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☆ You can buy an endangered monkey on Facebook in 20 minutes
▼ + stars: | 2024-03-23 | by ( Katherine Tangalakis-Lippert | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

It took BI 20 minutes to find endangered squirrel monkeys and other exotic species for sale. Used lawn furniture, homemade baked goods… endangered species. 20 minutes to monkeysIt took BI less than two minutes to identify Facebook accounts selling the bowmouth guitarfish horns. Advertisement"In just two mouse clicks, our researchers could locate substantial wildlife trafficking content," researchers behind the ACCO study wrote. "Facilitated by transnational organized crime networks, with links to drug, human, and weapon trafficking, illegal wildlife trade threatens not only wildlife populations," Allan told BI.

Persons: —, Crawford Allan, Allan, Jill Atkins Organizations: Facebook, Service, World Wildlife Fund, Coalition, Meta, Products, BI, Wildlife Fund, Wildlife, Alliance, WWF, United Nations, Sheffield University Management School, University of Sheffield

☆ ‘Save the Whales’ was a shining success. Now can humpbacks save us from ourselves?
▼ + stars: | 2024-02-04 | by ( Bill Weir | ) edition.cnn.com time to read: +15 min

Antarctic Peninsula CNN —About 15 billion miles from where you sit, two 12-inch golden records are hurtling through outer space with multilingual greetings to the universe from 55 humans and one humpback whale. WWF's Johnson said the whales are not harmed by this -- to the whales, the dart feels like "a mosquito bite." It feels like “a mosquito bite” to the whales, Johnson said, but what they can test for is priceless: from stress hormones to toxins to — most importantly — pregnancy rates. Ten million copies were inserted into National Geographic magazine in 1979 — the largest single pressing in history — and a global movement to Save The Whales grew big enough to … save the whales. Seth Wenig/AP“I don’t think a wind turbine can kill a whale,” Friedlaender told CNN.

Persons: Anderson Cooper, Carl Sagan, ” Sagan, could’ve, “, Ari Friedlaender, Friedlaender, ”, Chris Johnson, ” Eva Prendergast, WWF's Johnson, Evelio Contreras, Bill Weir, Johnson, ” Friedlaender, Shepherd, WWF’s Johnson, Roger, Katy Payne, David Keyton, Frank Watlington, cetologist Scott McVay, Donald Trump, ” Trump, Seth Wenig, that’s, Biden, ” Johnson, Twain, CNN “, ” Brenda McCowan, Fred Sharpe, ” McCowan, ’ ” Sharpe, Natalia Botero, Acosta, ’, Maria Camila Medina Martínez, Julian Quinones, ” Carl Sagan Organizations: Antarctic Peninsula CNN, “, ” CNN CNN, University of California, International Monetary Fund, World Wildlife Fund, Ocean Endeavor, CNN, UC Santa Cruz, Shepherd Global, Norwegian Aker, United Nations, Geographic, Whales, International Whaling Commission, Atlantic, Republican, Templeton Foundation, Whale SETI, UC Davis Locations: Santa Cruz, Colombia, British, Antarctica, Norwegian, Southern, Orkney, Bermuda, Japan, Norway, Iceland, Atlantic, South Carolina, Lido Beach , New York, Davis, Alaska, Columbia, Colombian, Tribuga, United Nations, Palau, Chile, Maldives

Climate Change Conference (COP 28) that opens on Nov. 30 in Dubai. Neither floods nor fires are new to Greece but with climate change, they are becoming a frequent disruptor to an economy dependent on tourism and farming. "We have to change our prediction methods," Skylakakis said, acknowledging the rapid pace of climate change. Mitsotakis has urged the EU to top up its solidarity fund and help countries tackle the impact of climate change. Adaptation measures worth 67 billion euros could reduce that loss to 510 billion euros, the country's leading economic think tank IOBE said in a February report.

Persons: Louisa Gouliamaki, Dimitris Kouretas, Kouretas, Theodore Skylakakis, Storm Daniel, Kostas Agorastos, Giorgos Stasinos, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, Sokratis Famellos, Skylakakis, Thanos Giannakakis, Nikos Papathanasis, Miltiadis Gkouzouris, Mitsotakis, Petros Varelidis, Lefteris Papadimas, Renee Maltezou, Michele Kambas, Daniel Flynn Organizations: Reuters, United Nations Environment Program, Mount Olympus, HVA, Chamber, European, Justice, EU, Water Management, Environment Ministry, Thomson Locations: Vlohos, Greece, Greece's, Thessaly, Europe, Dubai, Los Angeles, Dutch, Athens, Thessaly's, Mouzaki, Netherlands

☆ A rapid clean-energy transition could save 181 million years of healthy human life annually by 2050, report finds
▼ + stars: | 2023-11-08 | by ( Morgan Mcfall-Johnsen | Maiya Focht | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +7 min

A rapid transition to green energy sources would prevent a lot of disability and early death, researchers say. In the year 2050 alone, the transition's impact amounts to 181 million future years of healthy human life, a new report found. Add to that list 181 million years of healthy human life — annually. Mohammad Ponir Hossain/ReutersDisability-adjusted life years, or DALYs, capture years of life affected by disability and years lost to premature death. If the world rapidly transitions to renewables, they found, the energy system will still hurt human health enough in 2050 to lead to early death and disability that affects 30 million years of human life.

Persons: Martin Meissner, it's, Stephanie Roe, WWF's, Mohammad Ponir Hossain, Nick Oxford, Dylan Martinez, Jonathan Buonocore, Buonocore, Lyu, Roe Organizations: Service, Wildlife Fund, Boston Consulting, Reuters, American Lung Association . Mines, Harvard, Boston University School of Public Health, WWF, China News Service, Getty, International Energy Agency, Stanford Locations: Haltern, Germany, Dhaka, Bangladesh, Texas, Fujian Province, China

Zambia has become a test case for the G20-led 'Common Framework' restructuring vehicle launched during the COVID-19 pandemic, but differences with some of its main creditors about the debt relief required means progress has been slow. Its vast swathes of national parks are home or migration routes for some of Africa's most impressive wildlife including lions and elephants. "We will be considering all debt restructuring options that are in the framework (G20 Common Framework)which falls within the DSA (debt sustainability analysis) parameters... and that are acceptable to all parties," the ministry's response added. KAZA conservation areaCOMMON FRAMEWORKWWF's Zambia country head, Nachilala Nkombo, told Reuters that the most recent talks with the government took place last month. Sri Lanka, another Common Framework restructuring country, has said that it would like to do a debt-for-nature swap and with Zambia still hoping to wrap up its deal this year it would likely set a precedent.

"There's now a big push to get nature into sovereign debt markets," said Simon Zadek, executive director at NatureFinance, which advises governments on debt-for-nature swaps and other types of climate-focused finance. At that level, it would be the biggest debt-for-nature swap struck to date. The combined value of swap deals to date is $3.7 billion, according to the data. Securing the buy-in of development banks is usually key for the economics of a deal. The WWF has projects in Central and South America where they are monitoring deforestation by tracking jaguars, said Brenes, who has worked on debt-for-nature swaps for the last 25 years.

For more than 70 days this summer, a marine heatwave cooked the waters of the western Mediterranean. "We've been witnessing marine heatwaves during the last 20 years," said Garrabou, who's also coordinator of the T-MEDNet marine monitoring network. A 2016 marine heatwave along Chile's southern coast caused huge algae blooms that wiped out fish farms and cost the aquaculture industry some $800 million, said scientist Kathryn Smith with the Marine Biological Association of the United Kingdom. As the world warms, marine heatwaves are expected to become more frequent, according to the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Though economists have yet to account fully for the impacts of marine heatwaves, recent experience has many concerned.

☆ Global wildlife populations have sunk 69% since 1970 - WWF report
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-12 | by ( Gloria Dickie | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) report, which used 2018 data from ZSL on the status of 32,000 wildlife populations covering more than 5,000 species, found that population sizes had declined by 69% on average. One population of pink river dolphins in the Brazilian Amazon plummeted by 65% between 1994 and 2016, the report said. Its findings were broadly similar to those in WWF's last assessment in 2020, with wildlife population sizes continuing to decline at a rate of about 2.5% per year, Terry said. "Nature was in dire straits and it is still in dire straits," said Mark Wright, director of science at WWF-UK. Still, the wide-ranging declines have prompted desperate pleas for increased support for nature.

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