Animals of the Serengeti – book review
Animals of the Serengeti: And Ngorongoro Conservation Area by Adam Scott Kennedy and Vicki Kennedy is an easy-to-use guidebook that is also very readable. The region covered by the book…
Tanzania News
Sky islands: exploring East Africa’s last frontier
Forest canopy on the sky island of Nyungwe, Rwanda. Photo by: Michele Menegon. The montane rainforests of East Africa are little-known to the global public. The Amazon and Congo loom…
Tanzania should implement shoot-to-kill policy for poachers, says government minister
A government minister in Tanzania has called for a "shoot-to-kill" policy against poachers in a radical measure to curb the mass slaughter of elephants. Khamis Kagasheki's proposal for perpetrators of…
Protecting predators in the wildest landscape you’ve never heard of
A Ruaha male lion in his prime. Photo © : Sasja van Vechgel. The Serengeti, the Congo, the Okavango Delta: many of Africa's great wildernesses are household names, however on…
Safeguarding nine priority areas could protect all of Tanzania’s primates
Researchers at the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) have recently developed a list of “Priority Primate Areas” to save Tanzania’s many primate species from extinction. A hub of unique and endangered…
Obama to take on elephant and rhino poaching in Africa
Barack Obama launched a new initiative against wildlife trafficking on Monday, using his executive authority to take action against an illegal trade that is fueling rebel wars and now threatens…
Compromise on Serengeti road?: build an elevated highway
Famed anthropologist and conservationist Richard Leakey has proposed a possible solution to the hugely controversial Serengeti road: build an elevated highway. Leakey made the remarks during a conference at Rutgers…
Poachers enlisting impoverished wildlife rangers as accomplices in elephant, rhino killing
Defensive elephants in Tanzania, where experts say corrupt wildlife rangers have helped poachers decimate the nation's elephants for the black market ivory trade. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Corruption among…
Elephant woes: conservationists mixed on elephant actions at CITES
Eleventh century horn made of ivory in Louvre. Today ivory is often used to make religious items for Catholics and Buddhists, among other decorative luxury-goods. To get ivory, poachers shoot…
Animals of the Masai Mara – book review
Spotted hyena in the Masai Mara. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Animals of the Masai Mara is the first illustrated guidebook to the Masai Mara region along the Kenya and…
Poaching in Serengeti seems worth the risk
Zebras in the Ngorongoro Crater, a part of the Greater Serengeti Ecosystem. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Illegal hunting in Tanzania's Greater Serengeti Ecosystem (GSE) remains a prevalent activity for…
New inroads made into bushmeat consumption in Tanzania
African buffalo are a common target for bushmeat in Tanzania. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Bushmeat consumption, or "wildlife hunted for human consumption," poses a significant threat to wildlife conservation…
Vanishing corridors: trying to keep big animals on the move across Tanzania
Perturbed male elephant in Tanzania. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. One of the biggest challenges for big African wildlife like lions, elephants, and buffalo is movement across native habitat that…
Lion population falls 68 percent in 50 years
Female lion with wildebeest kill in Tanzania. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. African lions, one of the most iconic species on the planet, are in rapid decline. According to a…
Tanzania weighs new soda ash plant in prime flamingo territory
Lesser flamingoes in Kenya. One third of the world's lesser flamingoes nest in Tanzania's Lake Natron. Photo by: Steve Garvie. In a choice between flamingoes and a soda ash plant,…
Artificial ‘misting system’ allows vanished toad to be released back into the wild
A captive Kihansi spray toad at the WCS Bronx Zoo. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. In 1996 scientists discovered a new species of dwarf toad: the Kihansi spray toad (Nectophrynoides…
Authorities confiscate 600 dead elephants’ worth of ivory in Hong Kong
Hong Kong and Guangdong Customs confiscate two shipments of illegal elephant tusks, weighing around 3,813 kilogrammes (8,388 pounds). Photo courtesy of Hong Kong and Guangdong Customs. Hong Kong authorities have…
Bushmeat consumption differs between communities in Tanzania
African Buffalo is a target for hunters in Tanzania. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Bushmeat consumption depends on the make-up of individual communities, according to a new study in the…
Forest cover falls 9% in East Africa in 9 years
Forest in Bwindi Impenetrable National Park, Uganda. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Forest cover in East Africa has dropped by 9.3 percent from 2001-2009, according to a new paper published…
Poaching in the Serengeti linked to poverty, high legal hunting prices
Lion with kill in the Serengeti ecosystem. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. In the effort to protect the Serengeti—arguably Africa's most famous ecosystem—one of the major problems is the bushmeat…
Ten African nations pledge to transform their economies to take nature into account
African elephants at Chobe River in Botswana. Photo by: Tiffany Roufs. Last month ten African nations, led by Botswana, pledged to incorporate "natural capital" into their economies. Natural capital, which…
Blue tarantula, walking cactus, and a worm from Hell: the top 10 new species of 2011
Sazima's tarantula: one of the top ten new species discovered in 2011 according to the annual list by the International Institute for Species Exploration at Arizona State University. Photo by:…
Legal case against Serengeti road moves forward
Female lion with wildebeest kill in Tanzania. A decline in the wildebeest population would impact species up and down the food chain. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. A regional case…
Possible embezzlement halts WWF-run REDD project in Tanzania
Forest in Tanzania. Photo by: Rhett A. Butler. Two conservation and community projects in Tanzania have been halted after the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) reported possible corruption. WWF…
Top 10 Environmental Stories of 2011
Victories won by activists around the world tops our list of the big environmental stories of the year. In this photo: a young woman is placed in handcuffs and arrested…
New large horned viper discovered, but biologists keep location quiet
Matilda's horned viper. Photo by: Tim Davenport. In a remote forest fragment in Tanzania, scientists have made a remarkable discovery: a uniquely-colored horned viper extending over two feet long (643…
Fertilizer trees boost yields in Africa
Fertilizer trees—which fix nitrogen in the soil—have improved crops yields in five African countries, according to a new study in the International Journal of Agricultural Sustainability. In some cases yields…
Dam puts wild coffee species at risk of extinction
Coffee may be one of the world's most popular hot (and cold) drinks, however few coffee drinkers may know that there are dozens of different coffee species in the world…
Busted: 1,835 elephant tusks confiscated in two seizures connected by Malaysia
Two massive seizures in the last week—one in Zanzibar and the other in Hong Kong—have confiscated nearly two thousand ivory tusks as elephant poaching continues to rise. Both seizures have…
Cameratraps take global snapshot of declining tropical mammals
Central Suriname Nature Reserve, Suriname. A jaguar (Panthera Onca), a Near Threatened species. Of the sites researched, Suriname's site presented the highest number of species diversity. Photo courtesy of Conservation…
Richard Leakey: ‘selfish’ critics choose wrong fight in Serengeti road
To read more about Tanzania's recent announcement related to the Serengeti road: Unpaved road through Serengeti to progress. The controversial Serengeti road is going ahead, but with conditions. According to…
Unpaved road through Serengeti to progress
To read more about Tanzania's recent announcement related to the Serengeti road: Richard Leakey: 'selfish' critics choose wrong fight in Serengeti road. After a week of confusion, the Tanzanian government…
Special series
Forest Trackers
- Narco airstrips beset Indigenous communities in Peruvian Amazon
- 15 illegal narco-trafficking airstrips found near Peru Indigenous communities
- Satellite data show bursts of deforestation continue in Indonesian national park
- Fires rip through Indigenous territories in Brazilian Amazon
Oceans
- Southeast Asia’s fisheries thrive despite decades of overfishing warnings: Study
- Peruvian fishers sue for additional compensation after big December oil spill
- Smuggling networks exploit migrant debt to fuel tiger poaching in Malaysia, study shows
- Community-based conservation cuts thresher shark fishing by 91% in Indonesia: Study
Amazon Conservation
- ‘World’s largest’ carbon credit deal in the Amazon faces bumpy road ahead
- New conservation model calls for protecting Amazon for its archaeological riches
- Brazil dredges Amazon rivers to ease drought isolation, raising environmental concerns
- ‘We need white men on our side to save the Amazon from destruction,’ 92-year-old Indigenous Chief Raoni says
Land rights and extractives
- ‘Colombia’s Amazon peoples provide solutions’: Interview with José Homero Mutumbajoy
- Should mining companies consider no-go zones where isolated Indigenous peoples live? (Commentary)
- Brazil sets a date to remove illegal miners from Munduruku land, more details await
- Peruvian logger loses FSC label after latest clash with isolated Mashco Piro
Endangered Environmentalists
- Environmental & rights activists flee and hide as M23 captures DRC’s cities
- Environmental journalist in Cambodia shot and killed by suspected logger
- Vietnam sentences yet another energy expert over renewables research
- Mother Nature Cambodia activists sentenced to prison — again
Indonesia's Forest Guardians
- On a Borneo mountainside, Indigenous Dayak women hold fire and defend forest
- Fenced in by Sulawesi national park, Indigenous women make forestry breakout
- In Borneo, the ‘Power of Mama’ fight Indonesia’s wildfires with all-woman crew
- Pioneer agroforester Ermi, 73, rolls back the years in Indonesia’s Gorontalo
Conservation Effectiveness
- How effective is the EU’s marquee policy to reduce the illegal timber trade?
- How sharing and learning from failures can transform conservation (commentary)
- Is planting trees as good for the Earth as everyone says?
- Failure in conservation projects: Everyone experiences it, few record it
Southeast Asian infrastructure
- An ‘ocean grab’ for a property megaproject leaves Jakarta fishers grounded
- Study: Indonesia’s new capital city threatens stable proboscis monkey population
- Indonesia’s new capital ‘won’t sacrifice the environment’: Q&A with Nusantara’s Myrna Asnawati Safitri
- Small farmers in limbo as Cambodia wavers on Tonle Sap conservation rules
