species

Have you ever teared up at a news story about giraffes heading towards extinction? Perhaps you symbolically adopted an elephant to save it from poaching. Your heart is in the right place. But a study released earlier this year highlights the very real damage human consumption does to threatened species and the environment.
The couch you’re sitting on, the smartphone you used to donate money to the African elephant rescue effort – both of these have a negative impact on biodiversity. Even the coffee you brew in the morning takes a toll.

Acknowledging their loss is painful, but could celebrating animals that have vanished encourage us to protect wildlife in the modern world? Marketeer Matt Lindley explains how an extinct New Zealand bird sparked a new conversation on conservation
The post Can remembering lost species inspire conservationists of the future? appeared first on Positive News.

Meet Diego the Giant Tortoise. He may be over 100 years old, but that hasn’t stopped this sex-crazed tortoise from almost single-handedly saving his entire species. The tortoise from the Chelonoidis hoodensis subspecies, who hails from the island of Española, has fathered over 800 children. He is now the father of at least 40% of his species that are released into the wild. [1]

On August 26, President Obama created the largest ecologically protected area on earth by expanding a national marine monument in Hawaii, his home state, to encompass more than half a million square miles. It’s called the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument. [1]
The area of remote Pacific waters known for both extraordinary marine life and importance to native cultures is twice the size of Texas. [2]

As humanity’s quest for knowledge deepens into the cosmos, perhaps we should bow modestly to the ungraspable complexity of life here on Earth, says Marcus Nield