Vijay Barve

Beetles trouble Logging trade

A mountain pine beetle infestation is sweeping across British Colombian forests hitting the Canadian logging trade. Mark Worthington reports.

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Labels: biodiversity, conservation, insect, trees

World's rarest tree frog found

An extremely rare female frog has been spotted for the first time in 20 years.

The tiny amphibian, Isthmohyla rivularis, is carrying eggs, suggesting that the species is doing well.

The discovery was filmed by the BBC in the Costa Rican jungle as part of a scientific expedition with a team from Manchester University and Chester Zoo as they work on conservation programmes for rare frogs.

Andrew Gray describes the find.

Additional footage courtesy of Alexander Villegas

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Labels: AmphibianIndia, conservation, diversityindia, Frog, wildlife

'Extinct' frogs survive devastating fungus

SYDNEY, Australia (AP) -- A tiny frog species thought by many experts to be extinct has been rediscovered alive and well in a remote area of Australia's tropical north, researchers said Thursday.

The Armoured Mistfrog had been seen since 1991 until it was found in Australia's tropical north.

The 40 millimeters-long (1.5 inch) Armoured Mistfrog had not been seen since 1991, and many experts assumed it had been wiped out by a devastating fungus that struck northern Queensland state.

But two months ago, a doctoral student at James Cook University in Townsville conducting research on another frog species in Queensland stumbled across what appeared to be several Armoured Mistfrogs in a creek, said professor Ross Alford, head of a research team on threatened frogs at the university.

Conrad Hoskin, a researcher at The Australian National University in Canberra who has been studying the evolutionary biology of north Queensland frogs for the past 10 years, conducted DNA tests on tissue samples from the frogs and determined they were the elusive Armoured Mistfrog.

Alford's group got the results on Wednesday. A spokeswoman for the Queensland Environmental Protection Agency also confirmed Hoskin's findings.

"A lot of us were starting to believe it had gone extinct, so to discover it now is amazing," Hoskin said. "It means some of the other species that are missing could potentially just be hidden away along some of the streams up there."

Craig Franklin, a zoology professor at The University of Queensland who studies frogs, said the Mistfrog's rediscovery was exciting.

"It's very significant," Franklin said. "We've lost so many frog species in Australia ... Hopefully it's a population that's making a comeback."

The light brown frogs, with dark brown spots, congregate in areas with fast-flowing water. So far, between 30 and 40 have been found.

The chytrid fungus was blamed for decimating frog populations worldwide, including seven species in Queensland's tropics between the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Armoured Mistfrogs had been classified as critically endangered rather than extinct, but most researchers believed they had died out from the disease, Alford said.

Most of the Armoured Mistfrogs that Alford's group has found are infected with the fungus, but the disease does not appear to be making them sick, he said.

Alford and his team plan to study the creatures to try and determine how they managed to coexist with the fungus, in a bid to aid future conservation and management of vulnerable frogs.

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Labels: AmphibianIndia, conservation, diversityindia, threat, wildlife

Indian law 'strangling' biodiversity research

T. V. Padma
5 February 2008
Source: SciDev.Net

[NEW DELHI] A group of Indian botanists say that the country's stringent biodiversity laws are stifling research.

In an article in the latest issue of Current Science (25 January), published by the Indian Academy of Sciences, the scientists say India's "draconian" rules on free exchange of biological samples could "totally isolate Indian biodiversity researchers and is akin to a self-imposed siege on scientists in the country".

India's biodiversity rules, established in 2002, do not permit Indian scientists to deposit their specimens in international museums and stipulate that specimens must be kept in selected national repositories.

The scientists, including K. D. Prathapan from Kerala Agriculture University and Priyadarsanan Dharma Rajan from the Ashoka Trust for Research in Ecology and Environment, Bangalore, say that while preventing biopiracy and commercial exploitation of biological resources is a legitimate concern, it is equally important to protect the interests of scientists engaged in fundamental research.

They add that fears that India's intellectual property rights might be compromised if the samples are used commercially are "baseless and irrational".

Quality research involves extensive collaboration among specialists and institutions across continents, argue Prathapan and colleagues. And in taxonomy, which involves classifying samples, accurate identification of a plant or animal often requires comparison with closely related specimens that may be present in different countries.

They further argue that depositing specimens in different international institutions would act as "an insurance against loss of specimens in India".

But M. Sanjappa, director of the Botanical Survey of India in Kolkata, told SciDev.Net that stringency is required to fight biopiracy in the country.

"The law itself need not be changed [for research]. Instead one can enter into memoranda of understanding with individual countries of scientific groups," Sanjappa says.

He says several Indian institutes are already engaged in the exchange of plant specimens with the international network of herbaria developed by the Vienna-based International Association of Plant Taxonomy.

The scientists hope the Indian government will follow the example of Brazil, which repealed its initially tough rules for biological specimens after protests by scientists (see New system to boost biodiversity access in Brazil).

Link to article in Current Science

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Labels: ATREE, conservation, insect, kerala

BIOTIK : Software to identify tree species

Last week I got an opportunity to attend the release function of BIOTIK in Bangalore. BIOTIK stands for Biodiversity Informatics and co Operation in Taxonomy for Interactive shared Knowledge base.

A.K. Verma, Principal Chief Conservator of Forests, Karnataka state was the chief guest.

The software demo was given by Dr, B R Ramesh and team. The characters are entered interactively and without any taxonomically jargon. Everything has a simple and elegant user interface. I found the interface intuitive too. Narrowing down of 100% matching species gives a clear picture of how near are we in the search. The software works on PC and PDA for the tie being, but soon will be available on internet too. They have also promised to make it open source.

Users got opportunity to try the software on PDA and PC during the break. So far about 300 species data is available and ultimately by March 2008 full version with 600 species will be available for Western Ghats. Similar project is done in Lao.

Another highlight for me was meeting Dr. Pascal personally. Dr, Ramesh and Dr. Pascal are well known for the forest maps French Institute of Pondicherry (http://www.ifpindia.org/), which are used by most of the people working on Western Ghats data.

More info on BIOTIK here

and news in Hindu here

Labels: Computer, conservation, diversityindia, IT

Poachers kill one tiger every day; only 1300 left

October 31, 2007 15:41 IST
Last Updated: October 31, 2007 15:46 IST

The National Wildlife Board will meet Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Thursday and brief him about the disastrous impact of poaching and the destruction of the natural habitat of the Tiger, one of the planet's most threatened animals.

Dr Singh, who formed a panel to probe the shocking disappearance of tigers from the Sariska reserve in February 2005, will be told that the country's remaining tiger population could be as low as 1,300.

The panel will also tell him that drastic action has to be taken against the two forces threatening the big cat's chance of survival.

Rajasthan needs to act fast to save the tiger

"That size of a population is scientifically not viable," the Independent quoted Valmik Thapar, a tiger expert and member of the National Board of Wildlife, as saying.

"But in the real world you have to try as hard as you can."

The report in the British newspaper said no one knows precisely how many tigers are left in India, home to perhaps 80 per cent of the world's remaining animals and which, at the turn of the 20th century, was estimated to have up to 100,000 animals. It is believed there were about 5,000 at the start of the decade.

The most recent census, conducted in 2001 and 2002, put the figure at 3,642. But many experts questioned the way in which that count was handled and a new census was carried out by the government-run Wildlife Institute of India using a more scientifically robust method and preliminary results of the new count have put the population at between 1,300 and 1,500.

"The new figures and facts came as no surprise to conservationists, although the government is still recovering from the shock," Belinda Wright, executive director of the Wildlife Protection Society of India, was quoted as saying.

'There is more concern for the tiger outside India!'

"In Madhya Pradesh, the study has shown a loss of 61 per cent on the figures of the previous tiger census. The state of Maharashtra has shown a loss of 57 per cent."

She added: "In the past census... many tigers were found outside the tiger reserves. The new study shows virtually no tigers outside the tiger reserves."

Experts say not enough is being done to halt the continued poaching of the animals, which are highly prized in China and other parts of East Asia for their pelts and body parts.

The report said a tiger skin can fetch up to �5,300 while tiger penises -- traditionally believed to have near-magical properties -- can fetch �14,000 per kilo.

The tiger has suffered from a loss of its habitat as a result of large-scale mining and hydro-power dam projects. The loss of habitat and prey encourages tigers, pure carnivores, to seize domestic livestock which in turn aggravates local farmers, the report said.

The tiger is the national symbol but, in the past five years, poachers have been killing them at the rate of one a day, campaigners believe.

Recently, in China, a farmer clicked about 70 pictures of a South China tiger in the wild. The South China tiger was believed to have become extinct and has not been spotted in the past 20 years.

China has banned hunting in the region and officials are searching for the tiger there.

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Labels: conservation, poaching, Tiger, wildlife