Natural Environment Blog

The Nature Conservancy have announced the finalists of their 4th Annual Digital Photo Contest. In an email to members, the Nature Conservancy said:

Thank you to everyone who submitted an image for consideration. Your love of nature has inspired us and continues to remind us of the magnificent lands, waters and wondrous species we work to protect and preserve, every day.

The support of members like you has allowed us to protect and restore over 119 million acres of land and 5,000 miles of river and is the reason that we are the leading conservation organization working around the world today.

There are 15 finalists in total, and it’s now up to you to vote for your favorite. Voting is open until Monday, February 8, 2010 at 10am EST. The Grand Prize Winner will be announced on February 15, 2009.

The winning photo will be featured on The Nature Conservancy’s website, which is visited by more than 3 million people annually.

So, place your vote now.

You can also check out all submitted photos at the Nature Conservancy’s Flickr page.

The Nature Conservancy is continuing to offer green gifts this year, with its Green Gift Guide. You may remember that it launched its Green Corporate Gift-Giving Center last year.

Included in this year’s gift guide are TNC’s “Top 5 Eco-Friendly Holiday Gifts”.

1. Adopt an Acre ($50 per acre)

   Help protect threatened habitats by adopting acres in critical locations around the world at only $50 per acre. Adopt an acre in one of the following places:

   • Africa’s Grasslands and Savannas
   • Austalia’s Gondwana Link
   • Costa Rica’s Osa Peninsula
   • The Appalachians in the United States
   • Las Californias in the United States
   • Southern Coastal Plain Forests in the United States
   • Brazil Atlantic Forest
2. Plant a Tree in the Atlantic Forest ($1 per tree)

   One dollar plants one tree and helps support the Conservancy’s Plant a Billion Trees campaign in the Atlantic Forest of Brazil.

   When you give Plant a Billion Trees as a gift, you can select the number of trees you plant and to help save paper, you can set up an e-card to announce your gift on any day you choose.

3. Adopt a Coral Reef

   The Adopt a Coral Reef program raises funds for important coral reef projects in the Dominican Republic, Palau and Papua New Guinea. The program provides critical funds for the permanent protection and restoration of these reefs.

   As some of the most biodiverse and wondrous places in the world, coral reefs need our immediate attention. If the present rate of destruction continues, 70% of the world’s coral reefs will be destroyed by the year 2050.

4. Help Save the Northern Jaguar.

   Deforestation and hunting have led to the decline of the northern jaguar. Your gift helps protect the habitat that northern jaguars need to survive and flourish.

5. Give Clean Water

   Every time a free-flowing river is altered, a lake is fouled by toxic runoff or a wetland is drained, the ability of freshwater systems to sustain life is disrupted and weakened. Your gift will help to finance conservation activities such as restoring riparian forest, setting up environmental education projects, installing equipment that tracks pollution and sedimentation rates in rivers and streams and giving families peace of mind that the water they drink is safe and clean.

So there you have it. The top 5 eco-friendly holiday gifts from The Nature Conservancy. Be sure to check out their other gifts at the Green Gift Guide.

The tuatara's ancestors roamed the earth with the dinosaurs 225 million years ago.

The tuatara is the only survivor of a group of reptiles that roamed the earth at the same time as dinosaurs - about 225 million years ago.

There are two species of tuatara, both of which are endemic to New Zealand. The scientific name for the two species are Cook Strait Tuatara (scientific name: Sphenodon punctatus) and Brothers Island Tuatara (scientific name: Sphenodon guntheri). 

Appearance

The tuatara is a greenish, brown reptile that grows to between 50 cm and 80 cm long.

It has distinctive soft spines along the top of its head and down its backbone. Although it looks much like a lizard, tuatara is actually the only surviving member of the order Sphenodontia. 

Tuatara don’t have external ears but they are able to hear. 

The tuatara is famous for its “third eye” or pineal or parietal eye located in the middle of its forehead. The eye has a small lens and retina, but it becomes covered by a thin layer of opaque scales about 4 to 6 months after birth.

The purpose of this parietal eye is unknown, but some scientists have suggested that it is used as a light sensor as opposed to forming visual objects. 

Habitat and Distribution

The tuatara is endemic to New Zealand.

Up until a thousand years ago, tuatara occurred in both the North and South Islands of New Zealand. Now, the tuatara can now only be found on islands in the North Island.

Tuatara tend to live in burrows in native forest, but can often be found occupying abandoned sheep pasture. They will often share burrows with seabirds such as petrels and shearwaters.

Growth

Tuatara has the slowest growth rate of any reptile. It can take as many as 30 to 35 years for a tuatara to reach full size. 

Tuatara usually lives to around 60 or 70, but they have been known to live to more than 100. In fact, one tuatara was seen mating last year at the ripe old age of 111.

Diet

Tuatara’s main diet consists of Insects, spiders, earthworms, snails and small lizards. Tuatara have also been known to kill and eat small seabirds and their eggs as well as young tuatara.

Behavior

Tuatara are mainly nocturnal and remain in their burrows during the day and prowl at night. They tend to have a lower body temperature than their environment, and they are active at lower body temperatures than most reptiles. They often come out during the day to bask in the sun.

Although they don’t actually go into hibernation, tuatara will often go six months without food during winter. 

Ancestory

The tuatara’s ancestory dates back to the dinosaur time. Ancestors of the tuatara and many other sphenodons were roaming the world 225 million years ago. This was about the time the first dinosaurs appeared. 

All other sphenodons disappeared around 65 million years ago and exist only as fossils. As a result, scientists often refer to the tuatara as a “living fossil”.

Tuatara Mating & Breeding

Tuatara reach sexual maturity at between 10 to 20 years of age. 

The female, on average, lays between 5 and 18 eggs only once every 4 years, which gives it the longest reproductive cycle of any reptile.

Mating season for tuatara is between January and March. Female tuatara then lay their eggs between October and December.

Hatchlings appear between 12 to 15 months after the eggs were laid. To break the egg, they use their egg tooth (a sharp pointed spike at the end of the snout).

Conservation Status

For millions of years, tuatara populations thrived in New Zealand. Then over the last thousand years or so, tuatara populations declined rapidly, almost to the point of extinction.

The main culprits were introduced rats, cats, dogs, and humans. Not to mention fires and land clearing.

The tuatara, was almost wiped out by the 1700s. In fact, in 1895, the tuatara was one of the first animals in the world to become fully protected by law.

Since then, significant tuatara populations have survived on 32 remote islands around New Zealand. Stephens Island/Takapourewa is home to about 50,000 tuatara, which represents about 90% of the tuatara population.

Since 1996, the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species has listed the Brothers Island Tuatara as Vulnerable and the Cook Strait Tuatara as Lower Risk/least concern, although IUCN has also stated that this needs updating.

With less than 60 remaining, the Javan Rhinoceros is probably the world's most critically endangered large mammal. This photo shows a young Javan Rhino shot dead by a hunter in 1895 in Ujung Kulon National Park, Java, Indonesia.

The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) has just released its list of threatened species to watch in 2009.

The list, entitled 9 to Watch in 2009, is a list of animals that could be on the verge of extinction.

Included in the list are well-known animals such as tigers, rhinos, elephants and pandas.

WWF says that these species are at greater risk than ever before because of poaching, habitat loss and climate change-related threats.

Tom Dillon, WWF’s senior vice president for Field Programs warns that these creatures could become extinct if we don’t do something to save them.

“If we don’t get serious about saving these spectacular species, it’s quite likely that many won’t be around in the years to come,” he said.  

“The potential loss of some familiar and beloved wildlife should be a wake-up call that immediate action must be taken if we want to live in a world with wild elephants, polar bears, and tigers.” he continued.

Mr Dillon wants to see a major effort to save these animals in 2009.

“At the dawn of the new year, our global resolution for 2009 should be to save these amazing species before it’s too late.”

The 9 Species to Watch in 2009

According to WWF, the 9 species to watch in 2009 are:

1. Javan Rhinoceros

   Population: Less than 60
   Location: Indonesia and Vietnam 

   Probably the rarest large mammal species in the world, the Javan Rhinoceros (Rhinoceros sondaicus) is critically endangered. Poaching and pressure from a growing human population pose greatest risk to the two protected areas where they live. 

2. Vaquita

   Population: 150
   Location: Upper Gulf of California, Mexico 

   The world’s smallest and most endangered cetacean, the Vaquita (Phocoena sinus) is a tiny porpoise that is often killed in gillnets. This mammal could soon be extinct.     

   Other names for Vaquita include “Cochito”, “Gulf of California Harbor Porpoise”, “Gulf of California Porpoise”, “Gulf Porpoise”, “Hafenschweinswal”, and “Marsouin du Golfe de Californie”.

3. Cross River Gorilla

   Population: 300. 
   Location: Nigeria and Cameroon.  

   Possibly the world’s rarest ape, the Cross River Gorilla (Gorilla gorilla diehli) was once thought to be extinct until it was rediscovered in the 1980s. This primate, a subspecies of the western gorilla, lives in the few remaining forest patches of southeastern Nigeria and western Cameroon.    

   But as its forests are opened up by timber companies, hunters move in. Pressure on forests for farming and logging, and on gorillas for bushmeat, is intense in this area.

4. Sumatran Tiger

   Population: 400-500
   Location: Sumatra, Indonesia   

   The Javan and Balinese tigers are already extinct and the Sumatran Tiger (Panthera tigris sumatrae) is not far behind. Accelerating deforestation and rampant poaching could push the Sumatran tiger to extinction within a short space of time.

   Tigers are poached for their body parts, which are used in traditional Chinese medicine, while skins are also highly prized.  

5. North Pacific Right Whale

   Population: Unknown, but less than 500
   Location: Northern Pacific, U.S., Russia and Japan

   The North Pacific Right Whale (Eubalaena japonica) is one of the world’s rarest cetaceans and was almost hunted to extinction until the 1960s. The large mammal is rarely sighted and has a poor prognosis for survival due to collisions with ships, entanglement in fishing nets and the prospect of offshore oil and gas development in Alaska’s Bristol Bay. 

6. Black-Footed Ferret

   Population: 500 breeding adults
   Location: Northern Great Plains, U.S. and Canada

   Found only in the Great Plains, the Black-Footed Ferret (Mustela nigripes) is one of the most endangered mammals in North America. This is because its primary prey, the prairie dog, has been nearly completely wiped out by ranchers who consider it a nuisance.

   The Black-Footed Ferret is actually recovering from a near brush with extinction. In 1986, it was thought that only 50 individuals remained. Since then, captive breeding and reintroduction has showed signs that the species is slowly recovering. 

7. Borneo Pygmy Elephant

   Population: Perhaps fewer than 1,000
   Location: Borneo, Malaysia

   The Borneo Pygmy Elephant (Elephas maximus borneensis) is a subspecies of the Asian Elephant and is found in northern Borneo. The smallest of all elephants, it must compete with logging and agriculture for space in the lowland forests of Borneo.  

   The Borneo Pygmy Elephant is also known as simply the Borneo Elephant.

8. Giant Panda

   Population: 1,600
   Location: China

   The giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) lives in a few mountain ranges in central China, in Sichuan, Shaanxi, and Gansu provinces.

   Restricted and degraded habitat is the greatest threat to the giant panda. It once lived in lowland areas, but farming, forest clearing, and other development now restrict the giant panda to the mountains. Also, its forest habitat in the mountainous areas of southwest China has become fragmented, creating small and isolated populations.

9. Polar Bear

   Population: 20,000-25,000
   Location: Arctic

   The polar bear (Ursus maritimus), is the world’s largest predator found on land. It’s native habitat is the Arctic Ocean and its surrounding seas. 

   The greatest threat to the polar bear today is climate change. Designated a threatened species by the U.S., if warming trends in the Arctic continue at the current pace, polar bears could become extinct within a century.
    

To find out more about what WWF is doing to protect these animals, see the 9 Species to Watch in 2009.

The Gumprechts Green Pitviper is among the 1068 new species discovered in the Greater Mekong Subregion between 1997 and 2007. Photo: Rene Ries.

More than 1,000 new species have been found in the Greater Mekong Subregion over the last 10 years, according to a report from WWF.

The report, entitled First Contact in the Greater Mekong,  says that 1068 species previously unknown to science were discovered in the region between 1997 and 2007.

WWF also say that potentially thousands of new species of invertebrate was also discovered during this period.

Highlights include the discovery of the world’s largest huntsman spider. WWF say the spider has a leg span of 30 centimeters across. That’s 12 inches - about the size of a dinner plate. 

The Gumbrechts Green Pitviper (Trimeresurus gumprechti), a bright green snake first described in 2002, was also a key discovery.

Another star discovery was the dragon millipede, which according to WWF, is “startingly hot pink” in color and produces cyanide.

The New Species

Among the new species discovered in the Greater Mekong were: 

• 519 plant species
• 279 fish species
• 88 frog species
• 88 spider species
• 46 lizard species
• 22 snake species
• 15 mammal species
• 4 bird species
• 4 turtle species
• 2 salamander species
• 1 toad species

Total Species Count in the Greater Mekong

According to WWF, there is more than 23,000 species of fauna and flora in the Greater Mekong.

These include:

• 20,000 species of plant
• 1,200 bird species
• 800 species of reptiles and amphibians
• 430 mammal species
• 1,300 fish species in the Mekong River basin

The Mekong River has more species per unit than the mighty Amazon. This photo was taken where the Mekong and the Nam Kahn rivers converge. Photo: Alcyon.

More Species Per Unit Than The Amazon

Although the mighty Amazon River contains more species than the Mekong River, the Mekong actually contains more species per unit than the Amazon.

This makes the Mekong, by length, the richest waterway for biodiversity on the planet.

Threats to The Greater Mekong

The Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) encompasses nations and territories located in Mekong River basin. These regions/territories are Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, Burma and Yunnan Province of China

Conservation International has ranked the Greater Mekong as one of the top five most threatened biodiversity hotspots in the world.

Specific threats to the Greater Mekong include:

• forest conversion for agricultural plantations
• unsustainable logging and the illegal timber trade
• wildlife trade over fishing
• dam and road construction
• mining

WWF indicates that these threats are increasing due to accelerating economic development, population growth and increased consumption patterns of the region.

Full Report [pdf file, 7.26 MB]

Imagine if you could donate to your favorite charity every time you searched the web. And imagine if it didn’t cost you any money.

Well, GoodSearch enables you to do exactly that.

GoodSearch is a search engine that donates 50-percent of its revenue to charities and schools designated by its users.

How Does It Work?

All you need to do is use GoodSearch when you search the web.

GoodSearch generates income from the advertising displayed on the search results page.

Note that the first time you use GoodSearch, you will need to choose your favorite charity. Once you’ve chosen your charity, you can just return to GoodSearch whenever you need to search the web.

To help your favorite charity:

1. Go to GoodSearch.com 
2. Select your favorite charity (you can either type it in or select it from a list of charities)
3. Search the web as you normally would 

Examples

Here are some pre-made links to help you get the idea. By clicking on these links, the GoodSearch website will open, with the relevant charity already selected:

• Action for Nature
• EarthTrust
• Earthwork Foundation
• The Nature Conservancy
• World Wildlife Fund

GoodSearch is powered by Yahoo! so you know that you’ll get good quality search results.

Does It Cost Me Anything?

No. GoodSearch provides people a way to support their favorite charity or school at no cost. The money comes from the GoodSearch advertisers.

Where Does The Money Come From?

The money comes from the GoodSearch advertisers - companies who pay to advertise on GoodSearch. Here’s how GoodSearch explain it: 

Search engines make most of their money from companies that pay an advertising fee when users click on links during a search. At GoodSearch, we’ve developed a patent-pending way to track and direct these search-generated proceeds to charities. In other words, a portion of advertiser dollars (and not your own!) earned as a result of your search, are now passed along to the organization you’ve chosen to support.

How Much Will My Charity Receive?

GoodSearch estimates that each search averages to around $0.01 for your charity. They have also provided the following estimates to give you an idea of how much money each charity could potentially receive:

Also Checkout GoodShop

GoodSearch have also launched GoodShop, which donates money to your favorite charity when you shop at your favorite online store after clicking through from the GoodSearch website.

Online stores include Walmart, Zappos, Target, Travelocity, and many more.

Scientists are excited by the discovery of a new Tonkin snub-nosed monkey population in northwestern Vietnam. Photo: Tilo Nadler.

Fauna & Flora International (FFI) has discovered a new population of the critically endangered Tonkin snub-nosed monkey (Rhinopithecus avunculus) in northwest Vietnam.

A team of biologists, led by FFI, observed between 15 and 20 individuals after a tip off from locals prompted them to visit the area.

The monkeys were found in forests near the Tung Vai Commune by the Chinese border. This makes it the first known population in Vietnam’s Quan Ba District.

FFI is excited by the fact that some of the monkeys were infants - indicating that the population is breeding, and therefore (hopefully) increasing.

Reviving the Species’ Population

“All recent indications suggest that we have a fantastic opportunity to secure this population and significantly increase the chances of survival of this species,” said Paul Insua-Cao, FFI’s Vietnam primate programme manager.

But conservation biologist Le Khac Quyet, who observed the monkeys, says urgent action is needed.

“When I saw the Tonkin snub-nosed monkeys in Tung Vai Commune I was overjoyed.” said Quyet, who is also credited with discovering another 70-strong population of the species in Khau Ca forest in 2002.

“This new discovery further underlines the importance of learning more about the Tonkin snub-nosed monkeys’ range and distribution. There is still time to save this unique species, but with just 200 or so left and threats still strong, we need to act now” 

Hopeful of More Sightings

And FFI would no doubt be hopeful to find more of this primate species in the area. Reports from locals suggest that there is also another, larger population of the Tonkin snub-nosed monkey yet to be seen by the FFI team.

Conservation Status

Until the late 1980s, the monkey was believed to be extinct. Since then, only around 200 Tonkin snub-nosed monkeys have been known to exist.

The monkey is currently listed as “Critically Endangered” on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species since 1996 when it was upgraded from “Endangered”.

Video Footage

Below is rare video footage of the Tonkin snub-nosed monkey:

Environmentalists have concerns over Brazil’s recently announced plan to save the Amazon rainforest. 

The plan, unveiled by the government on Monday, would result in a 72 percent decrease in deforestation by 2017. 

But environmental groups, while commending the government for finally taking action, believe the plan doesn’t go far enough.

Greenpeace Brazil’s View

Greenpeace doesn’t appear to be impressed with Brazil’s deforestation plan. Greenpeace maintains that deforestation of the Amazon needs to be completely eliminated - not just reduced.

Sergio Leitao, Greenpeace director of public politics in Brazil says “In adopting timid targets the government is showing that it is going in the right direction, but at the wrong speed, because the problem requires urgent solutions”

Leitao also suggests that Brazil is using its reliance on funding from rich nations as a convenient escape clause.

“By connecting the reduction of deforestation to obtaining international resources, in a moment of economic crisis, the government has an argument ready for not achieving targets in the future,” he said.  

Greepeace UK’s View

And Greepeace UK has said on its blog:

On the surface, this might sound ambitious and visionary but of course even if these targets are met, they’ll reduce deforestation but they won’t stop it.

Greenpeace UK highlights the fact that Brazil’s government seems happy to lose rainforest:

As environment minister Carlos Minc noted, if all goes to plan then in 2017 we’ll still be losing 5,000 sq km of rainforest every year (although I think he saw that as a good thing)

And, importantly, Greepeace points out that the deforestation plan only appears to be applicable to illegal deforestation.

Therefore, legal clearance of the rainforest will be unaffected. This means that a new bill soon to be voted on in Brazil’s parlaiment would effectively undermine the new plan. The bill, if passed, would allow land owners to clear as much as 50% of their forests (currently, they’re allowed to clear 20%).

On this point, Greenpeace comments:

So right there you can see that, even if illegal deforestation is cut or even eliminated, state sanctioned destruction could balloon in its place and so completely undermine any efforts to bring the rate of deforestation down.

WWF Brazil’s View 

In the meantime, WWF-Brazil has labeled the plan as “commendable but short on ambition and detail“.

However, Carlos Alberto de Mattos Scaramuzza, Conservation Director at WWF-Brazil still agrees that it is “reasonably” ambitious:

“This goal is reasonably ambitious,” he says. “To achieve it, next year deforestation will have to drop 23% in relation to this year.”

But he wants to see a plan that’s more than “reasonably ambitous”.

Instead, WWF-Brazil wants to see a goal of zero deforestation by 2015.

“This goal is achievable if key actors—ranging from indigenous peoples to ranchers—are compensated for conserving the forest and thereby avoiding deforestation” Scaramuzza says.

And WWF-Brazil’s CEO Denise Hamú agrees.

“This fund appears to be geared primarily to supporting government command-and-control programmes,” she says

“To achieve more ambitious reductions in deforestation, it will be effective mechanisms to compensate the key actors on the ground who determine the fate of the forest.”

The Brazilian government has announced plans to slash deforestation in the Amazon region by 72 percent by 2017.

The announcement, made by Environment Minister Carlos Minc in Brasilia on Monday, comes three days after it was revealed that deforestation in the Amazon had increased in 2008 for the first time in 4 years. 

Part of the plan includes adding 3,000 more officers to fight illegal logging in the Amazon.

“This plan improves Brazil’s image, we’ll have more moral authority internationally,” Minc told reporters after announcing the plan.

The 72 percent figure comes from comparing against an annual deforestation average between 1996 and 2005. Minc says the plan would reduce deforestation by 72% when compared with the 7,330 square miles lost on average each year during that period.

Reduced Carbon Emissions

Brazil’s announcement came as this year’s United Nations Climate Change Conference commenced in Poznań, Poland. 

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva believes that the plan puts Brazil ahead of many other countries attending the conference.

“We will surely receive criticism, but we can say that we are presenting a better one than China or India, and better than others that still haven’t signed the Kyoto Protocol,” he said.

Minc shares the president’s view ”Just in terms of avoided deforestation in the Amazon, the plan foresees a reduction of 4.8 billion tons of carbon dioxide that won’t be emitted up to 2018, which is more than the reduction efforts fixed by all the rich countries,” he explained.

Reforestation

Brazil not only plans to reduce deforestation, but also plans to double the reforested areas to 11 million hectares by 2020.

“This means that by 2015 we will be planting more trees than cutting,” Minc said.

Brazil’s Forestry Service Welcomes the Plan

The Brazilian government’s forestry service welcomes the announcement.

“We can now adopt targets because we now have the instruments to implement them” said Tasso Azevedo, head of the forestry service.

The ‘instruments’ Azevedo refers to is the new Amazon fund established earlier this year.

The Amazon Fund

The Amazon Fund is a fund established to preserve millions of acres of the Amazon as quickly as possible. 

Through the fund, Brazil hopes to attract $21 billion in donations from rich countries to protect the Amazon.

Norway has already made a pledge of up to $1 billion to the fund. Norway’s contribution will be made by installments, each one being made on the condition that deforestation had reduced during the previous year.

Marine reserves currently provide coral reefs with little protection against global issues such as climate change and disease outbreaks.

Marine reserves, while effective at protecting coral reefs against local issues, are not protecting them against global issues such as climate change, according to Associate Professor John Bruno from the University of North Carolina.

Professor Bruno presented his findings to the Ecological Society of Australia’s annual conference at the University of Sydney.

18 Years of Data

In a speech entitled Climate change and coral reef resilience: are we expecting too much from marine reserves?, professor Bruno and former graduate student Elizabeth Selig compared 18 years worth of data collected from 8,540 coral reefs in the Indian, Caribbean and Pacific regions between 1987 and 2005. 

They found that, while marine reserves are important for protecting fish populations, maintaining coral reef food webs and protecting against anchor damage, they are unlikely to prevent coral loss due to increased sea temperatures.

“We found that while coral loss was reduced in marine reserves, the rate of coral decline with warmer temperatures was just the same in marine reserves as in highly fished areas,” professor Bruno explained.

Largest Threat

Bruno believes that regional and global issues are the largest threats to marine reserves. 

“The biggest stresses put on coral reefs are ocean warming and disease outbreaks,” he says. “These stresses are regional and global in scale and local protection through marine reserves is unlikely to help these reefs resist such changes.”

Older Reserves Are More Resilient

Although marine reserves don’t directly guard against regional and global issues, professor Bruno did find that older reserves are in a better position to protect against coral loss than younger reserves.

“We don’t know the reason for this result, although we can speculate that it could be due to longer-term marine reserves being better managed or established,” he says.

Future Protection

Bruno believes that we need to think long term and establish marine reserves that can protect coral reefs from unknown future threats.

“Restoring and protecting corals from climate change requires urgent implementation of regional and global strategies to deal with the root causes of climate change, including reducing carbon emissions.”