PLANET IN PERIL

 Nature Brazilian Pantanal wildfire - "burn scar" by Coordenação-Geral de Observação da Terra/INPE Infernos in South America’s Pantanal region have burnt twice the area of California’s fires this year. Researchers fear the rare ecosystem will never recover. Story here.

ScienceDaily A PinP photo. Heatwaves in the world's oceans have become over 20 times more frequent due to human influence. This is what researchers are now able to demonstrate. Marine heatwaves destroy ecosystems and damage fisheries. Story here.

YaleEnvironment360 Riding Mtn. National Park, Manitoba, Canada. A PinP photo. Nations around the world are pledging to plant billions of trees to grow new forests. But a new study shows that the potential for natural forest regrowth to absorb carbon from the atmosphere and fight climate change is far greater than has previously been estimated. Story here.

RELATED: New studies show farm chemicals are affecting more than bees. Bird populations are declining, too . 

by Larry Powell The freshwater turtle, Emydura macquarii. Credit: Claudia Santori. For well over a century,  invasive freshwater fish from Europe - carp (originally from China) - have been released, either deliberately or accidentally from fish farms, into Australian waterways. The fish, now widely regarded as pests, are thriving.  Their habitat includes rivers flowing through the Murray-Darling Basin of New South Wales. Those vast waterways support, through irrigation and other means, about 40% of agricultural production for the entire country - not to mention vital aquatic eco-systems and drinking water for about three million people.  Baby Emydura macquarii. Credit: Tom Burd. By contrast, the clock is ticking for Australia's native freshwater turtles. The new study says the most common species has declined by up to 91 percent in the past 40 years. It blames urbanization, which damages their habitat and makes the turtles more vulnerable to mass die-offs from disease. The

Nature Wildfire smoke at the Arctic Circle.  MIKOFOX ⌘ 2020 Vision Fires are releasing record levels of carbon dioxide, partly because they are burning ancient peatlands that have been a carbon sink. Story here. RELATED: New research finds - global heating is melting vast northern fields of permafrost so fast that - within decades - they'll likely stop cooling the planet as they have for millennia - and start doing just the opposite.