DAILY QUICK READ - MAY 23, 2016

Survive together or succumb alone.

Today, world leaders will gather in Nairobi to set the global environmental agenda. At the second United Nations Environment Assembly (Umea), representatives from 193 governments, from civil society and from the private sector will gather at the UN Environment Programme (Unep) headquarters in Gigiri to address the critical environmental and sustainability challenges facing the world today.

It has long been a mutually beneficial relationship. Kenya is on the frontlines of sustainable development. From addressing climate change to adopting inclusive green economy strategies, Kenya offers leadership and a willingness to push forward sustainable development initiatives. The country’s challenges and successes have provided Unep insight into the effectiveness and impact of environmental issues and solutions to address them.

More on Mexican gray wolf restoration.  Lawsuit still in progress.  At least we know the names of the culprits. 

As part of the Mexican Gray Wolf Recovery Program, the remaining two puppies – M1471 named Blaze and F1472 named Brooke – were placed in the Arizona-based Elk Horn Pack of wild wolves, which will foster them with its own litter, the news release stated. In pup fostering, very young pups are moved from one litter to another litter of similar age so that the receiving pack raises the pups as their own. The technique, which has proved to be successful in this species, as well as in other wildlife, shows promise to improve the genetic diversity of the wild wolf population.

Following a neonatal examination, the pups, accompanied by CZS animal care staff, were flown to Arizona on April 30. There, staff met up with a team of biologists from the Mexican Wolf Interagency Field Team, who successfully placed the pups in a den in which the alpha female had just given birth to her own litter.

Survival drives deforestation in poor countries.

THE Namibian charcoal industry, regarded as the sixth biggest in the world, is caught in the eye of an international environmental storm with illegal firewood harvests in the Zambezi Region and illegal charcoal producers allegedly turning to stock theft when authorities clamp down on nomadic kiln operators in Omaheke Region.

The illegal charcoal industry has moved its operations from the mopane rich forest of the Ugab ravine in the Otjozondjupa and Erongo Regions to a cross border trade in the Zambezi forests.

Illegal firewood and charcoal productions are booming in the Zambezi Region where the biggest mopane trees are found and the menace is likely to contribute to deforestation in one of the last remaining forest in the country. Outlets earn more than N$2 million per year from mopane wood, fueling suspicions that charcoal production and illegal wood harvesting of protected species is now being exported illegally to Angola, South Africa and Zambia.

No place that we can’t mine and destroy.  Let’s stop mining in the Oregon.

Rough and Ready and Baldface Creeks.  In this remote corner of southwest Oregon and northwest California, a one-of-a-kind convergence of rare serpentine geology and plentiful precipitation has resulted in rivers with exceptionally clean, clear water, prized wild salmon and steelhead runs, and some of the rarest plants in North America.

But nickel strip mining would turn pristine national forest land and the cherished headwaters of Hunter Creek It’s wild, rugged and home to some of this nation’s most beautiful Wild and Scenic Rivers—the Smith, North Fork Smith, Illinois, Chetco and Rogue—plus five U.S. Forest Service Eligible Wild and Scenic Rivers, including and the Pistol River into industrial zones of nickel strip mines. Metal mining is the largest toxic polluter in the nation. The Kalmiopsis (Kal-me-op-sis) and Wild Rivers Coast regions are too special to mine. Clean water and wild salmon are our furture. Join the protection effort.

Red matters if you want to find a mate.

Scientists said on Thursday they have solved a long-standing mystery about what makes some birds red - a colour that, when found in beaks and feathers, shows strong sex appeal.

The genes affecting colouration belong to a wider family of genes involved in detoxification, said the study in the journal Current Biology.

That means redness may be a sign of a robust, quality mate who can easily cleanse harmful substances from his body.

"In many bird species, the redder the male, the more successful it is at finding mates," said co-senior author Joseph Corbo, an associate professor of pathology and immunology at Washington University in St Louis.