AFP: Borneo pygmy elephants may be extinction survivors: WWF

 

KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) — Borneo's mysterious pygmy elephants may be the last survivors of Javan elephants thought to have become extinct centuries ago, the environmental group WWF said Thursday.

Researchers believe the pygmy elephants, which are much smaller and more docile than their cousins found elsewhere in Asia, were brought to Borneo by royalty long ago, and then abandoned in the jungle.

"It's exciting to consider that the forest-dwelling Borneo elephants may be the last vestiges of a subspecies that went extinct on its native Java Island, in Indonesia, centuries ago," said retired Malaysian forester Shim Phyau Soon.

"Elephants were shipped from place to place across Asia many hundreds of years ago, usually as gifts between rulers," said Shim, whose ideas on the origins of the elephants WWF said had inspired the latest research.

Scientists have long wondered about the origins of the pygmy elephant, and why they are found only in a section of Borneo. There are perhaps just 1,000 of them in the wild, mostly in the Malaysian state of Sabah.

AFP: Borneo pygmy elephants may be extinction survivors: WWF

WWF - Code red for threatened species

 

Gland, Switzerland – The planet is being pushed to its limits as indicated by the increasing number of threatened species across the globe, according to the latest trends in the World Conservation Union’s (IUCN’s) Red List.
The Red List of Threatened Species acts as a barometer that shows the effects habitat loss and degradation, over-exploitation, pollutants and climate change are having on our planet.

WWF - Code red for threatened species

New Global Partnership Tracks Plant and Animal Survival

 

PARIS, France, July 12, 2007 (ENS) - A new partnership to track the survival of Earth's diverse animals and plants was launched today by the United Nations Environment Programme with US$3.6 million in funding from the Global Environment Facility.

Monique Barbut is CEO of the Global Environment Facility. (Photo courtesy Earth Negotiations Bulletin, ENB)

"The biodiversity challenge is no less urgent a public issue than the climate change crisis," said Monique Barbut, CEO of the funding organization the Global Environment Facility, GEF. "This effort helps move biodiversity to the front burner to help ignite policy makers to take informed action."

UNEP and the GEF officially introduced the 2010 Biodiversity Indicators Partnership project today during a working group meeting of the Convention on Biological Diversity at UNESCO headquarters in Paris.

New Global Partnership Tracks Plant and Animal Survival