Protect forest elephants to conserve ecosystems, not DNA

      date    April 25, 2018

Source:

Carl R. Woese Institute for Genomic Biology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Summary:

New research has found that forest elephant populations across Central Africa are genetically quite similar to one another. Conserving this critically endangered species across its range is crucial to preserving local plant diversity in Central and West African Afrotropical forests -- meaning conservationists could save many species by protecting one.

Although it is erroneously treated as a subspecies, the dwindling African forest elephant is a genetically distinct species. New University of Illinois research has found that forest elephant populations across Central Africa are genetically quite similar to one another. Conserving this critically endangered species across its range is crucial to preserving local plant diversity in Central and West African Afrotropical forests -- meaning conservationists could save many species by protecting one.

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Reefs help protect vulnerable Caribbean fish from climate change

Date:

March 16, 2018

Source:

University of British Columbia

Summary:

New research suggests that larger reef areas may help protect the Caribbean's coral reef fish communities from the impacts of ocean warming.

Payments to protect carbon stored in forests must increase to defend against rubber

Date:

March 2, 2018

Source:

University of East Anglia

Summary:

Efforts to protect tropical forests in Southeast Asia for the carbon they store may fail because protection payments are too low. A new study finds that schemes designed to protect tropical forests from clearance based on the carbon they store do not pay enough to compete financially with potential profits from rubber plantations. Without increased financial compensation for forest carbon credits, cutting forests down will remain more attractive than protecting them.