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Jokowi pushes universities innovate to fight haze as respiratory diseases rise
Posted by Mongabay: None Given on November 6th, 2015
Mongabay: Indonesia’s ministry of higher education is attempting to create a research consortium on disaster management.
Data from Indonesia’s disaster management agency showed the number of people diagnosed with acute respiratory infection increased to 556,945 by November 6.
After a limited cabinet meeting on Wednesday to discuss peat management, Jokowi said he wanted the research department of Yogyakarta’s University of Gadjah Mada to play a central role in proposing Indonesia’s new peat strategy....
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Photos confirm Indonesia being burned for palm oil
Posted by Mongabay: None Given on November 5th, 2015
Mongabay: New photos released today by Greenpeace show that palm oil developers are quickly planting burned peatlands with oil palm seedlings in Indonesian Borneo.
The findings strongly refute a statement made by GAPKI, Indonesia's palm oil trade association, which claimed that the country's palm oil industry is the victim of a smear campaign.
Greenpeace noted that there is no way to know who burned the land because the Indonesian government hasn't released concession maps for the area in years. That...
Gold mining boom threatening communities in Suriname
Posted by Mongabay: None Given on November 4th, 2015
Mongabay: High gold prices combined with lax land use regulations have led to an explosion in mining in Suriname. A recent report by the Amazon Conservation Team (ACT) finds that gold mining in the small South American country grew by 893 percent between 2000 and 2014, and is threatening the health and ways of life of many communities in the region. Much of the small-scale and industrial gold mining in Suriname is taking place within the boundaries of the traditional territories of the Maroons – descendants...
Greenpeace releases dramatic haze photos as Indo fire emissions surpass 1.6B tons
Posted by Mongabay: None Given on November 1st, 2015
Mongabay: Emissions from fires burning across Indonesia's peatlands and forests have now surpassed Japan's annual emissions and could pass Brazil's by the end of the week,
But emissions have slowed in recent days with the return of rainfall to parts of Sumatra and Kalimantan which have been most affected by fire.
Nonetheless, vast areas of Indonesia are still affected by choking air pollution, which is estimated to have caused more than 500,000 cases of haze-related respiratory illnesses and killed more...
Catastrophic failure’: World’s indigenous communities lack rights 75% their land
Posted by Mongabay: None Given on October 2nd, 2015
Mongabay: The report finds indigenous peoples and local communities have legal rights to just 18 percent of the world's land area.
Lack of indigenous land rights can contribute to poverty, loss of cultural identity, and environmental destruction.
Many countries have the means to extend land rights in the near future.
Around 1.5 billion people worldwide are members of indigenous communities, many of whom depend on the land around them to survive. However, a new analysis published this week finds that...
Haze chokehold spurring efforts to save Indonesia’s forests
Posted by Mongabay: None Given on August 19th, 2015
Mongabay: This is the first part in a two-part series on fires in Indonesia and what`s being done to stop them.
The annual burning of Indonesian rainforests represents an example of the increasing clouding of regional-global divides when it comes to environmental problems.
Many Southeast Asians are wondering if they will have to withstand another blanket of haze from rainforest fires as Indonesia enters its annual dry season. Signs of an impending El Nino weather pattern mean the country’s traditional...
Hurricane intensity, frequency to increase with climate change
Posted by Mongabay: None Given on July 8th, 2013
Mongabay: Warmer ocean temperatures will increase the frequency and intensity of tropical cyclones, typhoons and hurricanes in "most locations" this century, concludes a new study based on simulations using six global climate models.
The research, published by MIT's Kerry Emanuel in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, projects the largest increase in cyclones in the western North Pacific. The only region that may see a decline in storm activity is the southwestern Pacific, according to the...
Scientists slam Telegraph blogger’s claims that climate change will be good for the Amazon
Posted by Mongabay: None Given on July 12th, 2012
Mongabay: Recent blog posts on The Telegraph and the Register claiming that tropical rainforests like the Amazon are set to benefit from climate change are "uninformed" and "ridiculous" according to some of the world's most eminent tropical forest scientists.
The posts, published Sunday and Monday by Tim Worstall, a Senior Fellow at London's Adam Smith Institute, asserted that a new Nature study indicates that "climate change will mean new and larger tropical forests."
"We're told, endlessly, that climate...
Humans drove rainforest into savannah in ancient Africa
Posted by Mongabay: None Given on February 9th, 2012
Mongabay: Three thousand years ago (around 1000 BCE) several large sections of the Congo rainforest in central Africa suddenly vanished and became savannah. Scientists have long believed the loss of the forest was due to changes in the climate, however a new study in Science implicates an additional culprit: humans. The study argues that a migration of farmers into the region led to rapid land-use changes from agriculture and iron smelting, eventually causing the collapse of rainforest in places and a rise...
Climate change already worsening weird, deadly, and expensive weather
Posted by Mongabay: None Given on November 2nd, 2011
Mongabay: Unprecedented flooding in Thailand, torrential rains pummeling El Salvador, long-term and beyond-extreme drought in Texas, killer snowstorm in the eastern US-and that's just the last month or so. Extreme weather worldwide appears to be both increasing in frequency and intensity, and a new report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) connects the dots between wilder weather patterns and global climate change. Leaked to the Associated Press and the AFP, the draft report warns that...