- 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
A doctoral student in India discovered a new frog species in a puddle (The Independent).
Authorities in Brazil have arrested eight employees of the mining company Vale over a suspected cover-up of a recent deadly dam collapse (Reuters).
Carbon measurements are a first step toward protecting a forest in western Tanzania (IPP Media).
A new report highlights the lack of environmental planning in China’s Belt and Road Initiative (The Asean Post).
A rat in Australia is the first known mammal species to have gone extinct because of climate change, scientists say (BBC News).
Companies in Indonesia that have been fined for burning vegetation still owe the government hundreds of millions of dollars (Associated Press).
Conflicts have arisen in Uganda, where local communities have accused refugees from South Sudan and the Democratic Republic of Congo of deforestation (The Guardian).
A mountain in Ethiopia is home to a new species of frog (UPI).
Costs rise for a dam slated to be built in Tanzania’s Selous Game Reserve (Reuters).
Researchers rediscover the world’s largest bee, thought to be extinct for nearly four decades, in Indonesia (The New York Times).
Other news
A new book questioning the basic tenets of evolution has drawn widespread criticism (Science Magazine).
Environmental groups have signed onto a lawsuit against the Trump Administration’s plans for a border wall between the U.S. and Mexico (The Washington Post, The Hill).
Greta Thunberg, a 16-year-old girl from Sweden, is helping shape the global reaction to climate change, but it’s been a challenging rise (The New York Times).
Businesses aren’t responding uniformly to climate change (The Economist).
Scientists blame climate change for scourges of blood-sucking arthropods, which are sometimes fatal to wildlife (The Atlantic).
Wall Street firm Morgan Stanley warns that climate-related disasters could cost the U.S. $650 billion in the next three years (CNBC).
Seismic testing for oil in the Atlantic Ocean could kill dozens of marine mammals, conservation groups say (The Washington Post).
Hunters are killing hippos for their ivory, around 90 percent of which is imported into Hong Kong (African Wildlife Foundation).
How serious are the current threats to the global insect population? (The Atlantic)
Australia has denied a permit to a new coal-mining company, the first time it’s ever done so, citing climate change concerns (Nature).
Biologists employ a laborious ground game to save bats from a deadly fungus in the U.S. West (The New York Times).
A “conservation diplomat” discusses his new book, The Snow Leopard Project: And Other Adventures in Warzone Conservation (Undark).
Ornithologist Tom Cade, who helped save the peregrine falcon after DDT nearly wiped it out, has died (The New York Times).
Wallace Broecker, one of the first scientists to warn that global temperatures were rising in the 1970s, died this week (The New York Times).
A panel convened by the White House, including defense and intelligence officials, will examine whether climate change poses a security threat to the U.S. (The New York Times).
Banner image of a Blainville’s beaked whale (Mesoplodon densirostris) by NOAA Photo Library (Public domain) via Wikimedia Commons.
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