Extensive deforestation for low-yielding cattle production means some Brazilian beef carries a disproportionately high carbon footprint, reports a new study published in Environmental Science & Technology.

Researchers at the Swedish Institute of Food and Biotechnology found that sixty percent of the Brazilian beef industry's carbon emissions come from just six percent of producers: the small group of ranchers that clear Amazon rainforest for cattle production. 60-70 percent of land deforested in the Brazilian Amazon ends up as cattle pasture.

http://news.mongabay.com/2011/0308-deforestation_brazil_beef.html

08/03/2011
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TANJUNG PUTING NATIONAL PARK, Indonesia - Their black eyes peer from the slats of wooden cages, hundreds of orangutans orphaned after their mothers were shot or hacked to death for straying out of Indonesia's rapidly disappearing forests in search of food.

No one wants to get them back into the wild as much as Birute Mary Galdikas, who has devoted a lifetime to studying the great red apes, now on the verge of extinction. And for the first time in years, there is a glimmer of hope on the horizon, thanks to a Hong Kong-based development company's plans to protect a 91,000-hectare (224,866-acre) peatland forest along Tanjung Puting National Park's eastern edge.

"The problem has been finding a safe place to release them," said the 64-year-old scientist. "Many are ready to go right now."

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/unleashed/2011/03/orangutans-indonesia-may-be-freed.html

08/03/2011
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Humans share 98.7 percent of our DNA with chimpanzees, but we share one important similarity with one species of chimp, the common chimpanzee, that we don't share with the other, the bonobo. That similarity is violence. While humans and the common chimpanzee wage war and kill each other, bonobos do not. "There has never been a recorded case in captivity or in the wild of a bonobo killing another bonobo," notes anthropologist Brian Hare.

07/03/2011
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Tanjung Puting National Park. Their black eyes peer from the slats of wooden cages, hundreds of orangutans orphaned after their mothers were shot or hacked to death for straying out of Indonesia's rapidly disappearing forests in search of food.

No one wants to get them back into the wild as much as Birute Mary Galdikas, who has devoted a lifetime to studying the great red apes, now on the verge of extinction. 

And for the first time in years, there is a glimmer of hope on the horizon, thanks to a Hong Kong-based development company's plans to protect a 224,866-acre (91,000-hectare) peatland forest along Tanjung Puting National Park's eastern edge.

http://www.thejakartaglobe.com/home/captive-orangutans-may-soon-be-freed/426946

06/03/2011
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A young male chimpanzee that was one of the only animals living in the remains of a Central African Republic (CAR) zoo was transferred successfully this week to the Jane Goodall Institute (JGI) -Chimpanzee Eden sanctuary, where he will eventually join established social groups in free-range enclosures.

Claude, who is approximately eight years of age, was flown out on a South African Defense Force C-130 cargo plane. He becomes the 33rd orphaned chimpanzee at JGI-Chimpanzee Eden.

http://www.pasaprimates.org/new-headlines/

06/03/2011
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The Brazilian soy industry's moratorium is proving effective at slowing deforestation for soy production in the Amazon rainforest, reveals a new study published in the journal Remote Sensing.

Conducting aerial surveys, ground inspections, and satellite image analysis, Brazilian researchers found that only 0.4 percent of soy established in the Amazon biome since 2006 has occurred in areas deforested since the implementation of the soy moratorium.

http://news.mongabay.com/2011/0306-soy_moratorium.html

06/03/2011
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