By Junaidi Hanafiah BENER MERIAH, Indonesia — Until recently, the village of Samar Kilang in Indonesia’s Bener Meriah district, near the northern tip of the island of Sumatra, was largely cut off from the rest of Indonesian society. The journey here from Simpang Tiga Redelong, the district seat just 70 kilometers (43 miles) away, took at least one wearying day on foot. So farmers growing maize, rice, candlenuts, durian fruit and other produce used bamboo rafts to transport their goods downriver to the neighboring districts of North Aceh and East Aceh. “We gather up the selected bamboo from the...
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By Rhett A. Butler At the intersection of philanthropy and sustainability, Wendy Schmidt stands out for her innovative approach to addressing global challenges. Her work transcends traditional charity, rooted in “systems thinking,” a holistic method that considers the interconnections within ecological, social, and economic systems. Schmidt’s journey into this realm began somewhat unexpectedly through her career as an interior designer. It was here that she became acutely aware of how design choices impact resource use and waste generation. This awareness grew into a profound commitment to add...
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By Philip M. Fearnside Brazil’s Amazon deforestation has traditionally been primarily in the “arc of deforestation” along the southern and eastern edges of the forest, but highways connecting this arc, such as the BR-163 (Santarém-Cuiabá) highway, are allowing this destruction to expand to rainforest areas to the north. Of particular concern at the present time is the BR-319 (Manaus-Porto Velho) highway that would facilitate the movement of deforestation actors and processes to Manaus, in the relatively intact central Amazon, to all areas in the northern Amazon that are already connected by ro...
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By Rhett A. Butler Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon continued to plummet in May, reaching the lowest level since March 2018, according to data from the alert system run by Brazil’s national space research institute, INPE. According to INPE’s DETER system, deforestation in May 2024 amounted to 501 square kilometers (193 square miles), an area 147 times the size of New York City’s Central Park. This tally brings the accumulated deforestation detected by DETER over the past year to 4,350 square kilometers, down 54% from the same time last year. For the year to date, DETER has detected 1,182 ...
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By Abhaya Raj Joshi KATHMANDU — When researcher Kumar Paudel from the NGO Greenhood Nepal received permission to carry out a genetic study to determine the distribution of the two species of pangolins in Nepal, he submitted some samples sourced from the Chitwan-Parsa landscape to a lab in Nepal. The permission’s condition was that the lab tests needed to be carried out in Nepal. The lab where he submitted the samples took around two years to come up with results. “The results we received were far from satisfactory,” Paudel said. Researchers are not allowed to take biological samples abroad eve...
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By Suzana Camargo Think of a toucan and you’ll probably picture a toco toucan, with its orange bill and white throat. The largest member of the toucan family, the toco toucan (Ramphastos toco) can have a wingspan of more than 1 meter (3 feet) and fly more than 90 meters. On these journeys, it often carries something very precious for the natural regeneration of forests: seeds from the fruit it feeds on. Like toucans, other species of large frugivorous birds — dusky-legged guans, or jacus (Penelope obscura) and curl-crested jays (Cyanocorax cristatellus), among others — contribute to regenerati...
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By Maxwell Radwin Mining can take its toll on the environment when done irresponsibly, especially in vulnerable ecosystems like the Amazon Rainforest. Deforestation and river pollution are common complaints from communities living near a mine. Heavy metals and chemicals like mercury and cyanide often kill off flora and fauna. But that environmental loss can also be viewed as an economic one. Damaging carbon sinks and natural aquifers can be extremely costly in the long run, leading to mudslides, drought, climate change and poor air quality, among many other things. Framing environmental impact...
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By Deyatima Ghosh “We (humans) are trying to get under the skin of other species, trying to understand them on their terms. And the more we succeed, the more we discover a natural landscape dotted with magic wells.” — Frans de Wall. After years of questioning, skepticism and denial, we are finally ready to embrace the beauty of the animal mind. Primates have contributed enormously to the understanding of mental abilities mostly for their “human-like” behaviors or close links to humans which made ethologists keen to study cognition in other animals such as birds, reptiles, amphibians, fishes as...
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By Ashley Yeong Tioman Island Marine Park in Malaysia, renowned for its coral reefs and vibrant marine life, is facing a silent but potent threat: ghost nets. These lost or abandoned fishing nets are typically made of plastic and could take centuries to break down. In the meantime, they can damage delicate ecosystems and entangle and kill marine wildlife. Ghost nets are widely studied globally, but local information is scarce. To bridge this knowledge gap, scientists analyzed data from a ghost net removal program on Tioman Island. Their findings, published in April in The Palawan Scientist, fo...
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By Aimee Gabay XOCHIMILCO, Mexico — In the 70 years Miguel del Valle has worked on his family’s chinampa in Xochimilco, a neighborhood in the south of Mexico City, he has witnessed a huge change in the environment and the attitudes of his neighbors. “Xochimilco was always famous for its vegetables and flowers,” the 80-year-old farmer, also known as a chinampero, told Mongabay, while looking out at the rows of lettuce, radish and broccoli planted across almost every inch of his family’s 3.5-hectare (8.6-acre) chinampa. “Now, there is none of that. And that makes me sad.” Chinampas are an agricu...
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