Weak governance and warfare in Africa chronically threaten the continent’s wildlife.
The Washington Post today notes a particularly dire case, the loss of mountain gorillas in barely-governed Congo. More than half of the world’s 700 remaining mountain gorillas are in Congo’s Virunga National Park.
Gorillas in Uganda are doing somewhat better, but their population is still low.
The Washington Post today covered travel destinations threatened by climate change. They include:
- Glacier Bay, Alaska
- the reefs of Belize
- Mount Kilimanjaro, Tanzania
- Scott’s hut, Antarctica
- the low-lying Maldives islands
- the Great Barrier Reef, Australia
- Arctic polar bears
- the glaciers of Glacier National Park, Montana
- the Outer Banks barrier islands, North Carolina
- Chan Chan archaeological site, Peru
Endangered: the Amazon forest
Danger level: medium
Time frame: 50-100 years
Causes: climate change, deforestation
A new study of the effects of climate change suggests that without significant action to reduce the phenomenon, rising temperatures and falling rainfall could destroy the ecosystem completely, transforming the rain forest into savanna and wiping out vast amounts of biodiversity.