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In other news: Environmental stories from around the web, August 10, 2018

  • 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.

We’ve collected a few stories that were published this week by other news outlets.

Tropical forests

New aerial images track the continued destruction of the Amazon for gold mining (Wired).

Brazil’s environment ministry says it has cut its carbon dioxide emissions to below its 2020 emissions target (Reuters).

The life span of captured Asian elephants is shorter than that of elephants born in captivity (University of Turku/Phys.Org).

Funding for forest conservation must increase, conservation groups say (Environmental Finance).

A World Bank-supported chimpanzee sanctuary in Guinea is now threatened by a World Bank-backed dam project (The Guardian).

Fire is a more potent degrader of Amazon forest than logging, new research finds (Pacific Standard).

A company building a new dam in Indonesia’s Sumatra Island as part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative insists it won’t cause the extinction of the Tapanuli orangutan, but scientists say the evidence suggests otherwise (National Geographic News, Christian Science Monitor).

Opponents of a “new” dam in Malaysian Borneo say it’s the same project they’ve fought against for years because of the communities it will displace and the environmental problems it will cause (The Star).

Lemurs use millipedes to treat the symptoms of threadworm infections (The Economist).

A look back into our planet’s climate history reveals that the carbon dioxide we’re liable to add to the atmosphere by 2100 could radically change life as we know it (The Atlantic).

Brazil has created a zero-extinction alliance to protect the habitat of some 230 species of wildlife (American Bird Conservancy).

Women in Guyana lend their knowledge to help address climate change (Demerara Waves).

A new study lays out three strategies that seeds employ to survive often hostile tropical environments (Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute/Science Daily).

Other news

Scientists have created “biological passports” to follow the movements of individual whale sharks (Science Magazine).

Authorities confiscated more than 1,100 endangered Indian star tortoises in India on their way to Bangladesh (The Hindu).

Right now, it looks like 2018 will be the fourth-hottest year ever recorded (The New York Times).

The latest algal bloom in Florida is menacing the state’s wildlife (The New York Times).

Trump administration officials must disallow the use of a pesticide harmful to children’s brain development, a court says (Los Angeles Times).

The last of the 11 black rhinos moved to Kenya’s Tsavo East National Park in June has died after a lion attack (Capital News, The Daily Mail).

California has signed on to a “green financing” pact (Global Climate Summit).

Scientists warn of drastically different “hothouse Earth” climate, even if humans do cut carbon emissions (BBC News, New Scientist).

The algae that live with corals may have evolved 160 million years ago, much earlier than previously thought (BBC News).

Scientists turn up evidence that cities are driving the evolution of some wildlife species (The Guardian).

A controversial $444 million grant to the Great Barrier Reef Foundation would force applications for taxpayer money to go through a private organization, critics say (The Guardian).

A chronicle of a necropsy on the blue whale, the largest animal that’s ever lived (Hakai Magazine).

Sixteen days after her calf’s death, a mother orca is still tending to her baby’s body (BBC News).

The ocean’s mammals have lost the gene that protects land-dwelling mammals from the mind-altering effects of a pesticide (University of Pittsburgh/Phys.Org, The New York Times).

Is this what the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge might look like with gas and oil drilling? (The New York Times).

A corn variety acclimated to low-nitrogen soils could help cut the use of fertilizer (The Atlantic).

White House officials reel back controls on a pesticide that may threaten essential pollinators like bees (The Guardian).

Zoologists describe two new species of lizards from India (The Natural History Museum, London).

New EU law holds promise for indigenous community rights around the world (Underrepresented Nations & Peoples Organization).

A board member of the UN’s Green Climate Fund explains the turmoil surrounding a recent meeting, leading to a failure to approve around $1 billion in projects (Devex).

Banner image of an Indian star tortoise by Davidvraju (CC BY-SA 4.0), via Wikimedia Commons.

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