tagged w/ Habitat Destruction
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Cuddly Australian icons such as kangaroos and koalas have been "devastated" by the bushfires that have razed swathes of native habitat and destroyed animal shelters, wildlife experts said Tuesday.
As the human toll climbed above 170, animal rescue workers said the cost to the region's unique wildlife may never be known.
"We're not seeing a lot of injured animals yet because the fires were so hot the animals were just killed on the spot," Wildlife Protection Association of Australia president Pat O'Brien told AFP.
"We do know that a lot of the wildlife carers in that area have lost their homes and facilities and in some cases they have lost their lives."
He said rare and endangered animals unique to the region northeast of the city of Melbourne, such as the ground-dwelling lyrebird, which is famous for its vocal mimicry, had little chance of escape from the flames.
"It's just absolutely horrific. A lot of the wildlife that is endemic to that area is endangered, like the lyrebirds. There's no way they could have escaped because the fires were just too fast," he said.
Fanned by strong winds and fed by a highly combustible fuel of tinder-dry ground litter and eucalyptus trees oozing flammable natural oils, the fires leapt gullies and creeks and climbed hillsides at terrifying speeds.
"The koalas in those trees will be dead. Normally they would climb higher to escape a fire but with this fire whole trees were going at once," O'Brien said.
Native animal care group Wildlife Victoria said on its website that at least two of its animal shelters had been destroyed in the fires which have burned out an area larger than Luxembourg since Saturday.
"Wildlife rescuers are preparing for one of the largest operations in our history once we can safely enter the fire grounds," it said.
The Royal Society for the Protection of Animals (RSPCA) said it was bracing for an influx of burnt and wounded animals.
RSPCA chief executive Maria Mercurio said that as the areas razed by bushfire open up, the full brunt of the impact on native animals will become clearer.
She said RSPCA shelters and inspectors have been working around the clock to be ready to provide emergency assistance.
"Some of our regional shelters have been assisting with emergency accommodation since Saturday," she said.
Many animals which managed to survive the fires have been without food or water since the weekend.
"Wombats would have survived the fire in their burrows but when they come out there'll be nothing to eat, so they'll just die a slow death," O'Brien said.
"It will be ages before we can get into some of these affected areas and by the time we do that any of the injured animals will be dead anyway."
Firefighters and survivors said the blaze moved with frightening speed and many of the victims were burned alive in their cars as they tried to flee.
"I don't think you can compare it to other fires. The sheer intensity and speed it travelled was amazing," volunteer firefighter Tim Bennett said.
Slideshow: http://admatch-syndication.mochila.com/viewer/channel/slideshow?buyerId=BLNZcom&channelId=13291&tid=10301&destination=219&buid=2342&rd=1&width=600&height=600&delay=8&&allowFullScreen=trueCuddly Australian icons such as kangaroos and koalas have been "devastated"... more
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The Burning Season
Video: Full Episode
Every hour in Indonesian rainforests, an area the size of 300 soccer fields is mowed down and burned. Often this clearing is done to make way for oil palm plantations. The resulting palm oil is used for cooking, cleaning and even as a biofuel. But the fires farmers set to clear their land have helped to make Indonesia the world’s third-largest emitter of carbon dioxide — exceeded only by the U.S. and China.
A 29-year-old Australian “green” entrepreneur named Dorjee Sun believes he has a solution to reduce those harmful greenhouse gas emissions. He has canvassed the world pitching the sale of Indonesia’s carbon credits to polluters in the West.
His business model would maintain the standing swaths of Indonesia’s rainforests by selling their carbon credits. Burning Season follows Dorjee Sun on a whirlwind trip into boardrooms around the world – from Starbucks to eBay to Merrill Lynch – as he tries to convince skeptical financiers that his proposal is viable.
To carry out his plan, local political leaders in Indonesia must also agree that their forests are worth more alive than dead. Small farmers like Achmadi, who makes a living by cutting down trees to plant oil palms, fear the layers of government officials will be the only profiteers from the carbon credit sale.
Burning Season kindles both sides of the climate divide and explores whether capitalism can step in where altruism has so far failed to succeed.The Burning Season
Video: Full Episode
Every hour in Indonesian rainforests, an... more
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FYI: 300 football fields worth of trees are destroyed every hour. The wildlife and native peoples have no 'claim' to the land. The animals are simply killed or sold into the wildlife-trade as pets, meat, or as laboratory research specimens.
PLEASE BE A RESPONSIBLE CONSUMER!
Look at ingredients when you purchase food. You'll be surprised to see how many products contain some form of palm! PLEASE call or write the manufacturer and let them know that you do not support palm derived from unethical or unsustainable methods (ex. destroying rain-forest for palm plantations!).
Efforts to slow the rapid expansion of oil palm plantations at the expense of natural forests across Southeast Asia are being hindered by industry-sponsored disinformation campaigns, argue scientists writing in the journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution. The authors, Lian Pin Koh and David S. Wilcove, say that palm oil may constitute the "single most immediate threat to the greatest number of species" by driving the conversion of biologically rich ecosystems — including lowland rain-forests and peat-lands.
"Why have efforts by conservationists failed to halt the expansion of oil palm plantations at the expense of tropical forests? We contend that part of the reason could be the aggressive public relations campaigns undertaken by the oil palm industry to promote public acceptance of palm oil and to dismiss the concerns of conservation biologists and environmentalists," Koh and Wilcove write. "It is not unlike the campaign that some energy companies waged against efforts to curb global climate change."
Under fire from environmental groups, which are now pushing for consumer boycotts of products containing palm oil in some markets, industry groups have launched marketing campaigns to depict palm oil as a environmentally benign — or even ecologically beneficial — product. Despite substantial scientific evidence to the contrary, the industry claims that expansion has not occurred in natural forest areas and that oil palm plantations sequester more carbon than rain-forests.
Ultimately, pressure on the industry to improve environmental performance will hinge on whether environmentalists can overcome this propaganda to convince consumers and governments on the merits of eco-friendly palm oil. Until then, biodiversity will continue to be at risk from the palm oil industry, conclude Koh and Wilcove.
"To effectively mitigate the threats of oil palm to biodiversity, conservationists need to persuade consumers to continue to demand both greater transparency in land-use decisions by governments and greater environmental accountability from oil palm producers."
"A prohibition on the conversion of primary or secondary forests to oil palm is urgently needed to safeguard tropical biodiversity. Until that happens, oil palm might well be the single most immediate threat to the greatest number of species."
* Lian Pin Koh and David S. Wilcove. Oil palm: disinformation enables deforestation. Trends in Ecology and Evolution Vol.24 No.2FYI: 300 football fields worth of trees are destroyed every hour. The wildlife and... more
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Please watch the Center for Biological Diversity's newly released television ads about saving the polar bear.
Polar bears are dying and will soon be wiped out entirely if we don’t take immediate action to curb global warming.
Please sign the petition below and pass it on to a friend.
With your help we’ll reach our goal to get 50,000 signatures below and send a strong message to President Obama in the first 100 days of his presidency.
Global warming is rapidly melting the sea ice polar bears depend on. Accounts of bears starving and drowning are on the rise as they are forced to swim farther and farther to reach the solid ice they need for hunting and resting. Some bears are even turning to cannibalism in a desperate search for food. Those trapped on land hundreds of miles from the nearest ice are often shot as they wander, starving, near villages.
And, as if things weren’t bad enough already, pollution from oil and gas drilling threatens to destroy what’s left of the polar bear’s disappearing habitat.
If current trends continue, two thirds of all polar bears — including all bears in Alaska — will be extinct by 2050, and the rest of the species will be gone forever by the end of the century.
But we can save them by joining together to take immediate action. The science is clear. We know what needs to be done — we just need to build the political support to make it happen.
Please help us gather 50,000 signatures on the petition below in President Obama’s first 100 days to encourage him to rein in global warming and save the polar bear.Please watch the Center for Biological Diversity's newly released television ads... more
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Looking for a stellar seafood place on the Cape, with locally raised fare and no wait? A brazen young harbor seal found just that today after she sneaked into a state fish hatchery in Sandwich and dined on an all-you-can-eat trout buffet before being nabbed and returned to the sea.
A hatchery worker discovered the female seal around 9 a.m., proudly gnawing her latest catch of the day, according to members of a team from the Cape Cod Stranding Network, which was called in to corral the seal. It was unclear how long the seal had been in the hatchery or how many fish she had consumed.
Misty Niemeyer, a team member, estimated the enterprising seal had to waddle nearly 2 miles over land to reach the hatchery, traversing a stretch of the Sandwich Boardwalk, taking a tunnel that goes under Route 6A, and then slip-sliding across a mini-golf course before arriving at seafood nirvana.
The team netted the seal, put it in a crate, and released it off West Dennis.
The snacking seal was first reported by The Cape Cod Times.
Niemeyer said that it was the first time that staff members at the Cape Cod Stranding Network recalled such a scenario, though she noted it had a positive side.
"It's a good sign that she was healthy,'' she said. "A lot of the seals we see are on the beach are not in such good shape.''
CAPE COD STRANDING NETWORK:
http://www.capecodstranding.net/site/c.ciJJLVPDKpG/b.954101/k.CB00/Home.htmLooking for a stellar seafood place on the Cape, with locally raised fare and no wait?... more
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Hundreds of earthquakes rippled through Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, in late December and early January, prompting fears that the shaking might trigger dangerous steam explosions.
Magma and steam permeate the rock beneath Yellowstone, and the motion of these fluids is thought to be responsible for the thousands of small earthquakes recorded in and around the park each year.
Crater evidence - Yellowstone, which sits atop a supervolcano, is pockmarked with craters thought to have been produced this way, and geologists estimate an explosion big enough to make a 100-metre crater happens there about every 200 years.
At the time of writing, though, the swarm was subsiding with no reports of such an event. "It hasn't stopped, but it has reduced markedly in the last couple of days," said Robert Smith of the University of Utah on Monday.
There are no signs of any on the way, either, said Smith, who monitors Yellowstone's geologic activity.
The quakes appear to be concentrated along a fault beneath the park. Further analysis should reveal whether they were triggered by forces associated with the fault, activity of hot fluids beneath the surface, or some other cause, he says.Hundreds of earthquakes rippled through Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, in late... more
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There will always be abundant snow and glaciers on the highest mountains of the world, the Himalayas. This snow will always feed the Indus and Ganges rivers and forever supply water to millions of people in South Asia and China.
These statements may no longer be true. Our warming climate is changing the Himalayas faster than any other region of the world. The mountains’ mighty glaciers, the source of most large Asian rivers, are melting.
Against these dramatic changes, the governments of India, Pakistan, Nepal and Bhutan are planning to transform the Himalayan rivers into the powerhouse of South Asia. They want to build hundreds of mega-dams to generate electricity from the wild waters of the Himalayas.
The dams’ reservoirs and transmission lines will destroy thousands of houses, towns, villages, fields, spiritual sites and even parts of the highest highway of the world, the Karakoram highway. But who will reap their benefits? Will they be able to generate as much electricity as promised? What will happen to the people, ecosystems and rivers of the Himalayas if the dams are built and climate change takes its toll?
Mountains of Concrete by Shripad Dharmadhikary, one of South Asia’s foremost water and energy experts, discusses for the first time the linkages between climate change and dam-building in the Himalayas, and comprehensively analyzes the impacts of the dam building spree on the region's people, ecosystems, and economy.There will always be abundant snow and glaciers on the highest mountains of the world,... more
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Positive conservation from the Malayan government. Can they actually do it?
Malaysia aims to double its wild tiger population
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — Malaysia has launched an ambitious plan to double its wild tiger population within 12 years by protecting jungle corridors where poachers prey on the endangered big cats, activists said Monday.
The National Tiger Action Plan aims to have 1,000 Malayan tigers roaming in the wild by 2020, said Sara Sukor, a spokeswoman for Malaysia's chapter of the World Wildlife Fund, one of several conservation groups that helped the government create the plan.
Authorities estimate Malaysia's wild tiger population has fallen from 3,000 to 500 in the last half-century, largely due to illegal hunting and the human encroachment and destruction of the tigers' natural jungle habitat. Tiger meat is exported, served at exotic restaurants and used in traditional Chinese medicine — all illegal acts under Malaysian law.
Malayan tigers have been protected by wildlife laws since the early 1970s, but the National Tiger Action Plan is the government's first concerted effort to reverse the population decline instead of merely slowing it, according to the plan that was launched this month.
Government officials and conservationists will restore and manage key jungle corridors that connect tiger habitats, providing the animals with a wider territory and mitigating the impact of infrastructure such as roads, railways and oil pipelines.
Under the plan, the government has also vowed to better enforce its wildlife laws, remove tigers from areas where they might come into conflict with humans and boost scientific research in tiger protection, said the WWF's Sukor.
"We are optimistic the plan will succeed with cooperation among all the agencies involved," Sukor said. "We want to show that we are serious about wildlife protection."
Conservationists have long urged the government to step up wildlife protection, particularly by increasing penalties against poachers and smugglers of endangered species. Such offenses are typically punished by small fines without prison sentences.
Malaysia's tropical forests are home to a wide range of threatened animals, including orangutans, Borneo sun bears, Sumatran rhinoceroses and pygmy elephants.Positive conservation from the Malayan government. Can they actually do it?... more
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Outgoing Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne today finalized regulations gutting the Endangered Species Act. The move is opposed by the public, Congress, and President-elect Obama, but a favorite cause of the oil, coal and mining industries, as well as the free-market, anti-regulatory ideologues who brought us our current recession.
The new regs forbid consideration of global warming as a cause of extinction -- something Kempthorne was forced to do earlier this year to protect the endangered polar bear. This piece of undo the scientifically supported protections for the polar bear.
The new regulations also allow federal agencies to consider projects and permits that might affect endangered species without having to consult federal wildlife scientists, which has up until now been required under the Endangered Species Act.
Instead, the agencies championing the projects can consult with themselves.
The Greenpeace, and Defenders of Wildlife immediately filed suit in the Northern District of California to stop the regulations, on the grounds that they violated the very law they are supposed to implement.
The Bush Administration also may have violated procedures by improperly dispensing with the overhwhelmingly negative public comment on the new regulations -- over 300,000 written comments were filed, but the administration spent only two to three weeks reviewing them (which means a comment would have had to be dispensed with every three seconds).
"This administration's disdain for wildlife and the environment has never been more clear than it is today," said Jamie Rappaport Clark, a former director of the US Fish and Wildlife Service, now with Defenders of Wildlife . "They are doing everything they can to cement their anti-environmental legacy before the Obama administration takes office."Outgoing Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne today finalized regulations gutting the... more
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WASHINGTON - The Bush administration is moving to protect seven penguin species. Three other types, including the stars of recent movies, are being ignored.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is proposing to list six species of penguin as threatened and one, the African penguin, as an endangered species.
It has denied protection under the 1973 Endangered Species Act for three others, including the emperor and northern rock-hopper penguins
The penguins live far from the United States but listing the penguins under the act, will raise awareness about the species and could give the United States leverage in international negotiations to protect them from fishing, habitat loss, development and other threats.
Praise and Criticism --
Environmentalists praised the Bush administration's proposal to list fully six penguin species, but criticized its decision not to protect the other three. The emperor penguin is the largest in the world and depends on sea ice for breeding and feeding.
Endangered species advocates also faulted the government for protecting a seventh species, the southern rock-hopper penguin, in only a small part of its range.
"Penguin populations are in jeopardy, and we can't afford to further delay protections," said Brendan Cummings, the oceans program director for the Arizona-based Center for Biological Diversity, which requested in November 2006 that the administration protect a dozen penguin species.
-- Greed, Global Warming & the Destruction of the Endangered Species Act --
Recent research has shown that about a dozen species are in decline because of numerous stresses, including climate change. Increasing temperatures could melt ice in Antarctica and diminish populations of the penguin's preferred food.
The Bush administration listed the polar bear as a threatened species this year, the first species to be protected because of the threats of global warming. The administration also has completed regulations to ensure that the law is not used to block projects that contribute to global warming....WASHINGTON - The Bush administration is moving to protect seven penguin species. Three... more
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Lawsuit aims to stop Utah drilling auction - WASHINGTON - Conservation groups filed a lawsuit Wednesday to block the Bush administration's last-minute sale of oil-and-gas drilling leases in Utah near national parks and ancient rock art panels.
The Bureau of Land Management has scheduled an auction Friday to sell drilling leases covering more than 100,000 acres of wild land in eastern Utah.
The land being considered for drilling is some of the most spectacular scenery in the country, including land near Nine Mile Canyon, Dinosaur National Monument and Arches and Canyonlands National Parks.
Rep. Brian Baird, D-Wash., called the lease sale "an early Christmas present to the oil and gas industry from a lame duck administration with one foot already out the door. Once these pristine wilderness lands are destroyed we can never get them back."
Baird said he was not impressed that officials had scaled back the original plan to lease about 360,000 acres of public land for oil and gas development.
"It's a little bit like someone telling you they're going to rob only part of your house," Baird said. "It is a final insult from an administration that has done so much to destroy this country."
"These lands do not belong to Bush and Cheney. It's our land — public lands — and the BLM is supposed to be protecting lands on our behalf (Robert Redford said via satellite from Los Angeles during a news conference in Washington). " --DON'T YOU AGREE?
VIDEO: Dec. 17: Actor Robert Redford discusses 300,000 acres of Utah land near national parks which the government will be auctioning for oil and gas drilling rights.Lawsuit aims to stop Utah drilling auction - WASHINGTON - Conservation groups filed a... more
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Extinction Blog
United Nations declares 2009 'Year of the Gorilla'
Poaching, deforestation and the dreaded Ebola virus have taken a terrible toll on populations of the four remaining gorilla species. Now, in an effort to help save our primate cousins from extinction, the United Nations Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals has declared 2009 the "Year of the Gorilla."
Three of the four species of gorilla are considered critically endangered, with just 700 mountain gorillas, 300 Cross River gorillas, and 5,000 eastern lowland gorillas left. The fourth species, the Western lowland gorilla, is critically endangered in some of its home countries, although the total population is much higher, at around 150,000.
All four species face declining populations, with threats ranging from the bushmeat trade, poaching for traditional medicine, habitat destruction from logging or the charcoal trade (an important source of fuel in Africa), and disease.
Luckily, the Year of the Gorilla is already off to a good start. This week, the 10 nations with gorilla populations agreed to examine the effectiveness of their anti-poaching laws and, hopefully, improve their implementation. Some of the money pledged for the Year of the Gorilla campaign will go toward educating judges so they understand the need to strictly enforce current anti-poaching laws.
Other actions to be funded by the YoG campaign include training park rangers, supporting scientific research, raising awareness of the gorillas' threats, and developing alternative sources of income (such as eco-tourism) for people living near gorilla populations. The UN hopes to raise more than $600,000 to support these efforts.Extinction Blog
United Nations declares 2009 'Year of the Gorilla'... more
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Valuable natural resources are at the root of the violence in the DRC, many experts argue. The country has been cursed with gold, diamonds, zinc, and coltan, and everyone from local militias to foreign corporations to the Chinese government wants to get rich extracting them. Coltan has received special attention in recent times because it is a key input in cellphones and laptops.Valuable natural resources are at the root of the violence in the DRC, many experts... more
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With less than 2,000 breeding pairs left, the Honduran Emerald Hummingbird is considered the most endangered bird in Central America and one of the most endangered hummingbirds in the world. Time is running out! Please help save this magnificent and rare bird from extinction by supporting its classification as an endangered species.
The Honduran Emerald, (Amazilia luciae) is found solely in the rare dry-thorn forest of Honduras. The Emerald's unique and fragmented habitat encompasses a very small region in the country that is rapidly being destroyed by expanding agriculture and cattle grazing.
This petition brings together EcoLogic Development Fund, The Hummingbird Society and The Hummingbird Conservancy and others who collectively seek to gather enough signatures to begin the process of placing the bird on the Endangered Species List.
Legal recognition of its threatened status will assist efforts to build the support needed to urge the Honduran government to develop conservation measures that ensure its habitat remains viable. It will also require U.S. federal agencies to guarantee that any project carried out or funded by the United States government does not jeopardize the continued existence of this hummingbird species.
Your signature will add strength to efforts that aim to establish the species' habitat as legally protected, giving hope for the survival of this brilliantly colored hummingbird.With less than 2,000 breeding pairs left, the Honduran Emerald Hummingbird is... more
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The House of Representatives passed legislation on Tuesday lifting a longstanding congressional moratorium on offshore drilling.
The extensive energy package introduced by Democrats would give states the option to allow drilling between 50 and 100 miles off their shores. Areas more than 100 miles from the coast would be completely open to oil exploration and drilling.
In addition to drilling, the bill requires the government to sell 70 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. It also provides tax credits for renewable energy and energy efficiency that would be funded by repealing some tax breaks for the oil industry.
http://climateprogress.org/2008/09/16/breaking-news-house-energy-bill-passes-236-189/#comment-26937
The House of Representatives passed legislation on Tuesday lifting a longstanding... more
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Polar bears and other rare species are in danger of dying out, scientists fear, as latest figures show the Artic sea ice is at record lows.
Scientists from the World Wildlife Fund, who are recording the ice cover over the North Pole, said less ice is predicted in the Arctic this year than in any other.
Experts say this not only means a loss of habitat to species like polar bears and loss of livelihood for indigenous peoples but could speed up global warming as water absorbs heat rather than reflecting the sun's rays back into space.
Dr Martin Sommerkorn, senior climate change advisor at WWF International's Arctic Programme, said: "We are expecting confirmation of 2008 being either the lowest or the second-lowest year in terms of summer ice coverage.
READ FULL ARTICLE:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/main.jhtml?xml=/earth/2008/09/14/eapolar114.xml
Polar bears and other rare species are in danger of dying out, scientists fear, as... more
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Sydney (AFP) Sept 7, 2008
Australian koalas are dying by the thousands as a result of land clearing in the country's northeast, while millions of birds and reptiles are also perishing, conservation group WWF said Sunday.
The environmental body warned that unless urgent action was taken to stop trees being felled, some species would be pushed to the brink of extinction.
In an annual statement, Queensland state last week revealed that 375,000 hectares of bush were cleared in 2005-06 -- a figure WWF said would have resulted in the deaths of TWO MILLION MAMMALS.
Among those that perished as a result of loss of habitat would have been 9,000 tree-hugging koalas, WWF Australia spokesman Nick Heath said.
"It's a horrifying figure," Heath told AFP. "Two million mammals and that's all sorts of kangaroos, wallabies. We couldn't come to an exact figure on the birds, but I would say it would be OVER FIVE MILLION."
Heath said WWF's figures were based on earlier scientific assessments of animal density in each area of the state combined with the amount of land cleared over the 2005-2006 period.
He said the animals that died in the LARGEST NUMBERS were reptiles, including lizards and TURTLES.
Of particular concern was the impact on the koala, an iconic marsupial found only in Australia and which is most populous in Queensland state.
"People want koalas to exist, they don't want them to be on the endangered list. And if we kill 9,000 a year, even if they are not on the endangered list now, they will be if we don't stop."
Heath said that turning native bush into grazing paddocks meant that many of the animals killed DIED IN FIRES SET BY FARMERS to clear debris after bulldozers cut down the trees.
"So these animals die horrific deaths," he said. "They are either dead from being RUN OVER or FALLING FROMA TREE, or if they survive that, they are BURNT ALIVE."
The Queensland government has set up a task force to help conserve koala populations amid greater urban development in the state's southeast.
http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Thousands_of_Australias_koalas_felled_by_land-clearing_WWF_999.html
Sydney (AFP) Sept 7, 2008
Australian koalas are dying by the thousands as a result of... more
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http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601070&sid=atTPk3ULEWeQ&refer=home
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Implementers of an international project to help endangered elephants in Mali want to prove that by doing so, they can also help local communities adapt to climate change in the Sahel.
The Malian government lists elephants in Gourma in the country's far desert north as highly endangered. A drought in the 1970’s killed most of the country's elephants leading the population to dwindle from several thousand down to 350.
Often seen near Lake Banzena, about 400 kilometres south of Gao, these elephants have the largest migration route of any known elephant group according to the World Bank-funded Gourma Biodiversity Conservation Project (PCVBGE), with an estimated home range of 30,000 square kilometres.
But conservationists say that climate change is leading to increased tensions as elephants and the local population vie for access to water.
Friend or foe?
"The drought in the Sahel in the 1970's created a shortage of watering holes," says Namory Traore, a director at Mali’s National Centre for Nature Conservation.
As climate change affects more people in this desert country, Lake Banzena has become one of the last remaining water sources for both animals and people. The nearby Lake Gossi, about 150 kilometres south of Gao, has begun to dry out, and there are fears that the region can no longer support even this smaller elephant population.
Many inhabitants of Gourma have turned to agriculture as desertification is making pastoral life increasingly difficult. Now, thirsty elephants are beginning to raid their newly-cultivated fields.
"Sometimes the elephants even break into our reserves and chase people to get the fruits, because they don't have enough water," says Alou Tambura, a herder in Haire, about 150 kilometres from Lake Banzena.
The World Bank-funded biodiversity project is designed to protect both animals and humans in drought-prone regions. Its main focus is to facilitate elephants' passage through inhabited areas.
For more on this stroy: http://www.irinnews.org/Report.aspx?ReportId=80079Implementers of an international project to help endangered elephants in Mali want to... more
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Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) will sue the Interior Department over its decision to list the polar bear as a threatened species."We believe that the listing was unwarranted and that it's unprecedented to list a currently healthy population based on uncertain climate models," says Alaska Assistant Attorney General Steven Daugherty.
To green groups, that argument is, shall we say, unimpressive. "Even the Bush administration can't deny the reality of global warming," says Kassie Siegel of the Center for Biological Diversity. "The governor is aligning herself and the state of Alaska with the most discredited, fringe, extreme viewpoints by denying this." Palin's litigation comes mainly out of fear for Alaska's fossil-fuel-reliant economy, even though the wording of the Interior Department decision went to great lengths to ward off any new restrictions on oil and gas drilling.
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) will sue the Interior Department over its decision to list... more
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