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Australia Halts Logging for Koala Haven on Eastern Coast

A Koala at the San Francisco Zoo in San Francisco, California, USA, 15 August 2025. EPA/JOHN G. MABANGLO
A Koala at the San Francisco Zoo in San Francisco, California, USA, 15 August 2025. EPA/JOHN G. MABANGLO
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Australia Halts Logging for Koala Haven on Eastern Coast

A Koala at the San Francisco Zoo in San Francisco, California, USA, 15 August 2025. EPA/JOHN G. MABANGLO
A Koala at the San Francisco Zoo in San Francisco, California, USA, 15 August 2025. EPA/JOHN G. MABANGLO

Australia halted logging in a large stretch of woodland on the country's eastern coast Sunday to create a retreat for koalas and save the local population from extinction.

The New South Wales government imposed a ban effective from Monday on logging across 176,000 hectares (435,000 acres) of forest on the state's north coast for a Great Koala National Park, hitting six timber mills and about 300 workers, AFP reported.

Without action, it warned that koalas in Australia's most populous state could die off by 2050.

Environmentalists say koala numbers in New South Wales have suffered a dramatic decline in recent decades due to deforestation, drought and bushfires.

"Koalas are at risk of extinction in the wild in NSW -- that's unthinkable. The Great Koala National Park is about turning that around," said New South Wales Premier Chris Minns.

"We've listened carefully and we're making sure workers, businesses and communities are supported every step of the way."

State officials contacted each affected mill, the government said in a statement, vowing to provide payments to cover workers' salaries and business costs while offering free access to training, financial, health and legal services.

The state government first announced the planned koala haven in 2023 but it only stopped logging in 8,400 hectares of forest. The plan was also criticized for not protecting trees immediately.

The Great Koala National Park will provide a refuge to more than 12,000 koalas, 36,000 greater gliders -- nocturnal marsupials with a membrane that lets them glide -- and more than 100 other threatened species, officials said.

The government said it would invest Aus$6 million (US$4 million) to support new tourism and small business opportunities in the area.

It also boosted funding to create the park by Aus$60 million -- in addition to Aus$80 million announced in 2023.

The koala park was hailed by environmentalists but criticized by unions for its impact on logging industry workers.

"Koala numbers in NSW crashed by more than half between 2000 and 2020 thanks to deforestation, drought, disease and devastating bushfires," said WWF-Australia chief executive Dermot O'Gorman.

"This park is a chance to turn this tragedy around and eventually lift koalas off the threatened species list by 2050," he added.

"These tall eucalypt forests are a climate refuge for koalas. Australia needs landscape-scale protected area networks like this to prepare for the possibility of 2.5 to three degrees of warming by the end of this century."

When connected with existing national parks, the koala haven would create a 476,000-hectare reserve, the state government said.

Unions said the koala reserve was far larger than the state government's own experts had advised, and it would hit local communities hard.

"This is not about being pro or anti koala," said Tony Callinan, New South Wales secretary of the Australian Workers Union.

"We all want to see koalas thrive. What we're against is the unnecessary destruction of an entire industry and the communities it supports when there is a science-based option that achieves both conservation and a viable timber industry."

Final creation of the koala park will depend on the federal government agreeing to assess it as a carbon project for improved management of native forest, the state said.

Australia's official national koala monitoring program estimates there are between 95,000 and 238,000 koalas in the eastern states of Queensland, New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory.

Another 129,000 to 286,000 of the furry marsupials are estimated to be living in Victoria and South Australia.

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AI Camp Kicks Off in Madinah with 120 Participants

AI Camp kicks off in Madinah with 120 participants. (SPA)
AI Camp kicks off in Madinah with 120 participants. (SPA)
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AI Camp Kicks Off in Madinah with 120 Participants

AI Camp kicks off in Madinah with 120 participants. (SPA)
AI Camp kicks off in Madinah with 120 participants. (SPA)

The AI Camp kicked off at the Madinah Chamber of Commerce and Industry on Sunday as part of the MED AI Forum, bringing together 120 participants and nine speakers over five days, the Saudi Press Agency said on Monday.

The camp aims to develop innovative solutions to real-world challenges through three tracks: sports, agriculture, and tourism, enabling participants to progress from identifying challenges and generating ideas to building prototypes and preparing for the hackathon.

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Tokyo Residents Fight for More Trees

This picture taken on August 25, 2026 shows a woman crossing with her bike on a street in Tokyo. (Photo by Philip FONG / AFP)
This picture taken on August 25, 2026 shows a woman crossing with her bike on a street in Tokyo. (Photo by Philip FONG / AFP)
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Tokyo Residents Fight for More Trees

This picture taken on August 25, 2026 shows a woman crossing with her bike on a street in Tokyo. (Photo by Philip FONG / AFP)
This picture taken on August 25, 2026 shows a woman crossing with her bike on a street in Tokyo. (Photo by Philip FONG / AFP)

One sweltering day in Tokyo, Kaoru Morimoto told friends she wasn't sure she could endure another summer in her neighborhood, where tree cover and the crucial shade it provides is dwindling.

As Japan experiences ever more frequent extreme heat, tree cover that can help lower temperatures is shrinking rather than growing in Tokyo, bucking a trend among many major world capitals.

Morimoto wants that to change. Last year she launched a campaign urging officials to set a canopy cover target, a rare grassroots initiative focused on the issue.

"Everyone says the summer has become more intense," but public awareness about Tokyo's lack of tree cover is low, Morimoto told AFP.

In this picture taken on August 25, 2026 activist Kaoru Morimoto looks on while checking the temperature in Nakano district of Tokyo. (Photo by Philip FONG / AFP)

Together with Susumu Nirasawa, a fellow resident in her western Tokyo neighborhood of Nakano, the 66-year-old organizes expert talks, shares temperature data on social media, and attends local council meetings where she petitions officials. Around 30 others in the community have joined the cause.

"We want the ward government to take the issue seriously," Nirasawa, 71, said.

Japan saw its hottest summer on record in 2025, with warmer days on the rise globally due to climate change.

This year, the country recorded almost 120 heat-related deaths between May and August, while more than 73,000 people needed emergency care.

Although experts say greater tree cover can help lower air temperatures, a University of Tokyo study in 2024 showed the city lost canopy cover equivalent to three and a half times the size of New York's Central Park in under a decade.

Thermometers and notebook in hand, Morimoto and Nirasawa take their own temperature readings in Nakano, hoping hard data will help unite their neighbors behind the cause.

We "measured the shade under trees with large canopies and under trees that had been more heavily pruned," said Morimoto. "There was about a three-degree difference."

In the 2024 study, University of Tokyo researcher and urban forestry expert Kinya Shiraishi found that canopy cover in central Tokyo fell to 7.3 percent in 2022 from 9.2 percent in 2013, a loss of 12 square kilometers.

By comparison, canopy cover in New York stands at around 23 percent, with the city aiming to raise it to 30 percent by 2040.

London aims for a 10 percent increase from its current 20 percent by 2050, while Paris also plans to boost coverage from about 18 percent.

"If we want to improve the quality of urban life, canopy cover is one of the key factors," Shiraishi told AFP, adding that trees also lower flooding risks and can help city dwellers feel calmer.

He said the decline was driven largely by the loss of private residential gardens, with ageing landowners selling their properties and mature trees often felled as large plots are subdivided to meet housing demand in the capital.

Many roads in Tokyo are also narrow and have little space for greenery, while authorities are wary of trees toppling over in extreme weather.

A Tokyo metropolitan government official told AFP that the city "is currently working to expand tree canopies through careful pruning, focusing on roads where the pavements are wide and the trees can grow".

Without proper management, trees threaten the visibility of traffic lights and are at risk of falling during typhoons, he said, adding that Tokyo uses a benchmark for measuring greenery which includes farmland and grassland found in its outer reaches.

But on a hot, sunny day in the city center, there was little shade along a street home to the finance ministry. One plane tree stood almost bare, its upper branches cut back close to the trunk.

"Unless we promptly make efforts to increase canopy cover and shift our policies, we'll run out of time," said Eijiro Fujii, professor emeritus at Chiba University who specializes in horticulture, glancing at a group of heavily pruned trees in Tokyo's central district of Kasumigaseki.

In this picture taken on August 25, 2026 Eijiro Fujii, professor emeritus at Chiba University, speaks during an interview with AFP in the Kasumigaseki neighbourhood, where most government ministries are located, in Tokyo. (Photo by Philip FONG / AFP)

Fujii blames overpruning, developed to manage trees in limited spaces, as well as the frequent rotation of public officials overseeing street greenery, for the decrease in canopy cover.

In Nakano, Morimoto and Nirasawa say the ward's mayor has recently begun to emphasize the importance of tree shade, but neighborhood officials have so far failed to set a target for canopy cover.

"Deaths from heat stroke are rapidly increasing in Japan," Fujii said. "We need to act before it's too late."

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KAUST, Oxford Develop Electronic Sensor to Detect Parkinson’s Markers in Blood

The study was published in Science Advances. SPA
The study was published in Science Advances. SPA
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KAUST, Oxford Develop Electronic Sensor to Detect Parkinson’s Markers in Blood

The study was published in Science Advances. SPA
The study was published in Science Advances. SPA

Researchers at King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), in collaboration with the University of Oxford, have developed a blood-based electronic sensor capable of detecting molecular signatures associated with Parkinson’s disease.

The study was published in Science Advances. The technology uses a highly sensitive electronic sensor developed at KAUST to simultaneously detect three different forms of alpha-synuclein, a protein closely associated with Parkinson’s disease. The sensor can detect these proteins at extremely low concentrations that are difficult to measure using conventional analytical techniques.

The approach first isolates tiny packages released by nerve cells into the bloodstream before their protein contents are analyzed using the electronic sensor. At the heart of the technology is a transistor that amplifies very small biological signals into much larger electronic signals, allowing all three forms of alpha-synuclein to be measured within 40 minutes.

Parkinson’s damages dopamine-producing neurons, leading to problems with movement, balance, and other bodily functions. It is currently diagnosed largely through clinical assessment, often after characteristic movement symptoms have emerged.

Detecting disease-related proteins originating from the brain could offer an earlier window into the disease but measuring them in blood is extremely difficult because more than 95 percent of circulating alpha-synuclein originates from red blood cells, creating heavy background noise.

Saudi Arabia’s healthcare system is placing increasing emphasis on prevention and earlier detection as people live longer. Life expectancy in the Kingdom has risen to 79.7 years, approaching the Saudi Vision 2030 target of 80, while the proportion of older people is expected to grow significantly in the coming decades.

Against this backdrop, technologies that could eventually help identify age-related diseases such as Parkinson’s earlier could become increasingly relevant to long-term healthcare.

In a blinded evaluation involving 59 participants from the Oxford Discovery cohort, the platform achieved 90.9 percent accuracy in distinguishing disease-associated profiles from healthy controls.

The study included people diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease, healthy controls, and individuals with isolated REM sleep behavior disorder, a condition which is associated with an increased risk of developing Parkinson’s or related neurological disorders.

Researchers found distinct patterns in the different forms of alpha-synuclein across the groups, suggesting that measuring them together could provide more useful diagnostic information than relying on a single marker.

Associate Professor of Bioengineering at KAUST Sahika Inal said: “Changes associated with Parkinson’s can begin long before a clinical diagnosis, but detecting those changes through something as accessible as blood remains extremely challenging.”

“Our approach allows us to detect several forms of alpha-synuclein together at extremely low concentrations. These early results are encouraging, and the next step is to validate the technology in much larger groups of patients,” he added.

The researchers caution that the technology is not yet a standalone clinical blood test. The current study represents a retrospective evaluation in an initial cohort, and larger, prospective, multicenter clinical studies will be needed to establish its long-term predictive value before the platform could be used routinely in healthcare.