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Moving a city to save it!

The Radical Plan to Save the Fastest Sinking City in the World Many of our coastal cities are imperiled, but none have plotted an escape quite as audacious as Jakarta’s I. The capital of catastrophe In the 17th and 18th centuries, European workers flocked by the thousands to a faraway colonial Dutch port later to be known as Jakarta. The lure of the tough, six-month ocean journey was easy enough to see: seemingly limitless island forests of clove and nutmeg, spices...

Pandemic threatens rare monkeys

National Geographic reports that – The rampant spread of COVID-19 across Brazil is threatening more than half a century of conservation efforts to protect a small, bright orange monkey called the golden lion tamarin. Named for their leonine manes and found only in Brazil, golden lion tamarins had shrunk in number to a mere 200 in the 1970s, because of their capture for the pet trade and the destruction and fragmentation of their Atlantic Forest habitat. A series of efforts—ranging...

COVID-19 impact on the animal kingdom

While the human tally of COVID-19 cases has risen, animal cases have remained novelties. As of this moment, you can count the affected species on one hand: lions, tigers, domestic cats, dogs, mink. The pets contracted the virus from their owners; the big cats, likely from an asymptomatic caregiver; and the mink, likely from fur farm workers or possibly other infected animals.Beyond that conclusion is a sea of unknowns. There’s no evidence that domesticated animals can pass the virus to humans, but there’s...

Turtles on the beach!

When Kosum Kao-Uthai’s family noticed mysterious imprints in the sand outside the hotel resort they own in Koh Samui, she knew exactly which animal had paid a visit. She remembered spotting the same marks, left by a nesting sea turtle, when, as a teenager, she helped her father farm coconuts on the island. Kosum hadn’t seen another for five decades. Yet, this year, as the coronavirus pandemic emptied Thailand of tourists, nests belonging to endangered hawksbill and green turtles cropped up...

Giant redwoods, memories burn

Towering over the coast, straining for sun as they’ve done since before there was such a thing as California, the old-growth giants of Big Basin Redwoods State Park stood in flames on Friday. John Gallagher thought of his sons. Darryl Young thought of his father. Laura McLendon thought of her wedding day. “It was evening and the sun was just starting to slant through the trees,” said Ms. McLendon, a conservationist in San Francisco who married her husband in the...

Learn about … badgers

Video by my friend Alex Collins – wildlife scientist SUBSCRIBE TO MY CHANNEL FOR MORE VIDEOS – https://www.youtube.com/alexcollinswa… ————————————————————————————————————————————————————— FOLLOW ME ON TWITTER – https://twitter.com/AlexcollinsWaC...

Celebrating the orangutan

World Orangutan Day is a great opportunity to highlight these amazing creatures! We were very happy to be able to visit Sepilok a few years ago….. therefore contribute to the sanctuary and its conservation and education work. Sepilok Orangutan Rehabilitation Centre in the Malaysian Sabah District of Hi I North Borneo was founded in 1964, to rehabilitate orphaned orangutans. The site is 43 sq km of protected land at the edge of Kabili Sepilok Forest Reserve. Today around 60 to...

‘Jewel of the Kalahari’

The Okavango Delta emanates in the highlands of Angola, where the mighty Okavango River begins as just a trickle before gradually becoming the third largest river in southern Africa that flows for over 1,600km to reach inland Botswana. Around 60,000 years ago, the river deposited its water into Lake Makgadikgadi, a paleolake believed to have covered over 100,000km² of Botswana’s interior. At a time when we were just dragging ourselves into the Later Stone Age, most of southern Africa was...

Biodiversity = connections the key!

People have been raising the alarm over habitat and biodiversity loss for decades, but solutions have so far failed to effectively address the problem. A new report, “Guidelines for Conserving Connectivity through Ecological Networks and Corridors,” suggests greater consideration of connections between protected areas is part of the solution. Ecological corridors on land, freshwater and in the sea are a critical conservation designation needed to ensure that ecosystem functioning and ecological processes are maintained and restored. ( source – https://news.mongabay.com/2020/08/in-the-fight-against-biodiversity-loss-connectivity-is-key-commentary/...

Celebrating science!

It’s National Science Week –Australia- time to engage your curious mind and explore the world around you. Resource you can download – https://www.scienceweek.net.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/2020ASTA-DeepBlue_ResourceBook_FINAL.pdf...

Oil spill devastates Mauritius!

Satellite images of the MV Wakashio shipwreck off the south-east coast of Mauritius reveal the damage as the Japanese bulk carrier leaked an estimated 1,000 tonnes. The ship struck a coral reef on 25 July and began leaking oil last week, raising fears of a major ecological crisis ( source – https://www.theguardian.com/environment/gallery/2020/aug/13/satellite-photographs-of-the-mauritius-oil-spill-in-pictures?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other )...

Celebrating youth!

“Youth Engagement for Global Action” seeks to highlight the ways in which the engagement of young people at the local, national and global levels is enriching national and multilateral institutions and processes, as well as draw lessons on how their representation and engagement in formal institutional politics can be significantly enhanced. As the United Nations turns 75, and with only 10 years remaining to make the 2030 Agenda a reality for all, trust in public institutions is eroding. At the international...

Celebrating elephants

World Elephant Day has been created to bring the world together to help elephants. It is a day to honor elephants, to spread awareness about the critical threats they are facing, and to support positive solutions that will help ensure their survival. Some charities working with elephants * https://www.savetheelephants.org * https://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org/orphans Born Free Foundation – https://www.bornfree.org.uk/elephants-in-crisis...