AFP UK

The melodic songs from families of endangered monkeys ring out over the jungle near Cambodia’s Angkor Wat temple complex — a sign of ecological rejuvenation decades after hunting decimated wildlife at the site.

The first pair of rare pileated gibbons were released in 2013 as part of a joint programme between conservation group Wildlife Alliance, the forestry administration and the Apsara Authority — a government agency that manages the 12th-century ruins.

The gibbon duo, named Baray and Saranick, were born from parents rescued from the wildlife trade and produced offspring a year later.

“We have now released four different pairs of gibbons within the Angkor forest and they have gone on to breed and now seven babies have been born,” Wildlife Alliance rescue and care programme director Nick Marx told AFP.

“We are restoring Cambodia’s natural heritage back into their most beautiful cultural heritage.”

Globally, gibbons are one of the most threatened families of primates, while the pileated gibbon is listed as endangered.

Marx says his team rescues some 2,000 animals a year and many more will soon call the Angkor jungle home.

There are hopes that once the baby gibbons reach sexual maturity in about five to eight years, they will also pair up and mate.

“What we are hoping for the future is to create a sustainable population of the animals… that we released here within the amazing Angkor forest,” Marx said.

– ‘Big victory’ –

Cambodian authorities have hailed the gibbon baby boom that began in 2014.

“This means a big victory for our project,” Chou Radina from the Apsara Authority said, adding that as well as gibbons, tourists could now see great hornbills flying over Angkor Wat.

The programme has released more than 40 other animals and birds including silvered langurs, muntjac deers, smooth-coated otters, leopard cats, civets, wreathed hornbills, and green peafowl.

All were rescued from traffickers, donated or born in captivity at the Phnom Tamao wildlife sanctuary near Phnom Penh.

The Angkor Archaeological Park — which contains the ruins of various capitals of the Khmer Empire, dating from the ninth to 15th centuries — has some of the oldest rainforest in Cambodia.

It is also the kingdom’s most popular tourist destination.

Since Angkor Wat became a world heritage site in 1992, its jungle, which covers more than 6,500 hectares, has benefited from increased legal and physical protections.

There are hopes that wildlife sightings will also spark interest in local and foreign tourists and boost conservation education efforts.

– Ongoing threats –

Rampant poaching, habitat loss from logging, agriculture and dam building has stripped much wildlife from Cambodian rainforests.

Last year, authorities removed 61,000 snare traps, environment ministry spokesman Neth Pheaktra said, adding that the government had launched a campaign to discourage hunting and eating of wildlife meat.

But widespread poverty even before the pandemic left many households without much choice but to continue hunting so their families could eat protein.

Animals are also hunted for traditional medicine and to be kept as pets.

According to Global Forest Watch, from 2001-2021 Cambodia lost 2.6 million hectares of tree cover, a 30 percent decrease since 2000.

Commercial interests are trumping protection efforts in some quarters — the Phnom Tamao zoo and wildlife rescue centre is under threat from a shadowy rezoning development plan, Marx said.

Back at Siem Reap — the gateway city to Angkor Wat — villager Moeurn Sarin shops at the market for bananas, watermelon, rambutan and fish to feed the pileated gibbon families and otters.

“We are happy to conserve these animals,” the 64-year-old said, adding he likes to watch the gibbons’ tree swinging antics.

“In the future, these animals will have babies for the young generation to see.”

A land iguana that disappeared more than a century ago from one of the Galapagos Islands is reproducing naturally following its reintroduction there, Ecuador’s environment ministry announced Monday.

The reptile from the Conolophus subcristatus species, one of three land iguanas living on the archipelago, disappeared from Santiago Island in the early part of the 20th century according to a 1903-06 expedition there by the California Academy of Sciences, the ministry said.

In 2019, the Galapagos National Park (PNG) authority reintroduced more than 3,000 iguanas from a nearby island to restore the natural ecosystem of Santiago, which lies at the center of the Pacific archipelago.

The remote island chain was made famous by British geologist and naturalist Charles Darwin’s observations on evolution there.

In 1835, Darwin recorded a huge number of iguanas of all ages on Santiago.

PNG director Danny Rueda said “187 years later we are once again seeing a healthy population of land iguanas with adults, juveniles and newborns.

“It’s a great conservation achievement and strengthens our hopes of restoration on the islands that have been severely affected by introduced species.”

Located close to 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) off the coast of Ecuador, the Galapagos islands are home to unique flora and fauna and are a Natural World Heritage site.

Firefighters faced “extremely dangerous” conditions Monday as they battled to save a community of 8,000 residents, with lightning strikes threatening to worsen a blaze that has already killed at least two people and become California’s biggest fire of the year.

Hundreds of personnel were involved in the fight against the fast-moving McKinney Fire, which has torn through more than 55,000 acres (22,000 hectares) near the border with Oregon, forcing thousands from their homes.

The National Weather Service meanwhile issued a warning because of the threat of dry lightning — powerful electrical strikes that come without any of the desperately needed rain.

“These conditions can be extremely dangerous for firefighters, as winds can be erratic and extremely strong, causing fire to spread in any direction,” said CalFire, an interagency website that collates fire information.

California, along with much of the western United States, is in the grip of its worst drought in more than 1,000 years.

The drought, exacerbated by man-made climate change, has left the countryside parched and exceedingly vulnerable to the wildfires that naturally break out, making the blazes hotter, faster and more destructive.

The McKinney Fire on Sunday claimed its first human lives, with the Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Office saying firefighters found two people dead inside a burned-out car in the driveway of a home in the town of Klamath River.

Sheriff Jeremiah LaRue said the pair were likely caught in the swift-moving fire as they tried to flee.

California Governor Gavin Newsom has declared a state of emergency in Siskiyou County, and more than 2,000 residents of the rural area are under evacuation orders.

A heat wave with temperatures of over 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius), tinder dry terrain and thunderstorms packing strong winds are complicating the efforts of firefighters battling the blaze.

“Fire growth is expected to spread in all directions,” the Klamath National Forest service said in a statement. “Warning for thunderstorms and lightning. Gusty outflow winds of 30 to 50 mph (50 to 80 kph) will be possible near thunderstorm cells.”

According to the Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Office, the fire has destroyed more than 100 structures — including homes, a grocery store and a community center — in the area surrounding Yreka, though it has not yet encroached upon the town of about 7,800 people.

“Surrounding areas should be ready to leave if needed. Please don’t hesitate to evacuate,” the county sheriff tweeted.

The McKinney fire is California’s largest wildfire so far this year — though it remains much smaller than last year’s Dixie Fire, which burned nearly one million acres.

– Animal rescue –

An AFP journalist working in the fire area captured a photograph of a kitten with singed whiskers cowering in between rocks in the Klamath National Forest.

As the picture ricocheted around the internet, users asked for updates, with one seemingly offering to look after the animal.

“Do you know if this kitten has been cared for and adopted at this point?” tweeted @bobbiescat

Another journalist shared footage of a young puppy gratefully lapping at a bowl of water after emerging from the ashen ruins of a home in Klamath River.

Rescue Ranch Yreka, which took in the stricken pup, said it had received nearly 140 dogs in less than two days, and appealed for donations to help feed and care for them.

The fast-spreading blaze comes just days after the Oak Fire near Yosemite National Park destroyed dozens of buildings and forced thousands to evacuate.

California still has months of fire season ahead of it.

Other parts of the world have also faced intense wildfires this year, as scientists say climate change is making heatwaves more frequent and more intense, increasing the risk of fires.

In Portugal, a blaze broke out in the Mafra area, north of Lisbon, over the weekend while in France at least four firefighters were seriously injured and motorways were closed.

Also over the weekend, hundreds of firefighters battled a blaze in eastern Germany, with four people injured.

Peru on Monday recorded its first death of a monkeypox-infected person, with more than 300 cases reported in the country to date, a health official said.

The fatality was “a patient who came to hospital in a serious condition with monkeypox and their health weakened after abandoning treatment for HIV/Aids,” according to Eduardo Farfan, director of the Dos de Mayo hospital in Lima.

The man, 45, died “of sepsis” due to a weakened immune system, said Farfan.

He had been admitted to hospital with a severe monkeypox infection and “other comorbidities,” said the director.

Farfan said his hospital was treating about eight or nine cases of monkeypox per day, on an outpatient basis.

According to the WHO, more than 18,000 monkeypox cases have been detected throughout the world outside Africa since the beginning of May, most of them in Europe.

A land iguana that disappeared more than a century ago from one of the Galapagos Islands is reproducing naturally following its reintroduction there, Ecuador’s environment ministry announced Monday.

The reptile from the Conolophus subcristatus species, one of three land iguanas living on the archipelago, disappeared from Santiago Island in the early part of the 20th century according to a 1903-06 expedition there by the California Academy of Sciences, the ministry said.

In 2019, the Galapagos National Park (PNG) authority reintroduced more than 3,000 iguanas from a nearby island to restore the natural ecosystem of Santiago, which lies at the center of the Pacific archipelago.

The remote island chain was made famous by British geologist and naturalist Charles Darwin’s observations on evolution there.

In 1835, Darwin recorded a huge number of iguanas of all ages on Santiago.

PNG director Danny Rueda said “187 years later we are once again seeing a healthy population of land iguanas with adults, juveniles and newborns.

“It’s a great conservation achievement and strengthens our hopes of restoration on the islands that have been severely affected by introduced species.”

Located close to 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) off the coast of Ecuador, the Galapagos islands are home to unique flora and fauna and are a Natural World Heritage site.

France and parts of England saw their driest July on record, the countries’ weather agencies said on Monday, exacerbating stretched water resources that have forced restrictions on both sides of the Channel.

In France, where an intense drought has hammered farmers and prompted widespread limits on freshwater use, there was just 9.7 millimetres (0.38 inches) of rain last month, Meteo France said.

That was 84 percent down on the average levels seen for July between 1991 and 2022, and made it the second driest month since March 1961, the agency added.

Meanwhile swathes of southern and eastern England recorded the lowest rainfall in July on record, the UK’s Met Office. 

The whole of England recorded an average of 23.1 mm of rain — the lowest figure for the month since 1935 and the seventh lowest July total on record, it said.

The Met Office has been compiling records since 1836.

The low rainfall in both countries has been coupled with a summer of unprecedentedly high temperatures, which topped 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) in England last month for the first time ever.

Climate scientists overwhelmingly agree that carbon emissions from humans burning fossil fuels are heating the planet, raising the risk and severity of droughts, heatwaves, and other extreme weather events.

Analysis by an international team of researchers released last Friday found climate change caused by human activity made the recent record-shattering UK heatwave at least 10 times more likely to occur.

– ‘Vicious circle’ –

Water companies on both sides of the Channel are struggling to respond to the parched conditions.

Nearly all of France’s 96 mainland regions have imposed water use restrictions, also a record. 

The country is bracing for its third heatwave this summer, beginning in the southeast on Monday before heading north toward Paris.

Farmers nationwide are reporting difficulties in feeding livestock because of parched grasslands, while irrigation has been banned in large areas of the northwest and southeast due to freshwater shortages.

On the eastern river Rhine, which runs along the France-Germany border, commercial boats are having to run at a third of their carrying capacity in order to avoid hitting the bottom because the water level is so low.

Environment Minister Christophe Bechu said July’s rainfall represented “just 12 percent of what’s needed”. 

“We have a heatwave that increases the need (for water) and a drought that is limiting what is available, pushing us into this vicious cycle,” Bechu told BFM television during a visit to the hard-hit Isere department in the southeast.

In England, one water provider has so far announced restrictions.

Southern Water, which is responsible for supplies over a swathe of central southern England, will impose limits on its almost one million customers from later this week.

But the so-called hosepipe ban could soon be replicated by other providers, following a warning by the UK government’s Environment Agency that people needed to use water “wisely”.

Most of England has moved into “prolonged dry weather” status, the agency said last week. 

This means it is now taking precautionary actions to mitigate impacts “as hydrological conditions deteriorate”.

The number of forest fires in the Brazilian Amazon increased by eight percent last month compared with July 2021, according to official figures released Monday, the latest alarm bell for the world’s biggest rainforest.

Satellite monitoring detected 5,373 fires last month, up from 4,977 in July last year, according to the Brazilian space agency, INPE.

However, the number was well short of the worst July on record: 19,364 fires in 2005.

July is typically the start of the Amazon “fire season,” when drier weather fuels more fires — mostly set by farmers and speculators clearing land for agriculture, according to experts.

The increase in the Amazon came as major fires raged in California, France and Portugal amid rising temperatures.

This has been a worrying year for fires in the Amazon, a key resource in the race to curb global warming: INPE has detected 12,906 so far, up 13 percent from the same period last year.

“It’s only the beginning of the Amazon dry season, when the number of criminal forest fires unfortunately explodes,” said Romulo Batista of Greenpeace Brazil.

“In addition to decimating the forest and its biodiversity, those fires and destruction also affect the local population’s health due to smoke inhalation,” he said in a statement.

President Jair Bolsonaro, who comes up for reelection in October, is facing scrutiny for his government’s controversial stewardship of Brazil’s 60-percent share of the Amazon, where there has been a surge of fires and deforestation on his watch.

Since the far-right agribusiness ally took office in 2019, average annual deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon has increased by 75 percent compared to the previous decade.

Hundreds of firefighters were battling a fast-moving forest fire in northern California on Monday which has killed two people and forced thousands to evacuate their homes.

The McKinney Fire, the largest in the state so far this year, has ravaged 55,493 acres (22,500 hectares) in the Klamath National Forest near the border with Oregon, CalFire said.

The fire was zero percent contained on Monday morning as searing temperatures and gusty winds hampered the efforts of the more than 850 firefighters deployed to combat the inferno.

California and other parts of the western United States have been ravaged by huge wildfires in recent years, driven by years of drought and exacerbated by a warming climate.

The Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Office said firefighters found two people dead inside a burned-out car on Sunday in the driveway of a home in the community of Klamath River.

Speaking on ABC News, Sheriff Jeremiah LaRue said firefighters suspected the pair were caught in the swift-moving fire as they tried to flee.

California Governor Gavin Newsom has declared a state of emergency in Siskiyou County, and more than 2,000 residents of the rural area are under evacuation orders.

A heat wave with temperatures of over 100 degrees Fahrenheit (38 degrees Celsius), tinder dry terrain and thunderstorms packing strong winds are complicating the efforts of firefighters battling the blaze.

“Fire growth is expected to spread in all directions,” the Klamath National Forest service said in a statement. “Warning for thunderstorms and lightning. Gusty outflow winds of 30 to 50 mph (50 to 80 kph) will be possible near thunderstorm cells.”

According to the Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Office, the fire has destroyed more than 100 structures — including homes, a grocery store and a community center — in the area surrounding Yreka, though it has not yet encroached upon the town of about 7,800 people.

“Surrounding areas should be ready to leave if needed. Please don’t hesitate to evacuate,” the county sheriff tweeted.

The McKinney fire is California’s largest wildfire so far this year — though it remains much smaller than last year’s Dixie Fire, which burned nearly one million acres.

– ‘Very, very serious’ –

Yreka resident Larry Castle told the Sacramento Bee newspaper that he and his wife had packed up a few possessions and their three dogs to be ready to leave, as other fires in recent years had taught them the situation could turn “very, very serious.”

Search and rescue teams evacuated 60 people who had been hiking the area’s popular Pacific Crest Trail, according to the sheriff’s department in Jackson County, Oregon.

CalFire said the cause of the McKinney fire was still under investigation.

The US Forest Service said thick smoke had helped to limit the fire’s growth on Sunday, but also meant that firefighters’ aircraft were “mostly grounded.”

The fast-spreading blaze comes just days after the Oak Fire near Yosemite National Park destroyed dozens of buildings and forced thousands to evacuate.

California, which is facing a punishing drought, still has months of fire season ahead of it.

Other parts of the world have also faced intense wildfires this year, as scientists say climate change is making heatwaves more frequent and more intense, increasing the risk of fires.

In Portugal, a blaze broke out in the Mafra area, north of Lisbon, at the weekend while in France at least four firefighters were seriously injured and motorways were closed.

Also over the weekend, hundreds of firefighters battled a blaze in eastern Germany, with four people injured.

An analysis of 21 billion Facebook friendships shows that children from poorer homes are likely to earn more later in life if they grow up in areas where they can become friends with wealthier kids.

It has long been believed that having rich friends can help children rise up out of poverty, but previous research has had small sample sizes or limited data, according to two studies published in the journal Nature on Monday.

So a team of US-based researchers turned to Facebook, the world’s largest social database, with its nearly three billion users offering unprecedented scale and precision to examine the issue.

They analysed the privacy-protected data of 72  million US Facebook users aged between 25 and 44  years. The Facebook friendships were used to represent real-world friendships.

The researchers used an algorithm to rank users by socio-economic status, age and region, among other factors.

They then measured how much richer and poorer people interacted with each other and created the term “economic connectedness” to represent the share of a person’s friends who were above or below the average socio-economic level.

They then compared this measure with previous research into children’s ability to escape poverty in every US zip code.

The results were “strikingly similar”, said Raj Chetty, an economist at Harvard University and the lead author of the two studies.

The first paper showed that economic connectedness “is one of the strongest predictors of economic mobility that anyone has identified to date,” Chetty said.

The second paper sought to find out why children from richer or poorer backgrounds are more likely to make friends in some areas than others.

– Let’s be friends –

The researchers found two major factors. One was how much the two groups are exposed to each other — for example whether they attend different high schools or live in separate neighbourhoods.

Even if wealthy and non-wealthy students did go to the same school, however, they still might not hang out with each other — a factor the researchers called friending bias.

Around half of social disconnection between the rich and poor was due to lack of exposure to each other, the study found.

“But the remaining half is explained by friending bias,” Chetty said.

The findings showed that US policies aimed at reducing economic segregation between schools and regions were important but “not enough,” he added.

Where richer and poorer children meet has a major influence on whether they become friends — meaning that institutions play a major role, the study found.

For example, friendships in religious institutions like churches were “much more likely to cut across class lines,” Chetty said.

The data on exposure and friending bias was published on socialcapital.org on Monday, with researchers hoping it will prompt authorities across the United States to act.

Chetty predicted that similar results would likely be found in other countries, urging researchers and governments worldwide to access their own Facebook data.

Noam Angrist of Oxford University and Bruce Sacerdote of Dartmouth College in New Hampshire said the research represented “an important contribution that will enable a deeper understanding of social capital”.

“A sensible next step is to extend Chetty and colleagues’ monumental data creation and analysis to countries beyond the United States,” they wrote in a linked comment in Nature. 

Firefighters in northern California were battling Monday to gain control over the state’s largest wildfire this year, which claimed two lives after exploding in size over the weekend and forcing thousands to evacuate their homes. 

Whipped up by strong winds and lightning storms, the McKinney Fire ripped through the state’s dry terrain Sunday to spread over some 52,500 acres of Klamath National Forest near the town of Yreka — and was zero percent contained as of Sunday night according to CalFire.

California and other parts of the western United States have been ravaged by huge and fast-moving wildfires in recent years, driven by years of drought and exacerbated by a warming climate.

The McKinney fire, which broke out Friday near the border with Oregon, is California’s largest wildfire so far this year — though it remains much smaller than last year’s Dixie Fire, which burned nearly one million acres.

According to the Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Office, firefighters on Sunday found two people dead inside a burned-out car on the driveway of a home in the community of Klamath River — in the fire’s path.

Speaking on ABC News, Sheriff Jeremiah LaRue said firefighters suspected the pair were caught in the fast-moving fire as they tried to flee.

California Governor Gavin Newsom has declared a state of emergency, saying the fire threatens “critical infrastructure.”

More than 2,000 residents of rural neighborhoods in the area were under evacuation orders, according to the California Office of Emergency Services, mostly in Siskiyou County.

Yreka resident Larry Castle told the Sacramento Bee newspaper that he and his wife had packed up a few possessions and their three dogs to leave for the night, as other fires in recent years had taught them the situation could turn “very, very serious.”

A spokeswoman for the Siskiyou County Sheriff’s Office, quoted by US media, said the fire had destroyed more than 100 structures — including homes, a grocery store and a community center — in the area surrounding Yreka, though it had not encroached upon the town of about 7,800 people.

“Surrounding areas should be ready to leave if needed. Please don’t hesitate to evacuate,” the county sheriff tweeted.

Highway 96 and McKinney Creed Road southwest of the Klamath River were closed to the public, CalFire said. 

Nearly 650 people were working to douse the blaze as of Sunday, the National Wildfire Coordinating Group said. 

Search and rescue teams evacuated 60 people who had been hiking the area’s popular Pacific Crest Trail, according to the sheriff’s department in Jackson County, Oregon.

CalFire said the cause of the McKinney fire was still under investigation.

The US Forest Service said thick smoke had helped to limit the growth of the fire on Sunday, but also meant that firefighters’ aircraft were “mostly grounded.”

Fire crews were working above Fort Jones and west of Yreka “to cut off the fire’s progress,” the USFS said.

The fast-spreading blaze comes just days after the Oak Fire near Yosemite National Park destroyed dozens of buildings and forced thousands to evacuate.

California, which is facing a punishing drought, still has months of fire season ahead of it.

Other parts of the world have also faced intense wildfires this year, as scientists say climate change is making heatwaves  more frequent and more intense, increasing the risk of fires.

On Sunday, both Portugal and France were tackling major forest fires as temperatures rose sharply in Europe.

In Portugal, a blaze broke out in the Mafra area, north of Lisbon, while in France at least four firefighters were seriously injured and motorways were closed.

Also over the weekend, hundreds of firefighters battled a blaze in eastern Germany, with four people injured.