Introduction The Southern Resident killer whale (Orcinus orca) is the smallest of four resident, extant, orca populations in the North Pacific. It can be found in the Salish Sea, south of Vancouver Island, crossing the border between the United States and Canada. Due to lethal and live takes in the 1960s, the population dropped to …
Continue reading "The Right to Life for Southern Resident Killer Whales?"
Introduction In their paper “Integrating Proximal and Horizon Threats to Biodiversity for Conservation,” published on 23 May in Trends in Ecology & Evolution, Bonebrake et al. pick up the idea of ‘transformative change’, which has been put forward by the Intergovernmental Panel on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES). ‘Transformative change’ is considered to be “a …
In a recent opinion piece in Trends in Ecology & Evolution, entitled Integrating Proximal and Horizon Threats to Biodiversity for Conservation (Bonebrake et al., 2019), the authors propose a rather new way of addressing conservation efforts. Their main argument rests in the assertion that there is no such thing as a 'major' threat to biodiversity, …
The protection of biodiversity beyond national jurisdiction is an issue of immense importance for global conservation efforts. After all, around 61% of the world's oceans are areas which are not part of any state's 200 nautical mile exclusive economic zone (EEZ), which makes them in principle susceptible to uncontrolled commercial exploitation. The Arctic has seen …
The second week of May 2019 started with two important events: the release of a summary of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services' (IPBES) Global Assessment on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services; and the Eleventh Ministerial Meeting of the Arctic Council (AC). These two events are crucial events for the advancement of our …
Continue reading "A thin Arctic statement, and a thick worrying report"
A recent estimate of the Finnish Environment Institute (SYKE) places 11.9% of all species endemic to Finland in the category of 'threatened' (IUCN Red List categories VU, EN, CR), which marks an increase of 1.4% since the last assessment carried out in 2009. The report - which at the time of writing is not available …
Continue reading "11.9% of Finland’s wildlife is threatened. What can we do as private citizens?"
Recently, news broke (again) that Kenya was to introduce the death penalty for poachers (the same story ran already in May 2018). According to the Wildlife Conservation and Management Act (WCMA), poaching means the "illegal hunting, illegal capturing and illegal harvesting of any wildlife." Kenya lists the African elephant (Loxodonta africana), the White rhino (Ceratotherium simum) …
A study published yesterday in Science links animal learning patterns with conservation efforts. While knowledge on the cultural learning of whales, seals and other species is not new (see e.g. Whitehead & Rendell, 2014), a strategic link to conservation has not been established. The only exception here is the Convention on Migratory Species (CMS), whose …
Continue reading "Animal cultures and human cultures – tools for conservation"
A recent study by Francisco Sánchez-Bayo and Kris Wyckhuys (2019) in Biological Conservation has shown that the world of insects has been experiencing significant declines over the last decades. In fact, the authors warn that around 40% of insect species are threatened with extinction. Since insects constitute two thirds of all terrestrial species on earth and thus …
Continue reading "The decline of insects – The canary in the coal mine?"
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