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[标题] 保护大象:叫停合法象牙贸易远远不够

The Guardian - Sun, 2016-12-18 00:28

关闭全球合法象牙交易市场对拯救大象具有重要意义,但要彻底根除偷猎大象和非法象牙消费,我们必须对非法象牙贸易宣战。 (翻译:金艳/chinadialogue)

目前看来,一个不可避免的趋势是几乎所有合法象牙交易市场最终都将关闭。这是一个由多家动物权利及福利组织共同提出的大象保护首选方案,其目的就是阻止大象偷猎行为。这些组织认为,象牙合法贸易会为非法交易提供掩护,并刺激象牙需求。

支持该计划的人认为,废除合法贸易,需求就会下降。禁止一切象牙销售有两大益处,一是方便执法,二是可以避免消费者买到非法产品。现在,认同这一观点的人越来越多。今年9月,世界自然保护联盟通过一项提议,建议全球所有国家关闭自己的国内象牙市场。几星期后的10月,《濒危野生动植物物种国际贸易公约》第17届缔约方会议召开,会上也通过了类似的提案。

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For the forest ponies, holly is not just for Christmas

The Guardian - Sat, 2016-12-17 15:30

Red Shoot wood, New Forest A pony will strain every muscle in its neck to reach the most tender branch-end leaves

As we press on along the ridge above the wood, on the north side of the path we find ponies raising the browse line as they stretch high into the hollies. A large white one strains every muscle in its neck to get at the most tender branch-end leaves. Forest ponies eat a huge quantity of holly during the cold weather. People often cut branches to make life easier for them, but this group don’t need any help.

On the other side, we spot one of the woodland’s giants that has come to grief. Possibly dating from the origins of Red Shoot Wood in the 17th and 18th centuries, this huge oak has been caught by some vortex-wind, and lifted enough to break the myriad of cable-like roots anchoring it into the shallow clay that coats the underlying gravels.

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'Phone seismometers' prove their worth

BBC - Sat, 2016-12-17 11:12
An app that turns a smartphone into an earthquake detector helps citizens monitor tremors.
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UK fishing industry 'will need EU market access' post Brexit

BBC - Sat, 2016-12-17 11:06
The UK fishing industry will need continued access to EU markets after Brexit, a House of Lords report warns.
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Picking the snottygobble out of emu poo

ABC Environment - Sat, 2016-12-17 09:30
There's a problem. The seeds won't germinate and the plant is endangered. Could the answer lie in a heady mix of gauze gift bags, heat torture, forced smoke inhalation and emu digestive juices? This is a repeat episode from the Off Track archives.
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Badger cull kills more than 10,000 animals in three months

The Guardian - Sat, 2016-12-17 03:54

Ministers claim soaring number is a success in effort to cut bovine TB in England but charities question cull’s effectiveness

The number of animals shot in England’s controversial badger cull soared to more than 10,000 this autumn, as part of the government’s attempt to cut tuberculosis (TB) in cattle.

Ministers claimed the result as a success but a leading scientist said there was “no basis” for suggesting the cull was effective, while wildlife charities said badgers were being used as a scapegoat for failures in the intensive livestock industry.

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Trump's cabinet, roads and squid and chips – green news roundup

The Guardian - Sat, 2016-12-17 01:50

The week’s top environment news stories and green events. If you are not already receiving this roundup, sign up here to get the briefing delivered to your inbox

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The week in wildlife – in pictures

The Guardian - Sat, 2016-12-17 00:00

Feeding Bryde’s whales, fighting seals and a Harry Potter spider are among this week’s pick of images from the natural world

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Virunga ranger killed by Mai Mai rebels while protecting gorillas

The Guardian - Fri, 2016-12-16 22:35

Patrick Muhayirwa was trapped in an ambush while patrolling to protect gorillas in Africa’s oldest national park

A 26-year-old wildlife ranger has been gunned down by militia operating in the Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).

According to park authorities, Patrick Prince Muhayirwa was part of a group of rangers and DRC army personnel patrolling the huge park to prevent poaching.

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Mexico bid to save world's smallest vaquita porpoise

BBC - Fri, 2016-12-16 22:01
Mexican authorities try to save the world's smallest porpoise by seizing illegal fishing nets.
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Green buildings make you work smarter and sleep sounder, study reveals

The Guardian - Fri, 2016-12-16 21:04

Improved light, ventilation and heat control can boost workers’ productivity by thousands of dollars a year and reduce instances of sick building syndrome

People working in green buildings think better in the office and sleep better when they get home, a new study has revealed.

The research indicates that better ventilation, lighting and heat control improves workers’ performance and could boost their productivity by thousands of dollars a year. It also suggests that more subjective aspects, such as beautiful design, may make workers happier and more productive.

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This is not normal – climate researchers take to the streets to protect science | Dana Nuccitelli

The Guardian - Fri, 2016-12-16 21:00

Scientists stepped outside their comfort zones to protest the attacks they face from the incoming administration

Desperate times call for desperate measures, and for scientists, these are desperate measures.

Tuesday in San Francisco’s Jessie Square, approximately 500 people gathered for a ‘rally to stand up for science.’ Many of the attendees were scientists who had migrated to the rally from the nearby Moscone Center, where some 26,000 Earth scientists are attending the annual American Geophysical Union (AGU) conference this week.

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What the Fox

ABC Environment - Fri, 2016-12-16 20:05
'Most humans are smarter than a fox, and yet …'—What the Fox pays poetic attention to the population of red foxes with which we share our urban and suburban environments. While often unperceived, these hardy creatures—so well established in Australia—are deeply fascinating to the human ear, eye, and imagination.
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Centrica has donated to US climate change-denying thinktank

The Guardian - Fri, 2016-12-16 16:00

Company owned by Centrica gave $20,000 to TPPF, praised by new US energy secretary for opposing ‘hysteria of global warming’

British Gas’s parent company, Centrica, has given tens of thousands of dollars to a US thinktank that denies climate change and is backed by Donald Trump’s energy secretary.

Direct Energy, a US energy company wholly owned by Centrica, donated $20,000 to the Texas Public Policy Foundation (TPPF) in 2010, according to tax filings.

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Powerful symbols chiselled into a shepherd's shelter

The Guardian - Fri, 2016-12-16 15:30

Stanage, Derbyshire On a bleak night, with a folk memory of wolves and belief in evil spirits, who wouldn’t need protection?

The long flowing line of Stanage Edge is, for rock climbers, one of the world’s great crags, segmented, like a gritstone worm, into various buttresses and features, each of them named, each providing many different routes to the top, each of those – and there are hundreds – also named.

I am at a buttress at the crag’s southern end known, paradoxically, as Apparent North, near a short tough climb called Hamper’s Hang. I am shrinking inside my jacket against a dismal wet day. I thought I knew this place, having been here as a climber scores of times, but my understanding of it has just been turned on its head.

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United states of denial: forces behind Trump have run Australia's climate policy for years | Graham Readfearn

The Guardian - Fri, 2016-12-16 12:30

For more than a decade, Australia has been held back by climate science denial and an antipathy towards environmentalism

If you can hear what sounds like a faint drumroll coming from across the Pacific then it’s the sound of millions of jaws dropping on hard surfaces.

President-elect Donald Trump is a phrase journalists are regularly typing into their keyboards. That was jaw dropping enough, even for some Republicans.

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Nothing fickle about Finkel

RenewEconomy - Fri, 2016-12-16 12:30
In the wash up of this week's COAG Energy meeting, there's a real risk the importance of the Finkel Review will be lost.
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Lazard: Solar PV, storage costs fall in 2016

RenewEconomy - Fri, 2016-12-16 12:28
Lazard report says rooftop solar costs on "by far the steepest cost decline of any technology," with energy storage looking like following suit.
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GE: Why grids don’t need to rely on “synchronous” generation

RenewEconomy - Fri, 2016-12-16 12:13
GE technology chief says days of "relying solely on synchronous generation for everything are over". In a direct challenge to those who say grid security can only be assured by spinning coal and gas turbines, the world's biggest provider of energy equipment says wind and solar can do the job just as well.
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Hazelwood closure to cost the same as one inefficient lightbulb

RenewEconomy - Fri, 2016-12-16 11:53
How much will the Hazelwood coal power plant closure really cost you? Let's shed some (energy efficient) light on the matter.
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