Aussie police find baby koala in woman's bag

Yahoo – AFP, November 7, 2016

A police officer takes care of a baby koala in Brisbane after it was found
hidden in the bag of a woman they arrested on an unrelated matter

Australian police uncovered a baby koala hidden in the bag of a woman they stopped in the street.

The 50-year-old, who was being spoken to on unrelated matters on Sunday evening, stunned Brisbane officers when she revealed she had the creature in her canvas satchell.

"Not quite believing their ears, the officers cautiously unzipped the bag and found this gorgeous boy," Queensland police said.

"The koala -- believed to be about six months of age -- seemed to be in good health, although a bit dehydrated."

The woman claimed she found the joey, which is protected under the Nature Conservation Act, on Saturday night and had been caring for it since.

The marsupial was handed to the RSPCA, an animal protection charity, which named him Alfred.

The much-loved koala has been under increasing threat across Australia in recent

decades, particularly from habitat loss, disease, dog attacks and bushfires

"He’s been on fluids but is doing well and will shortly be going out to a carer,” said RSPCA spokesperson Michael Beatty.

The woman was subsequently arrested over "outstanding matters", police said.

The much-loved koala has been under increasing threat across Australia in recent decades, particularly from habitat loss, disease, dog attacks and bushfires.

A 2012 national count placed total koala numbers at 330,000, though their tree-top habitat makes accurate assessment difficult.

World's oldest captive giant panda, Jia Jia, dies aged 38

After weeks of deteriorating health, the world's oldest giant panda in captivity has died at a Hong Kong theme park. Jia Jia was a gift from Beijing on the second anniversary of Hong Kong's independence from Britain.

Deutsche Welle, 16 Oct 2016

Hong Kong giant panda, Jia Jia

Veterinarians were forced on Sunday to euthanize the world's oldest captive giant panda in Hong Kong in order to prevent the animal from further suffering.

"This is a day we knew would eventually come, but it is nevertheless a sad day for everyone at the Park, especially for the Park's keepers who took care of her over the years," Ocean Park chairman Leo Kung said in a statement.

Giant panda Jia Jia was born in the wild and was taken to a wildlife reserve's breeding centre in 1980, when she was around two-years-old.

Euthanasia to 'prevent suffering'

After taking medication for high blood pressure and arthritis in old age, Jia Jia's condition deteriorated significantly over the past two weeks. As her food consumption plummeted from 10 kilograms (22 pounds) a day to less than three, the panda dramatically lost weight.

"Her state became so debilitated that based on ethical reasons and in order to prevent suffering, veterinarians from the Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department and Ocean Park [authorities] agreed to a humane euthanasia for Jia Jia," the theme park said.

Race to save the species

Although pandas are traditionally symbolic animals in China, Jia Jia carried extra significance as she, along with another panda An An, were gifts from Beijing to Hong Kong in 1999 on the occasion of its second anniversary of independence from Britain.

Jia Jia, whose name translates as 'excellence,' held the Guinness World Record as the oldest living giant panda in captivity. The average lifespan for a panda is only 18 to 20 years in the wild, although that jumps to 30 for pandas in captivity.

Due to their low birth rate and the destruction of their natural habitats, captive breeding programs have become essential to ensuring the species' survival. According to Ocean Park, Jia Jia gave birth five times to six panda cubs whilst in captivity.

The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) estimates that there are fewer than 2,000 giant pandas now left in the wild.

tm/jlw (AFP, AP)

Orangutan Infant Found Abandoned in C. Kalimantan

Jakarta Globe, Norjani & Ratri M. Siniwi, August 05, 2016

A baby orangutan held by a resident of West Kalimantan's Kubu Raya district, in
this October 2015 file photo. (Antara Photo/Jessica Helena Wuysang)

Jakarta. An infant Bornean orangutan was found abandoned in a rubber plantation in Sampit, Central Kalimantan, on Thursday morning (04/08).

"At sunset [last night], I heard what sounded like someone wailing, which turned out to be the orangutan. It was sitting in a rubber tree in my plantation. Then this morning I saw that there was no mother, and I took it to Sampit and reported it [to the authorities]," local resident Martono said, as reported by state-run news agency Antara.

The Central Kalimantan Natural Resources Conservation Agency (BKSDA) went to Martono's house to examine the infant, and established that it is an 18-month-old female. Infant orangutans are completely dependent on their mothers for the first two years of their lives.

"An orangutan mother would never leave her child. We cannot conclude whether the mother was killed, but what is clear is that the infant has been rescued,"Sampit BKSDA post commander Muriansyah said.

According to Martono, it was his first time seeing an orangutan in the area, as most of the trees in his rubber plantation have burned down, making it hard for the animals to survive and find food. He said he pitied the infant as she looked malnourished, and suspected that she was starving.

"I was scared that the baby [orangutan] would die [from hunger]; I reported it so the officials could save her. I gave her a banana, but she only ate a little of it," Martono said.

The infant has been taken to the BKSDA regional office at Pangkalan Bun in West Kotawaringin district. According to the officials, orangutans can take up to two years of rehabilitation before they are ready to be released into their natural habitat.

The Natural Resources Conservation Agency (BKSDA) in Central Kalimantan claims that this is the 10th orangutan reported by Sampit residents so far this year.

The Bornean orangutan is a cousin of the Sumatran orangutan, both of which have been listed in the International Union for Conservation of Nature's Red List of critically endangered animals, due to population loss driven by hunting and habitat degradation.

More animals killed on the roads is ‘good news’ for wildlife

DutchNews, February 12, 2016

The fact that more animals are being killed on the Dutch roads is often cause for celebration, Maurice La Haye – a researcher at the Dutch mammal society Zoogdiervereniging – told the Algemeen Dagblad. 

An increase in accidents is a sign that conservation efforts are working and the wildlife population in the Netherlands is increasing, La Haye told the paper on Friday. 

An estimated ten million animals are killed on Dutch roads every year, but millions more survive, mate, and multiply. This is at least partly thanks to the Netherlands’ network of 1,725 green passages, viaducts, and walking ledges that allow animals to safely cross roads in certain places. 

Green passageways

Since the mid-1980s, the Netherlands has been building these structures in an effort to preserve dwindling wildlife stocks, including the endangered European badger, and several species of wild boar and deer. 

One of these ‘ecoducts’ – the Natuurbrug Zanderij Crailoo – is the longest such structure in the world. Some 50m wide and 800m long, the ecoduct takes animals safely over a railway line, roadway, business park, sports complex and a river. 

The ecoducts allow animals to expand their habitats past the barriers of roads, rivers and railways. And it’s been successful. In 1950, the total deer population of the Netherlands was around 5,000. Now it sits nearer 110,000, Gijs Van Ardenne, chairman of the Wildlife Collision Foundation Netherlands told the AD. 

Healthy and thriving

As well as an increase in sheer numbers, Dutch wildlife now appears to be in better health than before.

‘Ditches and canals are no longer the open sewers of last century, but fish-rich waterways,’ Hugh Jansen, of research institute Alterra told the AD. ‘Dead animals we find and analyse are in very good condition. They are top athletes who encountered a car.’

Rampaging elephants force Myanmar villagers into tree-top refuges

Yahoo – AFP, January 16, 2016

Residents stand near a tree house in the Kyauk Ye village on the outskirts
of Yangon on January 14, 2016 (AFP Photo/Ye Aung Thu)

Taik Kyi (Myanmar) (AFP) - Pushed from their forest home by encroaching farm land, wild elephants are driving fearful villagers in a Myanmar township to seek refuge in tree houses while the animals storm their rice paddies looking for food.

The elephants have trampled crops, destroyed homes and even, villagers say, killed people in their path -- forcing families in Kyat Chuang to build new shelters made of wood and bamboo on higher ground.

"We have had to move our huts into the trees, so we are safe," explained San Lwin, who dashes several metres up a tree to his thatch-roofed shelter when the elephants are near.

Villagers in Kyat Chaung, a farming community 100 kilometres north of Yangon, told AFP they yearned for the days before the elephant rampages started three years ago.

A man climbs up to a tree house in Taik Kyi village on the outskirts of 

Yangon on January 14, 2016 (AFP Photo/Ye Aung Thu)

Now they scamper up home-made bamboo ladders to their elevated huts whenever they hear the thundering sound of elephant feet, which is usually several times a week.

"We want them to be taken away ... so we can live peacefully," said Than Shin, a 57-year-old farmer.

Spurred by the loss of their forest habitats, the elephants, and villagers they have been terrorising, are some of the casualties of Myanmar's alarming rate of deforestation, one of the fastest in the region.

The country lost almost 20 percent of its forest cover between 1990 and 2010, according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation.

Experts say the chief drivers of forest loss are logging and large-scale land concessions for commercial agriculture handed out under decades of opaque junta rule.

Myanmar's population of wild Asian elephants is thought to be one of the largest in the region, according to the World Wildlife Fund.

Wild elephants are driving fearful villagers in a Myanmar township to seek

refuge in tree houses (AFP Photo/Ye Aung Thu)

But the endangered species is increasingly threatened by habitat loss, a thirst for ivory, and traffickers who smuggle the animals into Thailand for the tourist industry.

The newly-elected National League for Democracy (NLD) -- the pro-democracy party of Aung San Suu Kyi that swept to a thumping majority in landmark elections in November -- said Thursday it would address Myanmar's medley of environmental issues after assuming office later this year.

"We will try to restore the environment in Myanmar that has been ruined for many decades," Soe Nyunt, vice chairman of the NLD's Environmental Conservation Committee told AFP.

"It will not be easy," he added.

Australian state lists koala as 'vulnerable'

Yahoo – AFP, 31 May 2015

Australia's Queensland state is to list the koala as a 'vulnerable species'
throughout the northeastern region, saying urban expansion, car accidents and
dog attacks are threatening the much-loved furry animal (AFP Photo/
Torsten Blackwood)

Sydney (AFP) - Australia's Queensland state will list the koala as a "vulnerable species" throughout the northeastern region, saying urban expansion, car accidents and dog attacks were threatening the much-loved furry animal.

"Everybody loves the koala and we must do everything in our power to protect the koala now and into the future," Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said Sunday of the tree-dwelling marsupial.

Koalas are already listed as vulnerable in south-east Queensland, but the extended protection to cover the whole state will see its government step up its efforts to map populations and conserve habitats.

"We also know, from motor vehicle accidents (to) dog attacks, that this is having a huge impact on the koala populations right across the state," the premier added.

"We have been determined to do everything we can."

A 2011 study estimated there were more than 10 million koalas before British settlers arrived in 1788 but numbers had declined to less than 45,000 in the wild, though it noted their existence high in the treetops makes them difficult to count.

The federal government placed the most at-risk koalas in New South Wales, Queensland and the Australian Capital Territory on the national list of threatened species, classing it as vulnerable, in 2012.

A 2012 report also found the koala population in south-west Queensland had dropped from 60,000 to 11,000 over the past two decades, with researchers blaming drought, heatwaves and habitat clearing for the sharp decline.

Snow leopard spotted in Sichuan panda habitat

Want China Times, Xinhua 2015-01-25

One of the images of the snow leopard caught on camera. (Photo/CNS)

A wild snow leopard was caught on camera in a nature reserve in southwest China's Sichuan province, the reserve's administration said on Wednesday.

A camera set up at an altitude of 4,096 meters spotted the rare snow leopard twice earlier this month, the first finding of the snow leopard in the Fengyongzhai National Nature Reserve.

The snow leopard was roaming in a core panda habitat when caught on the camera, said a chief ranger of the nature reserve.

More than 10 cameras were set up in the nature reserve last October in an initiative to protect the snow leopards in Sichuan province.

The findings will help add to knowledge of the precious species, said Deng Jiangyu, a researcher at the reserve.

India's tiger population jumps 30 percent

Yahoo – AFP, 20 Jan 2015

The census found 2,226 tigers in India last year compared with 1,706 in 2010.
(AFP Photo)

New Delhi (AFP) - India, home to most of the world's wild tigers, on Tuesday reported a 30 percent jump in numbers over four years in a rare piece of good news for conservationists.

A census found 2,226 tigers in India last year compared with 1,706 in 2010, officials in New Delhi announced.

Environment minister Prakash Javadekar hailed the rise as a "huge success" as India battles to save the endangered animals from poachers and smugglers as well as destruction of their natural habitat.

"While the tiger population is falling in the world, it is rising in India. We have increased by 30 per cent from the last count. That is a huge success story," Javadekar said at the release of the census.

The minister cited improved management of India's more than 40 tiger reserves for the increase.

He said the government was working to reduce deadly encounters between tigers and villagers, as farmers encroach on forest land and the big cats leave reserves to search for water and food.

Some 9,700 hidden cameras were used in known tiger habitats including in the northeast state of Assam and western Rajasthan to take photographs of the animals for the count.

More than half of the world's rapidly dwindling wild tiger population lives in India, but the country's conservation programme has been working to halt their decline.

The numbers have been rising since they dropped to 1,411 in 2006 but the current population still remains a long way off 2002 when some 3,700 tigers were estimated to be alive in the country.

There were thought to be around 40,000 tigers in India at the time of independence from Britain in 1947.

Authorities across Asia are waging a major battle against poachers, who often sell tiger body parts to the lucrative traditional Chinese medicine market, and other man-made problems such as development leading to habitat loss.

National panda park planned for Sichuan

Want China Times, Xinhua 2014-10-14

Two giant pandas play at a panda reserve in Sichuan, July 7.
(Photo/CNS)

A national park devoted to giant panda conservation could be the best way to protect the species, at least Southwest China's Sichuan provincial forestry department said on Saturday.

Yao Sidan, head of the department, put forward the idea of a national park for giant pandas in a provincial environmental plan released Friday.

A repackaging of current natural reserves, forestry and wetland parks in western Sichuan, the national park would be a major innovation in the protection of the endangered species, Yao said.

The plan calls for the giant panda habitat to be no less than 26.5 million mu (1.77 million hectares), and be established by 2020.

Earth lost 50% of its wildlife in the past 40 years, says WWF

Species across land, rivers and seas decimated as humans kill for food in unsustainable numbers and destroy habitats

See picture gallery of wild animals facing decline

The Guardian, Damian Carrington, Monday 29 September 2014

Rubbish dumped on the tundra outside llulissat in Greenland stand in stark contrast
 to icebergs behind from the Sermeq Kujullaq or llulissat Ice fjord – a Unesco world
heritage site. Photograph: Global Warming Images/WWF-Canon

The number of wild animals on Earth has halved in the past 40 years, according to a new analysis. Creatures across land, rivers and the seas are being decimated as humans kill them for food in unsustainable numbers, while polluting or destroying their habitats, the research by scientists at WWF and the Zoological Society of London found.

“If half the animals died in London zoo next week it would be front page news,” said Professor Ken Norris, ZSL’s director of science. “But that is happening in the great outdoors. This damage is not inevitable but a consequence of the way we choose to live.” He said nature, which provides food and clean water and air, was essential for human wellbeing.

“We have lost one half of the animal population and knowing this is driven by human consumption, this is clearly a call to arms and we must act now,” said Mike Barratt, director of science and policy at WWF. He said more of the Earth must be protected from development and deforestation, while food and energy had to be produced sustainably.

The steep decline of animal, fish and bird numbers was calculated by analysing 10,000 different populations, covering 3,000 species in total. This data was then, for the first time, used to create a representative “Living Planet Index” (LPI), reflecting the state of all 45,000 known vertebrates.

“We have all heard of the FTSE 100 index, but we have missed the ultimate indicator, the falling trend of species and ecosystems in the world,” said Professor Jonathan Baillie, ZSL’s director of conservation. “If we get [our response] right, we will have a safe and sustainable way of life for the future,” he said.

If not, he added, the overuse of resources would ultimately lead to conflicts. He said the LPI was an extremely robust indicator and had been adopted by UN’s internationally-agreed Convention on Biological Diversity as key insight into biodiversity.

A second index in the new Living Planet report calculates humanity’s “ecological footprint”, ie the scale at which it is using up natural resources. Currently, the global population is cutting down trees faster than they regrow, catching fish faster than the oceans can restock, pumping water from rivers and aquifers faster than rainfall can replenish them and emitting more climate-warming carbon dioxide than oceans and forests can absorb.

The report concludes that today’s average global rate of consumption would need 1.5 planet Earths to sustain it. But four planets would be required to sustain US levels of consumption, or 2.5 Earths to match UK consumption levels.

The fastest decline among the animal populations were found in freshwater ecosystems, where numbers have plummeted by 75% since 1970. “Rivers are the bottom of the system,” said Dave Tickner, WWF’s chief freshwater adviser. “Whatever happens on the land, it all ends up in the rivers.” For example, he said, tens of billions of tonnes of effluent are dumped in the Ganges in India every year.

As well as pollution, dams and the increasing abstraction of water damage freshwater systems. There are more than 45,000 major dams – 15m or higher – around the world. “These slice rivers up into a thousand pieces,” Tickner said, preventing the healthy flow of water. While population has risen fourfold in the last century, water use has gone up sevenfold. “We are living thirstier and thirstier lives,” he said.

But while freshwater species such as the European eel and the hellbender salamander in the US have crashed, recoveries have also been seen. Otters were near extinct in England but thanks to conservation efforts now live in every county.

The number of animals living on the land has fallen by 40% since 1970. From forest elephants in central Africa, where poaching rates now exceed birth rates, to the Hoolock gibbon in Bangladesh and European snakes like the meadow and asp vipers, destruction of habitat has seen populations tumble. But again intensive conservation effort can turn declines around, as has happened with tigers in Nepal.

Marine animal populations have also fallen by 40% overall, with turtles suffering in particular. Hunting, the destruction of nesting grounds and getting drowned in fishing nets have seen turtle numbers fall by 80%. Some birds have been heavily affected too. The number of grey partridges in the UK sank by 50% since 1970 due to the intensification of farming, while curlew sandpipers in Australia lost 80% of their number in the 20 years to 2005.

The biggest declines in animal numbers have been seen in low-income, developing nations, while conservation efforts in rich nations have seen small improvements overall. But the big declines in wildlife in rich nations had already occurred long before the new report’s baseline year of 1970 – the last wolf in the UK was shot in 1680.

Also, by importing food and other goods produced via habitat destruction in developing nations, rich nations are “outsourcing” wildlife decline to those countries, said Norris. For example, a third of all the products of deforestation such as timber, beef and soya were exported to the EU between 1990 and 2008.

David Nussbaum, chief executive of WWF-UK said: “The scale of the destruction highlighted in this report should be a wake-up call for us all. But 2015 – when the countries of the world are due to come together to agree on a new global climate agreement, as well as a set of sustainable development goals – presents us with a unique opportunity to reverse the trends.

“We all – politicians, businesses and people – have an interest, and a responsibility, to act to ensure we protect what we all value: a healthy future for both people and nature.”

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Pandering to the crowd: panda accused of faking pregnancy in bun fraud case

Ai Hin showed all the signs she was expecting but only wanted extra food and the trappings of celebrity, say keepers

theguardian.com, AFP, Beijing, Thursday 28 August 2014

Giant panda Ai Hin put on a ‘phantom pregnancy’, possibly because she wanted
special treatment, her Chinese keepers say. Photograph: STR/AFP/Getty Images

Hopes that tiny panda paws would be seen in the world’s first live-broadcast cub delivery have been dashed after Chinese experts suggested the “mother” may have been focusing more on extra bun rations than giving birth.

The slated star of the show, giant panda Ai Hin, had shown signs of pregnancy at the Chengdu Giant Panda Breeding Research Centre, according to state news agency Xinhua.

A live broadcast of the event was planned but Xinhua said her “behaviours and physiological indexes returned to normal”, citing experts saying she experienced a “phantom pregnancy”.

The breeding centre, in China’s south-western province of Sichuan, commonly moves pandas that are thought to be pregnant into single rooms with air conditioning and around-the-clock care.

“They also receive more buns, fruits and bamboo, so some clever pandas have used this to their advantage to improve their quality of life,” Wu Kongju, an expert at the base told Xinhua.

Phantom pregnancy is said to be common among the endangered animals. Many continued to display pregnant behaviour after noticing the difference in treatment they received, Xinhua said.

Six-year-old Ai Hin showed reduced appetite, less mobility and a surge in hormones when her “pregnancy” was first detected, the news agency said, before further observations concluded it was fake.

The giant panda’s natural habitat is in the mountainous south-west of China. But they have a notoriously low reproductive rate and are under pressure from factors such as habitat loss.

China has about 1,600 pandas living in the wild and another 300 held in captivity.

“Only 24% of females in captivity give birth, posing a serious threat to the survival of the species,” Xinhua said.

Indian woman kills leopard with sickle after it attacks her

Kamla Devi, 56, says she battled with the animal for half an hour after it attacked her while she was tending her fields

theguardian.com, Agence France-Presse in Dehradun, Wednesday 27 August 2014

Kamla Devi suffered several injuries after she fought off a leopard. Photograph: Europics

A 56-year-old Indian woman is recovering in hospital after killing a leopard that attacked her, as she tended her fields armed only with a sickle.

The woman told Indian broadcaster CNN-IBN that she battled with the leopard for half an hour on Sunday morning before finally delivering a killer blow with her sickle.

"The leopard lunged at me many times and we fought for a long time," she told the channel from her hospital bed in the northern state of Uttarakhand, her arms bandaged and a big scar across her right cheek.

"I got hold of my sickle and fought with it. That's when the leopard was killed," said the woman, named as Kamla Devi.

Devi, who was widowed a few years ago, told the Hindustan Times she was terrified when the leopard attacked, but was determined not to succumb.

"I gathered my courage to fight back. I promised myself that this is not my last day here," she told the paper.

She told AFP that she grabbed the ear of the attacking leopard with her right hand and kept swinging at the animal with the sickle in her left. Hearing Devi's screams for help, villagers in the Rudraprayag district came running but the leopard was dead by the time they reached her, a witness, Jagdish Singh, said.

Dr Rakesh Rawat said Devi's injuries, which include fractured hands and deep cuts on her body, were not life threatening and she was recovering.

Leopard attacks are relatively common in rural areas of India, although it is rare for the leopard to come off worse. In 2009 a nine-year-old boy in the same state fought off a leopard that had attacked his sister.

The animals are increasingly venturing into populated areas as their habitat becomes depleted. Video footage from Mumbai last year showed a leopard creeping into an apartment block complex and snatching a small dog.

Conservation group WWF called for better management of forests and other habitats for India's leopard population, which numbered 1,150 in a 2011 census.

Wild animals attacks evidence of protection efforts in Tibet

Want China Times, Xinhua 2014-07-13

A wild snow leopard was caught in a sheep pen by local herders in a village
 in Ngari Prefecture in Tibet. It couldn't escape from the pen as it had overindulged
 on sheep. It was then released back into the wild, away from the village, April 21.
Snow leopards are thought to lesser in number than even the panda. (File photo/CNS)

Thanks to protection efforts, Tibet's wildlife population has increased by 30% over the past two decades, according to Tsongkha, deputy chief of Tibet's regional forestry department.

"In the remote pastureland of Nagqu prefecture alone, there are more than 10,000 wild yaks, 100,000 Tibetan antelopes and at least 80,000 wild donkeys," he added.

These remote areas are sparsely populated by humans, who number only about 12,000. Most are herders raising a total of 1 million heads of cattle.

While human activities are inevitably a disturbance, wild animals sometimes also put man's life and property at risk, said Wu Haipeng, party chief of the forestry bureau in Nagqu Prefecture.

Last year, 95% of the townships and villages in Nagqu saw disturbances caused by brown bears, wolves, lynxes or snow leopards, Wu said. Three people, including a teenager, died after being attacked by wild animals, and seven were injured.

Wild animal attacks also killed more than 50,000 heads of cattle in Nagqu, said Wu.

Last year, the local government paid 21 million yuan (US$3.4 million) in compensation for losses caused to herders as a result of wild animals, according to Wu.

Across Tibet, such compensation totaled 340 million yuan (US$55 million) from 2006 to the end of 2013.

To avoid further damages, the local government has stepped up safety education among the herders.

"We keep telling the herders to properly dispose of butchered cattle to avoid drawing wild animals into villages," said Wu. "When a brown bear is in sight, it is advisable to beat drums and gongs or light up a fire to scare it away."

Forestry workers must discover new ways to drive away wild animals without injuring them, he said. "This is because many animals, not knowing that people once killed, are now completely unafraid of human beings."

Wildlife conservation specialists say it is crucial to find out more about the habitat and nature of Tibet's wild animals, why they attack and how to prevent tragedies.

Despite the tough, low-oxygen plateau environment, the Changtang Grassland, located in the heart of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, is an ideal habitat for wild animals, with its grass, lakes and ample sunshine.

Animals are reproducing fast on the grasslands as more nature reserves have been built exclusively for wildlife and the locals have long given up hunting.

Brown bears, wild yaks, snow leopards and Himalayan blue sheep are among the most frequently reported "troublemakers," according to Tsongkha.

One Tibetan herder said he once came home to find a brown bear sitting in a corner of his house drinking a can of soda water.

Scared as he was, he knew it was illegal to kill the bear, as it is listed as an endangered species by the Chinese government. Unable to scare the bear out, the herder could only seek help from the local forestry authority.

A growing number of Tibetan herders have had similar encounters with wild animals in the Changtang Grassland.

Rabobank under fire over Indonesia palm oil investments

DutchNews.nl, Saturday 28 June 2014

A palm oil plantation (NOS/AFP)

Environmental group Milieudefensie has made a formal complaint against Rabobank with the OECD, saying the bank is breaking rules on deforestation.

Milieudefensie says the bank has some €47m invested in Indonesia palm oil company Bumitama which it says operates illegal plantations and is guilty of illegally cutting down forests. This, in turn, is threatening the habitat of orangutans, the organisation says.

Rabobank says it is in talks with Bumitama in an effort to improve its operations but Milieudefensie says this is taking too long. ‘Rabobank has showed itself to be extremely naïve in this and has a blinkered view,’ spokesman Geert Ritsema told the Volkskrant.

Illegal deforestation is not only against Rabobank’s own policy but against OECD agreements on socially responsible business.

If the OECD upholds the complaint, Rabobank could be excluded from taking part in trade missions and from some subsidies, the Volkskrant said.

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Greenpeace Calls Out Procter & Gamble for Dirty Palm Oil Sourcing

Jakarta Globe, Ethan Harfenist, February 26, 2014

This file photograph taken on June 7, 2012 shows the boundary between the
 remaining rainforest and newly developed palm oil plantation over cleared
tropical forest land in Central Kalimantan province. (AFP Photo)

Jakarta. Greenpeace accused the US-based consumer goods giant Procter & Gamble on Wednesday of being complicit in environmentally destructive activities in Indonesia, including encroachment of Sumatran tiger habitats, slash-and-burn clearing and the presence of an “orangutan graveyard.”

The environmental NGO slammed the company for sourcing “dirty” palm oil from allegedly unscrupulous suppliers in a report titled ”Procter & Gamble’s Dirty Secret.” The report, the result of a yearlong investigation by Greenpeace International, uncovered evidence that Procter & Gamble-linked palm oil companies were involved in the destruction of orangutan and Sumatran tiger habitats and the kind of slash-and-burn land clearing methods responsible for the region’s annual haze.

“[Procter & Gamble] needs to stop bringing rainforest destruction into our showers,” Bustar Maitar, head of the Indonesian forest campaign at Greenpeace International, said in a press statement. ”It must clean up its act and guarantee its customers that these products are forest-friendly.”

Greenpeace urged Procter & Gamble to adopt a “zero deforestation” pledge and undergo a serious review of its supply chain.

“Procter & Gamble should follow the lead of other palm oil using companies like Unilever, Nestlé and L’Oréal, which have already promised to clean up their supply chains,” Bustar said.

Palm oil is the world’s most ubiquitous vegetable oil and a main driver of deforestation in Indonesia. The oil accounted for roughly 40 percent of the world’s vegetable oil production from 2012-2013, and it is a key ingredient in many household products, like Procter & Gamble’s Head & Shoulders shampoo and Gillette shaving gel.

Procter & Gamble purchased some 462,000 tons of palm oil between 2012-2013, much of it derived from plantations located in Indonesia. One of the companies Greenpeace zeroes in on in its report is BW Plantation, a Jakarta-based firm that is a third-party supplier for Asian Agri — a palm oil company owned by Sukanto Tanoto’s RGE Group.

BW Plantation is allegedly responsible for the recent clearance of orangutan habitats in Central Kalimantan. The company is also linked to a police investigation into an “orangutan graveyard” next to the province’s Tanjung Putting National Park, a 416 thousand-hectare nature reserve famous for its orangutan population.

“We’ve been confronting P&G over the last eight months with how it’s exposing consumers to forest destruction,” said Areeba Hamid, forest campaigner at Greenpeace International. “Instead of taking urgent action, the company has been greenwashing its actions.”

Procter & Gamble pledges, according to its website, to “confirm that all palm oil purchases have originated from responsible and sustainable sources by 2015.” In its 2012 sustainability report, Procter & Gamble promised to achieve zero net deforestation, in accordance with the Consumer Goods Forum.

Proctor & Gamble and BW Plantations were not immediately available for comment.

Greenpeace has been engaged in a highly vocal campaign against destructive and unsustainable agricultural business practices in Indonesia for decades. The group has been successful in forcing corporate change through campaigns raising awareness of the involvement of large multinational companies in deforestation in Indonesia and abroad.

In October, a report titled “License to Kill: How deforestation is driving Sumatran tigers toward extinction,” focused on questionable sourcing by Wilmar — the world’s largest palm oil trader. The Singapore-based company has since announced a zero deforestation policy.

Asia Pulp & Paper, the world’s largest pulp company, caved to similar pressure after losing several high-profile clients to Greenpeace’s once-active campaign against the paper company. APP has now adopted similar sustainability goals and invited Greenpeace to oversee the process as an independent observer.

“Greenpeace believes palm oil must make a genuine contribution to Indonesia’s development,” Bustar said. “Progressive palm oil producers in the Palm Oil Innovation Group, along with ambitious commitments from big palm oil players GAR and Wilmar, prove that there is a business case for responsible palm oil.

“There is no excuse for companies like P&G, Reckitt Benckiser and Colgate Palmolive to delay immediate action on deforestation.”

Palm oil production is the largest cause of deforestation in Indonesia, one of the most biodiverse countries in the world. The country was home to nearly half of the world’s palm oil plantations in 2006 after years of concession land grabs, illegal logging and lax law enforcement, according to the World Wildlife Fund.

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‘Savage’ Bear Mauls Farmer in Rare Attack

Jakarta Globe, February 4, 2014

Sun bears at a zoo in Medan, North Sumatra in 2004. (Wikimedia Commons)

A wild bear attacked a 52-year-old farmwoman on Monday in Salak Baru, an island in central Sumatra’s Jambi province.

“It’s true, a resident of Salak [Baru] island was the victim of a savage animal, and the victim has been taken to Sarolangun hospital,” Sarolangun Police Chief Adj. Sr. Cmr. Ridho Hartawan told news portal jambiekspress.co.id. “We will coordinate with the BKSDA [Natural Resources Conservation Agency] to handle it, as the animal that attacked the resident is a protected animal, so we need to coordinate with related institutions.

The victim, Nursijah, 52, received treatment for severe wounds.

The state-run Antara news agency reported that Nursijah, a farmer, was fetching wood underneath her traditional rumah panggung [stilt house] at 8:00 a.m. when she noticed the bear in a moment of mutual surprise.

The bear mauled her and tried to bite her head, she said, while she lay on the ground screaming.

When local residents came to help, the bear fled into the jungle. Nursijah suffered wounds on her head and body. Residents took her to a nearby public health center, whereupon she was transferred to the hospital.

The attacker was likely a sun bear, which are native to Sumatra. Sun bears eat mostly fruit and insects and are known for their unslakeable lust for honey.

Although they are the smallest of bears, they sometimes attack without provocation, according to the BBC.

Like slow lorises, orangutans, and other Sumatran mammals, sun bears face habitat loss, which can lead to human-animal conflict.