Farming snails to save the world's rarest gorillas

In a place of poverty and hunger, how do you save a species on the edge of extinction? A difficult question that conservationists have long-been working to tackle, the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) has come up with a new plan to protect the world's most endangered gorilla, the Cross River gorilla, from poachers by providing locals with an alternate and better income from farming snails.

In a new initiative funded by Great Apes Program of the Arcus Foundation, WCS has selected eight former poachers from four villages to become snail farmers. But why farm snails?

In Nigeria, snails are a highly sought-after delicacy and provide enough to support a family. According to WCS, operating costs to run a snail farm run about 87 US dollars, whereas profit from 3000 snails sold annually runs about 413 US dollars, leaving the snail farmer 326 US dollars a year. On the other hand, poaching a gorilla for bushmeat brings in only about 70 US dollars. Unlike poaching, income from snail farming is reliable and regular.

Large-scale soy farming in Brazil pushes ranchers into the Amazon rainforest

Industrial soy expansion in the Brazilian Amazon has contributed to deforestation by pushing cattle ranchers further north into rainforest zones, reports a new study published the journal Environmental Research Letters.

The research, which looked at soy and cattle dynamics in the southern Amazon stats of Mato Grosso and Pará, supports the claim that soy is an important indirect driver of deforestation in the world's largest rainforest.

The authors — including Elizabeth Barona, Navin Ramankutty, Glenn Hyman and Oliver Coomes — analyzed annual census data on deforestation, crop harvest area, livestock population, and pasture area between 2000 and 2006 from municipalities in the Brazilian Legal Amazon. Their analysis found that deforestation shifted 39 km to the northeast during the period, while pasture shifted 87 km to the northwest, from northeastern Mato Grosso to southwestern Para, and soybeans moved 82 km to the northeast, from southern to northeastern Mato Grosso. The researchers also noted that soybean expansion was accompanied by a decline in pasture area in many municipalities in Mato Grosso, lending support to the argument that "decreases in pasture in Mato Grosso owing to soybean expansion may have been compensated by increases in pasture elsewhere in northern Mato Grosso, Para and Rondônia causing some deforestation indirectly, i.e., 'displacement deforestation.'"

How to apologize to an orangutan

In the rare mid-April sun of drizzly, seaside Seattle I was watching orangutans at the zoo communicate.

It was a good day because the orangutans, each in their own way, in their own time, was letting the keeper Andy Antilla know that his apology was accepted.

Orangutans remind us of rudimentary courtesy and moral behaviour. If we forget, it damages the relationship with them, as it would with us.

Palm oil under attack

What do instant noodles, baby formula, some biofuels, French fries, lipstick, and ice cream have in common? Palm oil.

It’s the vegetable/oil fat listed in the ingredients of many products in the supermarket. The oil’s use is increasing as manufacturers steer away from oils that contain trans fats, by 8 to 10 percent a year, according to industry statistics.

But a United Nations report this year noted that some forms of palm oil production are done on low-lying, carbon-rich peat land, which can result in the release of enormous amounts of carbon dioxide, the key culprit in global warming.