More details and information on tropical rainforests.
From Myanmar, through the Congo to the Atlantic forests of Brazil, we are neglecting our rainforests, but temperate forests are also suffering, often from pest influences as global warming really takes hold in certain regions. How to help prevent a treeless future - as always, take these pieces of well-informed, well-rounded and interesting advice.
How will Paris be implemented? Will farming be a major player in preserving our environment as we feed more people than ever existed? The questions for future generations will be thorny, but the rainforest is a thorny clue about conserving what we have left!We're looking forward to seeing how the new NGO copes with expansion as the politics of climate mitigation progresses.
How can we conserve the beauty of the largest remaining rainforest in Asia? This tract of land, divided by the dry interior, stretches across the Thai border at one end and connects with Indian reserves at the other. Answers to the everlasting problems of conservation must include governance, proper transparency and perhaps most important, grassroots participation at many levels.
How will we view the current conservation crisis in the future. Tigers, like it or not, are at the forefront of poaching and habitat preservation. We will be judged on whether this is an oversight in counting Indochinese tigers or a genuine result of conservators who struggle to maintain the worlds great rainforests and often die in the attempt. Armed poachers are matched rarely in firepower by rangers and wardens, so protection here may involve more than patrolling. The cameras need to reveal faces and the legal profession needs to get busy on very heavy punishment for those who operate for the ugliest of all motives - greed.
The rocky pools of Maine are the centre of attention in the scientific world for once. How the many interactions work gives insight into the most complex ecosystems on earth, like the coral reefs or the terrestrial examples in rainforest. Crab and whelk, winkle and seaweed all collaborate in the winner eats all scenario of these wonderful pools. An artificial mesocosm provides the experimental basis for the investigation of real rock pools, with these food webs providing evidence of the full facts for the first time.
When the likes of Cota Doñana are threatened, then all of these precious sites for conservation, from the Great Barrier Reef to all the rainforests worldwide need to be checked. Who is destroying these last places for endangered wildlife on earth? Tourism and care for our personal environment needs assessment for future sustainability.
Tropical forests are declining fast, but how greedy were ancient peoples in their robbing of the wood and resources from other forests. One example only shines of sustainability.
We know our forests have gone or are going. All you have to do is fly over one of the supposed biodiverse jungly areas. The signs are there for all to see, without any satellite reconnaissance. Professor Peres gives us the whole story, with the background economics in an effort to stop the rot and conserve the little we have left, just as the global warming campaign has finally created a momentum to stop climate change.
The move to exploit rainforest and peatland with no motive other than profit is finally being stopped. Indonesia has needed to act on mining, forestry and agriculture for decades, and finally the ball is rolling.
Why do we allow the rainforest to die? How can we possibly encourage the regeneration of large stretches of the habitat needed for organisms large and small?
How can Paris and its future effects have anything to do with our endangered large birds and mammals? The answer is in a clever paper today that explains why we are losing even more of our forests than we thought. Preserve our fauna, our flora, their habitats and the niches they conserve and we will see more trees and animals that these ecosystems desperately need.
The ant reaches its peak of organisation in the feared army ant. These Panamanians, like several other species, dominate their tropical forests like a top predator, but there are millions of them, impossible to kill.
The future is talked about, the climate is changing, but when will we finally stop the rot. Forests are essential but from Japanese furniture to cardboard and toilet paper, they are still being used illogically and incomprehensibly by people who all know better. The time has come to prevent the disappearance of these trees and all the animals that live in, on and around them. This is a desperate time for us and all the other species around forests.
Great research requires a similar amount of attention, as we concentrate on climate change and global warming. One of our most significant assets is the Amazonian forests that absorb more of our carbon dioxide than any other sink
. Here is a possible link to the answers we need to preserve this vitally-important function and our own world as we know it.
La Niña and El Niño may be major headaches, but their use here in defining how species find mature tropical rainforest useful is major. The manakins have been seen here to use the great forest canopy, its moist conditions and its food supplies as a perfect refuge from El Niños droughts, over many years. If only the human race could find somewhere to shelter from those stormy blasts we can now expect.
Where in the world can we discover new primates? The answer is only in tropical rainforests, but they will certainly be endangered species, like several of the titis and many, many others. We only have one solution to this tragic loss of life, species, habitat and ecosystems. Stop cutting down the last remnants of these once-great forests. It doesnt even make commercial sense, as this business is never going to be sustainable. Greed is the motive and its result has always been the same.
Who is right? The avid deforester who seems to have converted to conservation, or the NGOs who claim that corruption and illegal encroachment will devastate what is left of the rainforests.
From Thailand to the southeast of China and then throughout the Sunda shelf much of which is now underwater, the rainforest was supreme. It was delineated by the presence of many species of dipterocarp, entwined with rattans and delicious fruiting trees, all set off with the huge biodiversity of tigers and elephant, Orang-utan and civets. It still remains, but it desperately cries out for conservation all of that which is left!
The worlds soils have been tested, in a thermal gradient from the Arctic through to the tropical rainforest. Despite claims to the contrary, the loss of carbon as global warming increases is going to increase markedly. We have to prepare ourselves to investigate how soils can be somehow prevented from contributing so much of the greenhouse gases that we have to reduce.
Have we got it right on this deforested planet? Are those carbon dioxide emissions becoming smaller or have we got it all wrong yet again? You've guessed it - we've been underestimating both the gases and the devious landowners.
What would you do with Indonesia? All the forest is threatened and multi-nationals insist on logging on. Except for one, that is, and now will they all perform an about-turn and conserve our rainforest species, habitats and futures?
The Sumatran problem where people and industry are always given priority over natural ecosystems is reaching a climax, as the last vestiges of tropical forest go under thee axe. apart from the smoke pollution hanging over the burning, the animal species involved are among the rarest large animals anywhere. It's incredible that local interests can still prevent national government and international organisations from trying to conserve these precious areas still left.
Evidence is needed for the survival of many critically endangered animals when they disappear from our sight and reappear many years later in situations such as the open ocean or the dense tropical forests. Conservationists desperately need to know how they can be helped through their young stages and brought back from the brink of extinction.
We have faced many losses of rainforest. To dispossess these rare species and many peoples who are rooted in their own island lands is undoubtedly the worst loss ever seen, or likely to be seen.
The tropical forests of the whole of South East Asia have been disappearing fast for years. The WWF and the EIA are now questioning just how long making a quick buck will take precedence over essential conservation.
The plight of coral reefs: Those pretty fish and panoramic colours of soft and hard coral that we see on one of those rare undisturbed reefs are down to a complex ecology similar to tropical forest ecosystems.
Paucidentomys vermidax, a new species and genus of rodent has been discovered in the the rainforests of Sulawesi, Indonesia. The new rodent species has lost all its molars, only retaining incisors.
Protected tropical forest biodiversity under threat. A new study shows that biodiversity levels in tropical forests are still declining despite having protected area status.
Climate change is likely to cause large areas of the Earth to suffer increased wildfires, while in the rainforest, heavy rainfall could reduce the danger, according to a new study.
Costa Rica is renowned for its biodiversity. Osa Peninsula is a tiny strip of land covered in magnificent, unspoiled rainforest. The Osa Peninsula is home to half of all the species in Costa Rica.
High in the Filipino rainforest, speeches are being made and trysts announced. Predators and prey may well be limited in their understanding, but the tiniest primate, the tarsier has been letting us turn a deaf ear.
Eco-friendly companies and individuals are going to be shocked at the habitat destruction wreaked on rainforests by their toilet paper, paper towels and tissue.
The Miller's Grizzled Langur, a species of monkey thought to be extinct, has been found by scientists in Wehea Forest, west of its previously known habitat.
Scientists tracking the fluctuating temperatures of the Pacific and Atlantic may be able to be soothsayers for devastating fire-seasons in the Amazons rainforests. A team from UCI has found that up to five-months warning can come from watching sea-temperatures far from the Amazon - a fire alarm that the Amazon desperately needs, as it reels from two exceptional years of drought and fire this last decade.
The delicate balance between savannah and forest is know better understood thanks to a study from Princeton. The natural world is constantly in a flux with delicate states of equilibrium disturbed by the smallest of changes. The ecosystems that exist on earth have been classified by the WWF and grouped into 14 types that include everything from tropical rainforests to the arctic tundra.
A coalition of conservation groups has announced a new bonds initiative aimed at increasing financial incentives to reduce deforestation of the world's tropical forests. Announced by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), Climate Bonds Initiative (CBI) and the Global Canopy Programme (GCP), the initiative calls for governments to enhance forest conservation efforts by purchasing bonds to help fund existing conservation commitments and goals.
A three-week expedition through some of the unexplored remnants of Amazonian rainforest, in Brazil's Mato Grosso state, has uncovered a wealth of nature - including a brand new species of monkey. The new member to the titi monkey family was discovered alongside new species of fish and plants, all in a part of the Amazon where most of Brazil's deforestation is happening.
If you were only exposed to the media, you might start to think that all the large companies of the world engage in the struggle against climate change, saving energy, the rainforest and everything else that comes to mind. And the companies' efforts are not even limited to media-related spaces: They have also reached future consumers.
Forests world-wide have maintained their levels of carbon-storing, despite the twin assaults of tropical deforestation and climate change. New tropical forest growth in previously cleared areas, as well in the temperate forests of the US and China, have helped keep an uneasy balance in the carbon accounts of global forested areas - which helps take the edge off of our climate change-threatening emissions.
Genetic fingerprinting can help track wood and ensure that illegal loggers are brought to book say an Australian team who are working on a DNA fingerprint for all the planet's grass and tree species. DNA fingerprinting has been used in Australia since 2007 to prove that timber is legally sourced and the practice has spread to Europe and the United States of America.
The tragic loss of biodiversity from rainforest destruction can be reversed, says a study just published on PLoS ONE, which recorded a return of tropical birds to parts of the Amazon previously felled. The fragments of Brazilian rainforest that recovered their brightly-colored birds were the larger of those left by the loggers - aided by the regrowth of secondary forest.
There has been a 50% increase in the area of tropical forests under sustainable management since 2005. ITTO, a Japan-based intergovernmental body, promotes the sustainable management, use and trade of tropical forest resources.
Greenpeace have conducted a campaign blitz to highlight toy-industry culpability in sourcing packaging from Indonesian rainforest timber. Ken look-a-likes have abseiled down Mattel, the HQ of the Barbie manufacturers, in a public bust-up with Barbie over the fate of the rainforests. Will it be happily-ever-after for Ken, Barbie and the Sumatran tiger?
With its heart beating at 1,300-beats-per-minute, a male golden-collared manakin shoots through its rainforest home at extraordinary speed, all in search of a mate. For the females, who have larger visual processing areas in their brains than the males, it's a cold calculation of picking the strongest.
NASA researechers have mapped the earth's forests as a baseline for carbon research and monitoring efforts, and as a tool for managing global carbon dioxide. The map shows that the tropical forests that store the most carbon are in Latin America.
Forestry summit could be key to protecting these habitats. As reported on The Earth Times previously, Congo is currently hosting a 'Summit of the tropical forest basins of the world'. This summit aims to establish a formal agreement between the three tropical forest basins of the Congo, Amazon and Borneo-Mekong.
Indonesia's president signs a two-year moratorium on new logging concessions, expected to be signed on January 1. The decree was part of a $1 billion deal with Norway to protect Indonesia's natural forests and peatlands. Indonesia's forests, like the Amazon, are some of the world's last tropical rainforests, and some of the world's most diverse ecosystems.
Tucked away in the depths of the oldest rainforest in the world is the luxurious Daintree Eco Lodge & Spa which offers a very special experience for eco-travellers.
Southeast Asia's peatlands could vanish by 2030, releasing mass amounts of carbon into the atmosphere.Like Southeast Asia's tropical rainforests, the region's peatlands are disappearing at alarming rates. In fact, they could vanish altogether by 2030, says a new study published in Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment.
Soaring gold prices are causing tumbling rainforests in Peru's Amazonian lowlands says a new study published today in the open-access journal PloS ONE. A leap in the area being felled for small-scale gold mining has bought with it increased emissions of mercury, toxic both to impoverished miners and to the wider environment. Controlling mercury may be the key.
Tropical forests need our help - can the summit in Congo halt deforestation? The objective of the summit is to ensure sustainable management of forest ecosystems and to contribute to climate regulation. To achieve this, the summit aims to establish a formal agreement between the three tropical forest basins, which will encourage them to share conservation strategies.
Rainforests: Today, the conservation of this biological diversity is increasingly recognised as a major issue for our society, and through the years it has become a focus of many environmental non-governmental organisations (NGOs), as well as several government authorities throughout the world. A key date in delving support to conservation was the 5th of June 1992 when the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) was opened for signature at the Earth Summit held in Rio de Janiero, Brazil.
A renewed campaign to encourage consumers and campaigners to save the Cerrado, being destroyed twice as fast as the Amazon Rainforest. Because of a generation of destroying the land to plant crops for European consumers, and eradication of wildlife and plant life at twice the rate of that in the Amazon Rainforest, conservationists fear it could disappear within two decades.
Muddy mangrove swamps hold onto as much 25% of the carbon stored in similarly threatened tropical peat lands - despite covering a much smaller area. So says a paper in Nature Geoscience, which attempts to put a number to stored mangrove carbon for the first time. It reinforces their claim to conservation resources, for those trying to stymie tropical forest losses, and reduce climate-change causing emissions.
Concerned groups struggle to get the Tarkine Rainforest listed as a National Heritage in order to save it from destruction. One of Australia's finest national parks, the Tarkine National Park is currently struggling to fend off various threats from mining companies.
When people have a say in managing a forest, it works out to be best for both local forest use, and forest biodiversity, according to a new paper out in Science. With large proportions of threatened tropical forests hemmed in by rising populations, that has important implications for government policies on forest conservation.
The story of how a small group of Swedish school children started a movement that saved a rain forest in Costa Rica. It was just over a year ago the Copenhagen climate talks opened to fervent hopes that the world would finally come together and address the planet's most pressing environmental problems. After a great deal of posturing and rhetoric, it sadly failed to deliver even a fraction of its promises. Filed in environmental issues: rainforests/conservation.
Mel Gibson has travelled to Guatemala in a bid to help protect a tropical rainforest. The 55-year-old actor - who is well-known for his environmental advocacy - joined forces with Prince Albert of Monaco to take part in a private fund-raising trip to the Central American nation in the hope of guaranteeing the future sustainability of the remote rainforest of the El Mirador Basin. Filed in environmental issues: celebrity/rainforests/conservation.
A small glimmer of hope for the future of the world's rain forests comes in the form of a 'miraculous' reforestation programme in Borneo. Horror stories about the deforestation that is destroying the world's rainforests on a massive scale are sadly old news. Every year enormous tracts of land the size of Cubaare lost, and at the current rate it is estimated that the world's rainforests will have completely disappeared by the end of this century.
Conservationists have found populations of the greater bamboo lemur in new areas of Madagascar. Now, the future for these critically endangered species is a little bit brighter. Like many of Madagascar's unique species, the greater bamboo lemur is under increasing pressure. Rainforests in Madagascar are being cleared by indiscriminate slash-and-burn techniques to make way for farmland.
Colombian rainforests under threat due to an increase in production of coca to meet world demand for cocaine. More than 1,821 species of birds, 623 species of amphibians, 467 species of mammals, 518 species of reptiles and 3,200 species of fish are found, mainly in the country's vast tracts of tropical forest.
Should droughts in the Amazon Basin become more frequent, the days of the rainforest offsetting man-made carbon emissions are set to come to an abrupt end. The days of the Amazon Rainforest acting as a natural buffer against man-made carbon emissions may be drawing to a close. In fact, not only could the South American forest soon lose its status as the planet's most-important 'carbon sink'
The Brazilian government have presented evidence at the Cancun climate conference that supports the slowing down of deforestation of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil...
A new report from the Rainforest Action Network lists publishers who are taking action against deforestation in Indonesia, and recommends avoiding those who do not. According to the RAN report, US publishers are using paper sourced from controversial suppliers. Asia Pulp and Paper (APP), owned by Sinar Mas Group, was criticised in 2008 for logging operations that threatened the rare Sumatran tiger
We present some business ideas for those of you who think that the future is greener than the present- we can think of some who don't ---. The advice is general and does not apply exclusively to any one nation.
We use the tiger (this is a prime Siberian example) to show up our failure to conserve wild species, but while we monopolise all the food that animals require, we could remember that it is not only their conservation we urgently need to cover. It is also our own indulgences.
How can you describe the threats existing to species, both large and small? Using the highly-threatened primates, we can perhaps see how they have contrived to exist until the current time. Then we can better understand just how we can prevent factors simply wiping them from the face of the earth, often through ignorance, lack of care, prejudice and of course the universal profit motive. Conservation begins in our minds, but demands much more than that.
The future is certainly renewable, but are we too late to prevent future centuries problems of global warming- and the rest! Here are some current US solutions to waste and warming for you to enjoy---there are some ads in this piece but weve allowed them for one blog only.
Need to save money after the spending boom to end them all? Here are 2 sets of opinions on how to pull out the plugs at night at least.
When dolphins are 'rescued' in various countries, the car given seems to be ill-considered. We are simply looking at the success rate which is reported to be low, in most places. They could even end up in commercial aquarium shows, but they certainly rarely make it back to the sea.
