Rhino and elephant poaching is detrimental not only to the rhino and elephant, but to global security. Poaching profits fund terrorist activity, like the kidnapping of over 200 girls in Nigeria. On…

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There must have been thousands standing in the rain that day. The stark grey cityscape with glass buildings that loomed like giants high in the atmosphere dripped rain to the streets far beneath. T…

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Personal engagement in a small scale in environmental and animal rights issues could sometimes be very succesful. I read in my local paper in Sweden, that my Community was going to cull a larger nu…

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Protected areas are our single best hope for conserving nature.  But as the human populace expands, more and more parks are facing a growing array of threats.  Are imperiled parks becoming the ‘new normal’?

Too many pressures on parks… (photo by William Laurance)

As examples, here’s a smattering of recent news about imperiled parks:

• A British petroleum corporation will soon begin seismic testing inside
  Virunga National Park, a famed World Heritage site in the Democratic
  Republic of Congo.  Just last week, Virunga’s Chief Warden was gravely wounded by unknown gunmen, and in the last decade more than 140 park rangers have been murdered there.

• In Thailand, illegal logging is so plaguing another World Heritage site,
  the Dong Phayayen – Khao Yai Forest Complex, that the IUCN has recommended it be classified as a “World Heritage Site in Danger”.  The Thai government is now making a belated attempt to combat illegal logging in the park.

• A recent study by E. Bernard and colleagues has documented 93 instances in which national parks in Brazil have been downsized or de-gazetted since 1981.  Such actions have increased markedly in frequency since 2008, the authors say.

• As highlighted in recent ALERT blogs and press releases, national parks in Ecuador, New Zealand, and Australia are also facing an array of new challenges.

An apt analogy is the little Dutch boy, desperately sticking his fingers
into a dyke that is springing ever more leaks.

But what choice do we have?  Even a struggling park is far better than no park at all.

See on alert-conservation.org

Science fiction reports possibilities.  The novel Corr Syl the Warrior introduces an Earth on which intelligence appeared long before humans. Corr Syl meets Allysen Olykden Corr had met Allysen Oly…

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