The Amazon became an alternative classroom during the pandemic. Now, the educational forest in Batraja, Bolivia, lives on to teach children and adults the value of nature.
Forests
There are only 100 tigers left in Bangladesh
New census reveals that in Bangladesh’s famed Sundarbans forest tigers are way fewer than expected.
Only 100 tigers, roughly. This is the worrying number of individuals of the Bengal tiger (Panthera tigris tigris) surviving in the Sundarbans National Park, Bangladesh. A figure way lower than expected.
The previous census, carried out in 2004, registered 440 individuals. The park is one of the last habitats of these extraordinary felines, it was in fact expected to be home to the highest density of tigers, being the world’s largest mangrove forest, with over 20,000 square kilometres of land and water in Gange’s delta, divided between India and Bangladesh.
The huge drop in individuals after the 2004 census can be explained, according to experts, through the procedure used for the survey. For this year’s census numerous camera traps have been used, rather than the analysis of animals’ footprints, resulting in more detailed and accurate figures.
The research lasted a year and ended in April. 83 to 130 individuals have been indentified, with an average of 106.
“It seems the population has declined more than we had feared,” said Monirul Khan, zoology professor at Bangladesh’s Jahangirnagar University and the nation’s foremost tiger expert. “The 440 figure was a myth and an imagination. Bangladesh parts of the Sundarbans with its prey size can support up to 200 tigers”.
Currently, according to WWF estimates, only 3,200 tigers live in the wild globally, whilst at the beginning of the 20th century they exceeded 100,000.
However, as the Sundarbans census teaches us, it’s difficult to precisely establish the number of tigers. These animals are naturally elusive, and despite their large dimensions they can silently move as ghosts, and night is their kingdom.
The main threats to tigers are poaching and habitat loss due to deforestation, which could lead, within 10 years, to the extinction of one of the most beautiful and efficient animals evolution ever moulded.
Siamo anche su WhatsApp. Segui il canale ufficiale LifeGate per restare aggiornata, aggiornato sulle ultime notizie e sulle nostre attività.
Quest'opera è distribuita con Licenza Creative Commons Attribuzione - Non commerciale - Non opere derivate 4.0 Internazionale.
Our species took its first steps in a world covered in trees. Today, forests offer us sustenance, shelter, and clean the air that we breathe.
Bangladesh suffered widespread damage as a result of Cyclone Amphan. Yet the Sundarbans mangrove forest acted as a natural barrier protecting the country from further destruction, as it has done countless times before.
On top of a 2.4 million dollar compensation, the indigenous Ashaninka people will receive an official apology from the companies who deforested their lands in the 1980s.
The tapir was reintroduced into Brazil’s Atlantic Forest, the country’s most at-risk ecosystem. The species can play a key role in the forest’s recovery.
Forests are home to 80 per cent of the world’s terrestrial biodiversity. This year’s International Day of Forests highlights the urgent changes needed to save them.
After a legal battle that lasted two years, Indonesia’s Supreme Court has revoked the permit to mine for coal in the forests of South Kalimantan in Borneo.
The list of human and animal victims of the Australia wildfires keeps growing – one species might already have gone extinct – as the smoke even reaches South America.
Areas where the FARC guerrilla used to hold power in Colombia have faced record deforestation. Farmers cut down trees, burn land and plant grass for cows. Because, “what else can we do for a living here in the Colombian Amazon”? An intimate report from the heart of the felled forest in Caquetá.