Drastic musk ox population decline 12,000 years ago due to climate, not humans, study finds

ScienceDaily: Plants & Animals News Tue, 9 Mar 2010

Scientists have discovered that the drastic decline in Arctic musk ox populations that began roughly 12,000 years ago was due to a warming climate rather than to human hunting. The research is the first study to use ancient musk ox DNA collected from across the animal's former geographic range to test for human impacts on musk ox populations.

'Globetrotting' new worms discovered on Great Barrier Reef and Swedish coast

ScienceDaily: Plants & Animals News Tue, 9 Mar 2010

Between the grains of sand on the sea floor there is an unknown and unexplored world. Scientists have just found new animal species on the Great Barrier Reef, in New Caledonia, and in the sea off the Gullmarsfjord in the Swedish county of Bohuslan.

Home gardens and biodiversity in Oaxaca, Mexico

Environment Tue, 9 Mar 2010

The home garden is an integral part of smallholders' production strategies. This paper investigates how home gardens are integrated into local farming ...

New hope for mountain gorillas in Congo

Africa News latest RSS headlines - The Africa News.Net Mon, 8 Mar 2010

Conservation rangers and local people are shown in 2007 evacuating the bodies of four mountain gorillas killed in Virunga national park, eastern Congo. Photograph: Brent Stirton/Getty A baby gorilla...

U.N. biodiversity chief seeks protocol on use of genetic resources

The Japan Times: All Stories feed Mon, 8 Mar 2010

The head of a U.N. treaty on conserving biological diversity wants to see the adoption of a new protocol on the use of genetic resources in such sectors as pharmaceuticals, agriculture, horticulture, cosmetics and biotechnology at an October meeting in Nagoya. Ahmed Djoghlaf, executive secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity, said recently in Tokyo he is hopeful that more than 190 parties to the treaty will agree in Nagoya on a 'framework protocol with a clear road map' on access to genetic resources and the fair and equitable benefit-sharing arising from their utilization.