Conservation

7 reasons why sea sponges are the coolest

Posted by Emily Buchanan — 16 June 2017 at 4:44pm - Comments

Sea sponges. They’re not exactly the cuddliest of creatures. They don’t have eyes, limbs, ears, a mouth or even a brain. They can’t move and some of them look a bit like Wotsits.

Article tagged as: climate change, conservation, marine biology, sea sponge, spongebob

Whale Fail – no new sanctuary in the South Atlantic (again).

Posted by Willie — 25 October 2016 at 10:51am - Comments

Bad news from the 2016 International Whaling Commission meeting – as the first significant vote was another disappointment for whales and supporters of conservation. Despite getting a majority of votes in favour, the proposal to create a South Atlantic Whale Sanctuary did not pass, because it was short of the three-quarters majority needed.

Article tagged as: conservation, International Whaling Commission, IWC, marine reserves, oceans, south atlantic whale sanctuary, whaling

Why is everyone talking about whale poo?

Posted by Willie — 20 October 2016 at 4:55pm - Comments

Whales are special. No, not for any stereotypical hippy la-la reasons, this is *science*!

Healthy oceans need lots of healthy whale populations: they keep things in balance, help disperse and mix nutrients, support entire ecosystems and help fight climate change.

Surprised? Read on…

Article tagged as: carbon, carbon sink, circle of life, co2, conservation, ecosystems, ecotourism, IWC, nutrients, oceans, plankton, poo, whale falls, whale poo, whale watching, whales, whaling

Sumatran rhino found while forest habitat is lost

Posted by jamie — 30 March 2016 at 9:13am - Comments

Sumatran rhino found in East Kalimantan, Indonesia

This rhino is being moved to relative safety, but the species is still critically endangered

Good news for rhino fans: last week, researchers announced the first live encounter with a Sumatran rhino in Borneo for over 40 years. But the human pressures that have pushed this species to the brink of extinction are still very much in play.

Article tagged as: biodiversity, borneo, conservation, indonesia, palm oil, pulpwood, sumatran rhino, WWF

Is the tide turning in favour of sharks?

Posted by Willie — 9 August 2013 at 3:25pm - Comments

Sharks often hit the news for the wrong reason, here's some better news.

Down with scare stories - how about some positive shark news for a change?

At the end of Shark Week, it’s time for some good news on sharks. Despite all the earlier blogs this week, this is not me trying to convince you sharks are huggable and loveable (though, they are, obviously), rather a round-up of some good conservation news for the world’s often-underappreciated shark species.

Article tagged as: CITES, conservation, oceans, shark finning, sharks

APP pulps trees from its own tiger sanctuary. How dumb is that?

Posted by ianduff — 16 December 2011 at 4:04pm - Comments

Forest and peatland clearance inside APP's Senepis tiger sanctuary

This was APP's Senepis Tiger Sanctuary, until one of APP's suppliers cut down the trees

Asia Pulp and Paper – the company doing so much to jeopardise the future of Indonesia's rainforests – has done some pretty stupid things in the past. But pulping the trees in its own tiger sanctuary is astonishingly dumb.

And yet that's exactly what APP has done.

Article tagged as: APP, asia pulp and paper, conservation, deforestation, eyes on the forest, tigers, WWF

Images from a vanishing forest

Posted by jamie — 13 November 2007 at 3:01pm - Comments

Lately, I've been working a lot on our palm oil campaign, so my spider senses are highly atuned to anything coming out of Sumatra and Indonesia in general. But two stories I found this morning, both on New Scientist, really underlined what's going on west of Java.

The first article features some astonishing images from the Zoological Society of London, caught by a motion-sensitive camera left in the middle of the forest. The impressive snaps include a herd of elephants and a golden cat, but the stand-out picture is of an inquisitive and rare Sumatran tiger, it's eyes glowing in the camera's flash. Take a look at the slideshow - they're incredble.

Article tagged as: climate change, conservation, deforestation, destructive logging, indonesia, palm oil

Melting ice threatens blue whales' food supply

Posted by bex — 20 July 2001 at 8:00am - Comments

Whale tail

Melting polar ice is threatening the main food source for Antarctic blue whales and could lead to their extinction, an international environmental group said yesterday. The whales feed on small sea creatures known as krill, which in turn eat microscopic marine algae. These live in sea ice and are released in the summer when the ice melts.

Article tagged as: blue whales, climate change, conservation, impacts, krill, oceans, sea ice, WWF

Wet weather and mites devastate bee populations

Posted by bex — 19 July 2001 at 8:00am - Comments

Flowers and bee

A combination of pesticide-resistant mites and wet weather has devastated bee populations in parts of the US, wiping out more than half of Maryland's bees this winter and devastating hives in many regions of the country. Beekeepers are now struggling to rebuild their colonies, while farmers who rely on the insects to pollinate their crops have had difficulty finding available hives to place in their fields.

Article tagged as: bees, climate change, conservation, impacts, insects, maryland, USA, vermont

New oil exploration sites in the Atlantic Frontier

Posted by bex — 18 September 1999 at 8:00am - Comments

New oil exploration sites in the Atlantic Frontier St. Kilda's precipitous cliffs, crystal clear water and massive seabird colonies have continued to attract generations of divers, sailors and nature-lovers to its shores. It ranks alongside the Taj Mahal, the Grand Canyon and the Great Barrier Reef as a World Heritage Site.

The islands once again find themselves on the edge of a change at least as big as that of the loss of its people. The industrial world is finally encroaching on the wild seas around St Kilda - oil companies are being offered thousands of square miles of the sea-bed of Britain's Atlantic Frontier including areas only 25 miles from St Kilda. In July 1999 the UK Government gave the green light for an oil rig to start drilling west of the Outer Hebrides, just 75 miles from St Kilda.

The IUCN, nature conservation advisors to the UN, have concluded that St Kilda is at high risk from oil developments.

Article tagged as: atlantic frontier, climate change, conservation, drilling, oil, st kilda

Greenpeace UK