One of the major environmental challenges today is the task of convincing many developing economies in the tropics to protect their forests. But some countries up north in the developed world may soon understand how difficult it can be to strike a balance between economic pressures and arboreal conservation, at least according to a …
Forests
Gold Prospectors Versus Conservationists
There’s no doubt that recent economic instability has sent gold prices soaring. But gold doesn’t grow on trees–would that it did!—and higher prices for the yellow metal has encouraged companies to go to greater lengths to retrieve the precious element, setting up battles with conservationists.
How Will Drought Affect the Amazonian Rainforest?
The Amazonian rainforest isthe planet’s respiratory system–the more than 1 billion acres of trees help regulate the climate and produce more than 20% of the Earth’s oxygen. And that’s why one of the biggest fears surrounding climate change is the possibility of what’s known as Amazon dieback–the risk that higher temperatures and …
Report: Global Illegal Logging on Downswing
From the department of (mostly) good news, a major study released today by London-based NGO Chatham House offers one of those rare beasts in the jungle of environmental reports: improvement.
The report finds that the collective efforts of government, civil society and the private sector in 12 countries have yielded big …
How Half a Billion Trees Died in 48 Hours
People who live in the Amazon basin are not likely to forget the great storm of January, 2005. Over the course of two days, a squall line measuring 620 miles (1,000 km) long and 124 miles (200 km) wide raged across the region from southwest to northeast, with buzzsaw-like winds of 90 mph (146 km/hr) causing widespread damage to property …
The Unknown Wonders of Rare Plants
I find it hard to think of a more depressing finding than this one: writing in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, a team of international researchers predict that thousands of rare flowering plant species are likely to become extinct before humans discover them.
And that’s just from the current pressure from habitat loss …
Global Paper Company — and Clients —Under Fire for Deforestation
In its ongoing campaign to draw attention to Indonesia’s deforestation woes, Greenpeace has released a new report singling out Asia Pulp and Paper (APP), one of the world’s largest paper companies owned by Indonesian conglomerate Sinar Mas, for sourcing trees from rainforest and peatland that are home to endangered species like the …