African Wildlife & Conservation News
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Forest elephants are our allies in the fight against climate change, finds research
Forest elephant extinction would exacerbate climate change. That’s according to a new study in Nature Geoscience which links feeding by elephants with an increase in the amount of carbon that forests are able to store. The bad news is that African forest elephants –...
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Complex gorilla societies shed light on roots of human social evolution
Gorillas have more complex social structures than previously thought, from lifetime bonds forged between distant relations, to "social tiers" with striking parallels to traditional human societies, according to a new study. The findings suggest that the origins of our...
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Logging and road building are expanding dramatically in the Congo Basin
Logging roads are expanding dramatically in the Congo Basin, leading to catastrophic collapses in animal populations living in the world's second-largest rainforest, according to research co-led by a scientist at James Cook University in Australia. Just as worrying is...
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Connecting people and the natural world through visual arts: An interview with Pooja Gupta
An interview with artist Pooja GuptaThis article was originally published by artsavingwildlife.com With a passion that is inextricably linked to the natural world, conservation artist Pooja Gupta works with the language of video, illustration, graphics, animation and...
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Local and international organisations call on Ugandan and DRC presidents to protect sensitive ecosystems in new oil licensing round
Kampala and Goma - Nearly 50 civil society organizations (CSOs) from Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and their partners have written to the presidents of Uganda and the DRC calling on them to avoid sensitive ecosystems in the planned and ongoing oil...
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Ecology of fear: Cascading impacts of local extinction of large-carnivores in an African savanna ecosystem
A team of Princeton ecologists took advantage of a rare opportunity to study what happens to an ecosystem when large carnivores are wiped out. "Large carnivores play a critical, and disproportionate, role in their ecosystems, and their populations are declining...
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Roads make development and conservation clash in the Serengeti
New or upgraded roads in the Greater Serengeti Ecosystem around Serengeti National Park will not reduce growing pressure on the ecosystem, a study shows. A proposed Northern Serengeti all-weather tarmac road that will bisect Serengeti National Park, a World Heritage...
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A chimpanzee cultural collapse is underway, and it’s driven by humans
Language, music, and art often vary between adjacent groups of people, and help us identify not only ourselves but also others. And in recent years rich debates have emerged and spawned research into culture in non-human animals. Scientists first observed chimpanzees...
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400,000 African pangolins are hunted for meat every year – why it’s time to act
Pangolins, a group of unique African and Asian scaly mammals, are considered to be one of the most heavily trafficked wild mammals in the world. They are hunted and traded for their meat, scales, and other body parts, and used as traditional medicines in parts of...
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Solving the mystery of Serengeti’s vanishing wild dogs
In 1991, a strange thing happened in the wilds of Tanzania's Serengeti National Park. The Serengeti, a World Heritage Site, is home to a spectacular range of carnivores, from lions to cheetahs and more. And with more than 1.5 million zebras, wildebeests and gazelles...
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