Tropical forests The leaders of Ghana and Ivory Coast say the two West African nations will work together to stop deforestation for cocoa production (Confectionery News). The search for sapphires…
Giraffes have to search a wider area for food and water when people live nearby, according to a recent study. “Giraffes are huge browsing animals that live in African savanna…
Hyperbolic headlines can be like catnip for newspaper editors. So when a local fisher hauls in what looks like a record-breaking catch, it often makes news. But a recent study…
Tallying up the toll of our individual roles in fueling climate change is a daunting task. To make decisions simpler, we rely on the sorts of trade-off behaviors and cognitive…
Tropical forests Agricultural giant Cargill is aiming for a deforestation-free supply chain by 2030 (Supply Chain Dive). A humpback whale carcass washed up in the Amazon rainforest on Feb. 20…
Ecologists know that when we humans start tugging at the threads of a food web, the unraveling that results is often catastrophic to the connected species, paving the way for…
Climate research has demonstrated that the overall warming of the planet is leading to a jump in extreme weather. High temperatures have risen even higher than they’ve typically been, of…
Blue whales in the northern Pacific Ocean use their memories to guide them to the best feeding spots, instead of seeking out the locations of shorter-term surges in prey, a…
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…
More young birds survived near a road through a Thai forest than those living deeper in the forest where more predators lurked, researchers found during a recent study. The disruptive…
Wearing nothing more than leaves hanging from belts of woven vegetation, the three scientists stand in the rain with little idea of what to expect. They’ve lived and worked with…
Corruption fuels the illegal harvest and sale of caviar, potentially hastening the slide of many fish species toward extinction. That’s the conclusion of a report published Feb. 13 by the…
Tropical forests A photographer snapped black leopards, which haven’t been seen in the wild in Africa since 1909, with a set of camera traps (The New York Times, National Geographic).…
Virunga National Park in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo will reopen its gates to tourists on Feb. 15 after officials closed them more than eight months ago. A spate…
Police and wildlife officials confiscated nearly 30 metric tons (33 tons) of pangolin carcasses, meat and scales, as well as dozens of the live animals, in Malaysian Borneo on Feb.…
The legal rights to manage local forests, recently awarded to communities in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), have the potential to improve lives and protect the country’s block of…
A male Sumatran tiger named Asim attacked and killed Melati, a female of the same subspecies, shortly after he was allowed to enter her enclosure Feb. 8 at ZSL London…
Tropical forests Authorities seized 8.2 metric tons (9 tons) of pangolin scales that had been smuggled from Nigeria through Vietnam to Hong Kong (The New York Times). New research shows…
Ecosystems in their natural state are disappearing quickly around the globe. On that most scientists agree. But how to stem those losses through conservation is hotly debated. Many believe that…
Whether Asia’s tiger populations bounce back, or they evaporate into the pages of history depends on the decisions humans make about how we live on this planet, new research suggests.…
Thirteen conservation organizations have banded together to ask policymakers to protect the world’s last wilderness areas by setting aside nearly one-third of the Earth for conservation. “The planet is losing…
Tropical forests After last week’s dam collapse in Minas Gerais state, an official says Brazil has almost 4,000 other dams at risk of failure (Reuters). A major food producer in…
A recent survey of wildlife rangers at a national park in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) found that most aren’t happy with their jobs. Faced with low pay, little…
Baby krill living around Antarctica are struggling to cope with rising sea temperatures, new research suggests. The study, published online Jan. 21 in the journal Nature Climate Change, shows that…
The collapse of a dam in southeastern Brazil has killed at least 58 people and left hundreds more missing as they were buried by a wave of toxic mud. The…
Tropical forests Government research highlights the uncertainty ahead for tropical forests (U.S. Department of Energy). Warmer temperatures could lead to plants absorbing less carbon dioxide (The New York Times). East…
The trade of live birds in South America is down to its lowest levels in years, according to a report released Jan. 16 by conservation NGOs TRAFFIC and WWF. But…
It was an ambitious project from the start: to capture the Congo Basin rainforest in the pages of a book. Stretching across an area larger than Saudi Arabia, the world’s…
Central Island province in the Solomon Islands has blocked new logging and mining operations in an apparent attempt to halt the degradation of the archipelago’s sensitive ecosystems. “With timber on…
Tropical forests Indonesia’s plans to build thousands of kilometers of roads in New Guinea could endanger the island’s rainforests (Yale e360). Deforestation is dimming the prospects for tourism in a…