Explore the vast range of titles available.

Political and economic transitions have had substantial impacts on forest conservation. Where transitions are underway or anticipated, historical precedent and methods for systematically assessing future trends should be used to anticipate likely threats to forest conservation and design appropriate and prescient policy measures to counteract them. Myanmar is transitioning from an authoritarian, centralized state with a highly regulated economy to a more decentralized and economically liberal democracy and is working to end a long-running civil war. With these transitions in mind, we used a horizon-scanning approach to assess the 40 emerging issues most affecting Myanmar's forests, including internal conflict, land-tenure insecurity, large-scale agricultural development, demise of state timber enterprises, shortfalls in government revenue and capacity, and opening of new deforestation frontiers with new roads, mines, and hydroelectric dams. Averting these threats will require, for example, overhauling governance models, building capacity, improving infrastructure- and energy-project planning, and reforming land-tenure and environmental-protection laws. Although challenges to conservation in Myanmar are daunting, the political transition offers an opportunity for conservationists and researchers to help shape a future that enhances Myanmar's social, economic, and environmental potential while learning and applying lessons from other countries. Our approach and results are relevant to other countries undergoing similar transitions. Las transiciones políticas y económicas han tenido impactos sustanciales sobre la conservación de los bosques. En los lugares donde se estén llevando a cabo las transiciones o donde se anticipen se deberían utilizar los precedentes históricos y los métodos para evaluar sistemáticamente lasfuturas tendencias para anticipar las amenazas probables a la conservación de los bosques y para diseñar medidas políticas apropiadas que se anticipen a las amenazas y las contrarresten. Myanmar está en una transición entre un estado autoritario centralizado con una economía altamente regulada y una democracia más descentralizada y liberal, además de estar trabajando para terminar con una guerra civil de larga duración. Con estas transiciones en mente utilizamos una estrategia de escaneo de horizonte para evaluar los 40 temas emergentes que más afectan a los bosques de Myanmar, incluyendo al conflicto interno, la inseguridad de la tenencia, el desarrollo agrícola a gran escala, la desaparición de las empresas estatales de madera, la escasez de ingresos públicos y capacidad, y la apertura de nuevas fronteras de deforestación con nuevas carreteras, minas y presas hidroeléctricas. Para evitar estas amenazas se requerirá de la revisión de los modelos de gobemanza, la capacidad de construcción, la mejora de la planeación de proyectos de energía e infraestructura, y la reforma de las leyes de tenencia y de protección ambiental, por citar algunos ejemplos. Aunque en Myanmar los retos para la conservación son abrumadores, la transición política ofrece una oportunidad para que los conservacionistas y los investigadores ayuden a formar un futuro que mejore el potencial social, económico y ambiental de Myanmar mientras se aprenden y aplican lecciones de otros países. Nuestra estrategia y sus resultados son relevantes para otros países pasando por transiciones similares.

Animal migration is one of the most fascinating of all behaviors, links ecosystems and has profound ecological consequences over very large scales. Ungulate migration are among the most imperiled ecological phenomena in the world. Substantial populations of migratory ungulates are found in Mongolia's Gobi-Steppe Ecosystem (GSE), which is the largest area of intact steppe in the world and hense is of global importance.

1. Caves are arguably the hottest of the biodiversity hotspots as measured by endemism and threat, yet they receive very little attention or appropriate management. Some recent investigations in China have found that up to 90% of the animals collected in caves are new to science, yet environmental assessments for development projects in karst areas rarely if ever give attention to the cave fauna. 2. The lack of light, and the cave-specific conditions of humidity, air flow and source of energy have resulted in extreme adaptations among the animals living within them. 3. There is no government agency or non-governmental organization (NGO) on conservation concerned with caves in China or many other countries, and although there are caving expeditions, they concentrate on exploration rather than the cave fauna. 4. Disturbance by limestone quarrying, visitors, tourism infrastructure, and changes in water flow through, or from above, the cave can have devastating effects on the highly adapted and range-restricted fauna. 5. Some examples of World Bank-financed development projects which have led to cave conservation are given. 6. Synthesis and applications. The cave biodiversity of China and neighbouring countries is worthy of conservation and there is a huge number of nationally endemic species, most of which are unknown. Destruction or damage to caves can cause entire communities of cave species to become extinct. To address this problem, the disparate, taxon-limited specialists interested in cave fauna need to reach out to the cave exploration community, the major conservation NGOs, and the state and local conservation agencies. Those charged with the task of conserving biodiversity should give thought to how the current national protected area systems and processes manage - and fail - to address the needs of the cave fauna, and look for the means to effect the necessary changes in management, based on the peculiar ecology of caves.

IUCN has written to the CEO of the company in Kuala Lumpur asking for the company's assurance that they will avoid the imminent extinction of these species, and offering assistance with conservation planning.

This is one the first and most important books about 18th century Malaysia and covers a wide array of topics from Malaysian culture and history to nature and wildlife. It is essential reading for anyone interested in Malaysia. A century and a half after it was first published, this book remains one of the great classics of natural history and travel-perhaps the greatest. Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913) deserves equal billing with Charles Darwin for his independently drawn but parallel conclusions on the theory of evolution. Darwin himself called Wallace \"generous and noble\" and referred favorably to his work in later editions of The Origin of Species. The Malay Archipelago is an extraordinarily accessible book. There is a wealth of detail about pre-modern life in the Indonesian archipelago which Wallace accumulated on over 60 separate journeys spanning 14,000 miles. He was equally fascinated by the exotic peoples, flora and fauna he encountered in his epic travels. A mark of his achievement lies in the size of the collections he bequeathed to British museums-some 125,000 specimens ranging from large mammals to tiny insects, exotic butterflies and splendid birds of paradise.

Background An emerging cavefish model, the cyprinid genus Sinocyclocheilus , is endemic to the massive southwestern karst area adjacent to the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau of China. In order to understand whether orogeny influenced the evolution of these species, and how genomes change under isolation, especially in subterranean habitats, we performed whole-genome sequencing and comparative analyses of three species in this genus, S. grahami , S. rhinocerous and S. anshuiensis . These species are surface-dwelling, semi-cave-dwelling and cave-restricted, respectively. Results The assembled genome sizes of S. grahami , S. rhinocerous and S. anshuiensis are 1.75 Gb, 1.73 Gb and 1.68 Gb, respectively. Divergence time and population history analyses of these species reveal that their speciation and population dynamics are correlated with the different stages of uplifting of the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. We carried out comparative analyses of these genomes and found that many genetic changes, such as gene loss (e.g. opsin genes), pseudogenes (e.g. crystallin genes), mutations (e.g. melanogenesis-related genes), deletions (e.g. scale-related genes) and down-regulation (e.g. circadian rhythm pathway genes), are possibly associated with the regressive features (such as eye degeneration, albinism, rudimentary scales and lack of circadian rhythms), and that some gene expansion (e.g. taste-related transcription factor gene) may point to the constructive features (such as enhanced taste buds) which evolved in these cave fishes. Conclusion As the first report on cavefish genomes among distinct species in Sinocyclocheilus , our work provides not only insights into genetic mechanisms of cave adaptation, but also represents a fundamental resource for a better understanding of cavefish biology.

While conservation activities are underfunded almost everywhere, the gap between current expenditure and what is needed is particularly extreme in the tropics where threatened species and habitats are most concentrated. We examine how to bridge this funding gap. Firstly, we try to identify who in principle should pay, by comparing the spatial distribution of the costs and the benefits of tropical conservation. The immediate opportunity costs of conservation often exceed its more obvious, management-related costs, and are borne largely by local communities. Conversely, we argue that the greatest benefits of conservation derive from ecological services, and from option, existence, and bequest values; these are often widely dispersed and enjoyed in large part by wealthier national and global beneficiaries. We conclude that the gap in funding tropical conservation should be borne largely by national and especially global communities, who receive most benefit but currently pay least cost. In the second part of the paper we review recent developments in order to examine how in practice increased funding may be raised. There are many growing and novel sources of support: private philanthropy, premium pricing for biodiversity-related goods via certification schemes, and the development of entirely new markets for environmental services. Despite their potential, we conclude that the principal route for meeting the unmet costs of tropical conservation will have to be via governments, and will inevitably require the transfer of substantial resources from north to south. This will be enormously difficult, both politically and logistically, but without it we believe that much of what remains of tropical nature will be lost.