By David Colgan In a way, you could consider coral reefs the rainforests of the oceans—dense, mysterious and full of life. Covering less than two percent of the ocean floor, they are home to a quarter of all marine species. But unlike rainforests, a longtime conservation focus, corals have received relatively little attention. The alien-looking […]
New University of Maryland data published by Global Forest Watch (GFW) Wednesday revealed 2017 as the second-worst year on record for tropical tree cover loss, a GFW blog announced. Tropical tree cover decreased by an area the size of Bangladesh—a total of 39 million acres. That amounts to 40 football fields worth of trees cut […]
By Maggie Badore One of the largest remaining tropical rainforests in the Americas stretches across the Mexican states of Yucatan, Quintana Roo and Campeche, and reaches down into Guatemala and Belize. The forests are home to an innumerable number of species, from jaguars and mahogany trees, to plants, insects and animals still yet to be […]
The launch of an online crowdsourcing database for seagrass hopes to breathe new life into efforts to conserve the underwater flowering plants, which act as both important habitats for marine species and a major store of carbon dioxide. Patchy mapping of seagrass meadows has hampered efforts to protect the plants (which are distinct from seaweed) […]
Maybe you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, but two recent studies revealed that old forests around the world are full of surprises. In Europe, scientists working to complete the first ever map of the continent’s old growth forests discovered there were more of them than previously believed. And in South America, a study […]
Scientists are increasingly realizing the importance of biodiversity for sustaining life on earth. The most comprehensive biodiversity study in a decade, published in March by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), warned that the ongoing loss of species and habitats was as great a threat to our and our planet’s wellbeing […]
Scientists have discovered another factor that might interact with rising carbon dioxide emissions to influence climate change—tropical forests. In a study published in Nature Climate Change Friday, researchers found that the way tropical forests interact with increased atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide could alter rainfall patterns, drying out the Amazon rainforest and increasing precipitation in […]
The UK supermarket Iceland has announced it will remove palm oil from all its own brand products by the end of the year due to the belief there is no such thing as “sustainable” palm oil. Increasing demand for palm oil is still having devastating effects on wildlife, habitats and people where it is grown, […]
It was 10 years ago that Greenpeace first published an investigation into Indonesia’s palm oil industry. We showed that the world’s biggest brands got their palm oil from companies destroying Indonesia’s rainforests—threatening local people as well as tigers and orangutans. As people learned the truth about their shampoo, cosmetics and chocolate bars, brands and their […]
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