May 2013

Indigenous Leaders Call for Greater Respect for their Rights

Kanyinke Sena, an Ogiek from Kenya, is a member of CI’s Indigenous Advisory Group. He is also the first African to chair the U.N. Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues. (© CI/photo by Sebastian Perry)

This week in New York City, indigenous leaders from across the globe are coming together for the 12th annual meeting of the U.N. Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues.

The gathering will facilitate discussion on a variety of issues faced by the world’s more than 370 million self-identified indigenous people, ranging from economic and social development to health and the environment.

The right to “free, prior and informed consent,” known within the indigenous policy realm as FPIC, is a key component of the implementation of both the U.N. Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and social safeguards for REDD+ projects, two of the major topics being discussed at the Forum. REDD+ is a mechanism that involves communities in combating deforestation and climate change.

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May 2013

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A Sustainable Future Relies on US-China Collaboration

Peter Seligmann

A longer version of today’s blog was also published in the Huffington Post.

View of the Hong Kong harbour and Kowloon from Victoria Peak. (© Adam Korzekwa)

The world is sitting on a consumption time bomb. More consumers, higher consumption and more material intensity, coupled with diminishing supplies of natural capital, add up to a planet that is dangerously overspent and veering towards ecological bankruptcy in the not-too-distant future.

China and the United States — the two largest consuming nations with combined GDPs comprising one-third of global Gross Domestic Product — find themselves at the center of a potential catastrophe, in which human demand outspends Earth’s supplies.

The two nations consume one-quarter of the world’s natural gas, one-third of global oil production and produce nearly two-thirds of the world’s coal. The two nations also are the planet’s largest carbon dioxide emitters, jointly releasing nearly half of the world total each year.

As the problem worsens and threatens the sustainability of our planet, business-as-usual scenarios are insufficient to address the acute challenges that both nations, as well as the community of nations, will face in years ahead.

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May 2013

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In the Qatari Desert, An Oasis for Vanishing Species

Molly Bergen

Today is the International Day for Biological Diversity, a U.N. observance dedicated to raising awareness about the plight of the world’s species. Writing about topics such as accelerating extinction rates can be disheartening, but among the stories of loss are other stories of hope. Today’s blog chronicles an inspiring experience I had last December.

Arabian oryx (Oryx leucoryx) is one of the only species native to Qatar that resides at Al Wabra Wildlife Preservation captive-breeding center. Once threatened by overhunting, the species has been downgraded on the IUCN Red List from Endangered to Vulnerable. (© Molly Bergen)

Al Wabra Wildlife Preservation’s tagline is “a well-hidden secret in Qatar.” Truer words were never spoken. The first three taxi drivers I asked had never heard of it. The fourth claimed to know how to get there, but as we sped west of Doha for 45 minutes along the dusty highway, with the car’s gas light blinking ever more insistently, I realized this was not the case.

Fortunately, my map eventually led us to a large compound with leafy green trees peeking over its walls — a welcome visual relief from the brown, rocky desert surrounding it. Al Wabra may be little-known in its home country, but this place is internationally recognized for its success at breeding some of the rarest species in the world.

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May 2013

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Hillary Clinton and Harrison Ford Link Conservation and National Security

Kevin Connor

CI board member Harrison Ford and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton at Conservation International’s 16th Annual New York Dinner. (© CI/photo by Jack Hartzman)

As a U.S. first lady, senator, presidential candidate and secretary of state, Hillary Rodham Clinton has spoken to a multitude of audiences around the world regarding a wide array of topics — from U.S. foreign policy to human rights and health care.

I was lucky enough to be in her latest audience last Wednesday night with more than 400 other guests at Conservation International’s (CI) 16^th Annual New York Dinner, an event meant to raise vital funds to support our work around the world.

Secretary Clinton joined Harrison Ford — a longtime member and vice chairman of CI’s board of directors — to discuss international conservation and its role in supporting and stabilizing human societies.

Repeatedly during the 45-minute conversation, each of them hammered home one critical point: It is in our enlightened self-interest to protect nature.

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May 2013

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Cambodia Expedition Wrap-up: Where Do We Go From Here?

Dr. Les Kaufman

CI marine biologist Les Kaufman spends most of his trips to the “field” near, on or in the ocean. But this month in Cambodia’s Tonle Sap region, he’s in for something different. Les is part of a team studying the interactions between one of the world’s largest freshwater fisheries and the people who depend on it. Read his previous posts from this trip.

A Tetrameles nudiflora tree both ornaments and obliterates a portion of the Angkor Wat temple at Ta Prohm. (© CI/photo by Les Kaufman)

With the adventures of the open lake behind us, we set out to complete our last two missions in Cambodia on this trip: begin our exploration of the lake basin uplands, and discuss how we might unite the multiple elements of our project into a unified whole, complete with a crack team of Cambodian and expat graduate students, postdocs and technicians.

First we set off for the headwaters of the Siem Reap River, perhaps the most famous and visited of the feeder streams to Tonle Sap, for it includes an outer temple of the famous Angkor Wat complex. The short hike up began eventfully, with a gibbon calling from the nearby dipterocarp hill forest. (Learn more about Cambodia’s gibbons in Wednesday’s blog post.)

The piercing call of the slender ape drove home with force and conviction: “These woods are mine! I live here!’” This despite the meager remnant forest, the press of the tourist parade — more than a million strong each year — and the blanket of high-yield rice rolling across what once was jungle. This land is inhabited by living spirits, and whether we care or not, they are sacred.

At the top, we had a rare chance to scrutinize native forest — rare because except for a few large tracts like the Cardamom Mountains, very little forest of any sort remains in Cambodia.

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May 2013

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Why Monkeys Matter: Q&A with Stephen Nash, Wildlife Artist

Molly Bergen

Stephen Nash at his drawing table in Stony Brook, New York. (© Paula Katharina Rylands)

This is the fourth and final post in our “Why Monkeys Matter” series, which has been examining how field research on primates — not just monkeys, but apes, lemurs and more — is illuminating their role in natural ecosystems and helping us protect the places we all depend on..

For today’s blog, I talked with Stephen Nash, a wildlife illustrator who drew every known species and subspecies of primate for the recent primate volume of the “Handbook of the Mammals of the World.”

1. How did you become a professional wildlife artist?

I started out wanting to be a medical illustrator, because I thought that it would be a profession in which I would learn how to draw “from the inside out” the way artists did in the past, studying the underlying anatomy first, so that surface structures were accurately and meaningfully rendered. However, I soon found out that medical illustration is less about drawing realistic anatomy these days than, say, producing images of dialysis machines.

I had always had a great interest in animals and nature, and of course admired the works of such artists as John James Audubon, Edward Lear and Peter Scott, but had no idea about how to proceed. Then, while at college in London, I had a chance conversation with John Norris Wood, who was the tutor for the Natural History Illustration course at the Royal College of Art. He encouraged me to apply first to the Scientific Illustration course at Middlesex Polytechnic, and then after completing it, to his course.

Mandrill (Mandrillus sphinx). (© CI/illustration by Stephen Nash)

While drawing one day at the London Zoo, I came across a group of cottontop tamarins, a squirrel-sized monkey from South America. For some reason, they utterly fascinated me. Years later, I discovered that as a child, I had had a stuffed toy that strongly resembled these monkeys. Although I had forgotten about it, I believe that subconsciously I was influenced by that toy when I saw the tamarins.

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May 2013

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Why Monkeys Matter: What I’ve Learned From Finding Poop in the Woods

Jackson Frechette

Ph.D. candidate Jackson Frechette has just concluded 14 months of gibbon field research with CI in the forests of Cambodia. Today on Human Nature, he shares why this work is so important. Although it should be noted that gibbons are actually not monkeys, but “lesser apes,” this is the third post in our “Why Monkeys Matter” series; read the previous posts.

Female gibbon with infant in Cambodia’s Veun Sai Siem Pang Conservation Area. (© Santiago Cassalett)

In May 2011, I arrived in Cambodia to conduct my Ph.D. research on gibbons in Veun Sai Siem Pang Conservation Area (VSSPCA). I had no idea what to expect.

I had never been to Cambodia; in fact, it was just eight months prior that I had switched my research site from South America. Until that point, I had spent my entire career working in and studying South American ecosystems. I even lived for 13 months in the jungles of Suriname studying capuchin monkeys.

But the opportunity to study gibbons and work with CI was too enticing to pass up. So here I was, entering an unknown world, leaving behind my culture, my language and my girlfriend for over a year.

The first thing almost every Western visitor says upon arriving at the site is: “This is the most remote place I have ever been.” It’s that remoteness, about one and a half days of travel from Phnom Penh, which makes this area one of the great wild places on Earth.

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May 2013

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Why Monkeys Matter: 10 Primate Facts That Will Blow Your Mind

Molly Bergen

This is the second post in Human Nature’s “Why Monkeys Matter” series. In case you missed it, check out yesterday’s post by leading primatologist — and CI president — Russ Mittermeier.

There are innumerable reasons why we should protect primates.

Some of them serve as indicator species for the health of their habitats; when they disappear, it’s not a good omen for tropical forest ecosystems. Others disperse seeds, helping to maintain forest cover. And in many places, they serve as an important draw for tourists, who bring revenue into local communities in exchange for a chance to see these iconic animals face to face.

But that’s not why I’ve been a self-defined “primate geek” since I began learning more about them as an anthropology major in college. To me, they’re just cool, and a world without them would be a less interesting place.

Here’s some proof: 10 facts guaranteed to amaze, impress, and/or weird you out.

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May 2013

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Why Monkeys Matter: New Book Provides Comprehensive Guide to World’s Primates

Dr. Russell A. Mittermeier

This week on Human Nature, our “Why Monkeys Matter” series will examine how field research on primates — not just monkeys, but apes, lemurs and more — is illuminating their role in natural ecosystems and helping us protect the places we all depend on. CI President Dr. Russ Mittermeier kicks off the series with this reflection on a project four decades in the making. Read other posts in this series.

I have been fascinated by nonhuman primates ever since I was a little boy growing up in the Bronx. It’s sometimes hard to explain what piqued my interest in this particular group of animals, but I believe it derived from several early influences.

One was certainly the “Tarzan” books and movies, in which the jungle hero is raised by a group of gorilla-like great apes in the interior of the African forest. Another was the fact that my mother took me to the Bronx Zoo and the American Museum of Natural History on a weekly basis, where I quickly gravitated to the primate (and reptile) exhibits. Third, as I progressed in my education, I learned that these animals were both our closest living relatives (which led to me to study biological anthropology in both college and graduate school) and the best symbols for the tropical rainforests of the world, where 90% of them live.

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May 2013

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Tonle Sap Visit Finds Little Evidence of Once-Abundant Species

Dr. Les Kaufman

CI marine biologist Les Kaufman spends most of his trips to the “field” near, on or in the ocean. But this week in Cambodia’s Tonle Sap region, he’s in for something different. Les is part of a team studying the interactions between one of the world’s largest freshwater fisheries and the people who depend on it. Read the first post from his trip.

It was with great expectations that we set off down a seemingly interminable canal on our first mission out into the “Great Lake” — Tonle Sap. The 15 of us were distributed among three surprisingly stable long boats made for crossing vast, shallow bodies of water.

The channel we were traveling requires constant dredging to keep it open across the miles that separate the current lake levels from the stranded high-water mark — currently dry. On the way out we passed a big hydraulic shovel, now asleep, which would later come to life with Sisyphean digging by the time we found ourselves homeward bound at eventide.

Soon the channel gave way to low scrub and grassland on either side. The scrub was dominated by Mimosa pigra, a thorny shrub native to Central and South America. A highly invasive species, it has carpeted the seasonal lake bed, blocked access to fish and driven some lake residents to seek their livelihoods elsewhere.

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