Category: 9. Environment

  • Finance and support are key to fishers adopting eco-friendly gear, study shows

    Finance and support are key to fishers adopting eco-friendly gear, study shows

    Access to financing, the support of a peer group, and a general awareness of environmental problems are all factors that make it more likely a fisher will switch to using eco-friendly gear, a new study shows. The findings come from a three-month survey of nearly 650 blue swimming crab fishers on the north coast of…

  • 2024 outlook for rainforests

    2024 outlook for rainforests

    Last week, Mongabay published a recap of the major trends in the world’s tropical rainforests for 2023. Here’s a brief look at some of the key issues to monitor in 2024. These include: Brazil, elections in DRC and Indonesia, forest carbon markets, el Niño, global inflation and commodity prices, advancements in forest data, and progress…

  • Sumatran dugong hunter struggles to adapt to changing times

    Sumatran dugong hunter struggles to adapt to changing times

    The herbivorous dugong was classed as a vulnerable species in 1982 by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. Hunters like Munsa in Bintan, a cluster of islands between Sumatra and Singapore, have retired from hunting the mammal in response to conservation initiatives. However, Munsa complains that the family’s income has plummeted, and that he…

  • As the world swims in plastic, some offer an answer: Ban the toxic two

    As the world swims in plastic, some offer an answer: Ban the toxic two

    Anti-plastic campaigners have achieved limited initial success in passing bans based on the toxic health effects of some plastic types, especially those that contain known carcinogens and hormone-disrupting chemicals. Some activists say that two of the most toxic types of plastic, polystyrene and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) should be completely banned. But so far, bans of…

  • Illegal gold mining devastates Peruvian Amazon river and communities

    Illegal gold mining devastates Peruvian Amazon river and communities

    Mongabay Latam traveled along 38 kilometers (24 miles) of Peru’s Cenepa River, near the border with Ecuador, where illegal mining dredges run around the clock in search of gold, hemming in seven Indigenous Awajún communities. The constant mining activity and presence of the miners has brought violence, crime and sexual exploitation to the Awajún communities…

  • Biofactory offers ‘new way of living’ for forest communities

    Biofactory offers ‘new way of living’ for forest communities

    The Surucuá community in the state of Pará is the first to receive an Amazonian Creative Laboratory, a compact mobile biofactory designed to help kick-start the Amazon’s bioeconomy. Instead of simply harvesting forest-grown crops, traditional communities in the Amazon Rainforest can use the biofactories to process, package and sell bean-to-bar chocolate and similar products at…

  • Fishing with pesticides and dynamite puts Ecuadorian Amazon in peril

    Fishing with pesticides and dynamite puts Ecuadorian Amazon in peril

    Illegal fishing with agrochemicals and explosives across several of Ecuador’s Amazonian states is an uncontrolled problem, causing long-lasting, irreversible damage to aquatic ecosystems, recent research has shown. The study links high levels of poverty to the wider practice of unsustainable fishing, and calls for tighter controls on the sale and availability of agrochemicals and dynamite…

  • Impact of battery electric vehicle usage on air quality in three Chinese first-tier cities

    Industrialized countries, particularly China, are grappling with the challenge of mitigating air pollution amidst rapid urbanization. As per the International Energy Agency, China’s CO2 emissions in 2021 accounted for a staggering 33% of the global total, amounting to 11.9 billion tonnes. The transportation sector, a major contributor to China’s carbon footprint, is responsible for about…

  • Meteorological variability and predictive forecasting of atmospheric particulate pollution

    Table 1 summarizes the seasonal characteristics of PM10 pollution and meteorological conditions in Brunei-Muara district from 2009 to 2019. In this time period, only 1.1% of the daily average PM10 concentrations were greater than the 2006 WHO Global AQG limit for daily average PM10 concentration (i.e., 50 μg/m3)18 and only 1.4% of the daily average PM10…

  • Sunscreen Contaminants Found in Arctic Snow For The First Time : ScienceAlert

    Sunscreen Contaminants Found in Arctic Snow For The First Time : ScienceAlert

    The fingerprints of human activity are stamped all over the globe: in the microplastics and ‘forever chemicals’ that have wafted up to the Arctic and rained down over us; in the swirling masses of plastic refuse in the middle of the Pacific Ocean that few ever see; and in the greenhouse gas emissions that are…