Massive road and rail projects could be Africa's greatest environmental challenge

[Extract] Africa's natural environments and spectacular wildlife are about to face their biggest challenge ever. In a paper published today in Current Biology, my colleagues and I assess the dramatic environmental changes that will be driven by an infrastructure-expansion scheme so sweeping in scope, it is dwarfing anything the Earth’s biggest continent has ever been forced to endure

Reconciliation through ecological collaboration (commentary)

Peace is always kinder to the environment than war. But in the South Caucasus, restoring the environment together may help strengthen peace

The scariest part of climate change isn’t what we know, but what we don’t

[Extract]"It's tough to make predictions, especially about the future": so goes a Danish proverb attributed variously to baseball coach Yogi Berra and physicist Niels Bohr. Yet some things are so important — such as projecting the future impacts of climate change on the environment — that we obviously must try

The global road-building explosion is shattering nature

[Extract] If you asked a friend to name the worst human threat to nature, what would they say? Global warming? Overhunting? Habitat fragmentation? A new study suggests it is in fact road-building

The good, the bad and the way forward in the Amazon

The world’s greatest rainforest is caught up in a cyclonic mix of beneficial and adverse events. What we do now will make all the difference

Climate change is killing off Earth’s little creatures

But a global review of insect research has found another casualty: 40% of insect species are declining and a third are endangered. It confirms what many have been suspecting: in Australia and around the world, arthropods – which include insects, spiders,centipedes and the like — appear to be in trouble

China's growing footprint on the globe threatens to trample the natural world

Many observers of China’s escalating global program of foreign investment and infrastructure development are crossing their fingers and hoping for the best. In an ideal world, China’s unbridled ambitions will improve economic growth, food security and social development in many poor nations, as well as enriching itself. Such hopes are certainly timely, given the isolationism of the US Trump administration, which has created an international leadership vacuum that China is eager to fill. But a close look reveals that China’s international agenda is far more exploitative than many realise, especially for the global environment. And the Chinese leadership’s claims to be embracing “green development” are in many cases more propaganda than fact

Apes, protected areas and infrastructure in Africa

[Extract] Equatorial Africa sustains the continent's highest levels of biodiversity, especially in the wet and humid tropical forests that harbor Africa's apes. This equatorial region, like much of sub-Saharan Africa, is facing dramatic changes in the extent, number and environmental impact of large-scale infrastructure projects. A key concern is how such projects and the broader land use changes they promote will affect protected areas—a cornerstone of wildlife conservation efforts. This chapter assesses the potential impact of new and planned infrastructure projects on protected areas in tropical Africa, particularly those harboring critical ape habitats. It focuses on Africa not because tropical Asia is any less important, but because analyses of comparable detail are available only for certain parts of the Asian tropics (Clements et al., 2014; Meijaard and Wich, 2014; Wich et al., 2016). Such knowledge gaps underscore the importance of future work on infrastructure impacts in Asia

Around the world, environmental laws are under attack in all sorts of ways

[Extract] As President Donald Trump mulls over whether to pull out of the Paris climate agreement, it is hard to imagine that he’s listening to the experts. US climate researchers are being so stifled, ignored or blackballed that France has now offered sanctuary to these misunderstood souls

The case for introducing rhinos to Australia

[Extract] Rhinos in Australia might seem like an insane proposition – after all, we’ve had historically bad luck with introduced species. But on reflection it’s not quite as crazy as it sounds. There are five species of rhinoceros in the world: two in Africa and three in Asia. The world of all five species is being rapidly destroyed and shredded, their savanna and forest habitats sliced apart by clearings, fences, roads, and other obstructions