- There are many important conservation and environmental stories Mongabay isn’t able to cover.
- Here’s a digest of some of the significant developments from the week.
- If you think we’ve missed something, feel free to add it in the comments.
Below are a few stories published this week by other news outlets.
Tropical forests
Wildlife traffickers are using the internet to buy and sell wild otters from Southeast Asia (Reuters).
Colonial-era maps of the Congo Basin rainforest are helping scientists understand the reproduction strategies of certain trees (Forests News).
Palm oil use in European biofuel spiked in 2017 (New Scientist).
Scientists recently met to discuss the uphill battle to remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and meet climate change mitigation targets (The Economist).
Organizations in the Philippines push to protect the remaining 1.5 percent of the country’s primary forests (Manila Standard).
A governor in Papua New Guinea is pushing for reforestation efforts in his district (Post-Courier).
A study confirms that plants from the Peruvian Amazon, used by local communities to fight malaria, target the parasites that cause the disease (Elseivier/EurekAlert).
U.S. congressmen are investigating the ties between environmental groups and other countries, starting with the Natural Resources Defense Council (Reuters).
Madagascar’s wildlife is threatened by an invasive toad that turned up in 2014 (Science Magazine).
Conflicts between elephants and cocoa farmers in Ghana are on the rise (Confectionery News).
Other news
A new book, “The Human Planet,” charts the geological impacts humans are making on the Earth (BBC News).
Teeth and claws from African lions are turning up in Asian jewelry markets, replacing harder-to-find tiger body parts (National Geographic News).
A study reveals that fishers deliberately kill dolphins to use as bait in many parts of the world (Frontiers in Marine Science/EurekAlert).
A pilot whale with nearly 8 kilograms (17 pounds) of plastic in its gut washed up in Thailand, highlighting the urgency of the global crisis from plastics in the ocean (National Geographic News).
Business and political interests combine for more environmental conflicts in India than anywhere else in the world (The Hindu).
A group of nuns is working to save a threatened salamander in Mexico from pollution and overfishing (BBC News).
Zambian authorities are planning to allow the culling of 2,000 hippos, reportedly due to concerns that they could spread anthrax (Conservation Action, New Scientist).
Nepal lost 460 square kilometers (180 square miles) of forest between 2001 and 2016, according to new research (Kathmandu Post).
A recent study found that fishers are catching sea turtles by the thousands off the coast of South America (University of Exeter/EurekAlert).
The Tanzanian government is moving forward with plans to log and set up a power project in the Selous Game Reserve, potentially endangering its UNESCO World Heritage status (The East African).
Banner image of a pilot whale by Adam Li/NOAA/NMFS/SWFSC via Wikimedia Commons (Public Domain).
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