Worldwide, the use of Marine Protected Areas is recognised as an important strategy to safeguard marine biodiversity from the impact of over-fishing, pollution, and other environmental damage. In England…
Reintroduction programs are key initiatives for re-establishing or re-stocking animal populations, and while some are successful, many, unfortunately, are not. Endangered and critically endangered animals…
Former NBA player Yao Ming is pictured on a billboard in China, endorsing an anti-shark fin campaign.
Mike Fabinyi
In recent times, China has witnessed a series of campaigns aimed at persuading people to stop eating shark fin soup. So it is encouraging that, over the past year, shark fin consumption appears to have…
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…
Working dawn till dusk to turn $10 billion into dust.
US FWS Mountain Prarie
Confiscated ivory taken from smugglers, traders and tourists by US authorities was crushed to chippings last week, The stockpile of more than six tonnes, amassed since the 1989 international embargo on…
Canaima National Park, home of Angel Falls and many rare and threatened species.
tryktern
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…
Europe, the world’s most industrialised and intensively managed continent, is going wild. During the past three decades it has witnessed conservation successes with the most unexpected species: Europe…
England’s green and pleasant land: will biodiversity offsetting help or hinder it?
Gareth Fuller/PA
The idea behind biodiversity offsets is to develop a new way of preserving nature that more accurately accounts for the value to us of the natural world. The abundance and diversity of plants and animals…
Royal interest in tigers has cut both ways through the years.
S. Taheri
On the face of it the British royal family’s commitment to wildlife conservation is unmistakable. Perhaps the most well-known work is that of Prince Charles, who in May co-hosted a meeting on illegal wildlife…
Yasuni National Park in Ecuador is one of the world’s most biodiverse regions. It’s home to country’s largest oil field.
Flickr/joshbousel
Greenhouse gases produced by the burning of fossil fuels have resulted in well-publicised changes to the Earth’s climate. But the impacts of fossil fuels start long before their carbon dioxide reaches…
Bats fascinate me. So, naturally, does their diet. Recent research showed that bats made “feeding buzzes” over saltmarsh habitats. These habitats are full of mosquitoes and this specific buzz is made only…
Yasuni’s frogs are unimpressed with your lack of conviction.
Geoff Gallice
When the Ecuadorian Congress this month voted overwhelmingly to allow drilling for oil underneath the Yasuni National Park, it signalled the failure of a novel conservation proposal unlike any the world…
New Zealand’s ancient tuatara might need a helping hand to cope with climate change.
Flickr/Sheep"R"Us
Climate change is one of the greatest threats the world’s animals and plants are facing. In fact the world is facing an extinction crisis, which should concern all of us. The major problem with climate…
Will the sun set on migratory songbird hunting, or the birds themselves?
ONDR
In an article for National Geographic and a forthcoming documentary film, author and birder Jonathan Franzen ponders the slaughter of migratory songbirds around the Mediterranean, and asks how it can be…
Problems breeding captive pandas shouldn’t distract from the problems faced by those in the wild.
Andrew Milligan/PA
When the Chinese authorities in Chengdu showed off their 14 giant panda cubs last week, it again raised questions about the role of panda breeding in zoos outside China, and whether it is a help or hindrance…
“We all look the same, we need some diversity around here.”
Rick Stuart-Smith/Reef Life Survey
I first heard used the term “biodiversity” as a graduate student some years ago. While it appeared to be something everyone agreed was important, nobody could tell me exactly what it meant. It seemed to…
Matthew Flinders Professor of Global Ecology and Models Theme Leader for the ARC Centre of Excellence for Australian Biodiversity and Heritage, Flinders University