One of the world’s rarest tigers has died in Indonesia’s infamous ‘death zoo’

By Peter Holley

Original Article 

Rama was born in captivity and had numerous health problems. The 16-year-old male tiger died this month at a zoo that has become notorious for animal deaths. (AFP)
There was a time when the Surabaya Zoo, on the island of Java, was celebrated as Indonesia’s oldest and largest zoo, a place that housed thousands of exotic birds, reptiles and large animals from around the globe.

In recent years, however, it has become known as something else: a “death zoo.”

The disturbing label originated after a wave of animal deaths that have turned the formerly prosperous destination into an internationally despised institution. Hundreds of animals have died, according to Agence France Presse, including multiple orangutans, a giraffe, a wildebeest and, most recently, a critically endangered male tiger named Rama.

Veronika Lanu, a zoo spokeswoman, told AFP that the 16-year-old cat died of heart failure. Lanu insisted that the animal had been properly cared for.

“The death was due to natural causes; we provided the best care we could,” she said.

[Many ‘retired’ NIH research chimps are seriously ill, government report says]

But AFP noted that Rama — who lived his entire life inside the zoo before dying April 10 — had a number of serious health problems and suffered from a bad cough and lethargy in the weeks before his death.

Sumatran tigers are the world’s most critically endangered tiger subspecies, with only 400 to 500 animals remaining in the wild, according to the World Wildlife Fund. The animals are threatened by poaching and clearing forests for palm oil, illegal coffee cultivation and timber, The Washington Post reported in 2014.

To critics, the tiger’s death fits a pattern of neglect and abuse at the Surabaya Zoo, which has more than 3,400 animals from around about 200 species, according to the BBC.

Plagued by overcrowded and filthy conditions, animals have been killed by malnutrition and disease, as well as freak accidents that hint at neglect, the BBC reported.

Other troubling deaths include a mountain goat that died from neck injuries and a giraffe that was found to have 44 pounds of plastic in its stomach at the time of its death, according to the BBC. Fox News referred the mound of trash as “a beachball-sized wad of plastic.”

In 2013, Fox reported, a 13-year-old male tiger named Rozek was found dead in his cage. A zoo spokesperson said at the time that an autopsy revealed that the tiger — which had been been plagued by respiratory and digestive problems for several years — was killed by complications from hepatitis and pneumonia.
Footage taken inside the zoo in 2013 shows animals wandering freely among patrons — some of whom feed them by hand — as well as animals chewing on plastic bags and playing with trash.

Multiple petitions have called for the Surabaya Zoo to be shut down.

“Animals are confined to trash-littered, barren, cramped cages that are measly fractions of the wild habitats that they would call home, and there is nothing in their cages and pens to occupy their keen minds,” says a People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals petition with more than 213,000 signatures. “It is a virtual hell on Earth for animals — a former member of the zoo’s management estimates that 50 animals have died at the zoo in just the last three months, and this is just a small fraction of the animals who have suffered and died at the hands of this decrepit facility.”

The petition adds: “While it’s too late for many animals, hundreds of others endure the zoo’s hellish conditions every day. The Surabaya Zoo should be closed immediately, and the animals should be sent to sanctuaries or other facilities that are better able to care for them. The world is watching and waiting for officials to show their commitment to animal welfare.”
Administrators from city government have taken over the management of the zoo, according to AFP, but the stream of animal deaths continues.

With Rama’s death, three male Sumatran tigers and six females remain inside the zoo, AFP reported.

Original Article Here

Countries close to the equator are renowned for growing the most delicious coffee on Earth.

But with surging temperatures across the globe, the zones which are currently ideal for growing coffee land may soon shift, Sam Lewontin, a KRUPS ambassador and champion barista told Tech Insider.

Eventually, the regions we typically think of as gold-standard coffee growing areas – including parts of Colombia, Costa Rica, and Brazil – may become so ravaged by sweltering temperatures and warm-weather diseases that they may no longer be able to harvest delicious, nutty, bold cups of java.

Shifting zones of viability

Coffee plants are finicky about where they grow best. The best crops typically come from the “Bean Belt” – a band of tropical regions that sit close to the equator.

High altitude and mountainous terrain is typical of these regions, which boast warm days and cold nights that are a boon for these delectable plants.

NASA/Flickr/Julia Calderone/Tech Insider

But once-productive coffee plantations along this belt are falling victim to the nasty effects of climate change.

Plant-killing diseases like “roya,” which thrive in warm weather, are eating coffee plants from the inside out. At the same time, intense heat is shrinking the zones of arable land best suited to grow coffee.

High-altitude land produces the best coffee plants because the warm days and cool nights “shock” natural chemicals into beans that make your brew taste extra delicious.

Yet as temperatures in high-altitude coffee-growing regions warm, Lewontin said, the range of altitude in places that have been considered to be strong coffee origins narrows: “So lower altitudes are staying the same, and the band in which you can grow tasty coffee is sort of moving up the mountain.”

As we see warmer weather push beyond the equatorial tropics, the best coffee-growing climates will follow and expand farther away from the belt.

This may seem like a good thing, but with the growing girth of the band, the regions in the center – those that once harbored ideal coffee growing conditions – will become too hot. This means that specific regions that are now perfect, such as those in Colombia, Brazil, Ethiopia, and Kenya, may soon become fallow.

In the future, the tropics may no longer be the best spot to grow tasty coffee.

So where will farmers grow the best coffee in the future?

Dukale’s Dream

Lewontin said if you look at the location of the current bean belt, regions expanding north and south of the equator will likely begin to see serious coffee cultivation (though it’s hard to say precisely where).

At the same time, many regions that currently produce commodity coffee, called robusta – a more disease-and-weather-resistant yet less-tasty variety, compared to delicate arabica coffee plants – will start putting resources into producing delicious specialty coffee. This includes regions of Vietnam, India, parts of East Africa such as Uganda, and Mexico.

This extra attention to detail in regions not traditionally known for their tasty beans is driven in part by climate change, but also by recent interest in specialty coffee from buyers and exporters looking to increase the production of quality brews there.

“It’s more a combination of different environmental and economic circumstances, which extend at least partially from the reality of climate change,” Lewontin said.

And if you’re worried that coffee is going to be wiped off the face of the planet entirely by rising temperatures, have hope.

Some regions are shifting the zones in which they cultivate coffee, and others are experimenting with new coffee hybrids that are delicious yet resistant to some of the nastiest warm-weather diseases.

It’s going to be challenging to thwart the – dare I say – “coffeepocalypse,” but Lewontin believes that we’ll have this delicious drink for years to come.

“We’re in kind of a tricky spot,” he says, “but I remain optimistic that these things will see us through and that we will still, in 20 years, have coffee.”

Original Article 

WHEN a Hutu politician says it is time to “pulverise and exterminate” rebels who are “good only for dying”, outsiders should sit up. When he talks of spraying “cockroaches” or urges people to “start work”, it is hard to miss the old codewords for massacring Tutsis. When the politician is not some obscure backbencher but the president of the Burundian Senate, the world should be alarmed.

History does not always repeat itself in central Africa, but it rhymes cacophonously. Rwanda and Burundi, two small countries with Hutu majorities and Tutsi minorities, have seen large-scale ethnic massacres in 1959, 1963, 1972, 1988, 1993 and 1994. These were not, as some outsiders imagine, spontaneous outbursts of tribal hatred. They happened because those in power deliberately inflamed ethnic divisions. The Rwandan genocide of 1994, in which perhaps half a million Tutsis were hacked to death, was meticulously planned by Hutu army officers and politicians. They did it to avoid sharing power with Tutsi rebels after a peace accord to end a civil war. They raised a militia, cranked up the genocidal propaganda and imported hundreds of thousands of machetes in advance. The outside world barely noticed until it was too late. The genocide ended only when a Tutsi army swept in to stop it, led by Rwanda’s current president, Paul Kagame.

Today in Burundi, many people hear echoes of 1994. Since last April, when President Pierre Nkurunziza, a Hutu, declared that he would seek a (probably unconstitutional) third term in office, the country has been plunged into turmoil. Bujumbura, the pretty capital on the shores of Lake Tanganyika, has endured a botched coup and street fighting. Its cobbled streets are deserted after dark and ring to the sound of gunfire. In recent months repression has gathered steam. Mr Nkurunziza’s youth militia terrorises his opponents, many of whom are Tutsis. Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people, mostly young men, have been “disappeared”. Torture is rife. Maybe 250,000 people have fled to neighbouring countries; more are displaced internally. The economy is collapsing.

Tutsis have cause to be afraid. They are quietly being purged from the army. On the radio, they hear murderous rhetoric of the sort that preceded the Rwandan genocide. As was the case in Rwanda in 1994, today’s Burundian government feels besieged. Several of its members have been assassinated, and rebels have launched attacks into Burundi from foreign refugee camps. It is far from clear that genocide is looming. But even if the worst is unlikely, it makes sense to take precautions. History shows that calamity can happen very quickly: Rwanda’s genocide lasted a mere 100 days. And conflict can often spread across borders: the ripples from Rwanda started a great war in Congo that eventually claimed even more lives.

A short fuse

What can be done to defuse Burundi? The European Union is cutting aid to its government, but Mr Nkurunziza has simply redirected spending from health and education to the security forces, leaving the UN and charities to look after children and the sick (see article). The African Union considered sending 5,000 soldiers—but then backtracked when Burundi objected. The UN has suggested sending peacekeepers but has done nothing. This is not good enough.

More targeted sanctions, which hurt the president’s cronies personally, are needed. If things get worse, outsiders should be ready to send in troops, under the aegis of the African Union or the UN. There are 19,000 UN blue helmets just across the border in Congo. They should be prepared to step in, and the great powers should make sure that Mr Nkurunziza knows it.