Conservation News ~ 25 December 2020

• Panthera study identifies more reliable metrics to save tigers
• Norway’s Supreme Court Makes Way for More Arctic Drilling
• Zoo Knoxville welcomes endangered baby mountain zebra for holidays
• UWA botanist names, describes new ginger species
• New Mexico methane emissions more than double
• Soy moratorium averted New Jersey-size loss of Amazon
• Oil drops as coronavirus strain revives demand fears
• Colombia’s forests lurch between deforestation and the hope for a sustainable future
• Nation’s largest land bridge for people and wildlife opens in San Antonio
• In Madagascar’s hungry south, drought pushes more than 1 million to brink of famine
• Devastating fires engulf Brazilian Pantanal wetlands again
• Korean artificial sun sets the new world record of 20-sec-long operation over 100 million degrees
• Lava lake forms after Kilauea volcano eruption in Hawaii
• Fleas are parasitic scorpionflies, genetic analysis reveals
• Lawsuit challenges White House’s lifting of roadless rules in Alaska’s Tongass
• Fueled by climate change, wildfires threaten toxic superfund sites
• Billions spent on fighting California wildfires, but little on prevention
• Warming ocean fueled more storms in 2020 Atlantic Hurricane Season
• Court orders EPA to step up asbestos data collection
• The last remaining animals have been rescued from Islamabad Zoo
• Human rights-based conservation is key to protecting biodiversity
• Stimulus bill is laden with climate provisions, including a phasedown of chemical super-pollutants
• Remarkable new species of snake found hidden in a biodiversity collection
• Federal lead-pipe rule overhauled for first time in decades
• Hopi tribe pushed for solutions in long struggle for water
• Ohio passes bill that could bankrupt churches linked to fossil protests
• Prosecution dropped against 2 environmental activists
• Traditional and Indigenous peoples denounce planned Amazon railway
• Pollution, water crisis strengthen calls for environmental law reform in Malaysia
• Songbird trade in Indonesia threatens wild Sunda laughingthrush
• OSU researchers identify ‘new’ species of flower from 100 million years ago
• A new species of mammal may have been found in Africa’s montane forests
• Ribeirinhos win right to waterside Amazon homeland lost to Belo Monte dam
• Critical temperature threshold spells shorter lives for tropical trees
• Liberia gave villagers control over their forests, then a mining company showed up
• A Madagascar forest long protected by its remoteness is now threatened by it
• Microplastics revealed in the placentas of unborn babies
• Ivory Coast creates wildlife sanctuary to protect turtles and sharks
• The pandemic turned the volume down on ocean noise pollution
• Little penguin burrows found for first time in seven years on West Island
• Indonesia’s biofuel bid threatens more deforestation for oil palm plantations
• A new conservation area is created in southern Ecuador
• US Congress takes aim at climate change in massive relief bill
• New population of blue whales discovered in the western Indian Ocean
• Botanist discovers new species of potato orchid in Madagascar
• A new species of bee has been found in WNC
• New nanomaterial helps obtain hydrogen from a liquid energy carrier in a key step toward a stable and clean fuel source
• Sighting of a super rare Chacoan fairy armadillo in Bolivia ‘a dream come true’
• Scotia bank becomes fifth major Canadian bank to refuse to fund oil drilling in Arctic refuge
• New Mexico state land office ends freshwater use by oil and gas industry
• Baby elephant saved with CPR after being hit by motorbike in Thailand
• White House waters down definition of critical habitat for endangered species
• Brazilian woman threatened by Amazon loggers wins global human rights award
• In an oil spill’s aftermath in Peru, new voices lead an Indigenous fight for justice
• Environmentalists seek to block Bahamas oil drilling bid near US coast
• Land inequality is worsening and fueling other social ills
• When invaders moved into their land, Brazil’s Karipuna people pushed back
• Two newly discovered species of fungi species turn flies into zombies
• New tree-spider crab species with purple patches described from Kerala mangroves
• New bee discovered after fire in Great Smoky Mountains
• 10,800 years ago, early humans planted forest islands in Amazonia’s grasslands
• New Mexico Rancher who pleaded guilty to bludgeoning endangered wolf admitted trapping, beating others
• Camera traps document wildfire’s return to Gorongosa National Park
• Windfarms in Great Britain break record for clean power generation
• Elephant decline revealed by shipwreck cargo
• IUCN report documents additional 31 species extinct, all freshwater threatened
• Action plan launched to conserve giraffe in Tanzania
• 160 years later, study shows Charles Darwin was right about why insects are losing the ability to fly
• Rare sighting of bobcat in the Bronx River, a sign of a healthier waterway
• Scientists plan mission to biggest iceberg as it drifts towards island
• An unusual meteorite, more valuable than gold, may hold the building blocks of life
• As smaller wolves die huge wolves from Ontario establish on Isle Royale National Park
• Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes call to rename Colorado’s Mt. Evans and reckon with its namesake’s violent legacy
• A coal plant in India has found a way to turn almost all its CO2 emissions into baking powder
• The Rockefeller Foundation, a $5billion foundation literally founded on oil money is saying goodbye to fossil fuels
• State Supreme Court blocks proposed gold mine near Yellowstone
• Peruvian court absolves cacoa company of illegal Amazon deforestation
• For the first time in more than 80 years, salmon spawning in the upper Columbian River
• Chinese companies and Namibian elites make million illegally logging the last rosewoods
• Mayor of Freetown, Sierra Leone is on a mission to plant a million trees in two years
• Giant Aztec skull tower unearthed in Mexico
• Illegal Russian lumber flooded Europe despite timber laws
• Research breakthrough could transform clean energy technology
• Lloyd’s market to quit fossil fuel insurance by 2030
• New Princeton says the US can go carbon neutral by 2050
• Devastating skin disease covering up to 70% of a dolphin’s body tied to climate change
• Long Beach’s Aquarium of the Pacific turns to public to keep animals fed
• Biden to nominate Brenda Mallory to run council on environmental quality
• Indonesia allows use of destructive seine and trawl nets in its waters again
• Biden to pick North Carolina Regulator Michale Regan to lead EPA
• New catalytic process turns plastic bags into adhesives
• Biden selects Deb Haaland as Interior secretary
• Report finds litany of labor abuses on RSPO-certified oil palm plantations
• On plantations and in protected areas, Sumatran elephants keep turning up dead
• Victorian woman charged with animal cruelty after almost 130 wedge-tailed eagles found dead
• Plastic cleanup brings crocodiles back to Indian river
• The Uk is sending robot submarine to watch the world’s largest iceberg crash into an island
• In rare event, 90k turtles hatch on a beach in Brazil
• Scientist left speechless after opening asteroid samples containing seemingly organic matter
• US Fish and Wildlife Service says Oregon’s Spotted Owls should be reclassified as an Endangered Species
• Lasers reveal steep decline in ecosystem function of degraded Amazon forests
• UN honours Young Champions of the Earth
• White House weakens Endangered Species Act amidst biodiversity crisis
• IUCN World Conservation Congress in Marseilles rescheduled to September 2021
• Amphibian die-offs worsened malaria outbreaks in Central America