Mongabay
Scientists launch global search for 25 ‘lost’ species
Unseen for decades in the wild, many species are now feared extinct. Some exist only as museum specimens, others are only known from old drawings or photographs. But some of these missing species may still be out there, lurking in remote, unexplored regions of our planet. And to ...
Documenting the fight to save Borneo’s animals
After graduating from school, Aaron “Bertie” Gekoski was on a fairly conventional career path for a young businessman, starting out in copyediting for a magazine before launching a modeling agency in London. But the more successful his agency became, the more Gekoski felt like something ...
Nepal tests fencing approach to protect farms and elephants
“We are not angry with the elephant and know that we need to protect it, but we also need to protect ourselves”. This is a brave statement by Kaushala Budha, a Nepali farmer in the Patabhar hamlet, whose house had been nearly destroyed by a ...
New ‘stone’ frog discovered in Vietnam
In the rugged limestone hills of northern Vietnam, scientists have discovered a new species of frog that looks like a small piece of rock. Researchers have named it the stone leaf-litter frog or Leptolalax petrops, derived from the Latin words petra, meaning “rock”, and –ops, meaning ...
In defining plantations as forest, FAO attracts criticism
What’s in a definition? For some, too much. Nearly 200 organizations have signed an open letter to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, calling for the agency to change how they define “forest” – the very landscape honored today on International Day ...
Denmark prohibits companies from selling Myanmar teak on European Union markets
Denmark last week placed an injunction on all Danish companies that prohibits them from selling teak imported from Myanmar on European markets. The ruling comes after evidence that Danish timber company Keflico had violated the European Union Timber Regulation was brought to light by the ...
Cambodia’s Sambor dam plans causes controversy as public left in the Dark
“If the dam is built, it will be like before, in the time of the Khmer Rouge when we all had to move,” said Plau Saret, 44, of Domrae Village on the Mekong River island of Koh Tnaot, right next to the proposed Sambor Dam ...
Japanese, Singaporean banks finance controversial Indonesian coal plant
A consortium of Asian banks will provide US$3.36 billion in loans to support the expansion of the Tanjung Jati B coal-fired power plant project in the Jepara district of Indonesia’s Central Java province. Plans to expand Tanjung Jati B are part of a broader initiative ...
What happens when the soy and palm oil boom ends?
Over the past thirty years demand and production of oils crops like oil palm and soybeans has boomed across the tropics thanks to rising incomes, macroeconomic changes and government policies, and substitution effects. This rapid expansion has in some places taken a heavy toll on ...
Chain saw injuries in Myanmar tied to illegal logging
As darkness fell in the forests of central Myanmar on a rainy evening last July, May Thu and her husband Myint Swe*, were wrapping up their day’s work: illegal logging. May Thu, a petite 27-year-old with long black hair and shining black eyes, clambered on ...
