This photo taken on 13 November 2013 shows a timber company's vehicle driving down a dirt road in the forests of in Berau, East Kalimantan. Researcher say deforestation has led to an increase in greenhouse gas emissions and a loss of Indonesia's biodiversity. A new study has shown that Indonesia lost about 60,000 sq km of virgin forest - an area close to the size of Ireland - over a period of 12 years. The rate of deforestation has increased so much that Indonesia has for the first time surpassed Brazil in the rate of its clearance of tropical forests. The study was published in the journal Nature Climate Change. Scientists monitored the growth of deforested land in Indonesia between 2000 and 2012 using satellites. Picture of Riau province's rate of deforestation. Satellite imagery of Indonesia's Riau province showed wetland forest loss (in red) and forest degradation (in blue) over the study period They say the land was cleared to make way for palm oil plantations and other farms. By 2012, the loss of primary forest every year in Indonesia was estimated to be higher than that in Brazil, said scientists. In that year, Indonesia lost 8,400 sq km of forest compared to Brazil which lost 4,600 sq km.
Just 227 tree species dominate Amazon - 11,000 endangered tree species
Just 227 tree species dominate Amazon
Researchers were surprised to find that such a small proportion of species dominated the Amazon . Despite being home to about 16,000 tree species, just 227 "hyperdominant" species account for half of Amazonia's total trees, a study suggests. An international team of researchers found that the region was, in total, home to an estimated 390 billion trees. Writing in Science, they added that the rarest 11,000 species made up only 0.12% of tree cover. However, they added that the new data could help unlock ecological secrets held by the biodiversity hotspot.
The results were based on a survey of 1,170 plots and half-a-million trees across the six-million-square-kilometre area, often described as the lungs of the world. The authors said that the underlying cause of the hyper dominance of the 227 species, which accounted for 1.4% of the estimated number of species in the region, remained unknown. "We knew that, normally, a few species dominate ecosystems, but if you have a system that has 16,000 tree species but just 227 make up half of the trees, that was pretty surprising even for us," said lead author Dr Hans ter Steege from the Naturalis Biodiversity Center in the Netherlands. He told the Science podcast: "We don't really know why these species are so incredibly dominant because they do not have any particular ecological feature that stands out."
England's Fens are habitat for rare wildlife and biodiversity
Fens are rare wildlife 'hotspot'
Ouse Washes is a Special Area of Conservation
The Fens are home to 25% of Britain's rarest wildlife and 13 globally rare species, according to a new report.
Researchers from the University of East Anglia studied over one million records collected by scientists and amateur enthusiasts that date back to 1670. The Fens Biodiversity Audit details evidence of 13,474 species of plants, insects, birds, fish and mammals. The area covered 3,800 km sq, spanning the Fenlands of Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire. Christopher Panter, an ecologist from the school of Environmental Sciences at the University of East Anglia and one of the authors of the audit, commented: "One of the most surprising things was that, despite it being a very large area, most of the area was previously unrecorded."
Fantastic fens
Predatory Great Raft Spider - East Anglica.
Data was collected from well-known fen sites such as
There have been a few times in the history of mankind when we nearly died out as a species. Anthropologists call these events “bottlenecks”, times when the population of humans shrank – perhaps to as few as 2,000 people over 50,000 years ago. At those levels, we would be categorised as an endangered species on the IUCN Red List, existing in even fewer numbers than wild tigers do today. We survived, and in fact we’ve thrived, mainly because we adapted our environment to suit our needs. But to what degree has the survival and triumph of our species changed our planet? The best people to answer this could well be those who have the grandest perspective. Geologists can take a 4.5-billion-year step back and look at the human impact on our planet in the context of its long history – they can identify changes in the rock record within layers of deposited sediments that build up and are compressed over time.
Scientists say billions required to meet conservation targets
The most threatened species tend to be relatively cheap to save because of small range sizes.
Reducing the risk of extinction for threatened species and establishing protected areas for nature will cost the world over $76bn dollars annually. Researchers say it is needed to meet globally agreed conservation targets by 2020. The scientists say the daunting number is just a fifth of what the world spends on soft drinks annually. And it amounts to just 1% of the value of ecosystems being lost every year, they report in the journal Science.
“Nature just doesn't do recessions, we're talking about the irreversible loss of unique species and millions of years of evolutionary history” Donal McCarthy RSPB
English translation unavailable for Biodiversity and language diversity and loss linked..
Negros Philippines forest home to endangered spotted deer, warty pig and Hazels forest frog.
[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_crop","fid":"117","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","id":"media_crop_1070886428900","media_crop_h":"0","media_crop_image_style":"-1","media_crop_instance":"13","media_crop_rotate":"0","media_crop_scale_h":"275","media_crop_scale_w":"488","media_crop_w":"0","media_crop_x":"0","media_crop_y":"0","typeof":"foaf:Image"}}]] A camera survey of the almost impenetrably dense forests of Negros, Philippines, has captured the first image of the rare spotted deer. [[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_crop","fid":"114","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","id":"media_crop_4678289343745","media_crop_h":"0","media_crop_image_style":"-1","media_crop_instance":"10","media_crop_rotate":"0","media_crop_scale_h":"275","media_crop_scale_w":"488","media_crop_w":"0","media_crop_x":"0","media_crop_y":"0","typeof":"foaf:Image"}}]] The diminutive warty pig. [[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_crop","fid":"115","attributes":{"alt":"","class":"media-image","id":"media_crop_5059428510757","media_crop_h":"0","media_crop_image_style":"-1","media_crop_instance":"11","media_crop_rotate":"0","media_crop_scale_h":"275","media_crop_scale_w":"488","media_crop_w":"0","media_crop_x":"0","media_crop_y":"0","typeof":"foaf:Image"}}]] Just a few hundred warty pigs now remain in the wild. Hunting is the main threat to their existence.
Saving Ecuador's "Lungs of the World" Yasuni National Park.
Race to save Ecuador's 'lungs of the world'
The Napo River in Ecuador, an Amazon tributary, runs for 1,075km (668 miles).
The Yasuni National Park, known as "the lungs of the world" and one of the most bio-diverse places on earth, is under threat from oil drilling. The race is on to find the funds required to develop new sustainable energy programmes that would leave the oil - and the forest - untouched. In the early light of dawn, the Napo River, running swiftly from its headwaters in the high Andes, swirled powerfully past the bow of our motorised canoe. Suddenly, a dense cloud of green parrots swooped down from the canopy of the jungle and in a cackling din started scooping tiny beakfuls from the exposed muddy bank. The heavy mineral rich clay, the birds seem to know, is an antidote to the toxins present in the seeds of the forest which are a major part of their daily diets.
This photo taken on 13 November 2013 shows a timber company's vehicle driving down a dirt road in the forests of in Berau, East Kalimantan. Researcher say deforestation has led to an increase in greenhouse gas emissions and a loss of Indonesia's biodiversity. A new study has shown that Indonesia lost about 60,000 sq km of virgin forest - an area close to the size of Ireland - over a period of 12 years. The rate of deforestation has increased so much that Indonesia has for the first time surpassed Brazil in the rate of its clearance of tropical forests. The study was published in the journal Nature Climate Change. Scientists monitored the growth of deforested land in Indonesia between 2000 and 2012 using satellites. 
Picture of Riau province's rate of deforestation. Satellite imagery of Indonesia's Riau province showed wetland forest loss (in red) and forest degradation (in blue) over the study period They say the land was cleared to make way for palm oil plantations and other farms. By 2012, the loss of primary forest every year in Indonesia was estimated to be higher than that in Brazil, said scientists. In that year, Indonesia lost 8,400 sq km of forest compared to Brazil which lost 4,600 sq km.
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