This year's focus on responsible wetland tourism

The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species moved the Sumatran elephant from “endangered” to “critically endangered.” Nearly 70% of its habitat and half of its population have been lost in one generation. In order to save this critically endangered species, WWF is calling for an immediate stop to the clearing of forests for conversion to plantations on the Indonesian island of Sumatra.

This week, a paper entitled “Global Biodiversity Conservation and the Alleviation of Poverty” was published in the journal BioScience. The study marks the first global estimation of biodiversity benefits and ecosystem service flows from habitats to humans. CI Vice President of Conservation Priorities and Outreach Will Turner — the paper’s lead author — summarizes the study’s biggest findings.

The latest "world's biggest" comes from Australia, with a new proposal to establish the world's largest marine reserve. The reserve will be located in the Coral Sea and cover around 990,000 square kilometers. Of this, 507,000 square kilometers will be a "no take" area, which means fishing is banned entirely.

As government representatives convene in Montreal, Canada, to discuss the further implementation of the Convention on Biological Diversity, the World Future Council (WFC) and the Center for International Sustainable Development Law (CISDL) have published a new report highlighting positive examples of government actions to save the variety of life on earth. 

Bucharest, Romania – 250,000 hectares of virgin forests in Romania are in urgent need of protection, according to a new campaign launched by WWF on October 26th, 2011.

On 25 October 2011, WWF and the International Rhino Foundation confirmed that the Javan rhinoceros in Vietnam is extinct.

During a meeting held recently at the United Nations in New York, IUCN and The Nature Conservancy provided information on policy recommendations on how to improve the management of deep-sea fisheries and ecosystems. The recommendations were developed following a workshop jointly organized by TNC and IUCN.

Paula Kahumbu, National Geographic Emerging Explorer and Executive Director of WildlifeDirect, speaks on the problems facing conservation in Kenya, including poverty, human-wildlife conflict, and development. 

An oil spill from a grounded container ship in New Zealand's Bay of Plenty is threatening to worsen as authorities fear the ship is breaking up. If the ship breaks up and sinks, authorities fear it could release its remaining 1,400 tons into the marine ecosystem.