Great ape habitat in Africa has dramatically declined
Great apes, such as gorillas, chimps and bonobos, are running out of places to live, say scientists.
They have recorded a dramatic decline in the amount of habitat suitable for great apes, according to the first such survey across the African continent.
Eastern gorillas, the largest living primate, have lost more than half their habitat since the early 1990s.
Cross River gorillas, chimps and bonobos have also suffered significant losses, according to the study.
Details are published in the journal Diversity and Distributions.
“Several studies either on a site or country level indicated already that African ape populations are under enormous pressure and in decline,” said Hjalmar Kuehl, of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, who helped organise the research.
But a wider perspective was missing; so various organisations and scientists joined to conduct the first continent-wide survey of suitable great ape habitat.
“Many of the authors have spent years to collect the data used in this study under extremely difficult conditions with a lot of personal commitment,” Dr Kuehl told BBC Nature.
“Nothing comparable exists.”
The scientists conducted the survey in two stages.
First, they determined the exact location of more than 15,000 sites where the various species and subspecies of African great ape have been confirmed living during the past twenty years.
“We then evaluated the environmental conditions at these locations and at all other locations across tropical Africa where great ape presence was not confirmed. This assessment included for instance percentage forest cover, human population density or climatic conditions,” said Dr Kuehl.
From that the researchers could calculate the environmental conditions required for great apes to live. Then, using a statistical model, they predicted the amount of such habitat surviving across Africa, first for the 1990s, then the 2000s.
The results are grim reading for conservationists.
Gorillas have been significantly affected. Cross River gorillas have seen 59% of their habitat disappear over the past two decades. Eastern gorillas, the largest gorilla and largest surviving primate, have lost 52% of their habitat, while western gorillas have lost 31%.
The various species and subspecies of chimp have also suffered.
Bonobos, once known as pygmy chimpanzees, have lost 29% of their habitat. Of the different subspecies of common chimpanzee, those living in central Africa have lost 17% and those in western Africa 11% of their habitat respectively.
“From several site and country level studies we knew that pressure on great apes is increasing enormously. But despite these expectations it is outrageous to see how our closest living relatives and their habitats are disappearing,” said Dr Kuehl.
The pressures on the great apes vary significantly depending on region.
For example, in western Africa, the loss of suitable habitat is being driven by forest clearance and hunting.
In Central Africa, huge swathes of pristine forest remain, but it is no longer suitable for great apes due to the extensive hunting that occurs within to supply the trade in bushmeat.
The scientists would like to improve their study, which provides a large scale picture of the habitat loss suffered by great apes, by including more local data.
Including socioeconomic data may help explain why apes still live in close proximity to people in some areas, while in most others they have disappeared.
“The situation is very dramatic, many of the ape populations we still find today will disappear in the near future,” Dr Kuehl told BBC Nature. “In an increasingly crowding world with demand for space, wood, mineral resources and meat, apes will continue to disappear.
“Without a fundamental change in perception of how precious apes and their habitats are the current situation will not improve.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/19731343
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Top 500 companies’ carbon emissions rise despite calls for cuts
Report on world’s biggest 500 firms by capitalisation shows emissions are not in line with UN calls to avoid dangerous climate change
Greenhouse gas emissions by the world’s top 500 companies rose 3.1% from 2010 to 2013, far off the cuts urged by the United Nations to limit global warming, a study showed on Monday.
The top 500 firms by capitalisation accounted for 13.8% of world greenhouse gas emissions and 28% of gross domestic product in 2013, according to the report, drawn up by the information provider Thomson Reuters and BSD Consulting, a global sustainability consultancy.
read moreCOP21: 114 companies commit to science-based targets
More than 100 companies including Ikea, Coca-Cola, Walmart and Kellogg have pledged to set emissions reduction targets in line with scientific assessments on how to keep temperature rises below 2°C.
Corporate science-based targets are being advocated by a coalition consisting of the World Resources Institute (WRI), the CDP, the UN Global Compact and WWF.
Speaking at a side-event on science-based targets at the UNFCCC talks in Paris, Kevin Moss, business centre director at the WRI, said typically, companies would set emission reduction targets in line with what they thought they could achieve, and then stretched themselves slightly so they knew they would meet the target.
“Science-based targets start with the principle that what we are trying to do is solve the problem of catastrophic climate change and there isn’t really a half way point to avoiding catastrophic climate change, you’re either on a trajectory to meet it or you’re not.
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World agrees landmark climate deal
World agrees landmark climate deal http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-35084374
read moreWorld leaders hail Paris climate deal as ‘major leap for mankind’
Almost 200 countries sign historic pledge to hold global temperatures to a maximum rise of 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.
A historic, legally binding climate deal that aims to hold global temperatures to a maximum rise of 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, staving off the worst effects of catastrophic global warming, has been secured.
The culmination of more than 20 years of fraught UN climate talks has seen all countries agree to reduce emissions, promise to raise $100bn a year by 2020 to help poor countries adapt their economies, and accept a new goal of zero net emissions by later this century.
Formally adopted in Paris by 195 countries, the first universal climate deal will see an accelerated phase-out of fossil fuels, the growth of renewable energy streams and powerful new carbon markets to enable countries to trade emissions and protect forests.
As the final text of the agreement was released, the French president, François Hollande, said: “This is a major leap for mankind. The agreement will not be perfect for everyone, if everyone reads it with only their own interests in mind. We will not be judged on a clause in a sentence, but on the text as a whole. We will not be judged on a word, but on an act.”
Economist Lord Stern added: “This is a historic moment, not just for us but for our children, our grandchildren and future generations. The Paris agreement is a turning point in the world’s fight against unmanaged climate change which threatens prosperity. It creates enormous opportunities as countries begin to accelerate along the path towards low-carbon economic growth.”
The British prime minister, David Cameron, also welcomed the deal, praising those involved for showing what ambition and perseverance could do. “We’ve secured our planet for many, many generations to come – and there is nothing more important than that,” he said.
His energy and climate change secretary, Amber Rudd, told BBC One’s The Andrew Marr Show that it did not always look like an agreement would be possible, but that the result was an “extraordinary achievement”.
“It really went down to the wire with the final plenary meeting, it was suspended for an hour while final negotiations took place. And then we got it. But it’s only the start. The French did a fantastic job managing the whole process, but – as they said themselves – it’s a step in the right direction … the work begins now.
“The current contributions that all countries are making actually takes us to [a] 2.7 [degree increase in global temperatures],” said Rudd. “So we need to do better than that, and what this did was set us on a pathway to try and achieve that.
“It is ambitious, but it is legally binding in some ways, and not in other ways. But we had to get the balance of being totally inclusive, getting 200 countries to sign up, but also not having such a tough compliance regime which you could say we had at Kyoto, which didn’t succeed, that some countries would step away.
“I think this is the right balance. While it is a compromise, it is nevertheless an historic moment.”
The US president, Barack Obama, said in a seven-minute address from the White House that the deal “shows what is possible when the world stands as one”, and added: “This agreement represents the best chance we have to save the one planet that we’ve got.”
Climate scientists and activists cautioned that while the agreement was unexpectedly ambitious, the measures did not go far enough. “The cuts promised by countries are still insufficient, but the agreement sends a strong message to business, investors and cities that fossil fuels belong to the past,” said Corinne Le Quere, director of the UK’s Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research.
Myles Allen, professor of geosystem science at Oxford, cast doubt on the 1.5C target: “Human-induced warming is already approaching one degree and is predicted to be at 1.2C by 2030, so 1.5C will be a challenge.”
Bill McKibben, founder of environment movement 350.org, said: “The power of the fossil fuel industry is reflected in the text of the agreement, which drags out the transition [to clean energy] so far that endless climate damage will be done.”
Kumi Naidoo, Greenpeace international director, added: “The deal puts the fossil fuel industry on the wrong side of history. But emission targets are not big enough. The nations that cause this problem have promised too little help to those people who are already losing their lives and livelihoods.”
As tens of thousands of people demonstrated in the centre of Paris for a strong deal, the countries meeting at Le Bourget overcame historic differences in a series of all-night negotiations.
They were urged by the French foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, to compromise for the sake of humanity. “History is coming, in fact, history is here,” he said.
“On 12 December 2015, we can have a historic day, a major date to go down in the history of mankind. The date can become a message of life. I am delighted, relieved, proud, that it will be launched from Paris, because Paris was attacked almost exactly a month ago.”
The only previous UN climate agreement, the Kyoto protocol, required a number of rich countries to cut emissions marginally and was rejected by the US; the Paris deal applies to all nations. And while there will be no legal obligation for countries to cut emissions, the agreement includes a five-yearly global stocktake and a review mechanism to assess each country’s contributions.
The last hours of negotiations were fraught as the French government sought to bridge yawning gaps between rich and poor countries.
“The outcome was a compromise that was hard to swallow for some countries but ultimately it had everyone’s buy-in,” said one Indian negotiator. “They [the French] talked to everyone. They got everyone on board. No party can say they have not contributed to this process. Everyone will have to swallow something. Everyone will lose something that is dear to them.”
Despite the caveats, the agreement was broadly welcomed as a historic first step towards a decarbonised economy.
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