Category: Habitat destruction

Posted on

A study found that 3/4 of oil palm concessions in Indonesia and Malaysian Borneo certified by RSPO were forest or wildlife habitat just 30 years ago!

It seems that so long as the initial cause of the deforestation was not palm oil (or perhaps not the current owners of the palm oil farm?), then even if it is immediately converted into palm oil plantations, it can be counted as sustainable.

I think that few people would claim that practices like this are sustainable

This is absurd. It should obviously be the case that if an area is deforested illegally, then it should be reforested, not get the right to permanently become part of the crop areas.

Not really good.

It essentially means that the RSPO affiliation means nothing, as those of us concerned about the destruction of the rainforest and the loss of the biodiversity that it contains cannot trust them at all. I have written in the past, about Newquay zoo getting its signs wrong on avoiding palm oil. What is clear, is that almost none of the palm oil from Indonesia can claim to be avoiding deforestation as you’d expect. Has the RSPO destroyed their authority for ever? Time will tell.

What is clear is that this is not a new thing. Back in 2016 the Huffington post wrote an article “RSPO: Completely Worthless, or Just Mostly Worthless? (UPDATED)” (click the article to read it in another tab) in which it basically outlines many of the points from this latest assessment. This study was more thorough, so can tell us the extent of the problem, but what is clear is that it is not new.

Should the RSPO be given a second chance? I would argue not. If they have not cleaned up shop in 6 years, then there is going to be little rainforest left before they actually get their act together. Can it be done? Ferrero is ranked number 1 out of 173 by WWF on sustainable palm oil sourcing. Clearly it can be done – However, brands that hold onto RSPO may well start being avoided by the eco-concerned. If they are that useless then why even look for their mark

Posted on

Fame of the Axoloti has grown over the last few years -Minecraft, but in the wild they are not doing so well

Axoloti look strange, and have got a lot of attention after being included in Minecraft. Unfortunately they are threatened with extinction

Having lost much if their habitat, the Axoloti is struggling to survive. Once widespread through the high-altitude lakes around Mexico city, the Axoloti an amphibian that is about 30cm long is restricted to just a few inland canals. Here somewhere between 50 and 1000 of these lizards live. Water pollution, habitat loss, and predation by invasive fish species such as Carp and Tilapia are all pushing this amphibian towards extinction.

Public awareness of this animal has exploded. Apart from its inclusion in games, it also features on the 50 peso coin from 2021.

Will it be able to survive? certainly there is now the will, however, it is hard to clean up waterways that lie so close to a huge city.

Time will tell if the Axoloti will survive in the wild, or whether future generations will think that they are a phantom of the game creators imagination.

Posted on

Forests appear to reduce the planets temperatures by half a degree – we cant afford to loose this

In a time when half a degree more or less warming, might be the difference between tens of millions of people becoming climate refugees, and hundreds of millions (or even billions), the idea that without our forests the planet would be at least half a degree warmer, should give us even more incentive to protect the forests that remain.

Rainforests are fantastic places and now it is clear that we need them to keep the planet cool copyright Freebie photography
Continue reading “Forests appear to reduce the planets temperatures by half a degree – we cant afford to loose this”
Posted on

In an effort to deal with encroachment into national parks Indonesia is trying a new policy

Many of the Indonesian forest reserves, have become paper parks, with much or most of the forestation and other vegetation lost. They clear land in the hope that they will eventually be given the title to the land to make their seizures legal.

Under their new program “conservation partnership”, the settlers acknowledge that they cannot claim the land, and they have to help restore the land to how it was before they damaged it. The are then allowed to remain on the land and cultivate traditional crops and harvest non timber products like rattan and honey – but importantly, not palm oil.

This model has grown, and now 177,000 hectares is under this form of management (about 700 square miles.

It continues to be a hard balance between the protection of the forest, and allowing the people who live in these areas (both native, and those who move from elsewhere), to be able to better their lives through work. If work exists that both benefits them and the ecosystem then this is likely to succeed.

Posted on

Deforestation in west Africa has doubled the frequency of life threatening storms

One of the main causes of these increased storms, is the fact that now the forest has been removed, there is a huge difference between the daytime temperature between the land and the sea.

This temperature gap is obviously causing winds, and so this is feeding storms.

Many lives have been lost over the last 20 year as a result of this. Unfortunately this coastal loss of forests is typical of where deforestation starts, however the climate impacts may hit us all over the next century.

Posted on

A jaguar refuge in Mexico is under threat from deforestation and expansion of tourist projects

It is essential that tourists do not damage the places that they visit! I would think that this is obvious, but this is something that often does not occur to the majority of people, to do a quick search and work out if their visit will damage the area.

Beautiful reserve in Northern Mexico, where Jaguars and other animals survive and thrive
Continue reading “A jaguar refuge in Mexico is under threat from deforestation and expansion of tourist projects”
Posted on

5 of the worlds biggest agribusinesses sought to weaken EU deforestation just 8 days after voting to accelerate action

Can this have possibly been the same people? Is there really anyone stupid enough to try to weaken EU forest protection 1 week after saying they would accelerate protection?

This sort of behaviour should be punished hard. Agriculture is responsible for about 25% of the worlds greenhouse emissions and so they must make progress if the world is to succeed in cutting emissions. The 5 firms in question include ADM Bunge Cargill LDC and Viterra.

They tried to explain away this discrepancy, but what is clear is that we must force these companies to be honest about how they are performing. Furthermore, we the consumers, must be willing to leave products behind if the manufacturer is behaving so badly.

Posted on

Cheetah trade continues despite the CITES ban on their trade.

Trade of wild cheetah from east Africa (including the horn of Africa) to be kept as status symbols in the Arabian peninsula has thankfully declined, but has not been eradicated. Indeed, this decline may well be more down to better policing on the smuggling route and less down to a change in circumstance. All of the problem countries have laws banning the keeping of these animals yet these are not effectively enforced – when a cheetah or other exotic animal arrives in the Middle east it is likely too late, they are probably never going to be able to be returned to the wild. If as is usually the case, it is a cub, it is highly likely that the mother was killed in the cubs capture.

Reports of cheetahs for sale occur almost every week in the gulf states. In many states, keeping cheetahs as pets only became illegal in recent times UAE for instance only banned cheetahs as pets in 2017.

The problem is that (as readers of this blog will know) cheetah live in small and isolated populations – as a result, taking just 10 cheetah from a reserve could lead to the local extinction of the animal.

Other animals including chimpanzees orangutans and gibbons also enter these countries. It is essential that proper education of populations in countries like this is undertaken, so that they know these animals were not bred in captivity. Many of the owners would be horrified to learn that their action is causing these animals to be wiped out in the wild.

Global work on wildlife smuggling is far from over, and becomes only more and more urgent. There are many species that could be wiped out if we fail.

If you have friends looking for exotic animals as pets do encourage them not to, or we will find that our children will never be able to see cheetah in the wild where they belong.

Posted on

The filter in cigarettes is packed with plastic fibres, big tobacco are flooding the world with microplastics

It is hard to believe it, but the most common source of plastic pollution we throw into the environment is cigarette ends. Worldwide 800,000 metric tonnes of cigarettes are burnt each year.

The butts contain 7000 toxic chemicals and take a decade to degrade. Also 70% of seabird stomachs examined and 30% of sea turtle stomachs contained at least one cigarette butt.

Given the quantity of single use plastics in a cigarette, they should be banned like every other type of single use plastic.

Tobacco companies have pledged to stop selling cigarettes yet worldwide 6 trillion are produced every year. It is quite simple – an industry which creates 800,000 tonnes of cigarette butts a year cannot be classed as sustainable.

If governments required tobacco companies to clean up all cigarette butts at the end of life – this would hammer home how difficult it is.

Biodegradable filters already exist, but until these either become legally required or the companies are forced to pay to clean up all their mess they have little reason to do the right thing.

See Animals Wild