http://www.mongabay.com Rainforest news. en-us Copyright 2005 mongabay.com Wed, 26 Apr 2006 07:49:11 -0800 The Brazilian national oil company Petrobras abandoned plans to build an access road into Yasuni National Park, in the Ecuadorian Amazon. The decision follows years of intense pressure from environmental groups and recent criticism by the Ecuadorian government. Instead the company will use helicopter transportation inside the park, according to a statement from Petrobras. http://news.mongabay.com/2006/0426-ecuador.html Wed, 26 Apr 2006 07:49:11 -0800 Mongabay.com http://news.mongabay.com/2006/0426-ecuador.html In a word, economics, though deeper analysis of a proposal in Indonesia suggests that oil palm development might be a cover for something more lucrative: logging. Recently much has been made about the conversion of Asia's biodiverse rainforests for oil-palm cultivation. Environmental organizations have warned that by eating foods that use palm oil as an ingredient, Western consumers are directly fueling the destruction of orangutan habitat and sensitive ecosystems. So, why is it that oil-palm plantations now cover millions of hectares across Malaysia, Indonesia, and Thailand? Why has oil palm become the world’s number one fruit crop, trouncing its nearest competitor, the humble banana? The answer lies in the crop's unparalleled productivity. Simply put, oil palm is the most productive oil seed in the world. A single hectare of oil palm may yield 5,000 kilograms of crude oil, or nearly 6,000 liters of crude. http://news.mongabay.com/2006/0425-oil_palm.html Tue, 25 Apr 2006 08:49:11 -0800 Mongabay.com http://news.mongabay.com/2006/0425-oil_palm.html Tonight six grassroots environmentalists will be awarded the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize. This year's winners include a Vietnam veteran fighting Pentagon plans to incinerate chemical weapons stockpiles, a man who tipped the United Nations to illegal logging in war-torn Liberia, the person behind the creation of the world's largest area of protected tropical rainforest, a lawyer in Ukraine who helped block the construction of canal that would have cut through the heart of the Danube Delta, a woman who won resitution for indigenous land owners from logging interests in Papua New Guinea, and a researcher who pushed social impact assessments for major dam developments in China. http://news.mongabay.com/2006/0424-goldman.html Mon, 24 Apr 2006 07:49:11 -0800 Mongabay.com http://news.mongabay.com/2006/0424-goldman.html In an April 21st, 2006 editorial published in the Canada Free Press Dennis T. Avery, senior fellow for Hudson Institute in Washington, DC and the Director for Global Food Issues, called Brazil's cerrado ecosystem a "wasteland" and criticized a recent report from the environmental activist group Greenpeace that linked Amazon deforestation to soy-based animal feed used by fast-food chains in Europe. http://news.mongabay.com/2006/0423-hudson.html Sun, 23 Apr 2006 14:49:11 -0800 Mongabay.com http://news.mongabay.com/2006/0423-hudson.html So today is Earth Day.  You may look at Earth Day as another useless "holiday" that appears on your calendar, yet does not warrant an actual vacation day, where people parade around about trees or not driving, CEOs stand up to talk about their environmental stewardship as a PR strategy and Hallmark, ironically, sells more cards. Another gimmick day full of false promises and empty pledges to make real environmentally-motivated change, while everything remains regretfully the same. Well, perhaps this Earth Day you should pause for a little reflection. Step back, watch the kids dressed up as butterflies and trees dancing in your city park or main street while adults drink their organic wine and eco-friendly microbrewed beers, and think about what you can and will honestly do to reduce the weight of your impact on the world around you.  Maybe you will make more of an effort to recycle those bottles and cans that sometimes end up in your trash or actually take the time to cut those six pack plastic rings, because you have seen those pictures of sea creatures, and it hurt you to look at them. http://news.mongabay.com/2005/0422-rhett_butler.html Sat, 22 Apr 2006 07:49:11 -0800 Mongabay.com http://news.mongabay.com/2005/0422-rhett_butler.html Six new species of frogs have been discovered in the Southeast Asia nation of Lao PDR, according to the Bronx Zoo-based Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). Three newly discovered frog species are described in the recent issue of Copeia, the journal of the American Society of Herpetologists and Ichthyologists. WCS says that little is known about the new frogs, other than the location they were found and how the compare morphologically to similar species. http://news.mongabay.com/2006/0420-frogs.html Thu, 20 Apr 2006 10:49:11 -0800 Mongabay.com http://news.mongabay.com/2006/0420-frogs.html Mongabay.com, a leading environmental-science web site, announced today a revised version of a rainforest site, that has been a major resource on such forests for teachers, children, and researchers. "Mongabay.com is dedicated to providing necessary communication to those interested in the fate of our rainforests," Ira Rubinoff, director of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI), said. "It has a scientific base that should provide reliable information to all who share an interest in the future quality of life on this planet." The revised site includes environmental profiles and deforestation statistics for more than 60 countries, and features thousands of rainforest wildlife photos from around the world. Additionally, the site includes a section geared towards children, with learning activities and educational resources for teachers. http://news.mongabay.com/2006/0412-release.html Wed, 12 Apr 2006 12:48:11 -0800 Mongabay.com http://news.mongabay.com/2006/0412-release.html A new rainforest conservation initiative by developing nations offers great promise to help slow tropical deforestation rates says William Laurance, a leading rainforest biologist from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama, in an article appearing Friday in New Scientist. http://news.mongabay.com//2006/0412-stri.html Wed, 12 Apr 2006 09:48:11 -0800 Mongabay.com http://news.mongabay.com//2006/0412-stri.html The entire life of the Tambaqui, also called a Pacu, follows the annual rise and fall of the floodwaters. The young are born in the river channel and are carried by the high water into the floodplain, where they live in the floating meadows and eat grass seeds. The fish use their keen senses of smell and vision to find their favorite fruits and seeds in the forest. Tambaqui are unique in their love for rubber tree seeds. They crush the hard seed coating with large molar-like teeth and swallow the seed whole. This does not destroy the seed, in fact, the process is a necessary step in germination, or preparing the seed to sprout. Later, the seed will grow into a rubber tree. http://news.mongabay.com/2006/0412-wc.html Wed, 12 Apr 2006 08:48:11 -0800 Mongabay.com http://news.mongabay.com/2006/0412-wc.html Rivers are the highways of the Amazon. Instead of driving cars and trucks, people use use boats to travel from place to place. Launchas are large boats powered by strong engines that travel up and down all the major rivers in the Amazon Basin. We have spent the last two day nights and two night on a launcha that is traveling up the Amazon River at about 10 miles an hour. http://news.mongabay.com/2006/0411-wc.html Tue, 11 Apr 2006 16:48:11 -0800 Mongabay.com http://news.mongabay.com/2006/0411-wc.html Brazilian environmental authorities closed down an illegal logging operation in the Amazon according to a report from the Associated Press. An agent with Ipaam, the environmental authority of Amazonas state, told Michael Astor of the Associated Press that the Norte Wood logging company was operating without a license in town of Novo Aripuana. The agency made one arrest and seized 500 cubic meters of wood in the raid. http://news.mongabay.com/2006/0411-brazil.html Tue, 11 Apr 2006 13:48:11 -0800 Mongabay.com http://news.mongabay.com/2006/0411-brazil.html Hundreds of fires are burning across Central America according to NASA satellite images and reports from the ground. Fires have been detected in Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua. http://news.mongabay.com/2006/0410-central_america.html Mon, 10 Apr 2006 09:08:11 -0800 Mongabay.com http://news.mongabay.com/2006/0410-central_america.html Belen is on the edge of the large city of Iquitos. Belen is unique because much of the city is covered in water for most of the year. From January to May the streets, soccer fields, and gardens are underwater. Many of the houses are built on rafts that float up and down as the river rises and falls. Other houses are built on stilts so that the water does not cover the house when the water rises. The floating city was full of life: people paddling canoes, children swimming and laughing, people going about their daily lives in houses floating on the Amazon River. http://news.mongabay.com/2006/0409-wc.html Sun, 9 Apr 2006 10:28:11 -0800 Mongabay.com http://news.mongabay.com/2006/0409-wc.html After a year-long investigation, environmental group Greenpeace has accused McDonald's and other western firms of contributing to deforestation in the Amazon. Greenpeace's report, published today, alleges that much of the soy-based animal feed used by fast-food chains to fatten chickens is derived from soybeans grown in the Amazon Basin of Brazil. Thanks to a new variety of soybean developed by Brazilian scientists to flourish in rainforest climate, soybean production has boomed in the region in recent years as firms have converted extensive areas of rainforest and cerrado, a savanna-like ecosystem, into industrial soybean farms. High soybean prices have also served as an impetus to expanding soybean cultivation and Brazil is on the verge of supplanting the United States as the world's leading exporter of soybeans. http://news.mongabay.com/2006/0406-greenpeace.html Fri, 7 Apr 2006 10:28:11 -0800 Mongabay.com http://news.mongabay.com/2006/0406-greenpeace.html As human population growth rates diminish in coming years deforestation rates are expected to slow according to research published in Biotropica online. The report offers hope that reduced rates of forest conversion can stave off a future extinction crisis in the tropics, where most of the world's biodiversity is found. Scientists estimate that as much as 50 percent of the planet's terrestrial biodiversity is found in tropical rainforests distributed around the world but the United Nations recently warned that the current rate of extinction is running 100 to 1,000 times the normal background rate. http://news.mongabay.com/2006/0406-stri.html Thu, 6 Apr 2006 14:28:11 -0800 Mongabay.com http://news.mongabay.com/2006/0406-stri.html The United States and Indonesia today agreed to fight illegal logging in some of the world's most diverse rainforests. Indonesian Trade Minister Mari Elka Pangestu and Chief of the US Trade Office (USTR) Robert Portman said the two countries will coordinate efforts of protect Indonesia's forests which have been significantly degraded and destroyed by the illicit timber trade. While Indonesia houses the most extensive rainforest cover in all of Asia, its natural forest area is rapidly being reduced by logging--most of which is illegal. Between 1990 and 2005 the country lost more than 28 million hectares of forest, including 21.7 million hectares of virgin forest, according to data from the United Nations. http://news.mongabay.com/2006/0405-indo.html Wed, 5 Apr 2006 23:28:11 -0800 Mongabay.com http://news.mongabay.com/2006/0405-indo.html A humanitarian emergency is looming among Colombia's indigenous communities, with some threatened with extinction in the South American country's decades-long civil conflict, as irregular armed groups encroach upon their land, even torturing and killing their leaders, the United Nations refugee agency warned today. http://news.mongabay.com/2006/0405-un.html Wed, 5 Apr 2006 07:38:11 -0800 Mongabay.com http://news.mongabay.com/2006/0405-un.html We boarded a plane in Chicago at 6 pm on Saturday energized and excited about our trip to Peru. When our plane landed in Lima early on Sunday morning, we were very tired and ready for bed. I think traveling 500 miles per hour at 35,000 feet that makes it hard for me to sleep on airplanes. I think Anna and Patrick were having the same problem. http://news.mongabay.com/2006/0405-wc.html Wed, 5 Apr 2006 06:50:11 -0800 Mongabay.com http://news.mongabay.com/2006/0405-wc.html Forest fragmentation may cause biodiversity loss lasting millions of years according to a new study published in the March 31, 2006 issue of the journal Science. Using cores drilled through 5 kilometers of rock in eastern Colombia and western Venezuela, Carlos Jaramillo of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI) in Panama and a team of researchers derived a fossil pollen record for a 72 million-year period with samples ranging from 10 to 82 million years ago. http://news.mongabay.com/2006/0330-stri.html Thu, 30 Mar 2006 11:53:11 -0800 Mongabay.com http://news.mongabay.com/2006/0330-stri.html Mongabay.com, a leading rainforest information web site, has launched a new section featuring photographs from the island of Borneo. More than 500 photos from Kalimantan have been added to the site. http://news.mongabay.com/2006/0328-borneo_photos.html Tue, 28 Mar 2006 21:53:11 -0800 Mongabay.com http://news.mongabay.com/2006/0328-borneo_photos.html Today Indonesia announced its would end plans to establish a 1.8 million hectare oil plantation in the rainforest of Borneo. The proposed plan, which was backed by Chinese investments, would have destroyed one of the most biodiverse ecosystems on Earth. http://news.mongabay.com/2006/0328-borneo.html Tue, 28 Mar 2006 15:53:11 -0800 Mongabay.com http://news.mongabay.com/2006/0328-borneo.html At the United Nations-sponsored environmental conference meeting in Curitiba, Brazil announced plans to protect an additional 210,000 square kilometers (84,000 square miles) of the Amazon rain forest in the next three years. http://news.mongabay.com/2006/0328-amazon.html Tue, 28 Mar 2006 09:53:11 -0800 Mongabay.com http://news.mongabay.com/2006/0328-amazon.html Consumers in the United States are being mislead as to the origin of merbau hardwood flooring being sold by Home Depot and Lowe's. According to a new report published by the Environmental Investigation Agency and their Indonesian NGO partner Telepak, such timber is coming from the forests of Indonesia's remote Papua Province, where 80 percent of logging is estimated to be illegal. http://news.mongabay.com/2006/0323-png.html Thu, 23 Mar 2006 06:53:11 -0800 Mongabay.com Scientists today warned that 40 percent of the Amazon rainforest could be lost by 2050 due to agricultural expansion unless strict measures are taken to protect the world's largest tropical forest. http://news.mongabay.com/2006/0322-amazon.html Wed, 22 Mar 2006 15:53:11 -0800 Mongabay.com New research out of the University of Arizona has found that the Amazon rainforest grows fastest during the dry season. The finding counters the convention in other ecosystems where peak plant growth generally occurs during the rainy season. http://news.mongabay.com/2006/0321-amazon.html Tue, 21 Mar 2006 07:53:11 -0800 Mongabay.com Taman Negara is Malaysia's largest and best-known national park. Spanning 4343 square kilometers, the protected forest area is home to some of southeast Asia'apos;apos;s rarest creatures including tigers, the Malaysian tapir, forest elephants, and the Sumatran rhino. Scientists believe that these rainforests may be the oldest on Earth. Untouched by glaciers during recent ice ages, Taman Negara'apos;apos;s forests have remained largely the same for some 130 million years. This stability produces some of the highest levels of biodiversity on Earth: more than 350 species of birds, 14000 species of plants, and 210 species of mammals can be found in Taman Negara. http://news.mongabay.com/2006/0321-malaysia.html Tue, 21 Mar 2006 07:53:11 -0800 Mongabay.com Brazil's plans to dam two rivers in the Amazon basin to generate power threaten a treasure trove of animals and plants in a region with one of the world'apos;apos;s richest arrays of wildlife, environmentalists say. http://news.mongabay.com/2006/0317-reuters.html Fri, 17 Mar 2006 08:53:11 -0800 Mongabay.com World Wildlife Fund today released the results of a field survey from the island of Borneo which found that poaching has significantly reduced Borneo's population of Sumatran rhinos, but a small group continues to survive in the "Heart of Borneo," a region covered with vast tracts of rain forest. http://news.mongabay.com/2006/0317-rhino.html Fri, 17 Mar 2006 07:53:11 -0800 Mongabay.com The Malaysian state of Sabah on the island of Borneo announced it will phase out logging in large parts of its remaining rainforests. Sabah, once home to some of the world's most biodiverse forests, was largely logged out during the 1980s and 1990s but some parts of the state still support wild populations of endangered orangutans. In recent years, the Malaysian government has set aside protected areas and sponsored reforestation projects in the state. http://news.mongabay.com/2006/0316-sabah.html Thu, 16 Mar 2006 23:53:11 -0800 Mongabay.com When predators learn to avoid a highly toxic frog, they generalize, and this allows a harmless frog to mimic and be more abundant than a frog whose poison packs less punch, biologists at The University of Texas at Austin studying poison dart frogs in the Amazon have discovered. http://news.mongabay.com/2006/0313-frogs.html Mon, 13 Mar 2006 11:03:11 -0800 Mongabay.com The Camisea gas pipeline in the Peruvian Amazon has leaked for the fifth time in 18 months according to Reuters. Two people were injured and a small fire was ignited by the spill of 750 cubic meters of gas. http://news.mongabay.com/2006/0308-camisea.html Wed, 8 Mar 2006 14:03:11 -0800 Mongabay.com Illegal logging is destroying large areas of rainforest in Papua New Guinea according to a report released last week by Forest Trends, a leading international forestry organization. http://news.mongabay.com/2006/0308-png.html Wed, 8 Mar 2006 13:03:11 -0800 Mongabay.com Maize, better known as corn in some parts of the world, was cultivated by people living in the Peruvian Andes of South America about 1,000 years earlier than previously believed reported a team of researchers last week. http://news.mongabay.com/2006/0307-stri.html Tue, 7 Mar 2006 23:03:11 -0800 Mongabay.com Scientists have identified 20 potential extinction hotspots where hunting and human-caused habitat destruction are set to suffer significant declines in animal populations in coming years. In developing their map of future extinction hotspots, the researchers analyzed current and predicted IUCN Red List data on the extinction risk to almost 4,000 species of land mammals. Their roster includes areas not typically found on lists of the world's most imperiled habitats, including Greenland, the Patagonian coast of South America, and Siberian tundra. http://news.mongabay.com/2006/0307-extinction_risk.html Tue, 7 Mar 2006 08:03:11 -0800 Mongabay.com Pygmy chief Mbomba Bokenu says he may soon let loggers cut his people's forests, and all he expects in return are soap and a few bags of salt. http://news.mongabay.com/2006/0301-ap.html Mon, 6 Mar 2006 12:34:11 -0800 Mongabay.com Scientists are struggling to save the fast-disappearing bonobo, the gentle "hippie chimp" known for resolving squabbles through sex rather than violence. http://news.mongabay.com/2006/0306-ap.html Mon, 6 Mar 2006 12:33:11 -0800 Mongabay.com Last week Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva announced a plan to allow sustainable logging across 3 percent of the Amazon rain forest. The law is aimed at undermining destructive illegal logging activities while generating revenue for forest management and protection, and income for rural Brazilians in the region who often must rely on subsistence agriculture or employment on ranches and plantations under sometimes slave-like conditions. http://news.mongabay.com/2006/0306-brazil.html Mon, 6 Mar 2006 08:33:11 -0800 Mongabay.com