For a person living in extreme poverty, the wood from a single tree in the Amazon rainforest may be equal to one or two year’s salary. Those desperate for money are going so far as to murder the indigenous people trying to protect the dying forest from deforestation. Sadly, this is not unusual and is actually happening around the world. As natural resources become scarcer, the violence between indigenous tribes and illegal loggers is only going to increase, warns Dr James Watson, a professor of Conservation Science at the University of Queensland. “Unfortunately, it’s the state of the world,” he said. Read more here.
With so many stories of animals going extinct these days it's rare to get some good news. But researchers working in lowland forest near Nha Trang in south-east Vietnam have captured the first-ever photos of a silver-backed chevrotain or "mouse-deer", which conservationists feared was extinct. Key points: Silver-backed chevrotain not seen since the 1990s, only known from dead specimens They appear to be abundant in small patch of forest Good news welcome for 'depressed' conservationists Read more here.
The amount of carbon released from the loss of intact tropical forests is 626 per cent higher than previously thought, a new study has found. Generally when scientists measure carbon emissions released by forests they look at deforestation. Read more here.
Forests are a great bulwark against climate change, so programs to reduce deforestation are important. Those efforts usually focus on stopping the destruction in areas where it is already occurring. Read more here.
The impact of losing intact tropical forests is more devastating on the climate than previously thought, according to University of Queensland-led research. Watch here.
KUALA LUMPUR (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - The amount of planet-warming carbon emitted by the world’s lost tropical forests has been under-reported as estimates failed to take into account the longer-term effects of tree destruction, researchers said. Read more here.
The Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation (EPBC) Act, Australia's flagship legislation to combat species extinction, came into force in 2000, yet new research suggests the law has done little to hinder habitat loss. The study demonstrated that 7.7 million hectares of threatened species habitat were cleared between 2000 and 2017. While the Act mandates that any proposed land‐use change that could have national environmental consequences must be referred to the federal government for assessment, over 93% of the cleared land was not, according to a study (Conserv Sci Pract 2019; doi.org/10.1111/csp2.117). “The law is simply not being enforced”, says Michelle Ward, an ecologist at