- 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.
Tropical forests
Insect numbers plummet in Puerto Rico, alarming scientists (The Independent, Gizmodo, Nature, The Scientist).
Cameroonian authorities have approved the country’s first combined marine-terrestrial national park (Rainforest Trust).
The expansion of oil palm in Indonesia could be threatening subsistence farming for 150 million people, a new study has found (CIFOR Forests News).
Two tropical countries, Ghana and Ecuador, are working together to develop their forestry sectors (Peace FM).
Food giant Nestlé says it will publish evidence of deforestation that it has gathered on its website (Swiss Info).
A new report from Global Witness finds that logging, driven largely by demand from China, is wiping out forests on the Solomon Islands (Radio New Zealand).
Given a choice between reducing emissions and halting deforestation, scientists agree that we need to do both (The Guardian).
The Rakhine crisis in Myanmar leads the U.K. to pull funding from an effort to reform the country’s timber industry (Frontier Myanmar).
Scientists could miss the warning signs of the extinction of some species because of the compounding effects of the wildlife trade and deforestation (Science Daily).
A unique skin disease could be adding to the decline of giraffes in Africa (Business Daily Africa/The Conversation).
Beef is off the menu on select flights by Virgin, in a test that the company’s founder says could reduce its climate footprint (The Australian Financial Review).
Investors are increasingly valuing zero deforestation (Brink).
Agriculture giant Wilmar pledges to be deforestation-free by 2020 amid criticism (Eco-Business).
Other news
U.S. President Donald Trump acknowledges that climate change is real, but says he doesn’t know if humans are causing it (The New York Times, The Atlantic, BBC News).
A survey of the kelp forests off the coast of Cape Town, South Africa, yield seven species new to science (Cape Town Etc).
Ticks are a climate change-driven — and potentially deadly — scourge for moose in the northeastern United States (The New York Times).
Indigenous groups in Australia embrace their role of protectors of the environment (The New York Times).
Poorer countries might already be beyond the aid of climate science (The Atlantic).
Ian Kiernan, who led a push to clean up litter around the world, died this week (BBC News).
Mammals can’t evolve fast enough to handle the pressure on them from humans (Forbes, The Atlantic, Business Insider).
The top White House economic adviser says the U.N. climate change report is an “overestimate” of the impacts (Daily Caller).
Kenya’s first lady says the country is moving toward an end to the illegal trade of wildlife and their parts (The Star).
A forest of aspens, a clonal colony considered one of the world’s largest organisms, is under threat from overgrazing by mule deer and mismanagement (Science Magazine, The New York Times).
Is Prince William perpetuating the colonialist mentality through his conservation efforts in Africa? (The Guardian)
Researchers spot a vaquita, a critically endangered porpoise living in Mexico’s Gulf of California (The New York Times).
A whale carcass off Cape Cod has attracted great white sharks (The Columbus Dispatch).
A new species of sea slug has been hiding in plain sight, looking just like seaweed (National Geographic).
Banner image of a mule deer in Washington by Christina Bergquist (CC-3.0), via Wikimedia Commons.
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