripps Institution of Oceanography in Explorers Journal on March 23, 2013 
Follow Octavio Aburto and Jaime Rojo in their journey through the San Pedro Mezquital River, the last untamed river in Mexico.
Declining Forests In The Eastern United States As Seen From Space
Posted by Alyson Foster on March 7, 2013 
Forests in the eastern United States have become less green over the past decade. That’s what scientists at NASA have concluded after analyzing a series of satellite images compiled between 2000 and 2010.
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Why would members of remote tribal communities, heads of state, Nobel Laureates, local activists, scientists, artists, and people like you plan to travel to Salamanca Spain? The l0th World Wilderness Congress will convene there on October 4 involving a great diversity of people, professions and activists who understand the importance of wild nature to…
Third Day in the Field, First Crash
Posted by Octavio Aburto of Scripps Institution of Oceanography in Explorers Journal on February 1, 2013 Third day, first crash from Octavio Aburto on Vimeo.
Third day into the expedition, the team took their quadcopter for an unintentional bumpy ride-and caught it all on tap.
Rainforest holiday treats in Kenya…
Posted by Dino Martins on December 26, 2012 My name is Dino J. Martins, I am a Kenyan entomologist and I love insects. The Kiswahili word for insect is dudu and if you didn’t know already, insects rule the world! Thanks to the amazing efforts of the ‘little things that run the world’ I was humbled to be selected as a National Geographic…
Posted by Reports from the wildlife trade monitoring organization Traffic, African media outlets, and scholarly researchers point to well-developed trade in pangolins from African source countries to China.
Posted by ON the forested western edge of Maranhao state in north-east Brazil lives the Awá tribe. One of only two nomadic hunter-gatherer tribes left in Brazil, the Awa have long lived in this area, which lies between the equatorial forests of Amazonia and the drier savannas to the east. They are the most threatened tribe in…
Fresh powder!
Posted by Michael Fry on September 28, 2012 
For decades ski resorts around the world have used snowmaking equipment to supplement nature’s sometimes erratic bounty. But a resort in the western U.S. will this season arm its snow cannons with a controversial form of ammo: sewage effluent purchased from a local municipality. Needless to say, the plan has its detractors.
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A monkey known as the lesula to local people in a remote part of the Democratic Republic of the Congo has been found to be a species new to science, researchers reported this week in the journal PLOS ONE. The species has been discovered just as it is being threatened with being hunted and eaten into extinction.
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…
The Farm Bill Rollercoaster Gets Ready to Roll
Posted by Dan Klotz on June 5, 2012 
This week, the Senate began debating the “Agriculture Reform, Food and Jobs Act of 2012,”the latest name for the Farm Bill. This legislation comes up for renewal every five years, and the back-and-forth always been larger than life and somewhat crazy. If you follow the coverage closely this year, you’ll learn about Southern peanut and rice…
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Dr. Çağan Şekercioğlu is a National Geographic Emerging Explorer. A professor of conservation biology, ecology and ornithology at the University of Utah Department of Biology, he also directs the Turkish environmental organization KuzeyDoğa. A gray wolf (Canis lupus) photographed by one of KuzeyDoğa‘s camera traps in Kars Turkey (Türkiye) is the only country covered almost entirely by three…
A country like Sweden can and ought to lead on issues like sustainable forestry. But is it doing so? Freelance photojournalist Erik Hoffner visited the Scandinavian country to find out.
Path of the Pronghorn Leading To New Passages – Part 2
Posted by Wildlife Conservation Society on November 9, 2011 WCS Scientists blog from the field in a 2-part series that looks at pronghorn encountering difficult highway crossing points during their fall migration. The animals get a glimpse of the construction of underpasses and overpasses meant to keep wildlife and motorists off a collision course.
Path of the Pronghorn Leading To New Passages
Posted by Wildlife Conservation Society on November 2, 2011 WCS Scientists blog from the field in a 2-part series that looks at pronghorn encountering difficult highway crossing points during their fall migration. The animals get a glimpse of the construction of underpasses and overpasses meant to keep wildlife and motorists off a collision course.
Science and Conservation Gets a Boost from Google
Posted by Jeff Wells on October 28, 2011 The latest technology from Google coupled with a partnership that blends science, technology and activism has resulted in a coast-to-coast virtual tour of Canada’s boreal forest.
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Do eco-thrill attractions actually help people learn anything about ecology? Jonathan Tourtellot visits a nature theme park in Vancouver, B.C. and gets some surprise insights about the rain forest—and about long-term thinking.
Salmon in the Trees: Life in Alaska’s Tongass Rain Forest
Posted by International League of Conservation Photographers on May 19, 2011 
One of the rarest ecosystems on Earth, the Tongass rain forest fringes the coastal panhandle of Alaska and covers thousands of islands in the Alexander Archipelago. It’s a place where humpback whales, orcas, and sea lions cruise the forested shorelines. Conservation photographer Amy Gulick spent two years paddling and trekking among the bears, misty islands, and salmon streams to document the intricate connections within the Tongass. Here she shares some of her thoughts and photos of this iconic wilderness.
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.
The remaining hundred uncontacted tribes in the world capture the imagination of millions of “civilized” people. Yet they are the last cultures fully engaged with their natural environment. If they are stripped of their ancestral land, all of humankind will have lost the last people who truly understand our connections with the Earth.
India’s Latest Tiger Count Is Seriously Inadequate
Posted by Stuart Pimm on March 28, 2011 
The latest census of wild tigers in India, home to half the world’s wild tigers, shows that the number of big cats has increased by more than two hundred in four years. But the good news may be obscuring serious threats to the country’s iconic feline.
Canada’s boreal forest is one of the last, great storehouses of our global freshwater supply. The values of this impressive wealth of fresh water and wetlands go beyond its sheer volume. Boreal waterways play a critical role in both Arctic and climatic health.
This entry by Rane Cortez, a forest carbon development adviser at The Nature Conservancy, highlights Rane’s recent 10-day trip into São Félix do Xingu, a large municipality in the heart of the Amazon in northern Brazil. She is working with local communities and experts on potential strategies that reduce carbon emissions from these forests while…
