Sanya, China - Volvo Construction Equipment and Volvo Buses have joined the Volvo Group’s cooperation with WWF´s Climate Savers program, pledging to reduce CO2 emissions by 30 million tons from construction equipment, buses and trucks through 2014.

“By expanding the partnership with WWF to include our buses and construction equipment, the Volvo Group will demonstrate that it is serious about continuously raising our targets in terms of reducing carbon-dioxide emissions from our products, by complying with our vision for sustainable and carbon-neutral future transportation,” said Volvo’s CEO Olof Persson.

The Volvo Group became the world’s first auto manufacturer to join WWF Climate Savers in November 2010 with a commitment to reduce the lifetime CO2 emissions of its trucks sold from 2009 to 2014 by 13 million tons compared to 2008 models.

Thanks to improved fuel efficiency, the goal has now been increased to 30 million tons, and will include the company’s buses and construction equipment. Thirty million tons is the same amount of carbon dioxide emitted by Sweden in its entirety in seven months.

Volvo’s joint-venture company, SDLG, will also become the first leading Chinese construction equipment company to be a member of Climate Savers family.

“Emissions in the transport sector have a major impact on the climate and must be met with vigorous initiatives. It is therefore very encouraging that the Volvo Group now wants to broaden their cooperation with WWF by expanding to new business areas” said Håkan Wirtén, Secretary General of WWF Sweden.

Climate Savers and the Volvo Group

WWF’s Climate Savers program involves multinational companies in the battle to reduce carbon-dioxide emissions. The companies that are included in Climate Savers pledge to reduce their carbon-dioxide emissions pursuant to an agreement between the WWF and the company. Independent technical experts review the results, and agreed targets must be more ambitious than the company originally planned. Meanwhile, it Climate Savers are also required to play a leading role in its industry in terms of reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

The agreement between Volvo and the WWF applies for AB Volvo and the Volvo Group’s brands, Volvo Construction Equipment, Volvo Buses, Volvo Trucks, Mack Trucks, Renault Trucks, UD Trucks and SDLG. SDLG manufactures construction equipment in China, and will be the leading Chinese company in handling climate change towards low carbon economy.

Gland, Switzerland: WWF has welcomed a “black carbon” initiative announced today by the US, Canada, Mexico, Ghana, Sweden and Bangladesh – but warned that the primary effort in reducing dangerous climate changing emissions has to remain on achieving rapid and deep cuts to carbon dioxide emissions.

The substances highlighted in the initiative – black carbon or soot, methane and hydrofluorocarbons – are known as short-lived climate forcers since they do not stay in the atmosphere as long as CO2. Major sources of black carbon include burning of biomass in traditional cookstoves and fires in some developing countries, as well as diesel exhaust.
.
‘The fact is that the big emitters like the US and Canada that are advancing this initiative have done very little to reduce CO2 emissions, the primary cause of global warming’ said Samantha Smith, Leader of the WWF Climate and Energy Initiative.

“‘Now they have developed a plan that shifts the focus to others - developing countries in particular. While support for poorer countries is important, their primary responsibility should be to cut their own emissions and address the global challenges posed by climate change.”’

“Cutting black carbon emissions by ensuring adequate access to energy and cleaner cookstoves is in principle good, but we should not assume that this new initiative will deliver quick results”, said Smith.
“There are many practical challenges to this and the other measures in the initiative, including the very large number of sources of pollution, financing, and cultural barriers to adoption of new cooking methods. Success will depend on good mechanisms for finance, accounting and delivery.”

In short, while short-lived forcers provide a window of opportunity it should not distract us from addressing the biggest cause of climate change: CO2 emissions.

Pekanbaru, Sumatra – Gland, Switzerland: Asia Pulp & Paper (APP) claims of independent sustainability certification for its operations aren’t supported by the certification schemes and assessors it has nominated, a WWF survey has found.

None of these certifications cover the most controversial operations of the APP’s wood suppliers – mass clearing of native forests which are home to critically endangered tigers, elephants and orang-utans and clearing and drainage of peat areas which result in massive greenhouse gas emissions.

The certification schemes cited by APP cover some, but far from all, supplier timber plantations – but none considered whether plantation establishment involved the clearing of high conservation value forest or whether traditional forest owners had given their “free, prior and informed consent” to forest clearance or plantation establishment.

Another blow to APP global greenwash campaign

“None of the certifiers are prepared to back APP’s claim that their certifications demonstrate its sustainability. This is another blow to the credibility of APP’s massive global greenwash campaign,” said WWF International forest programme director Rod Taylor.

On a weekend APP announcement that they would implement measures to ensure US consumers did not have to choose between tigers and toilet paper, Taylor said the company had a long record of broken promises and he would wait for actual evidence of a company halt to natural forest clearing.

“No amount of public relations can change the fact that APP has bulldozed through their own 2004, 2007 and 2009 deadlines to stop feeding Sumatra’s natural forests through its pulp mills.

“Recent revelations that APP is developing the world’s biggest pulp mill in South Sumatra does not inspire any confidence of the company meeting its 2015 deadline for sustainable sourcing.”

Following a recently issued published analysis of the reality behind APP’s global greenwash campaign from Sumatra NGO coalition Eyes on the Forest, the company cited several forms of certification and assessment to back its claims of sustainability, stating that: “In fact, APP is regularly assessed and certified by many of the world’s leading authorities on sustainable forest management and environmental auditors - including Geneva-based SGS, TUV, AFNOR, the official French auditors for the European ‘ EcoLabel’, PHPL, Indonesian sustainable forest management standard, LEI, Indonesian voluntary sustainable forest management standard, and PEFC Chain-of-Custody, the world’s largest forest certification program.”

WWF asked the nominated certification schemes and assessors whether they supported the APP claim and also asked for detail of what specific APP products or operations were covered by their certifications. The survey covered the key social and environmental measures of free prior and informed consent by landowners and protection of high conservation value forests for forest operations and forest clearance for plantations.

None of the schemes or assessors endorsed the APP statement, with major certifier SGS noting that “None of the TLTV (legality) evaluations conducted by SGS and the statements issued by SGS provide the company with the right to claim that their operations are ‘sustainable forest management’ ” and “The SGS certificates/statements do not support the claim of ‘sustainability’.”

No certificate or assessment issued evaluated the sustainability of the APP group as a whole. The Indonesian voluntary certification scheme LEI said it “did not have data of all APP operations”.

Imported pulp gets certified, Sumatra forests get pulped

Limitations also apply to PEFC Chain-of-Custody certification, often mentioned in APP claims of sustainability. “ The PEFC CoC certificates they hold also do not provide any assurance of their own sustainability since these are simply chain of custody and nothing more,” said SGS which conducts the PEFC certifications. “The PEFC certified material they use in their production, thus enabling them to make PEFC certification claims, is all imported from outside Indonesia as by our understanding there are no PEFC certified forests in Indonesia.”

Key but neglected dimensions of sustainability were whether conversion to plantation involved the clearing of High Conservation Value (HCV) forest or whether those with traditional forest rights or tenure had given their “free, prior and informed consent” to the conversions. The LEI standard, for example confirmed that "The decision to establish forest plantation in certain area, either it was converting natural forest with HCV forest or deep peat and how it was conducted in relation to Free, Prior and Informed Consent is beyond LEI’s standard coverage."

APP suppliers have a record of clearing areas of HCV forest and of neglecting to recognise or do rigorous HCV assessments. There is also a persistent record of land tenure issues around APP operations.

Sumatra has lost more than half its forests

The WWF survey found that none of the certifications demonstrated the legality of the APP wood supply as a whole. Additionally, SGS noted that some plantations had been established on deep peat (more than three metres deep) but Indonesian law lacked clear definition of the conditions under which this was prohibited.

As well as being legally contentious, clearing and drainage of deep peats is a key factor in elevating Indonesia to the leading ranks of carbon emitters globally and opens coastal areas to the risk of seawater incursions.

Sumatra has lost more than half of its native forests in the last 25 years. The International Union for the Conservation of Nature recently upgraded the Red List of threatened species status of the Sumatra elephant to “critically endangered”, citing habitat loss as the main reason. The island’s orang-utans and tigers are also under extreme pressure, with recent documented incursions by APP suppliers into reserves for tiger conservation designated by the company itself and featured in its international greenwashing campaign.

“APP’s claims of sustainability are not convincing to a host of major companies that have ceased to buy paper products from them,” said Taylor.

“APP should realise that performance, not promises and propaganda will get the world off its back. A key performance indicator would be for APP pulp mills to immediately halt all use of wood sourced by clearing tropical forests.”

Notes
 Analysis and details of the responses from the certifying schemes and certifying companies can be found at : [awsassets.panda.org]
 APP uses four sources of materials to manufacture their products: Indonesian wood obtained from large-scale clearance of natural forest, Indonesian wood obtained from harvesting of plantations, pulp purchased from external sources and recycled materials. The truth behind APP’s greenwash, the latest report by Eyes on the Forest (www.eyesontheforest.or.id), a coalition of Sumatra NGOs including WWF Riau, compares APP claims of sustainability and responsibility to its actual practices. See [wwf.panda.org]
 WWF-US last week detailed retailers who had dropped and retailers still stocking APP toilet tissue in the US. To download the report and learn more about WWF’s tissue campaign, please visit www.worldwildlife.org/tp
 PHPL - Pengelolaan Hutan Produksi Lestari – was not included in the survey as it is a mandatory government regulatory tool to verify legality rather than an independent voluntary third party certification of sustainable forestry.

WASHINGTON, DC, February 14, 2011 –The first ever snow leopard prey survey in Bhutan’s newest national park revealed astonishing footage of snow leopards scent-marking, a sub-adult snow leopard, Tibetan wolf, threatened Himalayan serow, musk deer and a healthy population of blue sheep, the main food source for snow leopards.

This is the first pictorial evidence that snow leopards are thriving in Wangchuck Centennial Park, a vital snow leopard corridor between Jigme Dorji National Park in the West and Bumdeling Wildlife Sanctuary in the East. Field biologists from the Government of Bhutan and World Wildlife Fund (WWF) captured over 10,000 images during the camera trap survey in Wangchuck Centennial Park.


The automatic cameras were set up to locate snow leopard “hot-spots”, but in addition to snow leopard images, they also captured images and footage of Tibetan wolf, wild dog, red fox, blue sheep, Himalayan serow, musk deer, Pika, pheasants and several birds of prey.

“The findings are phenomenal as these are the first snow leopard images recorded in Wangchuck Centennial Park,” said WWF’s Dr. Rinjan Shrestha, who led the survey team. “It suggests that the network of protected areas and corridors is helping to link local snow leopard populations, which will be invaluable to ensure long-term persistence of snow leopards in the region.”

Snow leopards are elusive and endangered, with around 4,500-7,500 in the wild. Bhutan is the only country on Earth where the habitat of snow leopards and tigers intersect. It’s unknown how many exist there, but it’s critical to find out as threats are mounting – from retaliatory killing from herders, loss of habitat to farmers and poaching for their pelts. And then there’s climate change.
 
Warming at high elevations in the Himalayas is causing treelines to ascend and isolating snow leopard populations. Under a high emission scenario, as much as 30 percent of their range could be lost. Their ability to move upslope is limited by oxygen availability.

The overall goal of the survey is to determine how many snow leopards there are in Wangchuck and where they exist, in order to prioritize the best areas for conservation.

“The snow leopard images from the park show the incredible richness of wildlife thriving in Wangchuck Centennial Park and prove why the park must be supported by donor agencies for conservation,” said Dr. Pema Gyamtsho, Minister of Agriculture and Forests, Royal Government of Bhutan. “For snow leopard conservation in Bhutan, Wangchuck Centennial Park acts as the critical linkage between Bumdeling Wildlife Sanctuary and Jigme Dorji National Park, thereby ensuring the functionality of the northern Bhutan conservation complex.”

The Government of Bhutan and WWF have partnered to co-manage Wangchuck Centennial Park since it was designated as Bhutan’s tenth national park in 2008. With 244 vascular plant species, 23 mammal species and 134 bird species, the park is rich in biodiversity. It’s dedication resulted in Bhutan having more than half its land under protection. The Government of Bhutan and WWF work together on species conservation, climate change studies, monitoring, patrolling and community conservation projects.

“WWF has a special commitment to Wangchuck Centennial Park, especially because we were invited to co-manage it with the government in 2005,” said Shubash Lohani of WWF’s Eastern Himalayas program. “It was the first time Bhutan entrusted an entity other than government to manage a protected area.”

Queen’s Guitarist Joins the Campaign to Save Windermere’s Geese

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A recent investigation by Animal Equality at a pig farm in Norfolk found animals being kicked, slapped and beaten with iron bars and gate rods, and workers scraping a knife across the backs of pigs to force them to move.

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An Australian slaughterhouse has been forced to stop the killing line and faces closure and prosecution after hidden-camera footage of chilling animal cruelty emerged. The New South Wales Food Authority ordered the immediate halt yesterday to slaughter...

It is hardly surprising that both pandas at Edinburgh zoo have been sick with colic – no doubt as painful and distressing a condition in pandas as it is in children. The male, Yang Guang, is reported to have been sick for two weeks. His symptoms ...

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Campaigners on the Isle of Dogs have persuaded Tower Hamlets Council to stop the cull of wild monk parakeets. The Council has now formally requested that Defra stop its cull, a step that the government agency has described as 'disappointing'.

An Essex newspaper has been shown around Cheale Meats slaughterhouse so that the company could ‘prove’ it had cleaned up its act after the shocking animal abuse filmed there last year by Animal Aid.

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We've heard reports this week of a horrific massacre of elephants in Cameroon. It's claimed heavily armed gangs of poachers have systematically slaughtered 200 or more elephants in the past few weeks, removing their tusks to supply the lucrative illegal ivory trade. We'll have more on this shocking story once the details have been confirmed.

Our director general Jim Leape says: "WWF strongly condemns the brutal slaughter of 200 elephants in Cameroon. We call on President Paul Biya to launch a full response to assure the global community that he takes this criminal act seriously and will work with Chad and Sudan to bring these criminals to justice.

"This is one of the most horrific cases of wildlife slaughter that has emerged in a long while, that only goes to highlight the urgent need for local and global action to protect these vulnerable animals."


You can...
Find out more about WWF's work to protect elephants
Adopt an elephant

Some of the people affected directly by illegal logging in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) will be coming to the UK next week. They’ll make it clear to our politicians and businesses that the kind of wood products we buy here can have a big impact on lives in central Africa. They’ll also show how using sustainable alternatives is best for people and the environment. And they’ll visit places where FSC timber is in use - like the London Olympics site.

On Monday 20 February, three representatives from DRC forest communities will visit UK sites where certified, sustainable timber from the Congo Basin has been used - including the Olympic Park in Stratford, and Southend pier.

The following day they’ll meet politicians and businesses to tell them why we need to make sure timber imported into the UK is sourced from well-managed, FSC-certified forests.

We’ll have the full stories and pictures next week.

In the meantime, don’t miss our new Barometer report, which reveals that most EU countries are still not doing enough to stem the flow or sale of illegal and unsustainable timber - despite new legislation to halt its import.


You can…
Find out more about sustainable timber and our What Wood You Choose campaign

We’re on the search for one community in the UK - it could be your workplace, school, club, pub, or your street or village - to lead the big Earth Hour switch-off on 31 March this year. It could mean iconic landmarks like Buckingham Palace, Big Ben and Edinburgh Castle will be following your lead as you switch off to make a stand for the planet. Tell us why you think your community should be WWF’s Earth Hour Champion Community for 2012.

Every year famous landmarks join hundreds of businesses, communities and homes across the country as they switch off lights to mark WWF’s Earth Hour.

In 2012, for the first time, we’re giving your community the chance to lead the UK switch-off.

The winning community will also receive a grant of £1,000 from our official Earth Hour partner MORETH>N, to help make your event even more brilliant.

And we’ll have separate national winners too (in England, N. Ireland, Scotland and Wales) who'll each receive £300 for their event.

So, for a chance to become Earth Hour Champion Community, simply let us know, in no more than 300 words, why your community is the obvious choice to lead this year's switch-off.

We want to hear about the green and sustainable things your community does, or will do after Earth Hour - energy-saving schemes, for example, or other environmental projects.

And we want to know how you plan to bring your community together for an Earth Hour night to remember on 31 March. You can even include an image and video to support your entry and bring it to life.

The competition deadline is coming up fast though - you’ve only got until Monday 27 February to submit your online entry form.


You can…
Tell us why you should be our Earth Hour Community Champions (competition closes 27 February)

Find out more about WWF's Earth Hour

The US, Canada, Mexico, Ghana, Sweden and Bangladesh have launched an initiative to cut some of the substances that cause climate change. These substances - black carbon (soot from traditional cooking fires and stoves), methane and ozone - are called "short-lived climate forcers", as they don't stay in the atmosphere very long. We welcome this initiative, but it mustn't distract us from the main task: reducing CO2 emissions.

Our head of climate change, Keith Allott, explains: “Deep and immediate carbon dioxide reductions are required to protect the climate over the long term. This cannot be achieved by addressing short-lived climate forcers alone.

"The science behind this new initiative is sound, but it does not in any way support postponing immediate and aggressive global action on man-made greenhouse gases.

“The fact is, the big emitters like the US and Canada that are advancing this initiative have done very little to reduce emissions. Now they’ve developed an initiative that shifts the focus to others, developing countries in particular.

"Support for action in poorer countries is important, but the primary responsibility of the big emitters should be to reduce their own emissions, and address the global challenges posed by climate change.”

We welcome any initiative that wants to tackle black carbon and energy poverty, but we should not assume that it will deliver quick results.

There are many practical challenges to addressing black carbon from traditional cooking stoves and cooking fires, including the number of point sources, limited awareness, financing and cultural barriers to adopting new cooking methods. Success will depend on good mechanisms for finance, accounting and delivery.

In short, while short-lived forcers provide a window of opportunity, we believe we should focus on the biggest cause of climate change: CO2.

You can...
Find out more about how and why we're tackling climate change

Ready, steady, cook! If you think you've got just the recipe for WWF's Earth Hour, you need to be quick and let us know before our recipe competition deadline this Sunday, 19 February.

For Earth Hour (31 March), thousands and thousands of people across the UK will be celebrating our brilliant world by switching off the lights and cooking a candlelit dinner that’s good for them and for the planet too.

That’s a lot of meals - so to make sure everyone has plenty of options we've been asking our Earth Hour supporters to send us in their delicious recipes inspired by our five easy-to-follow Livewell principles.

And if being crowned the UK’s Earth Hour masterchef isn’t enough encouragement, we’re also giving out lots of great Riverford goodies, as well as cook books from some of our Earth Hour celebrity chefs.

So if you’re a whiz in the kitchen, all you need to do is upload your brilliant Earth Hour recipe (with a photo of the finished dish) by 19 February.

The best five dishes (they can be starters, mains or desserts) will be put to a public vote, with one recipe declared winner in plenty of time for Earth Hour on 31 March.

So make sure you get your recipe in soon, and best of luck!

WWF ambassador Ben Fogle has offered to take on an extra challenge to raise vital funds for WWF - on top of the NightRider cycling challenge the public has already asked him to do. Ben will now also be running for us in this April's London Marathon.

Ben explains: "I'm delighted to be taking part in this year's NightRider in London - thanks to everyone who voted. I love going on my bike, and being able to cycle past London's iconic landmarks at night will be a magical experience.

"The Panda Made Me Do It is such a great way to support WWF that I've literally decided to go the extra mile - and run the London Marathon too. I will try to beat my previous personal time and run it in around 3 hours 30.

"Please help me raise funds for WWF's work to save habitats and species by visiting www.justgiving.com/BFogleWWF. Thank you!

"Everyone can do something for the Panda: from sport challenges like this, to simple actions like choosing certified fish for your dinner, we can all help WWF build a better future for our planet."


You can...
Find out more about what the Panda has made Ben do

Phenomenal new camera-trap footage from Bhutan shows that rare snow leopards and their prey species are thriving in vital protected areas and corridors. But there's lots to do to keep them safe from threats of poaching and climate change.

The first ever snow leopard prey survey in Wangchuck Centennial Park, Bhutan’s newest national park, has revealed not only astonishing footage of snow leopards but a healthy population of blue sheep, the main food source for the leopards, as well as images of the Tibetan wolf, wild dog, red fox, Himalayan serow, musk deer, pika, pheasants and several birds of prey.

Watch some of the snow leopard video footage here...



The clips above show:

• Night shots of a snow leopard (Panthera uncia) visiting its 'relic' site at 4,200m in Phudongphu. This is a spot where it repeatedly marks its territory.
• The daylight shots show how well-camouflaged snow leopards are. They've evolved to live in some of the harshest conditions on Earth, and their almost-white coat spotted with large black rosettes blends in perfectly with the steep and rocky terrain.
• The footage ends with some fantastic night-time shots of a prowling snow leopard, its eyes reflecting the camera light, and its powerful canine teeth clearly visible. This endangered species is the top predator in the high Himalaya. Its only predators are humans.

Why this snow leopard camera trap footage is important
This is the first pictorial evidence that snow leopards are thriving in Wangchuck Centennial Park, a vital snow leopard corridor between Jigme Dorji National Park in the West and Bumdeling Wildlife Sanctuary in the East.

Field biologists from the government of Bhutan and WWF captured over 10,000 images during the camera trap survey - including the great shots below of blue sheep and an endangered musk deer (itself poached for its coveted musk pod).

The automatic cameras were set up to locate snow leopard 'hot-spots', and the results suggest that the network of protected areas and corridors is helping to link local snow leopard populations, which will be invaluable to ensure long-term survival of snow leopards in the region.

Snow leopards are elusive and endangered, with around 4,500-7,500 in the wild. Bhutan is the only country on Earth where the habitat of snow leopards and tigers intersect. It’s unknown how many exist there, but it’s critical to find out as threats are mounting - from retaliatory killing from herders, loss of habitat to farmers and poaching for their pelts. And then there’s climate change.

Warming at high elevations in the Himalayas is causing treelines to ascend and isolating snow leopard populations. If climate change continues unchecked, as much as 30% of the snow leopards' range could be lost. Their ability to move upslope is limited by oxygen availability.

The overall goal of the survey is to determine how many snow leopards there are in Wangchuck and where they exist, in order to prioritise the best areas for conservation.

More than half of Bhutan's land area is now under protection. We've co-managed Wangchuck Centennial Park with the government of Bhutan since it was designated as Bhutan’s tenth national park in 2008 - the first time Bhutan entrusted an entity other than government to manage a protected area.

We work together on species conservation, climate change studies, monitoring, patrolling and community conservation projects. With 244 vascular plant species, 23 mammal species and 134 bird species, the park is rich in biodiversity.

You can...
Find out more about snow leopards
Adopt a snow leopard



addColorbox()

With several other high-profile organisations, we've sent a joint open letter (published as a full-page ad in this week's Sunday Telegraph) to Ed Davey MP - to wish him good luck in his new position as UK secretary of state for energy and climate change, and to put forward our key expectations on energy efficiency and renewable energy.

You can...

Read the open letter in full
See latest blog post from our head of energy Nick Molho on the reasons for the letter

All creatures great and small in our ever popular animal gallery.

Droitwich Standard

Making a difference for habitats Droitwich Standard Together with British Waterways ecologist Dr Mark Robinson, the volunteers marked the British Trust for Ornithology's National Nest Box Week by installing a barn own nest box. Their efforts are part of the wider on-going enhancement of the habitat ...

Armed groups from Chad and Sudan blamed for unprecedented killing in Bouba Ndjida national park, fuelled by demand for ivory

Poachers have killed more than 200 elephants in six weeks in Cameroon, in a "massacre" fuelled by Asian demand for ivory.

A local government official said heavily armed poachers from Chad and Sudan had decimated the elephant population of Bouba Ndjida national park, in Cameroon's far north.

"We are talking about a very serious case of trans-frontier poaching, involving well-armed poachers with modern weapons from Sudan and Chad who are decimating this wildlife species to make quick money from the international ivory trade," said Gambo Haman, governor of Cameroon's northern region.

Speaking on local radio, Haman said some of the poachers were on horseback and operated with the help of the local population, who were given free elephant meat and were glad to be rid of animals that damage their crops.

The International Fund for Animal Welfare (Ifaw) said cross-border poaching was common during the dry season but the scale of the killings so far this year was unprecedented.

"This latest massacre is massive and has no comparison to those of the preceding years," the group said in a statement.

Citing a record number of large scale ivory seizures in 2011, Traffic, a conservation group that tracks trends in wildlife trading, has warned of a surge in elephant poaching in Africa to meet Asian demand for tusks for use in jewellery and ornaments.

Underlining the clout of the poaching force, Haman said a group of 50 had killed six Chadian soldiers who tried to arrest them as they fled with the ivory.

"In January we counted 146 [elephant] carcasses and since the beginning of this month we've had close to 60 already. This may only be a tip of the iceberg as some may have been killed in parts of the park that we cannot access," Haman added.

Cameroon has dispatched a rapid-reaction force to the area but Haman said there were not enough troops to cover the remote park.

Ifaw said it was not clear how many elephants remained in Cameroon. A 2007 estimate put the figure at between 1,000 and 5,000.

Traffic has said that the spike in poaching and illegal ivory trade in Africa is a direct consequence of China's investment drive into the continent.

• Illegal wildlife trade
• Wildlife
• Conservation
• Animals
• Cameroon
• Africa

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Science has changed the world. It has created new products and ease of service. What the future will bring is, of course, always uncertain. "It’s not every day you have robots running through your house," Barack Obama quipped last week at the White House science fair, a showcase for student exhibitors that also gave the US president a chance to reiterate a favourite theme. Science and technology, he said, "is what’s going to make a difference in this country, over the long haul".

RSPB warns that small birds will suffer most as second wave of cold weather hits the UK.

The RSPB Wildpix competition, which opens this week, is looking for youngsters across the south east to enter the national competition, which for the first time ever has teamed up with the amazing British Wildlife Photography Awards [BWPA].

Researchers have sequenced the genome of the killer disease that is driving the remaining wild population of Tasmanian devils towards extinction.

Canadian researchers train sea lions to participate in an experiment to find out why the species is dying out.

A controversial method of drilling for natural gas, called fracking, has boomed in recent years—as have concerns over its potential to cause environmental contamination and harm human health. But a major review of the practice uncovered no signs that it is causing trouble below ground. "We found no direct evidence that fracking itself has contaminated groundwater," said Charles Groat of the University of Texas, Austin, who led the study. The report, released at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (which publishes ScienceNOW), doesn't give this form of natural gas extraction a clean bill of health.

Energy company EDF's 2011 profits jumped due to high charges

Wider Regent's Canal towpath bid to end battle for space Islington Tribune newspaper website by ANDREW JOHNSON BRITISH Waterways is to launch a consultation tomorrow (Saturday) with a view to resolving once and for all the dispute between cyclists and walkers who battle over congested space on Regent's Canal towpath.

2012 mooring permit price review complete Waterscape British Waterways (BW) has completed its three-yearly market-pricing review for 12 month mooring permits to apply in England and Wales from April 2012. Following the review, customers on BW moorings will see an average price increase of 2.6% - although ...

THIS week without warning, Fenland District Council closed the sanitation and rubbish facilities in March Town Centre, writes our Fens correspondent Kelvin Alexander-Duggan.

Film competition will make canal volunteers the stars Waterscape British Waterways and the Leeds & Liverpool Canal Society are looking for ten-to-twelve minute films that reflect the way the local community is contributing to heritage, leisure and conservation on the canal. However, the rules do not state that the ...

This started out as a top-ten-books-about-environmentalism op-ed—essentially the books that shaped my eco-philosophy. And some of those books still remain, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that books simply covering the science don’t get you all the way. There are a number of authors (Rick Bass, for example) who do more than describe eco-systems and how to save them. Instead, they manage to go out and capture the truly inscrutable quality of the natural world, the mystery behind the mystery, and I realized that this list would be incomplete without these titles as well. {readmorelink}Read on…{/readmorelink}

Businesses urged to prepare for 2012 super-drought Business Green "Parts of the UK are already being affected by drought this year," said Spelman, ahead of the meeting that will include representatives from water companies, the Environment Agency, Natural England, British Waterways, the Met Office and representatives ... and more »

Fracking, the controversial technique for exploiting underground supplies of shale gas, does not appear to result in the contamination of groundwater supplies, according to an independent investigation carried out in the US.

When one thinks of iron one thinks of a dull grey solid. Transparent iron is an odd thought. The effect of electromagnetically induced transparency (EIT) is a known phenomena from laser physics. With intense laser light of a certain wavelength it is possible to make a non-transparent material transparent for light of another wavelength. This effect is generated by a complex interaction of light with the atomic electron shell. At DESY's X-ray source PETRA III, the Helmholtz research team of Röhlsberger managed to prove for the first time that this transparency effect also exists for X-ray light, when the X-rays are directed towards atomic nuclei of the Mössbauer isotope iron-57 (which makes up 2% of naturally occurring iron). The potential real world benefit for this phenomena may be in the a quantum effects computer which would be extremely fast.

The tables have been well and truly turned in "deniergate", the leak of documents from a key climate-sceptic think tank in the US, says Bob Ward

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