Conservation News ~ 16 October 2020

• Harvard fund evades justice in land-grabbing case over Cerrado farm                      
• Researchers discover fossils of new species of reptile in Arizona
• AG Opposes White House’s Proposal Against Endangered Species Act     
• Burn scars, winter storms threaten rare and endangered species in San Gabriel Mountains
• Animal conservation groups to sue federal government over dwindling giraffe population
• Professor Claire Kremen wins the coveted Volvo Environment Prize 2020
• Critically Endangered Red Wolf Illegally Killed in August; Only 7 Known to Remain in Wild
• Maui has begun the process of managed retreat and it wants big oil to pay the cost of sea level rise
• NASA and international partners sign Artemis Accords
• Imperiled desert tortoises join California’s endangered list
• Bobcat fire aftermath threatens endangered species in San Gabriel Mountains
• Michigan poacher who killed 18 wolves and bald eagle gets hunting license revoked for life
• Greener play areas boost children’s immune systems
• In the horn of Africa, conflict and illegal trade create a ‘cheetah hell’
• The Great Barrier Reef has lost half its corals
• Indonesia’s new deregulation law to hurt small fishers, coastal communities
• Canada will ban plastic bags by end of next year
• China still allowing use of pangolin scales in traditional medicine
• Israel moves to ban ‘immoral’ animal fur trade
• 3,500 tuna held in cages illegally for a year finally released
• Over 30,000 sea turtles eggs seized from trick in Oaxaca
• Judge strikes down Obama-era rule limiting methane pollution, Big Oil is ‘overjoyed’
• Environmentalists and dam operators, at war for years, start making peace
• New aloe species discovered from a desert in northwestern India
• Terrifying new species of turkey-like dinosaur discovered in the Gobi Desert
• Indonesia is putting business before the environment and that could be disastrous for its rainforest
• God intended it as a disposable planet: the US pastor preaching climate change
• Sumatran bridge project in elephant habitat may exacerbate degradation
• Nobel laureate who helped save the ozone layer dies
• Tucson heat prompts AZ leaders to consider declaring a Climate Emergency
• CA Exide battery recycling plant left big toxic mess, could it walk away
• COVID-19 outbreak kills nearly 10,000 minks on Utah fur farm
• David Attenborough leads call for world to invest $500 billion a year to protect nature
• Public lands chief refuses to leave his post despite judge’s order
• BLM acquisition boosts access by public along Gunnison River
• Researchers map the anatomy of the mysteriously shaped beetle
• New species of ancient maritime predators discovered in Morocco
• Conservationists condemn US failure to protect wolverines
• When the US and China fight, it is the environment that suffers
• Carbon capture ‘moonshot’ moves closer as billions of dollars pour in
• Maryland will become the first state to ban foam food service products
• Six new species of butterflies add colour to Kondapalli reserve forest
• Real and imminent extinction risk to whales
• People, not carbon emissions, should be at the heart of the west’s climate action
• Puerto Rican Harlequin Butterfly proposed for Endangered Species Act protection
• RBC becomes first major Canadian bank to refuse to fund oil drilling in Arctic refuge
• Hidden beneath the Ocean’s surface, nearly 16 million tons of microplastic
• The Marangoni effect can be used to obtain freshwater from the sea
• New evidence suggests China’s dark vessels poached in Galapagos waters
• Madagascar’s top court criticizes government handling of mining project
• Brazil reports lower deforestation, higher fires in September
• Mining covers more than 20% of Indigenous territory in the Amazon
• We’re not protecting enough of the right areas to save biodiversity
• On a Philippine mountain, researchers describe a ‘fire flower’ orchid species
• The Union of BC Indian Chiefs has released a resolution about the fate of old-growth forest in BD