The reports from Sochi’s newly built hotels and Olympic Village have not painted their construction in the best light, with tales of doors that wouldn’t open, yellow drinking water, and collapsing fixtures…
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…
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…
We are losing our large carnivores. In ecosystems around the world, the decline of large predators such as lions, bears, dingoes, wolves, and otters is changing landscapes, from the tropics to the Arctic…
Medical treatments for amphibians, resurrection of extinct species, increasing temperatures in the deep oceans and trade-offs between the financial value of fossil fuels and the magnitude of climate change…
In 1926, just outside of St Petersburg in Russia, botanist and geneticist Nikolai Vavilov set up the Pavlovsk Experimental Station. It was one of the world’s first “seed banks”. The term “seed bank” or…
In a time of diminishing global biodiversity, Bhutan’s conservation achievements read like an environmentalist’s heavenly dream. More than 50% of its land area is designated as protected in national parks…
Criticism of sport hunting nearly always focuses on whether hunting is cruel or not. A good example was provided by the recent controversy surrounding Melissa Bachmann, a keen hunter and television personality…
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…
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…
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…
Michael Parker, La Conversation Canada et Charlie Williams, La Conversation Canada
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…
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…