As the effects of climate change rapidly alter communities, economies and natural systems, the need to advance new solutions to what may be the most pressing biological challenge of our time has never…
A pair of lesser flamingos in Mumbai’s busy port area.
Madhusudan Katti
Mention the word biodiversity to a city dweller and images of remote natural beauty will probably come to mind – not an empty car park around the corner. Wildlife, we think, should be found in wild places…
The closed-door policy wins the TPP few friends.
Public Citizen
Jane Kelsey, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau
The secretive Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, a free trade agreement being hammered out between twelve countries, has received another broadside from Wikileaks. The third leak in three months, this…
Sawfish are the most endangered members of the shark family.
Flickr/Kaptain Kobold
We have heard a lot of about sharks recently. In particular Western Australia’s plan to cull threatened white sharks has stirred up plenty of protest from the community, and a frenzy of media coverage…
The threat to Britain’s ancient woodland has been much discussed recently, the suggestion being that where they are lost to housing development they might be replaced with new woods through biodiversity…
As the trees go, so do the microbes.
Jorge Rodrigues
Beneath the lush forests of the Amazon is a whole different level of diversity that new research says may be one of the keys to understanding how to stem the global impacts of deforestation. The Amazon…
Without tigers, our ecosystems will suffer.
Flickr/kohlmann.sascha
Humans have an innate fear of large predators, and with good reason. Nobody wants to be a shark or a lion’s next meal. But new research in the journal Science shows that our inability to live with these…
So what makes the tropical forests so special?
thaths
One hectare of land in a tropical forest can hold 650 tree species – more than in all of Canada and the continental US. This has left biologists baffled for decades. Now, with advances in data analysis…
The jungles of Papua New Guinea: exotic, remote, and full of frogs.
Euan Ritchie
I have just returned from the jungles of Papua New Guinea, where for two weeks a team of us have set camera traps that will collect vital information about the biodiversity of this remote region. It’s…
Why has biodiversity been forgotten in climate negotiations?
Flickr/Dom Dada
The latest climate talks in Warsaw may have achieved little in the way of action on climate change, but they were even worse for biodiversity. In fact, since early climate talks in the 1990s, biodiversity…
Holidaying in Europe has never been more popular, with the increase in tourism driven by budget airline competition, rising incomes and relaxed visa requirements over the past 50 years. Last year Europe…
Dusty museum collections’ evidence of the past hold clues to the future.
Heather Kharouba
Natural history museum records are most often associated with preserved specimens, kept with information about the place and time of collection. From these we can generate a record of a species’ geographical…
Profits drive the industry, not sustainability.
naturalengland
The arguments for increasing food demand are well publicised and well understood. By the middle of this century, the planet’s population will top nine billion, presenting a third more mouths to feed. Much…
It ain’t easy being green, especially when your home’s been turned into (other people’s) houses.
Andrew Milligan/PA
In its report published last week, the UK Parliament’s green watchdog, the Environmental Audit Committee, was far from convinced by the government’s proposed policy of biodiversity offsetting. The committee’s…
Michael Parker, The Conversation e Charlie Williams, The Conversation
Researchers working with the world’s most complete data on threatened species have pinpointed the most irreplaceable regions, whose existence is not only vital to species’ survival, but which are also…
The grey-faced sengi, found only in remote East African forests, is related to elephants.
Francesco Rovero
Kakadu National Park, Western Australia’s Shark Bay and Queensland’s wet tropics are among the world’s most important protected areas for conserving species, according to a study published today in the…
150,000 square kilometres of tropical rainforest is destroyed every year.
Threat to democracy
With current concerns focusing, quite rightly, on controlling carbon emissions, it is easy to lose sight of the need for continued conservation efforts. In fact our recent study published in the Proceedings…
Programme makers are wary of turning off viewers with climate change.
Till Krech
A report from the International Broadcasting Trust has argued that more investment should be made to get environmental issues covered on television. Environment on TV is based on interviews with people…
Matthew Flinders Professor of Global Ecology and Models Theme Leader for the ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, Flinders University