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In some ways, recent discoveries should have been made long ago. Asiatic lions historic distribution stretched across Asia, north Africa, and Southern Europe.
Given that the Barbary Lions historic range covered the central part of this huge area, it seems reasonable that the Barbary lion and the Asiatic lion should be closely related. Yet it was only in the last few years that genetic evidence has been shown that this is indeed the case.
It is an unfortunate fact, all over the world, that people have chosen to live near the sea. There are many reasons for this, but the basic fact is that this is often the most productive land.
The problem now, though, is that all these peoples lives are liable to change. This is because small rises in sea levels could make them homeless. As much as 1 billion people live at low enough elevation to make this a threat.
Countries like Bangladesh are very flat, and it is estimated that as many as 20 million people within Bangladesh would become homeless by 2050 under current trends (this assumes that we meet our carbon cut targets. There would be many others that would be lost.
Forgetting the hundreds of millions of people in the developing world, there are famous buildings and places which should underline this issue in the west as well.
Buckingham palace would be under water up to the first floor if we fail to act. A temperature rise of 1.5 degrees C would merely bring the water level to the front door. Many other famous buildings such as the pentagon, the tower of London and Tokyo tower in Japan would all be lost.
This is all a long winded way of stating, that even with the dramatic cuts the world is hoping to make over the next few decades, many people on earth are still likely to loose their lives have their lives changed dramatically, in most cases for the worse.
This encompasses an area about the size of South Carolina, and is made up of about 75% forest with the rest peat.
Much wildlife live in these forests including orangutans, so this move is good for both carbon emissions and biodiversity.
As with most primate species males are usually the dominant animal in a group setting. The one notable exception is bonobos which are a female led society.
There is a constant argument that we should not be acting on climate change because we have not reached consensus. This really is not the case.
A look at 90,000 studies which looked at the climate found that 99.9% of them agreed that humans were the cause. The degree of certainty is now the same as that on evolution or on plate tectonics -the debate is over.
It is true that you can still find supposedly learned men and women who will disagree, but we are now at the point where it is akin to arguing the world is flat. Yes there are thousands of “flat earthers” worldwide, but those denying climate change should be put in the same category as those who deny the shape of the earth (and think that the millions of people who would have to be in on it are all dutifully keeping quiet.
This study has been compiled by Cornell University and shows that the miniscule minority still fighting against this truth, is now just a small number of noisy voices.
This is terrifying! In the USA there are 30 US senators and 109 representatives who “refuse to acknowledge the scientific evidence of human-caused climate change”.
It is now time for Facebook and twitter to stop giving an unchallenged voice to purveyors of falsehoods. Denying the science of climate change is likely are more dangerous for the future of the human race than denying the obvious facts about vaccines.
The regulation that was issued earlier this year for Cambodias KohKong province supposedly took land from protected areas, and gave it to local people. Developments since, show that actually this was a scheme to benefit the political elite.
Politicians and companies have been grabbing the available land. In particular, a pocket has been bought by a company thought to be working for APP the huge palm oil company. They would clearly wish to raze this forest to the ground and replant with palm oil.
The area in question, accounts for around 500 square miles of land.
Palm oil executives have been caught on camera admitting to bribery to be able to deforest an area of land. The company was also caught with the CEO describing a tax evasion scheme that they were running in India.
Despite having been filmed on camera saying such things, when contacted by Global witness and informed of the video, those responsible denied that it happened.
Senior politicians have admitted to corruption in similar areas over the last few years, but clearly, we are no where near solving this problem.
The Forest ACT bill would make global suppliers responsible for the illegal deforestation that their products cause.
This is a long overdue issue. Currently, large companies will structure things in such a way, that small farmers and other land users are encouraged to deforest their land, knowing that the big company wishes this, and will buy all their resources.
It cannot work this way. If these companies are made legally responsible for any deforestation that occurs to provide their products, they will manage to put an end to illegal deforestation over night.
As well as enacting this process nationally, the bill would require USA trade partners to buy in on these new rules.
Will it work? Who knows, but it is likely to have a huge impact on deforestation, as if this rule is implemented, it will never pay to deforest.
It cannot be the be all or end all, but is a fantastic first step.
Hello everyone! We survive
So, the website was hacked. Nothing was stolen, from what I was told they were just able to delete the website. Thankfully we back up, so we have survived.
We have added a significant extra layer of protection which should make it impossible for the same problem to arise (it had nothing to do with the attack on Facebook and WhatsApp). While we do on occasion have sharing buttons, that is the extent of our link so we were safe.
Bigger news, many red list countries have been upgraded allowing travel. These countries include
Continue reading “The website was hacked! nothing lost, and wildlife tourism to Africa can return”Pandas, like many other mountain species, are liable to get marooned on islands in the sky, and recent genetic analysis has shown that there are really two species of giant panda which have not interbred for more than 300,000 years.
One of these populations is in Sichuan province, the other is in Shaanxi province. The latter population have a different look with their heads looking more like cats than bears. The Shanxi province pandas were only confirmed to exist in the 1960s and we’re recognised as a separate subspecies in 2005.
Both populations only exist in China, though this other population only has about 350 members. Perhaps the problem with this is that there are now two species that are more severely endangered. We just hope that China prioritises these two species – the vast national park that China has recently declared is likely to increase the number of the more numerous pandas, but clearly more work needs to be done on the cat-faced panda bear.
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