This occurred shortly after 178 countries, including the US, rejected an agreement to protect elephants from ivory poaching. The demand for ivory is driven by Asia’s fast economic growth, lack of education, the Catholic church (yes), and corruption.

Poachers have killed 28 endangered forest elephants in the Nki and Lobeke national parks in southeast Cameroon in recent weeks, the conservation organization WWF said on Wednesday.

With demand for ivory rising from Asia, poachers have reduced the population of Africa’s forest elephants by 62 percent over the last decade, putting the species on track for extinction, conservationists say.

The parks of southeast Cameroon, along with parts of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Gabon, have some of the last significant populations of forest elephants.

“Elephants in these two protected areas in the Congo Basin are facing a threat to their existence,” said Zacharie Nzooh, WWF Cameroon representative in the East Region.

Nzooh said that between February 10 and March 1, WWF found the carcasses of 23 elephants, stripped of their tusks, deep in the Nki national park. A further five were found without their tusks in the Lobeke national park, further to the east.

“The poachers used automatic weapons, such as AK-47s, reflecting the violent character of elephant poaching,” he said, adding that park wardens lacked good weapons.

Reuters

Hurricanes and floods are not just an environmental or “flooded basement” issue, it affects many aspects of society. Historic sites, libraries, and museums are especially vulnerable to storms as their collections are simply irreplaceable.

While this excellent report by Reuters focuses on insurance companies, what really is at stake is our cultural heritage.

Hurricane Sandy devastated several galleries in NYC, destroying thousands of precious paintings and sculptures. While much of the higher-end pieces are insured, they are lost to history and only exist in memory.

Worse, for the artists and galleries, insurance companies are reconsidering covering these precious treasures…

Fine art insurers face claims of up to half a billion dollars, their biggest ever payout, to compensate the owners of artwork destroyed when Superstorm Sandy flooded galleries in New York.

Work by 1960s graphic artist and illustrator Peter Max accounts for the bulk of the loss, landing insurers including Catlin with a claim of $300 million, an industry source said.

“This will be the largest single art loss to the market,” said Filippo Guerrini-Maraldi, head of fine art at insurance broker RK Harrison.

Catlin declined to comment.

Axa, the world’s biggest art insurer, expects to pay out $40 million, art claims director Colin Quinn said, and brokers and underwriters say the total loss could reach $500 million.

That would wipe out virtually a full year’s revenues for the art insurance industry, forcing it to push up its prices.

“Some underwriters will lose appetite for writing fine art business after Sandy, the global capacity for fine art business will shrink, and as a result rates will go up,” Guerrini-Maraldi said.

Galleries and art warehouses affected by Sandy could be forced to pay up to 25 percent more for insurance, and insurers could refuse to cover premises in low-lying areas of Manhattan against floods, one underwriter said, asking not to be named.

UNDER WATER

Sandy, which killed 132 people as it swept through the north-eastern United States on October 29, caused flooding in the Chelsea district of Manhattan, where many New York art galleries are located. Art warehouses in New Jersey were also affected, insurers and brokers say.

Sandy is expected to cost the insurance industry a total of $25 billion, making it the second costliest storm after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

Via excellent reporting by Reuters

Hurricane Sandy, a late-season Atlantic cyclone that threatens to be one of the worst storms to hit the Northeast in decades, slogged slowly northward on Friday after killing at least 41 people in the Caribbean.

Forecasters said wind damage, widespread and extended power outages and coastal and inland flooding were anticipated across a broad swath of the densely populated U.S. East Coast when Sandy comes ashore early next week.

“We’re expecting a large, large storm. The circulation of this storm as it approaches the coast could cover about the eastern third of the United States,” said Louis Uccellini, director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Centers for Environmental Prediction.

He stopped short of calling Sandy possibly the worst storm to hit the U.S. Northeast in 100 years, as some weather watchers were doing, but said Sandy was shaping up to go down as a storm of “historic” proportions.

Breaking story at Reuters. Updates to come.

Another affect from this year’s drought. This time in Poland.

A huge cargo of elaborate marble stonework that sank to the bottom of Poland’s Vistula river four centuries ago has re-appeared after a drought and record-low water levels revealed the masonry lying in the mud on the river bed.

Archaeologists believe the stonework was part of a trove which 17th-century Swedish invaders looted from Poland’s rulers and loaded onto barges to transport home, only for the booty to go to the bottom when the vessels sank.

Via Reuters

Police officers shredded mining protesters with assault rifles, killing nearly twenty people. Reuters posted a (warning: very graphic) video of the killings earlier today. The incident happened in South Africa near a mine that produces the metal platinum. Workers have been protesting since January, demanding safer working conditions and better pay.

A police spokesperson blundered through an interview with the local South African press - a press, it must be added, that has shown no interest in the protesters’ demands or plight.

The article is a must be read to be believed:

News24 South Africa report: “What were we supposed to do?”