Rainforest
More details and information on tropical rainforests.
It's NOT a jungle out there - (any more)
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.
Reef Destruction is Ecological
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.
Tail of a rat who won't chew but he's a new species and new genus
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.
Biodiversity within protected tropical forests threatened
Protected tropical forest biodiversity under threat. A new study shows that biodiversity levels in tropical forests are still declining despite having protected area status.
Changing climate alters wildfire risks, says study
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.
Osa Peninsula - The most biologically intense place on earth
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.
Tarsier Secretly Squeaking
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.
WWF report links Sumatra deforestation to toilet paper
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.
'Extinct' monkey found in Borneo rainforest
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.
Soothsaying the Amazon's fires
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 Battle of the Biomes
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.
Bonds for trees programme announced
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.
New primate species found skittering in threatened Amazon
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.
Greenwashing: The greater value of being green
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 still sucking it up, when it comes to carbon
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.
CSI Rainforest: genetic codes can catch out illegal loggers says study
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.
Rainforest birds rebound in parts of Amazon laid low
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.
Area of sustainably managed forest increases
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.
Barbie and Ken embroiled in 'rainforest destruction' bustup
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?
30 milliseconds the price of life for extraordinary jumping bird
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 forest map shows carbon storage
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.
WWF demands action from leaders in Brazzaville
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.
Indonesian President Signs Long-Awaited Forest Clearing Moratorium Decree
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.
Hidden in Daintree Rainforest is Australia's ultimate eco-lodge
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 Tropical Peatlands could Disappear by 2030
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.
Gold fever is driving Amazon loss and mercury pollution in Peru
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.
Congo to host international tropical forest summit
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.
Protecting the rainforests: whose responsibility is it?
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.
Is Brazil's Cerrado the ''ugly duckling'' of conservation?
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.
Carbon grasped by Mangrove roots vastly underestimated
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.
Tarkine Rainforest in Australia under threat from mining companies
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.
People-power a win-win for forests and locals
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 school children that saved a rainforest
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 battles to save the rainforest
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.
Seeds of hope for the world's rainforests
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.
Population boost for rare greater bamboo lemurs
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.
Cocaine production spells doom for Colombia's rainforests
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.
Droughts may turn Amazon Rainforest into major polluter, scientists warn
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'
Evidence suggests deforestation of Amazon is slowing down
The Brazilian government have presented evidence at the Cancun climate conference that supports the slowing down of deforestation of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil...
Kids' books 'use paper that destroys rainforests'
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
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Biodiversity is the term given to the variety of life on Earth and the natural pattern it forms. The biodiversity we see today is the result of millions of years of evolution, initially shaped by natural processes, but in modern times increasingly as a result of human intervention. We are an integral part of the web of biodiversity and we depend on this web, as does every other life form on the planet.
When Chinese people eat scales of pangolins, they are destroying several species of a unique and precious mammal in the forest food web. Vietnam has begun the slow process of re-education and also getting the animals back into a depleted number of habitats.
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.
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