- 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.
- Mongabay does not vet the news sources below, nor does the inclusion of a story on this list imply an endorsement of its content.
Tropical forests
Small oil palm farmers in Peru are supplying huge companies like Nestlé with their product (Swissinfo.ch).
More than three-quarters of commodity suppliers haven’t made deforestation commitments (Supply Chain Dive).
Fewer forest elephants means more carbon in the atmosphere, research shows (ZME Science, Gizmodo).
The Catholic Church is involved in conservation efforts in the Congo Basin (Crux Now).
Poaching and habitat loss have cut the numbers of the Masai subspecies of giraffe by 50 percent, and they’re now considered endangered (National Geographic).
Authorities arrested Hawaiian elders protesting the construction of a telescope on the summit of Mauna Kea (The New York Times).
Bornean orangutans are holding steady in protected areas in northern Borneo, but aren’t faring as well in areas with oil palm plantations (PLOS ONE/EurekAlert).
Other news
A U.S. climate scientist talks about her faith as an evangelical Christian (The Washington Post).
U.S. officials say that several Asian countries are to blame for plastic in the world’s oceans, without acknowledging the United States’ own contributions to the problem (Pacific Standard).
Iron particles released by human activity could be changing the ocean’s geochemistry (Scientific American).
Images of an orphaned dugong in Thailand have gone viral, drawing conservation attention to the species (Smithsonian).
China is working to get a handle on “rogue” CFC emissions (Nature).
Loggerhead sea turtles are laying eggs at a record pace in the southern U.S. (Associated Press).
Climate change has increased the size of California’s wildfires by 500 percent (The Atlantic).
Natural disasters unleash a slurry of harmful chemicals (The New York Times).
Not all bioplastics are biodegradable (Ensia).
A tanker has spilled thousands of tons of bauxite into a bay in the Solomon Islands, just months after an oil spill hit the same area (The Guardian).
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency won’t outlaw the use of a pesticide that may cause problems for children, questioning the “significance” of the data (The Washington Post).
Banner image of a loggerhead sea turtle by ukanda via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY 2.0 ).
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