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Massive Arctic Ice
Shelf Breaks Away
ENN
OTTAWA (Reuters) - A huge 19 square
mile (55 square km) ice shelf in Canada's northern Arctic broke away
last month and the remaining shelves have shrunk at a "massive and
disturbing" rate, the latest sign of accelerating climate change in
the remote region, scientists said on Tuesday.
They said the Markham Ice Shelf, one of just five remaining ice
shelves in the Canadian Arctic, split away from Ellesmere Island in
early August. They also said two large chunks totaling 47 square
miles had broken off the nearby Serson Ice Shelf, reducing it in
size by 60 percent.
"The changes ... were massive and disturbing," said Warwick Vincent,
director of the Centre for Northern Studies at Laval University in
Quebec...
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Chi Pat Eco-tourism,
Cardamoms: Cambodia
Wildlife Alliance
Chi Pat is a remote village in the
Cardamom Protected Forest, with no running water and electricity is
by generator only. But this is not stopping Wildlife Alliance
(formerly Wild Aid) from bringing ecologically conscious tourists to
the village as part of a new eco-tourism program.
The ecotourism project is in its infancy, but the Wildlife Alliance
has been in the area for some time, involved in law enforcement in
the Cardamom Mountains, working directly with the park rangers who
patrol the region busting poachers and illegal loggers.
So in terms of protecting the forest the rangers are the stick and
eco-tourism the carrot.
Wildlife Alliance believes that if they want locals to stop logging
and hunting they must be given an alternative income, and ecotourism
can provide that alternative income as well as being a tool for
long-term conservation to reduce pressure on the forest...
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New Rare Primate
Groups Found in Cambodia
by Sara Goudarzi, National Geographic
News
Sara GoudarziTwo new populations of
rare primate species, both numbering in the thousands, have been
discovered in a Cambodia preserve.
A 2008 survey estimates 42,000 black-shanked doucs and 2,500
yellow-cheeked crested gibbons live in Cambodia's Seima Biodiversity
Conservation Area.
"These Cambodian animals represent undoubtedly the largest [known]
remaining global populations of either species," said lead report
author Tom Clements, a researcher at the nonprofit Wildlife
Conservation Society (WCS), which led the survey.
Before this survey, the largest known populations of either species
were 600 black-shanked doucs and 200 yellow-cheeked crested gibbons
in neighboring Vietnam—the only other country where the two species
are found. (See a photo of another rare primate group found recently
in Vietnam...)
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for the rest of the story.
Elephants Decimated in
Congo Park; China Demand Blamed
by Zoe Alsop in Nairobi, National Geographic
News
Since the beginning of this year,
armed groups, soldiers, and poachers have killed 10 percent of the
elephants in Congo's troubled Virunga National Park—allegedly driven
by rising Chinese demand for ivory—park officials say.
The announcement raises fears that elephants could disappear forever
from Africa's oldest and largest national park, which has recently
made headlines for its gorilla murders.
Rangers plying the lawless central sector of Virunga have discovered
the bodies of seven elephants in the past two weeks alone.
In one case they came upon Rwandan militia members hovering over the
bodies of two elephants. The rangers managed to drive the men away
before they could remove the animals' tusks.
In all, 24 elephants are known to have been killed in Virunga so far
this year. ..
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