Cambridge Core BlogDances with cranes: the rise of the Sarolga
The Buralga legend tells of an Australian Aboriginal woman famed for her dancing, who was turned into a brolga by a jealous magician.…
Tag archive: conservation
Biodiversity conservation in Madagascar: the plight of the tenrecs
Tenrecs are a diverse family of 31 small mammal species found on the tropical island of Madagascar. Whilst rampant deforestation means one in five tenrecs is threatened with extinction, most conservation attention in the country is focused on larger, more charismatic species, such as lemurs.…
Crop wild relatives – a vital resource for the future of food security
Crop wild relatives are wild plant species that are relatively closely related to cultivated crops and include the ancestors of cultivated crops. Crop wild relatives are a critical source of adaptive traits / genes, including resistance to diseases, pests and stresses such as drought and extreme temperatures that can be used in plant breeding, with the potential to enhance sustainable food security in the face of challenges such as climate change and population growth.
First country-wide distribution survey of the Endangered Asian elephant: towards better elephant conservation and management in Sri Lanka
Asian elephants are a paradox in many ways. They are an Endangered species whose global population is less than one tenth of that of African elephants.…
Improving the motivation and job satisfaction of wildlife park rangers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
Working as a park ranger in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is no easy task. The salary is low, the work is dangerous and physically demanding, and their efforts can sometimes see rangers being rejected by their own communities.…
Identifying conservation priorities for the Critically Endangered Balkan Lynx
A detailed IUCN Red List assessment placed the Balkan lynx (Lynx lynx balcanicus) just one step away from extinction.…
Riparian forest protection is crucial to the long-term viability of the endangered proboscis monkey
Nearly half of all primate species are threatened with extinction, with habitat destruction being the biggest threat to their survival. Studies on the impact of habitat changes on primate populations are limited and often based on inferences because primates are long-lived mammals with slow life cycles, and generally respond very slowly to environmental changes.…
Lack of information as a threat for Amazonian marmosets
In 1914 a scientific expedition led by the former U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt and the Brazilian Marshal Cândido Rondon set out into the Amazon rainforest to map the then unknown River of Doubt, known today as the Roosevelt River.…
The Armadillo Conservation Program: A pioneering initiative to save armadillos in the Orinoco Llanos of Colombia from extinction
How do you maximize the probability of success of conservation actions? A good strategy is to involve stakeholders from the start and to combine different strategies, including research, policy formulation and enforcement, practical interventions and education.…
Citizen Science: establishing national bird monitoring schemes in Africa
Birds are recognised as faithful indicators of the state of the environment and widely used as such across Europe. Here skilled citizen scientists collect data that feed into national annual statistics, but until now, this model of environmental monitoring has not been tested elsewhere. In our innovative paper we show how, with appropriate support, citizen science-based monitoring programmes for birds can be established in Africa, yielding vital data and insights into environmental change.…
Co-management of protected areas: How does it help mitigate and prevent conflicts from escalating?
Although protected areas serve as refuges for wild plants and animals, they are also places of negative human–wildlife interactions, or conflicts.…
Timber concessions may provide valuable additional conservation land for elephants
Forest elephants are found to occupy timber concession forests in Cameroon within areas currently deemed ‘unlikely’ by IUCN, according to a scientific study published in Oryx —The International Journal of Conservation.…