Tag: Rainforest

Posted on

‘Sky islands’ in Africa are producing more new species than anywhere else

Sky islands like this one Mount Lico in Mozambique

Sky islands are found across much of Africa. Our experience of sky islands, occurred within the Udzungwa national park in Tanzania. This national park protects a large portion of the Eastern arc mountains. – a chain of mountains which run across Eastern Tanzania.

Africa started drying out around 5500 years ago, and much changed at this point, including a great expansion of the Sahara. However, what is relevant here, is that in many parts of the continent, this caused the rainforests to retreat. More rain falls on higher ground, so you were left with a situation where the tops of hills and mountains remain forested, but the valleys become savannahs. Perhaps one of the most notable effects of this, was to split the worlds mountain gorillas into two populations, one in the Bwindi impenetrable forest in Uganda and the other in the Virunga ecosystem. At their closest point, these two protected areas are only 20km apart (though driving between the two are likely to take longer, as visitor facilities are not at these points). Unfortunately, this space between the two areas has a large human population. This means that the two mountain gorilla populations were stuck on their respective mountain homes, relatively close together, but with no way to cross the gap between.

Not researched until recently, there is a strip of mountains that runs from northern Mozambique to Malawi’s Mount Mulanje. As with the eastern arc mountains, rainforest was preserved on these peaks. These were finally given scientific attention by an internatiional team in the South East Africa Montane Archipelago study. While archipelagos are usually used to refer to a group of islands, it seems apt here. Among these mountains, there are around 30 fragmented pockets of grasslands and evergreen forests that have been largely cut off from each other.

This is perfect for housing unique collections of species, that have found themselves cut off from other habitat that they once roamed. This study, identified 90 species from amphibians(11), reptiles(22), birds(3), mammals(4), butterflies(39) and freshwater crabs(6), alongside 127 species of plant, not found anywhere else on earth. These sky islands are even being considered for their own ecoregion.

Big or small, it is important to protect these little ecological islands, and it should be possible to have tourists visit to give an extra income to locals.

Posted on

Deforestation and palm oil stories: Deforestation is not a desire, there is demand for what is done with the land

Cattle in a newly deforested area on the edge of more Amazon rainforest – threatened in the future? photo credit Alice Mitchel

The problem with stopping deforestation, is that for the majority of the world we are far removed from rainforests (from where I sit in the UK, I would have to travel 3250km (over 2000 miles) to the nearest rainforest, which is an area on mainland India). Indeed, rainforest is generally something that only survives in developing countries.

This means that, for most people, they either live far removed from the rainforest, and so cant see it impacting them, or they live near a rainforest, but are struggling to provide for their family and those around them. It is quite true that many people in both the first and third world would like the rainforest to survive – indeed, should you talk to people in the west, many are very worried about the survival of the great apes, who are rapidly loosing land.

The problem is simple. Those living in the third world are living hand to mouth, so unless they work in tourism, the rainforest is often an inconvenience that makes life harder.

In 2023 a total of 6.4 hectares of forest were destroyed – more than 25,000 square miles. However, more concerning is the fact that 62.6 million hectares of forest (almost quarter of a million square miles) was degraded – for road building, logging, and forest fires. Degraded land is often less good for carbon storage, as well as conservation of the worlds wild species. It is often, then not long, before someone comes along a removes the rest of the plants so that the land can be used for something else.

And what was this deforestation for (other than logs)? Beef, soy, palm oil paper and nickel.

The Brazilian Amazon is one of the bright spots, where since the election of Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, deforestation has fallen 62%. Unfortunately, in the same time period, Indonesia’s deforestation is up 57%

It seems hard to see how the world will meet its goal of cutting deforestation to zero by 2030 as most countries have pledged. Also, despite reductions in deforestation, the Amazon has had one of the hardest years in terms of forest fires – something that only gets more likely as rainforests are lost, and climate change increases the temperature in many parts of the world. It is a sad fact, that there is often not a great deal of temperature difference between a rainforest which is functioning, and one that dries out and becomes a fire hazard.

Having said all this… a study in Indonesia has found that controlled low-intensity logging doesn’t have to negatively impact a forest in terms of carbon storage or food availability – this in turn means that much wildlife can survive.

The problem often is that if the land is in private hands, then low- intensity logging is not going to happen. If the landowner has decided to deforest, they will raze the land. In national parks, in theory low intensive logging would be possible, but this would require people to control the logging, and this is the issue that we have in the first place. Unfortunately, despite the pledge by 140 countries, deforestation is coming back.

In a related subject, the Indonesian president Prabowo Subianto has stated that palm oil expansion won’t deforest because palm oil has leaves. There are many issues with this, but perhaps primarily amongst them, when forests are cut down, they are usually replaced with grass lands for grazing cattle – these are also covered in leaves. This is obviously stupid – it may well be a better thing, that the rainforest is going to be replaced with plantations, but it has been shown that palm oil plantations take up a tiny proportion of the carbon that rainforests take up.

In another article, there was a finding that macaques living in palm oil plantations have an alarming infant mortality. Unfortunately, these macaques are not unique in being threatened by palm oil, but others include orangutans, elephants, tigers, pangolins, bonobos, and Irrawaddy dolphins.

While palm oil may be a better vegetable oil than other crops, it still looks like it will lead to us loosing most of our rainforests, unless a grip on this is found.

Posted on

What do we do when carbon offset markets collide with land rights

Stable glaciers are very effective carbon sinks, though if they then melt, they tend to loose all their stored carbon

The problem with carbon offsets, entirely depends on how they are used. When carbon offset money is given to a local project, but many try to buy an area from locals entirely. Kenya currently hosts 11 glaciers within Mount Kenya national park.

The problem is that, many of these projects require a rainforest to be left standing or something similar. Without buying from locals, and an income from the carbon offset to support the people who will loose access to the resource, it is highly unlikely that the deforestation rate will fall at all.

Much of these offset programs are being set up in Africa, on a continent which has the least responsibility for climate change, and yet local people are loosing the rights to land that they have lived on for millennia.

Posted on

Deforestation in Columbia has fallen 36% in a year

Rainforest is essential if we are to combat climate change. Therefore every fall in deforestation is fantastic news.

Of course, it should be noticed, that this is still a loss of 792 square km of forest from the year before – we need to reach zero forest lost per year, but every step towards this target is positive.

The former higher rate of deforestation has its roots in the chaos caused by the fall of the largest guerrilla group the Farc, which disbanded in 2017.

Columbia is considered the second most biodiverse, is fighting to be a leader in the fight against climate change. Of course, this needs to continue to fall, and indeed have large areas replanted, if we are to avoid much of the climate change, but one step at a time

Posted on

The smallest elephant in the world is in danger of being lost

There has been much discussion about the history of elephants in Borneo, and whether their loss is a problem

The origin of elephants in Borneo is unknown. Known for hosting the smallest elephants in the world, there are 2 theories as to how the elephants got to the island. The first is that they were released by a ruler in the 17th century (The most rapid population growth ever seen was 7,1% after the end of poaching in a reserve in Tanzania, a population of 30 elephants could become 1000 in just 50 years) – if this was the case, then their loss would not be bad; and the second is that actually the elephants arrived on the islands hundreds of thousands of years ago (as high as 300,000 years).

It is increasingly agreed that the second one of these ideas is likely to be correct. Though having said this, genetic analysis suggests that the whole population started with just 28 elephants.

Just 1000 are found on the island at the current time.

All wildlife on Borneo is at threat, as the palm oil industry continues to demand increasing quantities of prime rainforest be cut down. As this happens, elephants are forced into human areas, in their search for food, and then into conflict.

The Borneo elephant has only recently been assessed by the IUCN red list as a separate subspecies, but it is hoped that this recognition might increase tourism on this species as well as conservation dollars to save this species from its slow slide towards extincion

Posted on

Monkey species in Egypt lived on fruit 30 million years ago

It is hard to believe that habitats like this could possible have previously held rainforest which produces enough soft fruit for monkeys like this. Just 10,000 years ago crops were a new thing, in the same way that cows and other livestock farming. Before this, we had to hunt for virtually everything.

The reason that they can work out what monkeys ate, is because they have seen the teeth, and they were not chipped at all, as a result of soft diet. There are thought to have been roughly 5 species of this small monkey family living at the time (30 million years ago). This is new, as formerly it was thought that early primates ate some fruit but also harder foods – clearly they specialized in fruit earlier than we thought.

Posted on

Might the solution to deforestation be education? probably not everywhere, but clearly here in Sumatra

Camp Granit – Sumatran rainforest (not the same place)

There is a variety of different causes for deforestation. However, the majority of the work is usually done by individuals – often for subsistence farming, though often the land is only fertile for a short period of time, requiring more rainforest to be cut down.

However, if people on the ground know that cutting down the rainforest will make life worse, then they will not do it.

Efron Simanjuntak (click here to see a photo in a new window) was once a successful logger (illegally) in Sumatra. In 2017 he was caught, and in 2018 he was imprisoned for 2 years. In these two years, he had a lot of time to think, and realized the damage that he was doing.

Continue reading “Might the solution to deforestation be education? probably not everywhere, but clearly here in Sumatra”
Posted on

Currently, in the Amazon rainforest, 5 times more carbon is released from degradation than from deforestation – and still what remains continues to burn

A study, using detailed 3d surveys, found that road building, and other degradation is causing 5 times as much carbon to be released into the air, than deforestation of the Amazon.

From road building, to selective logging, fires and natural disasters, all these activities are combining to having a greater impact on carbon stocks in the Brazillian Amazon than deforestation. This huge discrepancy is not taken into account by the numbers.

This is also a problem to the world, as this carbon is being radically underestimated, which means that large quantities of our remaining carbon budget are being used up. This new survey used lidar, which gives a more accurate idea of what is left in terms of forest cover.

Read more: Currently, in the Amazon rainforest, 5 times more carbon is released from degradation than from deforestation – and still what remains continues to burn

With the addition of lidar sensors on the ISS, it is possible to scan the worlds forests more often – and given the ISS regular passing over 90% of the earths surface (in each 24 period – as while it orbits on a set path, the earth turns below it) this can be a good tool to keep an eye on the forests of the earth.

Another confirmation (as if it was needed) has been supplied by this study, showing that Indigenous territories and conservation units are both more efficient ways to protect the forest. These cover only 47.5% of the land, but contain just 9.1% of the forest clearing 2.6% of the logging and 9.6% of the fires.

Talking of fires

Fires continue to burn in the Amazon, with over 13,400 having been recorded in 2024. President Lula has called for general mobilization and Brazil has pledged to end deforestation by 2030. This is higher than during Bolsonaro’s time in office, though current cause is a drought, not human mismanagement.

Climate change is causing an increasing change in weather patterns, and reduced rainfall is changing the forests behaviour ( it should be noted, that the forest produces a not -insignificant portion of its rainfallm

Posted on

The livestock lobby is fighting against lab-grown meat this is why we must not let them win

Livestock takes up roughly 20% of the worlds land, or around 50% of the worlds agricultural land. Astoundingly, around 1.3 billion people around the world are involved in the livestock industry.

The worlds remaining land wilderness, takes up just 25% of the worlds land – should we move toa system of growing meat in labs, we could almost double the amount of space for wildlife, which would allow many of the worlds endangered species to recover.

Apart form saving so much of the worlds wilderness, and wildlife, why should we do this? Well, firstly, the fact that people want things to stay as they are, is not new. Every new invention has lead to a change in the lives of many people – before farming came into existence, all the healthy men of each village (and in places, many of the healthy women) would have spent the majority of their time hunting. Looking at the natural world, animals like lion and leopard split their time between hunting and resting, with little else (apart from reproduction) being thought of.

As electric cars started to appear, the vast majority of car companies tried to stop their progress. Indeed, many spent their time buying inventions and smaller companies, just to kill their electric car program. This was not because they were intrinsically afraid of the electric car, but because they were afraid that if adopted, they might have a smaller market share than they did with the internal combustion engine car. As tends to happen in this situation, however, many of these companies are thought likely to go out of business in the next 2 decades (and it took a start-up, Tesla to fully make electric cars work – even now, many are still trying to go back). The same can be said for the factory production line, and many many others.

The problem is that livestock farming is only second to the fossil fuel industry, in terms of its contribution to climate change, so if humanity is to survive, it needs to change dramatically.

Why should we be worried about saving the worlds wildernesses? I think that a great deal of the population feels that we should save them for their own intrinsic value, but there is more than that. Rainforests around the world are the engine that supplies much of these areas rain, and without the rainforest often the area will collapse into desert.

Some suggest that we should all go to a plant-based diet, and certainly this would do what we want (though it should be noted, that this leaves the livestock industry in the same place – indeed, the livestock industry as it currently is, must have its days numbered, as humanity cannot afford its carbon footprint or it will continue our descent into climate breakdown). The only alternative to this is to produce the dairy and meat through other means; and these means are multiplying around the world, as it is recognized that there is a lot of money available for those who solve it early.

These range from growing meat on a scaffold from cells taken from a live animal. This idea is rapidly growing in popularity, though some think that this is a dead end, and instead a lot of people are looking at brewing microbes, which can be made to have a taste and texture that will make them indistinguishable from the real thing. This would also allow the unhealthy parts like fat to be not grown. It avoids the need for a lot of land, needs no fertilizer and greatly reduces the amount of fresh water needed (some can use salt water).

Protectionism is not restricted to farmers, with many governments getting in on the act, and in the EU a new group is pushing for a continent wide ban.

I think that these things will be developed somewhere, and we will miss out, if this happens in places like China (they have a great incentive, as their population eats little real meat, but as the wealth of people are increasing, they are demanding to eat a diet more like the west. For most of us, we are going to be watching from the sidelines, in terms of what happens next, but we can write to our representatives, and make sure that livestock owners are not the only voices that they hear.

Posted on

Orangutans climb incredibly high – no space for acrophobia

Borneon orangutan mother with her offspring – photo credit stockcake (Photo by <a href=”https://stockcake.com/i/orangutan-treetop-rest_758559_866654″>Stockcake</a>)

Life is hard in the Indonesian rainforest – compared to Africa and South America, there is very little to be found to eat (except in specific areas. As a result, orangutans become solitary, with the only time they are seen together is a mother with young, or a courting couple. Another problem, is demonstrated here – there is so little food to be had, that every food opportunity has to be realized. This has meant that orangutans have become the best climbers (followed by Chimpanzee and then Gorilla), as where ever the food is, it needs to be accessed.

It is true, that with tools, humans can become even better climbers (as can be seen from the image), which is taken from further up the tree than the orangutans have even climbed.

Continue reading “Orangutans climb incredibly high – no space for acrophobia”
See Animals Wild

Read more news

Join as a wild member
to list your wild place & log in

Join as an ambassador supporter to
support this site, help save wildlife
and make friends & log in

Join as an Associate member
to assist as a writer, creator, lister etc & to log in

List a wild destination

List a destination in
the shadow of man

List a hide for animals more easily seen this way

Highlight some news
missed, or submit a
one-off article

Browse destinations for fun or future travel

Temporary membership
start here if in a hurry

Casual readers and watchers